The Domesday Book is a record of landholding in England from the reign of the Conqueror, surviving in its original manuscript and kept at the National Archives. The manuscript as we have it, as well as several of its antecedents, give insight into an extraordinary process of information gathering that leading Domesday historian Stephen Baxter has called “the first systematic use of big data in British history.”   The name Domesday came to be applied to the manuscript from the 12th century onward and was explained by the bureaucrat Richard FitzNigel when he wrote in the Dialogue of the Exchequer (c. 1179): like the Last Judgement, the rulings of Domesday Book were held to be final.   What Does the Domesday Book Record? The Domesday manuscript in its current bindings which were most recently changed in 1986. Source: UK National Archives   The Domesday Book is a monumental work that purports to catalog and describe the total landed wealth in England as it stood at two fixed points in time (although occasionally there is reference to a third date between the other two, c. 1070). The first of these dates is tempore regis Edwardi, the day that King Edward was both alive and dead, referring specifically to 5th January 1066. The second is tempore regis Willelmi, the time of King William the Conqueror, which reflects the situation during the years 1085-6. The book by its very nature purports to record every estate, together with the name of the individual who held it, at both points in time.   Domesday consisted of two main texts: Little Domesday, which deals with Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, and Great Domesday, which records all of the other shires.   The Domesday Book, Warwickshire entry, 11th century. Source: The National Archives   The Domesday survey was built upon a technical language that was drawn from both Norman and Anglo-Saxon antecedents. Of key importance to the surveyors, and thus in the Domesday Book itself, were the manor, the vill, the hundred, and the shire. The manor was the basic unit of landholding and comprised an estate or group of estates which yielded a certain return to its lord, assessed by the book in pounds per year.   The vill was very close to what we would recognize as a parish. The borders of the vill could coincide with those of a manor or might encompass multiple manors. The hundred and the shire were jurisdictional and administrative divisions of land from pre-conquest England.   It was with reference to these units that the Norman commissioners rationalized the data before them and organized it into a coherent schema. In the Domesday Book, information is organized by shire (bearing close resemblance to the modern county). Landholdings are then listed by landowner, rather than geographically. Not unsurprisingly, manors owned by the king are listed first, followed by those of the Church and leading magnates, with smaller landowners holding land directly from the king coming in behind.   Manors within each return for any one landholder are grouped by hundred, thus leaving little ambiguity as to the tenurial and jurisdictional geography of both Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman England after the Conquest.   Domesday Peasants Serfs as depicted in the Queen Mary’s Psalter, 14th century. Source: Medievalminds.com   Beyond the great men who held estates in Norman England, we are also afforded a glimpse at Anglo-Saxon society writ large. Under the entry for each manor, the Domesday scribes recorded numbers of unnamed peasants, identified by rank, which were attached to the estate in question. These formed four major groups found widely throughout England, with other types of peasants such as “sokemen” and “freemen” appearing only in certain counties. The four main subdivisions of peasants were the villein, cottar, bordar, and serf.   Although the precise legal position of these respective classes of peasants has long been debated, it is generally accepted that of these the villein held the most land and was the least dependent upon his lord, and the serf was the most dependent. Nevertheless, all worked on land that had been provided by the lord and were thus tied to him in varying degrees, providing dues and services that only became more onerous with greater dependency.   It is often argued that among these classes, peasants had previously held their land freely, without owing labor dues to a lord. It may be that the lot of many peasants after the conquest is an example of downward social mobility.   Cow and Calf, from manuscript BL Harley 4751, 12-1300 BCE. Source: British Library   The surveyors also recorded the number of animals, including oxen, pigs, and sheep, that pertained to each estate. This was to capture the Anglo-Saxon imagination, with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle bitterly recounting that “there was no single hide nor virgate of land, nor indeed…one ox nor one cow nor one pig which was there left out, and not put down in his record.”   