Domesday Book - Composition

Composition

Domesday Book is really two independent works. One, known as Little Domesday, covers Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. The other, Great Domesday, covers much of the remainder of England and parts of Wales, except for lands in the north that later became Westmorland, Cumberland, Northumberland and the County Palatine of Durham. There are also no surveys of London, Winchester and some other towns. The omission of these two major cities is probably due to their size and complexity. Most of Cumberland and Westmorland are missing because they were not conquered until some time after the survey, and County Durham is lacking as the Bishop of Durham (William de St-Calais) had the exclusive right to tax Durham; parts of the north east of England were covered by the 1183 Boldon Book, which listed those areas liable to tax by the Bishop of Durham. The omission of the other counties has not been fully explained.

Despite its name, Little Domesday was actually larger as it is far more detailed, down to numbers of livestock. It is possible that Little Domesday represents a first attempt, and that it was found impossible, or at least inconvenient, to complete the work on the same scale for Great Domesday.

For both volumes, the contents of the returns were entirely rearranged and classified according to fiefs (manors), rather than geographically. Instead of appearing by hundred or by township, holdings appear under the names of the landholders (tenentes), i.e. those who held the lands directly of the crown in fee.

In each county, the list opened with the holdings of the king himself (which had possibly formed the subject of separate inquiry). These were followed by those of the churchmen and religious houses in order of status (for example, the Archbishop of Canterbury is always listed before other bishops), the lay tenants-in-chief again in approximate order of status (aristocrats) and lastly the king's serjeants (servientes) and English thegns who retained land.

In some counties, one or more principal towns formed the subject of a separate section: in some the clamores (disputed titles to land) were similarly treated separately. This principle applies more specially to the larger volume: in the smaller one, the system is more confused, the execution less perfect.

Domesday names a total of 13,418 places. Apart from the wholly rural portions, which constitute its bulk, Domesday contains entries of interest concerning most of the towns, which were probably made because of their bearing on the fiscal rights of the crown therein. These include fragments of custumals (older customary agreements), records of the military service due, of markets, mints, and so forth. From the towns, from the counties as wholes, and from many of its ancient Lordships, the crown was entitled to archaic dues in kind, such as honey. (In a parallel development, the Normans in southern Italy completed their Catalogus Baronum based on Domesday Book c. 1100.)

The information of most general interest found in the great record is that on political, personal, ecclesiastical and social history, which only occurs sporadically and, as it were, by accident. Much of this was used by E. A. Freeman for his work on the Norman Conquest.