WEBVTT - Domesday Book 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:14.080 of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.480 Frye and I'm Tracy D Wilson. So back when we 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:20.720 talked about old and ancient roads, one of the pieces 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.800 that I read about the Ridgeway mentioned the Doomsday Book 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.520 as a reference for the age of the historical site there, 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:29.040 and I thought, have we ever talked in detail about 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:30.920 the Doomsday Book on the show? Like I knew it 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:32.880 had come up before, but I was like, I don't 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:35.960 know that we've ever actually discussed the whole thing and 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:39.360 why it existed. And then I kept finding myself just 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.879 looking things up about it as a curiosity, and I 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.560 was like, well, that's gonna have to happen. So here 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:48.879 we are to contextualize all of this and really explain 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:51.880 the scope of this thing. The BBC wrote of the 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:55.640 Doomsday Book project quote, it was an exercise unparalleled in 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.560 contemporary Europe and was not matched in its comprehensive coverage 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:03.600 of the cunt until the population censuses of the nineteenth century. 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.640 Although Doomsday itself is not a full population census and 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.320 the names that appear in it are mainly only those 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.520 of people who owned the land. So it's a big 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:18.080 old project, big old data gathering project. Yeah. So the 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:24.200 Doomsday Book, which looks like it should be pronounced Domesday 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.559 but is not. If you're like, what's the Doomsday Book, 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.959 it's a survey like a census and a property record, 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:37.720 much less ominous than the doomsday that its name might suggest. 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.399 It wasn't called the Doomsday Book by its originator. It 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:43.720 didn't really have a name at that point. It was 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.200 just called the Description of England, with some of the 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:50.400 documents prepared as part of its assembly each having their 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:54.400 own names, and the whole project was initiated by William 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.520 the First, also known as William the Conqueror and even 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.120 less flatteringly, William the Bastard. We're going to give you 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:03.680 the broad strokes on his rise to power because it 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:08.040 makes clear exactly why he wanted this survey completed. William 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.400 was born in Falaise, Normandy, most likely in ten twenty eight. 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.080 His father was Robert, the first Duke of Normandy, and 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:18.840 his mother was a woman named Erleva, she sometimes noted 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:23.120 as being called Arlette, and she was the king's concubine. 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:28.520 Thus his less than flattering nickname. William was Robert's only son, 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:31.160 and he was just seven when his father became ill 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:34.640 and died while traveling home from a trip to Jerusalem, 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:37.960 and at that point William, who Robert had named as 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:42.520 an heir, became William the Second of Normandy. William's life 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:46.080 after he inherited the title of Duke of Normandy was 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:51.080 marked by constant challenges, intrigues, and loss. His own family 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:54.639 was pretty apathetic about a situation because they were all 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:58.200 jockeying for power, and they knew if he died or 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:02.440 was murdered, they would stay to benefit from that. Because 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:04.680 he was just a child, a lot of people assumed 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.480 that they could really do whatever they wanted without any 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:12.280 real repercussions from authorities, and really they weren't wrong. Without 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.600 a strong leader, some people felt comfortable just laying claim 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.800 to their own power. They would build new castles with 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:22.040 which to defend their claims, and this led to a 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:26.040 lot of violent conflict. Yeah, theoretically, you were supposed to 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:30.160 get permission to build a new castle that was not happening, 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:33.600 and then to make matters worse, the adults who were 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:37.080 supposed to be supporting William and were were often attacked. 