Some commentators have questioned whether the number of animals recorded on each estate actually reflects reality. The exceptionally large and valuable manor of Iford in Sussex, for instance, contained 52 “ploughlands”: an extensive area of land corresponding to that which could be tilled by 52 teams of oxen in a single year. Yet Domesday records just 30 pigs on the estate, which would not have been enough to provide for the needs of the manor, let alone the lord. Despite the chronicler’s lament, there was undoubtedly a little wiggle room when it came to declaring all of an estate’s assets.   Types of Land Tenure The plan of a medieval manor, showing demesne and tenanted land. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Estates, as we have seen, were assessed on the basis of their monetary value to their lord. The Domesday Book also records the terms on which land was held, which related to the means by which tenure of land was transmuted into moveable wealth. Manors held “in demesne” were overseen directly by the lord or by the lord’s representative, known as a “reeve.” Wealth thus accrued directly from the profits of the estate in question, namely from agricultural products. Generally, the most profitable and extensive manors, or parts of manors with the best land, were kept in demesne. More peripheral estates were given to subtenants, who rendered fixed rents in exchange for their tenure of the land.   At the top of the social hierarchy were those who held their land directly from the king, with no intermediate landholder. While a great many small landowners held their land directly from the king, the greatest among these were the “Tenants-in-Chief,” and were almost invariably Norman. That even the greatest barons were described as holding their lands “of” the king (de is also sometimes translated as “from”) is important for understanding the motives of the Conqueror in commissioning the Domesday survey, as shall be discussed later.   Why Was the Domesday Book Created?   Domesday as a Fiscal Document A man dressed as a Norman knight, photo by One Lucky Guy. Source: Flickr   The most enduring interpretation of the Domesday Book is that it was used by the Norman kings, especially William I, as a fiscal document. Some justification is given to this view by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in its account of the events leading up to the Domesday survey.   Under the year 1085, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recounts how William faced a threat greater than any he had yet encountered since the conquest from the combined forces of Robert, Count of Flanders, and Cnut, King of Denmark. In response, William called together “a larger force of mounted men and infantry from France and Brittany than had ever come to this country,” billeting the troops among his vassals who “provisioned the army each in proportion to his land.”   The invasion came to nothing. In the mind of the chronicler, however, it served as a catalyst for the Domesday survey since, shortly after, at a Christmas court in Gloucester, William “had much thought and very deep discussion with his council about this country — how it was occupied or with what sort of people.”   King Canute IV of Denmark, depicted as a Saint in St.peter’s Church, Denmark. Source: Wikimedia Commons   In favor of the interpretation of Domesday as a fiscal document is the fact that estates are recorded, across the country, in terms of their monetary value to their lords. In the case of the king’s land, the Conqueror clearly wanted to know how much he could expect from lands held in demesne, which constituted his main source of regular income. To know the value of each estate held by his vassals was to know how much geld (tax) could be levied from each landowner.   Estates are often (but not always) assessed, in addition to their monetary value, in terms of the number of “hides.” This was a pre-conquest geographical measure comprising between 40-120 acres, depending on the shire and the value of the land in question, and was the predominant means of assessing the extent of land granted in Anglo-Saxon charters.   The Tribal Hidage, surviving in the 11th-century manuscript BL MS Harley 3271. Source: The British Library   Yet since the early Anglo-Saxon Period, it was also used as a unit of assessment for administrative purposes. The Tribal Hidage, for instance, was a 7th or 8th-century Mercian document assessing the various old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in terms of their number of hides, probably for taxation.    The Burghal Hidage, conceived during the reign of Alfred (871-99) but completed during the reign of his son Edward (899-924), assigned warriors to defend burhs (fortifications) based on the number of hides assigned to a given settlement. The burh of Winchester, for instance, was assigned 2,400 hides, with the same number of garrisoned soldiers, to defend its 3km (1.8 miles) of wall.   