The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3) / Everlasting Calerdar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac

by William Hone

§ I. Name.

Doomsday Book, one of the most ancient records of England, is the register from which judgment was to be given upon the value, tenure, and services of lands therein described.

Other names by which it appears to have been known were Rotulus Wintoniæ, Scriptura Thesauri Regis, Liber de Wintonia, and Liber Regis. Sir Henry Spelman adds, Liber Judiciarius, Censualis Angliæ, Angliæ Notitia et Lustratio, and Rotulus Regis.

§ II. Date.

The exact time of the Conqueror’s undertaking the Survey, is differently stated by historians. The Red Book of the Exchequer seems to have been erroneously quoted, as fixing the time of entrance upon it in 1080; it being merely stated in that record, that the work was undertaken at a time subsequent to the total reduction of the island to William’s authority. It is evident that it was finished in 1086. Matthew Paris, Robert of Gloucester, the Annals of Waverley, and the Chronicle of Bermondsey, give the year 1083, as the date of the record; Henry of Huntingdon, in 1084; the Saxon Chronicle in 1085; Bromton, Simeon of Durham, Florence of Worcester, the Chronicle of Mailros, Roger Hovedon, Wilkes, and Hanningford, in 1086; and the Ypodigma Neustriæ and Diceto in 1087.

The person and property of Odo, bishop of Bayeux, are said to have been seized by the Conqueror in 1082.

§ III. Origin and Object.

Ingulphus affirms, that the Survey was made in imitation of the policy of Alfred, who, at the time he divided the kingdom into counties, hundreds, and tithings, had an Inquisition taken and digested into a Register, which was called, from the place in which it was reposited, the Roll of Winchester. The formation of such a Survey, however, in the time of Alfred, may be fairly doubted, as we have only a solitary authority for its existence. The separation of counties also is known to have been a division long anterior to the time of Alfred. Bishop Kennet tells us, that Alfred’s Register had the name of Domeboc, from which the name of Doomsday Book was only a corruption.

Dom-boc is noticed in the laws of Edward the elder, and more particularly in those of Æthelstan, as the code of Saxon laws.