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.920 His personal tutor was murdered, as were three of his guardians, 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.839 and over the years, various historians have theorized that all 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:48.960 of this instability in his early years really catalyzed William's 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:54.040 later hardline positions regarding law and order. After being knighted 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:56.760 at the age of fifteen, William went hard trying to 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.840 prosecute and punish people who had overstepped and taken in 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.080 advantage of the chaos of his early years as duke, 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:07.880 and that led to more conflict. Most of the people 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.360 he was trying to reclaim land from had held it 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:12.600 for years at that point, so they felt it was 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.120 very much theirs, and they had no intention of paying 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:20.320 any back taxes levied on it. Numerous rebellions were mounted 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:22.680 because of all of this, and while there was mixed 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.120 success for William in terms of these conflicts, he did 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.160 learn a lot about battle and he developed his style 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:33.960 as a commander, which was direct and pragmatic. Also during 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.640 this time, William got a good bit of help from 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.640 King Henry the First of France, who took the throne 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:43.760 in ten thirty one. After things settled down for William 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:47.880 in Normandy, he supported Henry's efforts elsewhere, especially when it 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:52.240 came to expanding France's territory in the south. In ten 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:56.599 fifty three, William married Matilda of Flanders after negotiating for 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.200 her hand as part of an alliance with her father, 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:04.080 Baldwin the f fifth. This was actually a problematic marital 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.000 alliance in the eyes of the church. Pope Leo the 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.400 ninth had stated that because the two were third cousins 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.920 once removed, the marriage was incestuous and should not happen. 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.000 But they got married anyway, and it seems to have 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:19.560 been a pretty good match. They had nine children that 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:23.599 lived to adulthood, and Matilda ruled Normandy when William was away. 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:28.440 Regarding their choice to ignore the pope, that was pretty serious. 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.599 It was also a little surprising because William was known 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.960 to be very religious. But six or seven years into 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.880 the marriage he reconciled with the church, and he made 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:41.960 amends by agreeing to build two monasteries at cont one 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:45.880 in his name and one in Matilda's. This penance enabled 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.640 the papacy to officially sanction their marriage, and that bolstered 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:54.880 William's position during another period of upheaval in Normandy. William 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:57.320 made a deal with Edward the Confessor, who was the 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:01.839 King of England and also William's cousin. Edward had no heir, 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.080 and William thought that he could be Edwards named Air 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.320 and this was likely something that was possible because he 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:12.200 had allied with Flanders through marriage, and as this agreement 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.479 seems to have happened even before the marriage took place, 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.680 but after William had made his deal with Baldwin the Fifth, 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.400 so he was in a good position to be like, hey, 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:25.200 I could handle this kind of power. That deal became 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:29.240 important because William had fallen out of favor with King Henry. 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.240 In the meantime, Henry and Jeffrey Martel also known as 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:37.240 Jeffrey the second Count of Anjous, had reconciled after their 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.320 own falling out, and they had joined forces to launch 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:44.680 an attack on William's Normandy, which happened as multiple rebellion 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:50.040 efforts were all happening within Normandy. William managed to regain 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.440 control of Normandy, and then, regarding his conflict with the 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:56.680 Crown and the Count of Anjous, he got lucky. King 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.720 Henry died on August fourth, ten sixty and his eight 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:02.279 years year old son, Philip the First took the throne, 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:06.680 with widowed Queen Anne of Kievs serving as regent. Just 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.280 a few months later, on November fourteenth, Jeffrey Martel also 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:14.560 died and his title went to his nephews. So William's 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:18.800 two strongest limiters to his success in expanding Norman lands 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:22.080 were no longer on the board, and their successors were 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.920 neither as strong nor as driven to stop him. Okay, 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.400 so now we have to go back to Edward the Confessor, 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.360 and we are reaching a point where there are two 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:36.080 different narratives of what happened next. According to the Norman version, 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.480 Edward sent Harold, Earl of Wessex from England to Normandy 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:44.120 to confirm the agreement that Edward would name William as 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.880 his heir. Harold was shipwrecked and he was captured by 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:52.440 one of William's vessels, Gui, the first of Ponthieu. William 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.960 intervened to free Harold, and Harold told William that yes, 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:00.679 Edward was ready to confirm their bequest agreement. This involved 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:03.800 the swearing of an oath on Harold's part. Again, that's 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.280 according to Norman sources. Some of those sources include the 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:11.440 bio tapestry, which features an image of Norman's swearing fealty 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:16.160 to William. The alternate version suggests that Harold's mission was 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:20.720 not about confirming that agreement, because Edward named Harold as 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.080 his heir while he was on his deathbed, so either 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:26.840 he sent Harold for a different reason or he changed 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:30.480 his mind. But when Edward died on January fifth, ten 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.880 sixty six, the throne went to Harold after the nobility 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:39.520 confirmed him. Unsurprisingly, this was not something that delighted William, 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:42.520 and it also brought conflict from other places, because William 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:45.800 wasn't the only person that thought he should inherit from Edward. 