In the year 1085, william the conqueror spent christmas at gloucester. Domesday book, our earliest public record, is a rare and remarkable survey which details landholding and resources in late eleventhcentury england. It has been cited as an example of digital obsolescence on account of the physical medium used for data storage. It was once thought that the vine was reintroduced into england by the normans after an absence of almost 700 years following the departure of the romans. Generally around 120 acres, though the area varied depending on the quality of the land.
There were 377 places in the county of kent in domesday book. The domesday book is a great land survey from 1086, commissioned by william the conqueror to assess the extent of the land and resources being owned in england at the time, and the extent of the taxes he could raise. It was one of the 11 watermills on the banks of the river ravensbourne mentioned in the domesday book of 1086. William was a norman, but had settled in england before the conquest. According to the entry in the domesday book hatchams assets were. The project gutenberg ebook, domesday book and beyond, by frederic william maitland. But what william the conqueror didnt have in the domesday book was an easy way of searching its reams of data. The power was retained after the norman invasion as williams wife mathilda was a descendant of elfrida.
Uploaded by the open domesday project, released under ccbysa by professor john palmer and george slater. Another international link, of much longer standing, is to belgium, more particularly the flanders city of ghent as the land that forms much of the current borough was under the control of the ghent abbey of st. The book is preserved in two volumes at the public record office, london, and its name comes from the belief that its judgement was as final as. In entry after entry and county after county the servi are kept well apart from the villani, bordarii. Domesday book phillimore series 11 primary works total works this series lists the volumes of the domesday book as divided for the phillimore editions.
The domesday book was a record of the survey of england carried out in 1086 by william the conqueror in order to assess taxes and find out other details of the country he conquered 20 years earlier. The domesday book describes lewisham in 1086 the image is via open domesday. Arable land was recorded in different units, including. Peters of ghent at the time of domesday book, was the remish manor closest to the continent. A complete translation foreword by geoffrey martin 1,436pp, penguin classics. The information collected was recorded by hand in two huge books, in the space of around a year. The domesday book is actually not one book but two. The tenants of the bishop of winchester hold the bishops pleas at taunton. In king edwards time, it was taxed for twentytwo hides. Ralph delchard, a soldier and gervase bret, a lawyer, in 11th century england, in the domesday series.
Apart from its recitation of the swine pasture of certain woods domesday book reveals little of woods use, though an entry for eaton constantine, that the underwood renders 5d. The first records of lewisham bridge mill date from 1700. Kent the following pages include domesday placenames and landowners, and beneath some are links to websites containing the local history of that place. What is known as domesday book is in fact a composite work in two volumes. Domesday book appears to me, not indeed as the known, but as the knowable. The outcome of that speech was the mission throughout all england of barons, legates or justices charged with the duty of collecting from the. To further extend his grip on england, william i ordered that a. Here is the entry for cottingham use this to make up your own entry. See more ideas about local history, mobile library and london history. The detailed picture of the english landscape it offers has no equal in any country, while it is valuable not only in the picture it allows local historians to construct of their area in the eleventh century but also as the foundation document of the national archives.
Domesday book, the original record or summary of william is survey of england. It would be churlish to suggest that i am rubbishing the document, of course i am not, but some general understanding of the book is needed to give. Both in domesday book and in the exon survey the text distinctly supports this view. Ralph delchard and gervase bret are commissioners, appointed by william the conqueror, to look into the serious irregularities that come to light during the compilation of domesday book, the great survey of england. Domesday book the domesday book was a survey designed to record everything that people owned in england. No other western european state produced anything even broadly comparable in its scope until several centuries later. The domesday book was commissioned in december 1085 by william the conqueror, who invaded england in 1066. Ipacen is a major innercity district in south east london, england, located in the london borough of lewisham. Domesday book phillimore series by john robert morris. We know that william the conqueror, over the christmas of 1085 that he and his court spent at gloucester, decided to have a great survey of his english.
In fact there are two domesday books little domesday and great domesday, which together contain a great deal of information about england in the 11th century. It provides a picture of a land which was in transition from a tributary to a truly manorial society and as such preserves the vestiges of a much earlier society as well as the seeds of future change. As noted above, individual people and places frequently appear in more than one domesday entry. A complete translation domesday book is one of the most famous documents in english history. Fortunately, open domesday translates the medieval latin this into modern english the key points about lewisham were. It had a recorded population of 62 households in 1086. At lewisham in kent the abbot of gand has a manor valued at. The domesday book was one of the records transferred here, in 1859 from westminster abbey. The domesday book provides extensive records of landholders, in our case richard osbern their tenants, the amounts of woodland, meadow, animals, fish and ploughs on the land if there were any and other resources, any buildings. Volume one, known as great or exchequer domesday, is an abbreviated version of the returns from 32 counties.
It had a recorded population of 62 households in 1086, putting it in the largest 20% of settlements recorded in domesday. Mar 05, 2015 the domesday book is one of medieval englands greatest treasures. By contemporaries the whole operation was known as the description of england, but the popular name domesdayi. Birmingham appears in the domesday book among the lands belonging to william fitz ansculf, a major local landholder based at dudley castle. What i hope i have shown is that the domesday book is often far from clear and that therefore the main value of the entry is that it indicates the status a combined entry with norton and being waste, a rough size 4 carucates and the ownership of the land the bishop of lichfieldchester. The following pages include domesday placenames and landowners, and beneath some are links to websites containing the local history of that place. The above exon domesday entry for sturminster newton is for convenience as follows. Create a fictional english town name, remember to make it sound anglosaxon with a ton at the end eg. As there are lots of different entries on each folio, your search. The domesday book was compiled somewhere between 1085 and 1086 ad on the command of king william i of england, and is the result of a painstaking economic and social survey that was undertaken at that time.
