Feudal England: Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

by John Horace Round

Imperial orders have gone forth that the coming Codex, the Domesday that is to outlive centuries, is to be completed before Easter (April 5th, in that year [1086]), when King William himself expects to receive it in his Court and Palace of Winchester (Notes on Domesday, 15).

And he explicitly stated that:

On any hypothesis as to the time taken by the different processes which resulted in Domesday Book, the whole, that is the survey, the transcription, and the codification, were completed in less than eight months, and three of the eight were winter months. No such miracle of clerkly and executive capacity has been worked in England since.[²⁴⁹]

But was it worked then? All that the chronicle says of the King is that the 'gewrita wæran gebroht to him', a phrase which does not imply more than the original returns themselves.

Of course, the chief authority quoted is the colophon to the second volume:

Anno millesimo octogesimo sexto ab incarnatione Domini vicesimo vero regni Willelmi facta est ipsa descriptio non solum per hos tres comitatus sed etiam per alios.

It seems to have been somewhat hastily concluded that because the Survey ('Descriptio Angliæ') took place in 1086, Domesday Book (which styles itself Liber de Wintonia), was completed in that year. The phrase 'per hos tres comitatus' proves, surely, that 'descriptio' refers to the Survey, not to the book.[²⁵⁰]

I have never seen any attempt at a real explanation of the great difference both in scope and in excellence between the two volumes, or indeed any reason given why the Eastern counties should have had a volume to themselves. For a full appreciation of the contrast presented by the two volumes, the originals ought to be examined. Such differences as that the leaves of one are half as large again as those of other, and that the former is drawn up in double, but the latter in single column, dwarf the comparatively minor contrasts of material and of handwriting. So, too, the fullness of the details in the second volume may obscure the fact of its workmanship being greatly inferior to that of the first. Of its blunders I need only give one startling instance. The opening words of the Suffolk Survey, written in bold lettering, are 'Terra Regis de Regione' (281b). I have no hesitation in saying that the last words should be 'de Regno'. Indeed, the second formula is found on 289b, as 'Terra Regis de Regno', while on 119b under 'Terra Regis', we read 'hoc manerium fuit de regno'. So also in the Exon Domesday 'Terra Regis' figures as 'Dominicatus regis ad regnum pertinens'.[²⁵¹] The muddled order of the tenants-in-chief for Norfolk and for Suffolk—where laymen precede the church[²⁵²] —is another proof of inferiority, but only minute investigation could show the hurry or ignorance of the scribes.

Now, all this might, I think, be explained if we took the so-called second volume to be really a first attempt at the codification of the returns. Its unsatisfactory character must have demonstrated the need for a better system, which, indeed, its unwieldy proportions must have rendered imperative. So drastic and so successful, on this hypothesis, was the reform, that while these three counties had needed a volume of 450 folios, the rest of England that was surveyed—some thirty counties—was compressed into a single volume of 382 folios, and on a system which rendered consultation easier and more rapid. In every respect the first volume is a wonderful improvement on the second, but the authorities may have shrunk from ordering the latter to have been compiled de novo, when the work, though unsatisfactory, had once been done.