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:49.080 Before William could even get his affairs in order to 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:53.080 bolster his standing and get ready to attack England, Harold's 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:57.880 brother Tostig and Harold the second Hardrod of Norway invaded 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:02.000 England to wrest power from Harold. They were unsuccessful, but 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:06.240 left Harold weakened and low on troops. William was able 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.000 to take advantage of this, and was of course victorious 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.640 at the Battle of Hastings, during which King Harold was killed. 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:17.240 There's a particularly grizzly and famous account of that death 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.520 where he gets shot right in the eye, which sounds awful. 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:23.840 But William became William the First of England on December 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.640 twenty fifth, ten sixty six. Yeah, we have old episodes 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:32.200 about the Battle of Hastings and about the Tapestry all 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.760 hanging out there in the archive. With William finally on 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.680 the throne of England's we can finally start talking about 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.240 the Doomsday Book, and we will get into it after 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:53.560 we first pause for a sponsor break. Been to twenty 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.839 years after William became King of England, his leadership was 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.400 as tumultuous as it had been as Duke of Normandy 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:03.040 in France. He went home to Normandy in ten sixty seven, 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:05.880 but he had to return to England almost immediately to 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:08.680 deal with a series of rebellions, and he became rather 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:12.400 ruthless in putting such rebellions down over the next several years. 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:16.800 William is known for introducing a lot of Norman governing 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:21.840 structures to England. Some of these were literal structures, including 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.120 the Tower of London and other castles, that were intended 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:29.400 to give Norman lords central strongholds from which they could 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:34.320 control the surrounding lands. Those Norman lords had replaced members 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:38.560 of England's aristocracy as part of William's restructuring, and he 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:43.520 had instituted a landholding policy that required promises of military 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:48.200 service to the lords that oversaw them. William traveled between 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.680 Normandy and England throughout his reign, sometimes returning to his 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:55.520 original home for years before something like a rebellion would 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.080 bring him back to England to assert his authority. And 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:03.040 as he faced both within and without his kingdom, that 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.440 system of landholding that he established became more and more 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:10.040 important to him. William the First wanted to make sure 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:13.720 that he understood completely who owned what and thus who 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:17.200 owed him military service as well as money, and so 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:19.560 he decided at the end of ten eighty five that 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:23.080 he needed a survey assessing who was on what land 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:28.080 and details of any estates. This survey would ultimately yield 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:32.360 what became known as Doomsday Book. Doomsday Book is sometimes 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:36.760 described as the way William the First assessed his new kingdom, 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:40.840 but it was almost twenty years before he initiated the project, 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:45.319 so obviously that is not accurate. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle, 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:47.800 which is a history that was started in the late 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:51.480 ninth century and was updated in fits and starts until 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:55.360 eleven fourteen. That mentions the moment that William made his 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:59.000 decision to have the survey done, describing it this way quote. 