A map of burhs mentioned in the Burghal Hidage, 10th century. Source: Wikimedia Commons   That many manors are described as “waste” in the Domesday Book has traditionally been interpreted as evidence of Norman spoliation, for example during the “Harrying of the North” in 1069-70. Yet some scholars argue that “waste” actually refers to estates that were exempted from having to pay geld. The Domesday Book certainly had ample potential to be used as a tax document, in addition to its use as a reliable guide as to how much the king could expect from his own land held in demesne.   Domesday as a Record of Conquest In this scene from the Bayeux Tapestry, Harold swears an oath upon holy relics to uphold Duke William’s claim to the kingdom of England, 11th century. Source: The Bayeux Museum   The true purpose of Domesday, however, arguably went beyond its use for taxation purposes. David Roffe, a leading scholar of Domesday, has even argued that the Domesday Book as we have it was never presented to William the Conqueror. The finished article, Roffe argues, was produced after 1088 under the auspices of Ranulf Flambard, Bishop of Durham, as a response to the chaos caused by rebellions in the name of Robert, Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror’s eldest son, against William Rufus (king of England, 1088-1100).   Baxter, following Roffe to some extent, argues that William was initially presented in 1086 with a prototype that served the purpose of assessing the geld and the future billeting of troops. For these purposes, the Domesday returns may have been arranged geographically, by hundred.   Roffe’s argument is not entirely convincing. Why, for instance, was Rufus at no point mentioned in the text, which clearly refers to William the Conqueror as king? The notion that the Domesday Book was a response to tenurial chaos, however, is useful. Domesday can be seen to represent the Norman narrative regarding the conquest in its final form.   Nowhere is this clearer than the temporal arrangement of Domesday data, with the two dates of tempore regis Edwardi and tempore regis Willelmi. William is presented as being the legitimate successor to Edward the Confessor. Harold Godwinson as king is nowhere in evidence in the Domesday Book. He is merely referred to as Earl Harold. This represents the Norman view of the conquest according to which Harold broke oaths sworn to William by claiming the crown for himself.   Domesday entry for Patcham, Sussex, in the top line, Harold is mentioned, with “com” written above his name, this stands for “comes,” or “earl.” Source: The National Archives   Thus, Domesday constitutes a legal rubber stamp for the conquest writ large. It also served this purpose to some extent on a more local level, as a record of legal title to land. This is perhaps demonstrated by Domesday’s recording of marginal cases where title to land was disputed, known as “pleas” or clamores. Wormald identified 339 such cases, many of which referred to 1066 landholders in order to settle the question of who had the best right to the land.   Yet the picture is far from neat: many disputes as recorded in Domesday were left without any formal verdict, suggesting that the Conqueror was not always overly concerned about legal title, or at least not as concerned as his vassals would have liked.   Wormald’s interpretation of Domesday’s treatment of landholdings is that it is expressive of a general principle: secure title is correlated with the ability to pay geld. Those who were able to proffer a greater sum of money to royal coffers could be confirmed in possession of land, regardless of their “right” to it. Cases on which there was no verdict would then logically constitute ongoing disputes arbitrated by royal cupidity, which may not have been concluded by the time of Domesday. Yet this too was challenged by the numerous complaints in Cambridgeshire against the rapacious sheriff, Picot, who sequestered many estates from Ely Abbey and whose title was successfully challenged by monks from there, as recorded in Domesday.   Domesday may have been both a tax document and register of title in part, but this too is not the whole story.   The Rhetoric of Domesday William the Conqueror as portrayed on the Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Central to the rationale behind Domesday was the accretion of sovereignty in the hands of the king. Every landholder in Domesday is said to hold their land de regis. There has been much historiographical debate as to the meaning of “de” in this context, namely if the statement should be translated as “of the king” or “from the king.” The latter suggests a greater measure of political control than the former, connoting as it does that all land came to his barons and the Church from the king’s hand.   Semantics aside, the formulation gives insight into the nature of Domesday as an instrument of political control. Stephen Baxter argues, furthermore, that the layout of the finished book, by shire and then by landholder, made it aptly suited to dealing with individuals rather than localities. Domesday thus projected a rhetoric of power that placed William as the legitimate source of authority in whose hands all land in England was seen to belong by right. His barons might hold land from him or “of” him by his favor. Disobedience, however, would mean that that royal favor was withdrawn, and the land along with it.   