WHAT IS THE DOMESDAY BOOK ?

A survey of land ownership in England after the Norman Conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes how in 1085 it was decided to make a record of the number of hides in land existing in each English shire and to establish the amount and value of acreage and livestock possessed by individual landowners. The idea was to create a new rating system which would protect and enlarge the king’s revenue. The resulting document – a two-volume survey of land ownership arranged under tenurial rather than territorial headings – is the great testament of feudal England. The Domesday Book is of fundamental importance to both historians and archaeologists of the late Saxon and early Norman periods, as it gives the names and sizes of villages, farms, manors, churches, and other properties that existed at the time as well as certain sales and transactions.