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:02.920 After this had the King a large meeting and very 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:06.679 deep consultation with his council about this land, how it 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.600 was occupied, and by what sort of men. Then he 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:15.480 sent his men all over England into each shire, commissioning 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:18.480 them to find out how many hundreds of hides were 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.760 in the shire, what land the King himself had, and 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.760 what stock upon the land, or what dews he ought 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.320 to have by the year from the shire. Also he 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:32.040 commissioned them to record in writing how much land his 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:36.320 archbishops had, and his diocesan bishops, and his abbots, and 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:40.040 his earls, And though I may be prolix and tedious, 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.559 what or how much each man had who was an 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:46.840 occupier of land in England, either in land or in stock, 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:51.000 and how much money it were worth. So very narrowly, indeed, 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:53.360 did he commission them to trace it out that there 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.240 was not one single hide, nor a yard of land 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.000 name or over. It is shameful to tell, though he 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.080 thought it no shame to do it, Not even an 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:05.199 ox or nora, a cow, nor a swine was there 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:09.480 left that was not set down in his writ and 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:14.640 all the recorded particulars were afterwards brought to him. Incidentally, 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.040 hides here is not referencing animal hides. It is a 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:24.000 measurement of land. So Doomsday Book was actually two books, 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.559 and it still exists, but not quite in that form, 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.120 and we're going to talk about that later. The first 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:32.320 volume is called Great Doomsday and the second is called 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:36.720 Little Doomsday. There are also additional supporting pieces of writing, 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:41.079 many of which were summarized in Great Doomsday. Great Doomsday 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.520 is written in an abbreviated form of Latin on parchment 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.680 that's made of sheepskin. Most of the ink in it 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.840 is black, although red ink was used for page headers, corrections, 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:56.959 and addendums. This total's four hundred and thirteen pages. Great 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:00.480 Doomsday includes most of the records collected about all of 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:04.599 the county surveyed, with the exception of Norfolk, Essex, and Suffolk. 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:08.920 Those are included in Little Doomsday, but not as summaries. 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:11.800 It seems like these should have been incorporated into the 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.880 larger first volume at some point, but for reasons unknown 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:18.240 that did not happen. This whole thing also did not 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:22.840 include the northern areas of England. London, Winchester and Bristol 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:27.560 are also excluded, as are Northumberland and Durham. There may 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.080 have been, and probably were, plans to get to all 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.240 of that, but those areas and some other small towns 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:37.160 and villages that we know existed but weren't included, either 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:39.640 never got their data collected or we do not have 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:44.160 the records. Little Doomsday is actually a more detailed work 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.920 than Great Doomsday, and though its cover size is smaller, 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:50.800 it has more pages at four hundred and seventy five. 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:54.440 It appears that the larger book made use of records 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:59.000 similar to those than Little Doomsday and condensed and abbreviated them. 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.160 In Great Doomsday appears to have been written by a 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.840 single person, it appears that a second scribe checked the 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:10.800 work and made some notes. In contrast, Little Doomsday appears 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:14.480 to have had several different people recording information in it. 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.320 Those supporting documents that we mentioned earlier offer their own 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:23.600 unique insights into this whole project. For example, the document 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.720 known as Inquisition of the County of Cambridge, which has 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.000 a much longer Latin name that I thought I should 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:33.720 not attempt, includes information on process and procedure for capturing 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.320 all of this data. And it's from this document that 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:39.680 we know that the whole thing was carried out as 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:43.760 a series of sworn inquests. So it's believed that major 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.840 landowners initially sent in information who their tenants were, what 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.480 manners were part of their land, et cetera, and then 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:55.120 that information was compared to existing records. Then came the 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:58.600 part where William sent his men all over England, as 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:01.560 described in the quote that Tracy read earlier, to hold 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:06.400 these inquests and get confirmation and additional details about land holdings. 