Tying Up Loose Ends The Domesday Book, engraving from 1900. Source: Wikimedia Commons   It is impossible to ascribe a single purpose to Domesday with any certainty. To do so is to be guilty of teleological thinking since it forces us to assume that the Domesday Book as a finished article was the brainchild of the Conqueror from its very inception, rather than developing organically as dictated by circumstance. The best interpretation of Domesday incorporates all of the above elements, seeing the finished book as a composite work.   With a new rhetoric of royal power at its heart, it was the culmination of other texts that had served more directly as fiscal documents, as well as a record of title which, it could be argued, was anything but final, subject as it was to royal intervention and caprice. Richard fitzNigel, when explaining the naming of Domesday as being the result of the finality of its judgments, may not have penetrated beneath the vellum to the political thought that dictated the work.   How Was the Domesday Survey Carried Out? William the Conqueror, 1597-1618. Source: the National Portrait Gallery, London   The processes that lay behind the Domesday survey are the subject of much of the historiographical debate surrounding Domesday. Not least this is because investigation into these processes yields much insight into the nature and extent of royal power in the 11th century. Whether Domesday belongs to the reign of the Conqueror or that of his son William Rufus (the balance of evidence favors the former), the Domesday Book as we have it attests to an administrative task quite unrivaled anywhere in Europe during the Middle Ages.   The sources that give us the most insight into Domesday as a process are the so-called “satellite texts,” representing earlier processes of information gathering in the survey in which information was laid out in different forms. Analysis of these texts reveals five main stages, from the inception of the survey to the production of the finished article as we have it.   Stage One: The Inception of Domesday Westminster Hall, erected by William Rufus in 1097. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Stage one was to finalize plans for the survey based on instructions given by the king at Gloucester in 1085. During this stage, the survey was divided into seven different “circuits,” each consisting of at least five shires, to which commissioners were sent. We only have a record of the commissioners’ names for circuit five from the document known as Hemming’s Cartulary; they demonstrate the general principle that commissioners were intended to be impartial in that they were sent to assess areas in which they themselves did not hold much land.   The Ely Inquest, one of the Domesday satellite texts, preserves a record of the questions that the commissioners were instructed to ask of each manor:   “What is the manor called? Who held it in King Edward’s time? Who holds it now? How many hides? How many plows in demesne; how many belong to the men? How many villans, how many cottars, how many slaves? How many free men, how many sokemen? How much woodland, how much meadow, how many grazing lands, how many mills, how many fisheries? How much has been added or taken away? How much was it worth altogether and how much now? How much each free man or sokeman had or has there? All this in triplicate; that is, in the time of King Edward, when King William gave it and as it may be now; and if more can be reckoned there than may [currently] be reckoned.”   Stage Two: The Creation of Geographically-Organized Returns Cothay Manor, Medieval Manor in Somerset, photo by Michael Day. Source: Flickr   During stage two, Baxter argues that the commissioners collated information from pre-existing geld lists and combined this with “returns” from each local landholder regarding their manors. Scribes arranged their work according to the geographical divisions known as “hundreds,” and inserted the relevant manor into each hundredal return.   The Cambridge Inquisition contains a list of returns for Cambridgeshire organized by hundred, and thus likely represents this early stage in the process. Baxter argues that the returns from stage two were presented to William during his Easter crown-wearing at Winchester in 1086. This would certainly accord with the hypothesis that Domesday, at its inception, was intended as a tax document.   Stage Three: The Shire Court Little and Great Domesday Counties, areas and circuits. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Stage three seems to have consisted of special meetings of the shire court at which the details surrounding the value and ownership of each manor, recorded in stage two, were ratified by jurors representing each vill (parish). This was undoubtedly a major undertaking, since as Baxter points out there were over 5,000 vills recorded in Domesday, making for a number approaching 30,000 jurors appearing in shire courts all over the country. By the standards of medieval England, that would have made for a veritable throng of people coming and going from shire towns.   