Domesday Book

:This article is about the 11th century census. See BBC Domesday Project for the multimedia project and Doomsday Book (novel) for the Connie Willis novel.

The Survey

From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle it is known that the planning for the survey was conducted in 1085, and from the colophon of the Book that the survey was completed in 1086. It is not known when exactly Domesday Book was compiled.

Related Topics:
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle - 1085 - 1086

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Each county was visited by a group of royal officers (legati), who held a public inquiry, probably in the great assembly known as the county court, which was attended by representatives of every township as well as of the local lords. The unit of inquiry was the Hundred (a subdivision of the county, which then was an administrative entity), and the return for each Hundred was sworn to by twelve local jurors, half of them English and half Normans.

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What is believed to be a full transcript of these original returns is preserved for several of the Cambridgeshire Hundreds, and is of great illustrative importance. The Inquisitio Eliensis, the "Exon Domesday" (so called from the preservation of the volume at Exeter), which covers Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, and the second volume of Domesday Book, also all contain the full details which the original returns supplied.

Related Topics:
Cambridgeshire - Exeter - Cornwall - Devon - Dorset - Somerset - Wiltshire

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Through comparison of what details are recorded in which counties, six "circuits" can be determined.

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• Berkshire, Hampshire, Kent, Surrey, Sussex
• Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire (Exeter Domesday)
• Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Middlesex
• Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire
• Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Worcestershire - the Marches
• Derbyshire, Huntingdonshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire