Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/368

350 350 DOMESDAY BOOK thumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham are conspicuous by their absence. Lancashire does not appear under its proper name ; but Furness and the northern part of the county, as well as the south of Westmoreland, with a part of Cumberland, are included within the West Riding of Yorkshire. That part of Lancashire which lies between the rivers Ribble and Mersey is subjoined to Cheshire; and part of Rutland is described in the counties of Northampton and Lincoln. The reasons which led to the omission of these northern counties from Domesday are not difficult to be understood. Durham and Northumberland had been laid waste by the merciless hand of conquest. The devastations of the Conqueror himself in the winter of 10G9-1070, the various inroads of Malcolm, and the venge ance taken by Odo after the murder of Bishop Walcher in 1 080, must have left very little in those districts worth the surveying. Lancashire did not then exist as a separate county. Cumberland and Westmoreland had no being as English shires, their southern portions then formed part of Yorkshire, and they are surveyed in Domesday as such ; whilst their northern portions did not become part of the kingdom of England till the reign of William Rufus, hav ing been held by the Scottish kings as a fief ever since the grant by Edmund the Magnificent, on the final overthrow of the old kingdom of Strathclyde. The notion that the northern portions of Cumberland and Westmoreland were conquered in 1072 by William I. is derived from a careless blunder in the work of Matthew of Westminster, who has confounded William Rufus with his father. The exact time of the commencement of this survey is variously stated. The Red Book of the Exchequer has been quoted as fixing the date at 1080 ; whereas the Red Book merely states that the survey was undertaken at a time subsequent to the total reduction of the island to the authority of the Conqueror. From the memorandum of the completion of the survey at the end of the second volume, it is evident, however, that Domesday was finished in 1086. Matthew Paris, Robert of Gloucester, the Annals of Waverley, and the Chronicle of Bermondsey give 1083 as the date of the record ; Henry of Huntingdon places it in 1084; the Saxon Chronicle in 1085 ; Simeon of Durham, Florence of Worcester, Roger Hoveden, and Hemiugford in 1086 ; whilst the Ypodigma Nemtrice and Diceto state 1087 as the year. The reason given for taking this survey, as assigned by several ancient records and historians, was that every man should be satisfied with his own right, and not usurp with impunity what belonged to another. But besides this, it is stated by others that all those who possessed landed estates now became vassals to the king, and paid him so much money by way of fee or homage, in proportion to the lands they held. According to the false Ingulphus, the sur vey was made in imitation of the policy of Alfred, who, at the time he divided the kingdom into counties, hundreds, and tithings, had an inquisition taken and digested into a register, which was called, from the place in which it was deposited, the Roll of Winchester. But the compilation of such a survey in the time of Alfred may be more than doubted ; for, with the exception of the statement of Ingulphus, no chronicler alludes to the existence of this register, nor is any mention of it to be found in the records of the time or in those of a subsequent period. Had it been extant in the century immediately preceding the Norman Conquest, it would have prevented the necessity of giving those minute descriptions of land so common among the later of the Saxon charters. Again, the separa tion of counties is known to have been a division long anterior to the time of Alfred. The confusion in all pro bability has arisen from a similarity in the title of the two works. The survey of the Conqueror was called Domesday Book ; the register of Alfred had the name of Dome-boc ; but the Dome-boc, instead of being a territorial analysis as is Domesday Book, was in reality the code of Saxon laws. For the execution of the survey recorded in Domesday Book, certain commissioners, called the king s justiciaries, were sent into every county and shire, and juries summoned in each hundred, out of all orders of freemen, from barons down to the lowest farmers. These commissioners were to be informed by the inhabitants, upon oath, of the name of each manor and that of its owner, also by whom it was held in the time of Edward the Confessor; the number of hides ; the quantity of wood, of pasture, and of meadow land ; how many ploughs were in the demesne, and how many in the tenanted part of it ; how many mills and how many fish-ponds or fisheries belonged to it ; the value of the whole in the time of King Edward, as well as when granted by King William, and at the time of this survey ; and also whether it was capable of improvement or of being advanced in value. They were likewise directed to return the tenants of every degree, the quantity of lands then and formerly held by each of them, what was the number of villains or slaves, and also the number and kinds of their cattle and live stock. These inquisitions, being first methodized in the_ county, were afterwards sent up to the king s Exchequer. So minute was the survey, that the writer of the contemporary portion of the Saxon Chronicle records &quot; So very narrowly he caused it to be traced out that there was not a single hide or yardland, not an ox, cow, &quot;or hog that was not set down.&quot; By the completion of this survey the king acquired an exact knowledge of the possessions of the Crown. It afforded him the names of the land-holders ; it furnished him with the means of ascertaining the military strength of the country ; and it pointed out the possibility of in creasing the revenue in some cases and of lessening the demand of the tax-collectors in others. It was, moreover, a register of appeal for those whose titles to their property might be disputed. So accurate has Domesday Book been considered that its authority was never permitted to be called in question ; and when it has been necessary to distinguish whether lands were held in ancient demesne or in any other manner, recourse was always had to Domesday, and to it only, in order to determine the doubt. From this definitive authority, from which, as from the sentence pronounced at Domesday, or the Day of Judgment, there could be no appeal, the name of the book is said to have been derived. Stowe indeed assigns another reason for this appellation, namely, that Domesday Book is a corruption of &quot; domus Dei book,&quot; a title given it because heretofore it was deposited in the king s treasury in a part of the church of Westminster or Winchester called domus Dei; the name, however, is plainly English. From the great care formerly taken to preserve this survey, we may learn the estimation in which it was held. In the Dialogus de Scaccario it is said&amp;gt; Liber ille (meaning Domesday) sigtlli rcqis comes est individmis in thesauro. It was formerly kept at Westminster with the king s seal by the side of the Tally Court in the Exchequer, under three locks and keys, in the charge of the auditor, the chamberlains, and deputy -chamberlains of the Exchequer, till in 1696 it was deposited among other valuable records in the chapter house. It is now carefully preserved beneath a strong glass case in the Public Record Office, and cau be consulted without payment of any fee. Various local Domesdays exist, as those of York, Norwich, Ipswich, Chester, and Evesham. The most notable among them is the Domesday of St Paul s, made in 1181 by the Dean, Ralph de Diceto, and edited by Archdeacon Hale.