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:11.000 The commissioners conducted the proceedings at assigned circuits, each of 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:17.080 which was divided into counties and then subdivided into Feif's hundreds, vills, manners, 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:21.720 and sub manners, with some circuits subdividing even further. There 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.800 were seven circuits in total, with three to four commissioners 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.080 assigned to each, and the juries that were assembled for 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.720 these inquests were made up of Norman and Anglo Saxon 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.080 members to avoid bias, and then witnesses were called to 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:39.680 verify the information that the landowners, which were literal landlords, 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:44.560 had provided. The questions asked at the inquests also appeared 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:48.440 in the supplemental documents. There are eighteen of them. What 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:51.120 the manner was called? Who held it at the time 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:54.520 of King Edward? Who holds it now? How many hides 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:57.640 there are? How many plows held by the lord, and 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:01.720 how many belonging to the peasants? How many villains those 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:06.520 were wealthy sort of in quotation marks indentured peasants. They 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.120 would not have been wealthy at all. It was relatively 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:15.320 more prosperous. How many cotters those are indentured peasants, who 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:19.400 owned land totaling less than five acres? How many slaves? 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:22.640 How many freemen? How many soakmen? Those were freemen who 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.800 owed dues to their lord? How much woodland? How much meadow? 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:31.080 How much pasture? How many mills, how many fisheries? How 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.240 much had been added or taken away from the estate? 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.760 What it used to be worth altogether? And what it 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:43.000 is worth now? These questions were posed in triplicate. One 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.320 set of answers was given for the time of Edward 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.879 the Confessor before ten sixty six. One set was to 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.840 capture the situation in the aftermath of William the first 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:55.240 redistribution of property that was right after he took the throne, 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:58.040 and then the third set was to reflect the situation 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:01.359 at the time the survey was perfer formed, and the 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.280 answers to all of these questions were then compiled and 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.800 used to create first one set of documents and then 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:12.320 the summaries that appear in the Great Doomsday. Landowners' names 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:15.159 and they were generally all Normans with a few exceptions 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:18.520 were recorded and some of their Anglo Saxon under tenants. 0:18:19.280 --> 0:18:22.320 Once all of these inquests were complete, the commissioners then 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.360 assembled together so that all of their collected data could 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:29.720 be amassed. So what does all that data show. More 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:33.280 than thirteen thousand places are mentioned in the Doomsday Book, 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.120 most of them are still around today, although in some 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:41.360 cases the names have changed. Sprinkled throughout all those places 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:45.720 are thirty thousand recorded manners. The total value of all 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.920 the properties listed in the book is estimated at seventy 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:53.280 three thousand pounds calculated by size. Thirty five percent of 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:57.080 the land was deemed arable, twenty five percent was pasture 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:00.480 or meadow land, with meadow being the dominant, the two 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:04.560 fifteen percent was woodland, and the remaining twenty five percent 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:09.040 was listed as other. This clearly shows too, the way 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:13.680 that William consolidated wealth and power among his followers. Whereas 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:16.600 two thousand Anglo Saxons had owned the majority of the 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:19.760 surveyed land in the time of Edward the Confessor, by 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.320 ten eighty six, just two hundred people did, all of 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:27.000 them Normans. Seventeen percent of all of the land in 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:30.080 England was owned by the king and his family, and 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.400 then the church, bishops and abbots owned twenty six percent, 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:37.560 Tenants in chief owned fifty four percent, and those two 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:41.200 thousand Anglo Saxons had largely become under tenants to those 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:44.960 two hundred Norman landholders. And it showed that ninety percent 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:47.960 of the population lived outside of cities, and that three 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.480 quarters of them were serfs, and it estimated that about 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.359 sixteen thousand troops could be called up from the existing population. 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:59.399 What you can't get from Doomsday Book is a reliable 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:02.159 population count, because, as we mentioned in the intro and 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:05.040 then again just a little while ago, it listed only 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:07.800 the names of landholders, so they would say who was 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:10.400 under them, but not by names, so you can't really 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:14.320 reconcile that with accuracy, and Doomsday is the work that's 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:18.600 still being researched and reinterpreted. In twenty twenty one, a 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.960 paper in English Historical Review shared new insights into the work. 