Cylchgronau Cymru

DOMESDAY: 1086 1836 1986* The Making of Domesday Book IN the year 1066 William, Duke of Normandy, assembled a fleet along the shores of his duchy, crossed the Channel, landed in Pevensey Bay on the morning of Thursday 28 September, and then proceeded to conquer England. But nearly twenty years were to pass before the Normans took stock of the land that was now theirs, twenty years marked by a large-scale transference of estates from English to Norman ownership, and by more than one rebellion. The story of the making of the Survey is told in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, in the entry for 1085. At Christmas of that year, so the entry runs, the king held a great council at Gloucester, and, as a result, he sent his men into each shire to enquire about its people and its resources; and, so we are told, 'not an ox, nor a cow, nor a pig' went unrecorded. The entry ends by saying that all these writings (gewrita) were then brought to him. The making of the survey may well have been more complicated than was at one time thought. In the first phase, it seems clear that the counties were grouped into circuits visited by different teams of commissioners. This is suggested by variations in phraseology between the text of groups of counties. There were probably seven circuits, each producing its own summary; and it seems that it was these circuit summaries that were the 'writings' brought to the king. In the second place, it is likely that documents already in existence were used to help in the compilation, which may explain how the survey was completed so quickly. William left England for Normandy late in August 1086, and he never returned; the making of the circuit summaries may therefore have taken no more than eight months or so. These were then abbreviated and edited to produce the Domesday Book we know. It calls itself merely a description (descriptio), and it acquired the nickname of Domesday in the next century because its authority seemed comparable to that of the Book by which on Domesday, or the Day of Judgement, all will be judged, as we read in the Revelation of St John, chapter 20, verse 12. We speak of Domesday Book but it is really in two volumes. There is Great Domesday Book which consists of folios of parchment made of sheep-skin. This covers the whole of England except for the four counties beyond Yorkshire, and the three eastern counties. The latter (Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex) form the substance of Little Domesday Book which consists of folios of vellum made of calfskin. For one reason or another, this eastern circuit summary was never incorporated into Great Domesday Book. Both volumes are kept in the Public