Domesday: The Inquest and the BookDomesday Book is the main source for an understanding of late Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest. And yet, despite over two centuries of study, no consensus has emerged as to its purpose. David Roffe proposes a radically new interpretation of England's oldest and most precious public record. He argues that historians have signally failed to produce a satisfactory account of the source because they have conflated two essentially unrelated processes, the production of Domesday Book itself and the Domesday inquest from the records of which it was compiled. New dating evidence is adduced to demonstrate that Domesday Book cannot have been started much before 1088, and old sources are reassessed to suggest that it was compiled by Rannulf Flambard in the aftermath of the revolt against William Rufus in the same year. Domesday Book was a land register drawn up by one of the greatest (and most hated) medieval administrators for administrative purposes. The Domesday inquest, by contrast, was commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1085 and was an enterprise of a different order. Following the threat of invasion from Denmark in that year it addressed the deficiencies in the national system of taxation and defence, and its findings formed the basis for a renegotiation of assessment to the geld and knight service. This study provides novel insights into the inquest as a principal vehicle of communication between the crown and the free communities over which it exercised sovereignty, and will challenge received notions of kingship in the eleventh century and beyond. |
Contents
THE MYSTIQUE OF THE BOOK | 1 |
DOMESDAY AND TITLE TO LAND | 46 |
THE INQUEST AND GOVERNMENT | 54 |
The Origins of the Inquest in England | 60 |
THE DOMESDAY TEXTS | 77 |
THE COLLECTION OF DATA | 122 |
COMMISSIONERS AND THE LIMITS | 147 |
117 | 168 |
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Common terms and phrases
Abbey abbot abbreviation appear assessment berewicks bishop bovates breve Cambridgeshire carucates Cheshire Chichester clearly commissioners compiled Conquest context counties Danegeld Danelaw DB Cambs DB Essex DB Hunts DB Lincs DB Norfolk DB Notts DB Suffolk DB Worcs DB Yorks demesne Derbyshire Devon document Domesday Book Domesday inquest Domesday process Dorset elsewhere England English entries estates evidence example Exon fiscal formula Galbraith GDB and LDB GDB scribe geld geld inquest geographically arranged held Herefordshire hidation hides holds Hundred Rolls hundredal Huntingdonshire indicate inland inquisitio jurors king king's land Leicestershire Lincolnshire London lord manor Norman Northamptonshire Nottinghamshire Oxfordshire place-name ploughland figures ploughs postscriptal pre-Conquest probably quire record reference Roffe Rotuli royal sake and soke seems seigneurial sheriff shire soke sokeland sokemen Somerset Stenton Suffolk suggests tenants tenants-in-chief tenements tenure terra regis thegns verdicts vills virgate wapentake Welldon Finn William Wiltshire Worcestershire Yorkshire Yorkshire folios