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Doomsday Book
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I. What is Doomsday Book?
The Doomsday Book is a great land survey from
1086, commissioned by William the Conqueror to
assess the extent of the land and resources being
owned in England at the time, and the extent of
the taxes he could raise. William died before it
was fully completed.
A line drawing entitled Doomsday Book from
Andrew Williams Historic Byways and Highways of
old England
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II. Historical Context

• In 1066 William Duke of Normandy defeated the
  Anglo-Saxon King, Harold II, at the Battle of
  Hastings. He become a king of England.
• The social life of England at this time revolved
  around the Manor. This was the basic farming
  unit.
• The Manor was held by a Lord who might farm it
  himself, or more likely let it to tenants.

Death of King Harold II at the Battle of
Hastings, 1066. Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry
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• In 1085 England was again threatened with
  invasion, this time from Denmark. William had to
  pay for the mercenary army he hired to defend his
  kingdom.
• At Christmas 1085 he commissioned a survey to
  discover the resources and taxable values of all
  the boroughs and manors in England. He wanted to
  discorver who owned what, how much it was worth
  and how much was owed to him as King in tax,
  rents, and military service.
• The Doomsday Book also records which manors
  belonged to which estates and gives the
  identities of the Kings tenants-in-chief who
  owed him military service in the form of knights
  to fight in his army.
• ( - Recent research has suggested that William
  only commissioned the survey (descriptio) in 1085
  and never intended the results to be written up
  into a book.)

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Seal of William Duke of Normandy as King of
England
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III.The Great and the Little Doomsday
Though invariably called Doomsday Book, in the
singular, it in fact consists of two volumes
quite different each other.
Volume I ? Great Doomsday Volume II ? Little
Doomsday
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IV. Why is it called Doomsday?

• May refer to the Biblical Day of Judgement, or
• when Christ will return to judge the living and
  the dead.

The Last Judgement
It was called Doomsday by 1180. Before that it
was known as the Winchester Roll or Kings Roll,
and sometimes as the Book of the Treasury.
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V. What information is in the book?
- Extensive records of landholders, their
tenants, the amount of land they owned, how many
people occupied the land, the amounts of
woodland, meadow, animals, fish and ploughs on
the land and other resources, any building
present, and the whole purpose of the survey -
the value of the land and its assets, before the
Norman Conquest, after it, and at the time of
Doomsday.
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VI. How was the information collected?

• Commissioners were sent to all parts of the
  country.
• The commissioners were major land owners and
  included Bishops and Knights.

• In each shire they had to determine
• The name of the place, who owned it before 1066,
  and who owned it after.
• The size of the land held. Usually measured in
  hides, a hide was an area considered large enough
  to support one family. The measurement varied
  from 60 to 120 acres depending on the
  agricultural worth of the land.
• The number of villagers, cottagers and slaves,
  how many freeman?
• How much was woodland, meadowland and pasture.
• The number of mills and fishponds.
• The number of plough teams working on the land,
  8 oxen usually equalled one team.
• What the value of the land was before 1066 and
  what it was after.

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VII. When was the book written?

• The collection of information by the
  commissioners took place probably in the first
  few months of 1086.
• The drafts were possibly finished by the end of
  the summer of 1086, with work on abbreviating the
  records into the Great Doomsday probably starting
  alongside this.
• By the time of King Williams death in September
  1087 work had stopped, and could have ceased
  before this time.

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VIII. Who wrote the Doomsday Book?
It was handwritten by one unnamed official
scribe, and checked by one other. Despite the
speed at which the Book was compiled the text was
carefully written in a short form of Latin.
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IX. Why was it made?
There is still some academic debate about the
exact purpose of Doomsday Book. Some beleive it
is a land survey and some such as John Whiting,
tax partner Price Waterhouse Coopers, believes it
could have been the first written tax document.
John Whiting examines Domesday Book
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X. What materials were used to make it?
The main volume, Great Doomsday, is written on
sheep-skin parchment using black and red ink only.
XI. How many places are listed in the Doomsday
Book?
There are 13,418 places listed in the Doomsday
Book.
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XII. How many pages are there in the Doomsday
Book?
There are 413 pages in Great Doomsday and 475
pages in little Doomsday (which showes how much
detail was cut out to compile Great Doomsday.
Doomsday Book chest
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XIII. How many places listed in the Doomsday Book
still exist?
Amazingly almost all of the places mentioned in
the Doomsday Book can be found on a present day
map of England (and Wales.)
11th Century Manor House that was mentioned in
the Doomsday Book.
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XIV. Where is Doomsday Book now?
Doomsday Book is kept at the Public Record Office
in Chancery Lane, London, where it is on view to
the public. A copy of the document has been made
and can be seen in a special exhibition area at
the National Archives.
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XV. Why is the Doomsday Book still important
today?

• The Doomsday Book provides an invaluable insight
  into the economy and society of 11th century
  Norman England.
• For historians it can be used, amongst other
  things, to discover the wealth of England at the
  time, information about the feudal system
  existent in society, and information about the
  geography and demographic situation of the
  country.
• For local historians it can reveal the history of
  a local settlement and its population and
  surroundings.
• For genealogists it provides a useful and
  fascinating resource for tracing family lines.

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Pages from Little Domesday for Essex showing the
lands of Odo Bishop of Bayeux, the half-brother
of William I.
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The correcting scribe wrote the entry for Robert
Fitzrolf on the final page for Berkshire between
entries written above and below by the main
scribe (A). This shows that the two scribes
were working together at the same time.
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Second page from Berkshire beginning in the right
hand column with the land of the King, Terra
Regis. Place names are scored through in red.
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In this example from Wiltshire the scribe has
gone back and added information above and below
the initial numbered list of landowners on the
left. Because space ran out he has also had to
use the foot margin to get all his information in.
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The stamps were issued in 1986 to mark the 900th
anniversary of the Domsday Book. The designs show
the lives of the peasants, freemen, knights and
lords. The designs are in the style of the
miniatures that appear in books of that era.