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.080 We talked about this and unearthed that year, but we 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:30.880 don't expect anybody to remember that. The study that resulted 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:34.680 in the paper was a collaboration between University of Oxford 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:38.800 and King's College London, led by doctor Stephen Baxter, Professor 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:43.560 of Medieval History at Oxford. Their work looked specifically at 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:48.679 one of the supporting documents, the Exon Doomsday. Its Latin 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:53.600 name is Liber Exoniensis, and Exon Doomsday is the oldest 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.960 of the manuscripts associated with the project. This particular part 0:20:57.960 --> 0:20:59.720 of the work is not with the rest of the 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:04.080 two main sections. It's at the Exeter Cathedral Library, cataloged 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:07.800 as MS thirty five hundred. Yeah. I should point out too, 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:09.880 I didn't include it in this outline that this also 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:15.080 was published as a book by Baxter's team. But Baxter's 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:19.560 team carefully analyzed Exon Doomsday to determine which of the 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:24.119 numerous scribes two dozen who worked on it wrote which sections, 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.720 and then tracked what documents each of them had worked 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:30.680 from to do so, and it showed a really impressive 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:35.240 level of organization and efficiency. Doctor Baxter was quoted in 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:39.000 the press as saying of doomsday quote. This research shows 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:41.520 the compilation of Doomsday to be one of the most 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:45.040 remarkable feats of government in the recorded history of Britain. 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:49.520 The survey was brilliantly conceived to generate and structure information 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:53.520 that would enable the conqueror's regime to maximize his revenue 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:58.840 from different income streams. The conqueror's regime effectively compiled and 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:02.760 manipulated a dapt base of England's landed wealth in less 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:07.160 than nine months, using technologies no more complex than parchment, 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:12.560 pen and ink and human interaction. Perhaps most mind blowing 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:15.639 is the research team's determination that the first draft of 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:18.280 this whole project was done in the course of just 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:22.080 one hundred days, starting on Christmas Day ten eighty five, 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:25.480 when William first ordered the survey, and ending on Easter 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:29.159 ten eighty six, which was April fifth. The work notes 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:32.040 that taxes were collected at the same time the first 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:35.280 pass of the survey was done, and that the inquest portion, 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:38.119 which was more of a fact check, took place in 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:41.440 the following fifty days, being completed on May twenty fifth. 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:45.040 From that point to August. First, the information was all 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:49.080 parsed and reorganized into statistical summaries that would lead to 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:52.600 the production of the Great Doomsday. It's important to point 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:56.320 out that while this effort was unprecedented in its scope, 0:22:56.840 --> 0:22:59.800 it wasn't as though William the Conqueror conjured the idea 0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:02.640 of the land survey like this out of thin air. 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:06.040 Quite a few of the counties that were surveyed for 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:09.720 the Norman King had been surveyed before. Some of that 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:13.880 documentation was used to model the structure of Doomsday Book, 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:17.520 and Doomsday Book didn't supplant all those other records either. 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:22.240 Historian Sally Harvey, who studied the Doomsday Book throughout her career, 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:26.480 rote in nineteen seventy four, quote, we may emphasize the 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:31.480 background documentation and treasury practice that enabled the Doomsday survey 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:35.920 to be taken so quickly. Nevertheless, the enterprise was prodigious 0:23:35.960 --> 0:23:41.879 and indicates that existing documentation was deemed inadequate. Yeah, there 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:45.000 are also some surveys similar to this that had already 0:23:45.040 --> 0:23:48.720 happened in other parts of Europe. So again, not a 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:52.639 completely new concept coming up. We're going to talk about 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:55.520 how all of this information was used, but first, we 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:58.040 will hear from the sponsors that keep stuff you missed 0:23:58.040 --> 0:24:10.240 in history class going. So you may be wondering what 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:13.080 did William the First do with all of this information 0:24:13.640 --> 0:24:17.919 that he had commanded to be collected, Well, he actually 0:24:17.920 --> 0:24:20.000 died before he could do a whole lot with it. 0:24:20.000 --> 0:24:23.199 It wasn't quite completed when he died in September of 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:25.800 ten eighty seven. As we noted, some of the major 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:28.280 cities were not entered in the book, and information in 0:24:28.320 --> 0:24:32.080 Little Doomsday and the additional documents was likely intended to 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:35.840 be incorporated into one main volume, but that seems to 0:24:35.880 --> 0:24:39.760 have fallen to the wayside with William's death. But it 0:24:39.960 --> 0:24:43.080 was still used to make decisions about governance and to 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:47.160 settle disputes long after William the First was gone, as 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:50.520 evidence of how important the project was. It wasn't until 0:24:50.520 --> 0:24:53.760 almost one hundred years after the record was compiled that 0:24:53.840 --> 0:24:58.200 it got its ominous sounding name the eleven seventy nine 0:24:58.359 --> 0:25:01.840 Dialogue of the Exchequers, where it got the name Doomsday, 0:25:02.320 --> 0:25:05.040