Domesday book home the domesday book one of the most valuable records of the uks past history. Introduction to the somerset domesday british history online. Little domesday book ldb, which covers norfolk, suffolk and essex. The name domesday book middle english for doomsday book came into use in the 12th century. The information collected during the survey was written up in a fair copy, later known as domesday book, which in fact comprises two volumes. All these vineyards were in the hands of normans or the great abbeys.
A while ago running past looked at the links of lewisham to its namesake suburb of sydney, both in the name and through transportation. Can i export or print more than one entry at a time. A ploughland terra carucis or carucata was the area that could be ploughed by eight oxen in a year. The area is identified in the london plan as one of 35 major centres in greater london, although lewisham london borough council aspires to upgrade the town centre to become a metropolitan centre like. Jun 25, 2015 for a short time it was known as glass mill but it is generally known as lewisham bridge mill. The first volume great domesday contains the final summarized record of all the counties surveyed except essex, norfolk, and suffolk. If you have a local history site that you would like to be included on these pages please get in touch via the contact page.
Lewisham was a settlement in domesday book, in the hundred of greenwich and the county of kent. Maitland, domesday book and beyond university of tulsa. The statue shows hodge sitting next to a pair of empty oyster shells on top of a copy of johnsons dictionary, with. On the opposite side of gough square is a statue of dr johnsons favourite cat, hodge, unveiled in 1997 by the lord mayor. The earliest reference to hatcham is the domesday book of 1086 as hacheham. This entry was posted in lewisham history and tagged abbey of ghent, alfred the great, domesday book, elfrida, flanders, ghent, lee. Now in domesday book we must look to several different pages to get this information about the vill of abington,dash. For these three counties the full, unabbreviated return sent in to winchester by the commissioners is preserved in the second volume little domesday, which.
The first draft was completed in august 1086 and contained records for,418 settlements in the english counties south of the rivers ribble and tees the border with scotland at the time. Can i view entries adjacent to those retrieved by a search. The fact is that 14 men from randers and an abbey established themselves in england and survived as tenantsinchief until 1086, when their achievements were perpetuated in domesday book. The default is a single entry but there is an option to change this on the print and export forms. As this page also shows, there were still pockets of continued saxon landholding in the area around birmingham, notably under godmund of. Domesday book and its statistics is a freezeframe snapshot of the process. It was held by the bishop of lisieux from the bishop of bayeux. English translation of newton entry 1819 copy for clarification, see latin abbreviations. Yes, use filtering by clicking the filter button a tick superimposed on a text page.
In 1086, king william i the conqueror wanted to find out about all the land in his new kingdom. As most people tend to look at domesday simply for their entry, they dont tend to question the document as a whole. Either king william himself, or one of around 1,400 people who held land directly from the crown, mostly norman knights. Along with a string of castles throughout england, the domesday book was to give william huge authority in england. Delchard is a norman soldier who fought at the battle of. Domesday book at midwinter in the year 1085 william the conqueror wore his crown at gloucester and there he had deep speech with his wise men.
The domesday book is closely linked with william the conquerors attempt to dominate medieval england. The outcome of that speech was the mission throughout all england of barons, legates or justices. Domesday book encompasses two independent works in, originally, two physical volumes. For a short time it was known as glass mill but it is generally known as lewisham bridge mill. The last column presents the number of entries in domesday book for each. The bbc domesday project was a partnership between acorn computers, philips, logica and the bbc with some funding from the european commissions esprit programme to mark the 900th anniversary of the original domesday book, an 11thcentury census of england. Delchard is a norman soldier who fought at the battle of hastings, and who does not suffer fools gladly.
The pro had been formed in 1838 to streamline the maintenance of government and court records. Domesday book domesday book was unique in western europe and it set a standard. The domesday book though it has left us an invaluable source of information for historians, geographers and linguists, the domesday book for all its detail leaves many mysteries about itself. The domesday book is one of medieval englands greatest treasures. Vineyards are recorded at 45 places in domesday book, 32 of these in great domesday, all in southeastern england. In entry after entry and county after county the servi are kept well apart. After a general introduction to the complexities of the domesday survey and the book, we will focus on east anglian themes with a detailed look at little domesday told through an examination of the fiefs of two of the regions great abbeys, an investigation into the fortunes of an anglosaxon kin group over several generations and then a look at how the 1066 conquest and its repercussions. Domesday book is the oldest government record held in the national archives. Domesday book extracts makes available over 8,500 fascinating extracts featuring the actual page entry for your town, a translation and glossary.
It was ordered by william the conqueror the winner of the recent battle of hastings so that william could determine how much money in taxes he could raise and to give william a better sense of the territory he had just conquered. The entry relating to the ownership of land in the parish of aston cantlow and the surrounding area is shown below. The following line shows the name of lewisham also with a red line through it. The project gutenberg ebook of domesday book and beyond, by. It now resides at the national archives in kew, the successor to the pro, formed in 2003 when that merged with the historical manuscripts commission. Lewishams 500 year belgian connection running past. On the first line of the new paragraph can be seen the name for greenwich highlighted by the scribe with a red line through it. Mar 30, 2008 here is the entry for cottingham use this to make up your own entry.
1096 1326 1137 735 708 1532 401 1574 1330 873 1520 896 60 133 666 858 624 1201 861 139 329 644 883 1547 188 1539 452 465 396 1153 1369 1240 1311 707 738 630 381 379 925 897 181 530 1065 900