DOMESDAY BOOK OR THE GREAT SURVEY OF ENGLAND, 1086.

The following explanation comes from Lucy Wheeler's book 'Chertsey Abbey'.

It is contained in two volumes, the first of which is a folio of 760 pages, 15.5 x 10.5 inches, the second is of the size of a large octavo of 900 pages.

The volumes contain the Census of the Kingdom, made up from Returns from each County of England, excepting the four northern counties, viz.: Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham.

The Book of Exeter and the Book of Ely are no doubt copied from the same returns as Domesday Book itself, but they contain more details than are given in Domesday.

The Book of Winchester was made in 1148.

These five books, with valuable Indexes and very interesting explanatory Introductions, have been published in four folio volumes in modern type, but with all the contractions of the original.

The two first volumes contain the Great Domesday and were published in 1083. The following remarkable passage from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is taken from the Translation by Mr. Benjamin Thorpe, published under the direction of the Right Hon, the Master of the Rolls.

A.D. MLXXXV.-"In this year men declared, and for sooth said, that Cnut, king of Denmark, son of King Svein, was bound hitherward, and would win this land with the aid of Robert Count of Flanders ; because Cnut had Robert's daughter to wife. When William, King of England, who was then residing in Normandy . . . . was apprized of this, he went into England with so large an army of horsemen and foot. . . . as never before had sought this land, so that men wondered how this land could feed all that army. But the king caused the army to be distributed through all this land among his vassals: and they fed the army, each according to the measure of his land.

' . . . After this the king had a great council, and very deep speech with his ` witan' about this land, how it was peopled, or by what men ; then sent his men all over England, into every shire, and caused to be ascertained how many hundred hides were in the shire, or what land the king himself had, and cattle within the land, or what dues he ought to have, in twelve months, from the shire.

" Also, he caused to be written how much land his archbishops had, and his suffragan bishops and his abbots, and his earls ; and . . . what or how much each man had who was a holder of land in England, in land, or in cattle, and how much money it might be worth. So very narrowly he caused it to be traced out, that there was not one single hide, nor one yard of land, nor even . . . an ox nor a cow, nor a swine was left, that was not set down in his writ."

For the execution of the Survey, Commissioners called King's Justiciaries, or Legati Regis, were appointed to go into each county -" The Inquisitors, it appears, upon the oaths of the Sheriffs, the Lords of each Manor, the Presbyters of every Church, the Reves of every Hundred, the Bailiffs and six Villans of every village, were to enquire into the name of the place, who held it in the time of King Edward, who was the present possessor, how many hides in the Manor, how many carrucates in demesne, how many homagers, how many villans, how many cotarii, how many servi, what freemen, how many tenants in socage, what quantity of wood, how much meadow and pasture, what mills and fishponds, how much added or taken away, what the gross value in King Edward's time, what the present value, and how much each free-man or soch-man has or had."

As regards the measures of land in Domesday-" The truth," Sir H. Ellis says, " seems to be that a hide, a yardland, a knight's fee, &c., contained no certain number of acres, but varied in different places," but it has been described to be "as much as was sufficient to the cultivation of one plough, whence our term of ploughland."

" The Carucata, which is also to be interpreted the plough-land, was as much arable as could be managed with one plough and the beasts belonging thereto in a year; having meadow, pasture and houses for the householders and cattle belonging to it"; and it appears that " the hide was the measure of land in the Confessor's reign, the carucate that to which it was reduced by the Conqueror's new standard."

The hide is generally supposed to be equal to 120 acres.