[246] Ed. Hamilton, p. 137.
[247] This also seems to have been taken from the detailed original returns.
[248] So far back as 1887 I raised this question, writing: 'Indeed, heretical though the view may be, I see no proof whatever that Domesday Book was itself compiled in 1086' (Antiquary, xvi. 8).
[249] Domesday Studies, pp. 526, 626.
[250] The most erroneous date that has been suggested for Domesday is the year 1080. Ellis wrote, referring to Webb's 'short account', that 'the Red Book of the Exchequer seems to have been erroneously quoted as fixing the time of entrance upon it as 1080' (i. 3). Mr Ewald,* following in his footsteps, has repeated his statement (under 'Domesday Book'), in the Encyclopædia Britannica; and, lastly, Mr de Gray Birch asserts on his authority that 'this valuable manuscript' is not responsible for that date (Domesday Book, p. 71). All these writers are mistaken. The Diologus de Scaccario, indeed, does not mention a year, but Swereford's famous Introduction, in the Red Book of the Exchequer, does give us, by an astounding blunder, the fourteenth year of the Conqueror (1079-80) as the date of Domesday (see below, [p. 210]).
* Author of Our Public Records.
[251] I am not sure that even the 'pertin[ent] ad rege[m]' of the 'first' volume (100b) is not a mistake for 'regnum'.
[252] On fo. 17 is a curious deleted list of church fiefs in Essex, which has no business there.
[253] Introduction to Domesday, i. 354.