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 From Domesday Book we can make a rough guess at the population of England in the eleventh century, say about 2,000,000, whereas now it is over 40,000,000. The book does not mention the number of people in the towns, but in many towns it does mention the number of houses. Probably no town, except London, had then as many as ten thousand people. Of many places the book says that they were ‘waste’, that is, had been burned, either by accidental fires (which must constantly have been occurring when all buildings were of wood) or by Danes or Normans in the process of conquest. It also tells something of the ‘customs’ which prevailed in different counties and towns. We are getting near an age when we shall be able to call such customs ‘Laws’. The Norman Kings tried to use old English customs and to improve them. But theft and murder were still reckoned more as offences against the family of the person wronged than as crimes against the State. You could still atone for such offences by a fine. It was not till late in the twelfth century that you would infallibly be hanged if you were caught; and the certainty of punishment is what really prevents crime.

Now, you can see that the result of an inquiry like Domesday was that the kings knew a great deal about their country and about their people. They would know, for instance, what great baron or earl was really dangerous; on what part of England what taxes could be levied, and so on. No doubt the new Norman landowners were often hard to their Saxon tenants. But it would not pay them to be too hard. They wanted rents and labour, and a starving man cannot pay rent or work in the fields. The land was the only source of riches, and therefore every gentleman had to be first and fore-