The surviving lawsuits cataloged by Wormald undoubtedly emerged during this process. It may be that the sheer volume of information being checked and ratified at the shire court meant that not all cases could be settled definitively.   Stage Four: Rearrangement of the Returns by Landholder Exon Domesday, 11th century. Source: Exeter Cathedral   During this stage, scribes re-arranged the returns that had previously been organized geographically by hundred into their present form in the Domesday Book, where it was organized by landholder.   Exon Domesday, perhaps the best known of the Domesday satellite texts, represents this stage in the process. Having arranged the individual returns for each baron by shire, these shire returns were then bundled into the circuit returns as conceived at Gloucester in stage one of the process. Organizing by landowners would go far in making Domesday into a formidable instrument of political control.   Stage Five: Production of the Domesday Book  Medieval Scribe at work, 12th century. Source: The British Library   Stage five was the production of the Domesday Book as we know it. Earlier stages featured many scribes working around the clock to produce the returns to a tight deadline. Baxter points out that 20 scribes were involved in the production of Exon Domesday. Remarkably, the vast majority of the Great Domesday Book was written by one scribe, with another scribe adding marginal corrections. Little Domesday, comprising Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, was the work of six scribes.   Although there is considerable debate about how Domesday reached its final form, Baxter argues that “there is not the slightest textual hint that GDB was written after the Conqueror’s lifetime.” He argues that, from paleographical evidence, the manuscript seems to have been written in a hurry and was likely complete before the Conqueror’s death in 1087.   Why is the Domesday Book So Important?  The Anglo-Saxon fyrd, from the Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century. Source: The Bayeux Museum   The speed at which the Domesday Book was compiled, through five stages of inquiry, testifies to the bureaucratic machinery which was brought to bear upon the task. It combined Norman and Anglo-Saxon processes and antecedents, as evinced by the language used in the book itself and the clear importance of the shire court as an institution. Yet Domesday gives insight beyond the mere processes that brought it into existence. Domesday has been used as a source not only for post-conquest history but also for the reign of Edward the Confessor when powerful noble families such as that of Godwine held great sway over English politics.   The inclusion of details such as that preserved in the Berkshire Custumal, which describes the levying of troops for the Anglo-Saxon fyrd at the rate of one soldier per five hides, gives crucial insight into pre-conquest customs and institutions. It is the incidental details of Domesday that make it such a rich source for historical inquiry.   Areas that formerly belonged to the “Danelaw,” the areas settled by Vikings in the aftermath of the Great Heathen Army’s arrival on English shores in 865, are represented in the Domesday record by “wapentakes,” rather than hundreds. This linguistic fossil gives possible insight into Danish legal institutions: gatherings inaugurated by a symbolic brandishing of weapons.   Were the Domesday commissioners more disinterested figures, concerned only with fiscal rights, the Domesday Book as we have it would be a markedly less interesting text. The desire to tie up “loose ends” necessarily involved getting to grips with Anglo-Saxon customs as they existed before the conquest, and squaring them with a new post-conquest reality.   Domesday and the Information Economy Domesday Book 900-year commemorative plaque. Source: Wikimedia Commons   Yet the real significance of Domesday perhaps lies in what it can tell us about information, and how we as humans relate to it. The drafting and redrafting of Domesday in multiple stages highlights that Domesday was far more than the sum of its parts. The schema of the manuscript is not the caprice of the Domesday scribe. Information is arranged in order to best facilitate the use of “big data,” as Baxter describes it, for particular purposes ranging from taxation to political control.   Comprehensive data such as that recorded in Domesday may appear neutral but takes on different characteristics when arranged in new constellations, and goes on to inform human action in specific, leading ways. The ready availability of information about a recalcitrant baron’s landholdings meant that a king was less likely to be conciliatory since dispossessing him was all the easier. Geographically arranged data facilitated regular taxation by streamlining bureaucratic processes. In this way, Domesday can be seen as a distant, unacknowledged ancestor of the modern information economy.