What was the original English Domesday Book?”
The Domesday Book is the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William I of England, or William the Conqueror. While spending the Christmas of 1085 in Gloucester, William “had deep speech with his counsellors and sent men all over England to each shire to find out what or how much each landholder had in land and livestock, and what it was worth” (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). One of the main purposes of the survey was to determine who held what and what taxes had been liable under Edward the Confessor; the judgment of the Domesday assessors was final—whatever the book said about who held the material wealth or what it was worth, was the law, and there was no appeal. It was written in Latin, although there were some vernacular words inserted for native terms with no previous Latin equivalent, and the text was highly abbreviated. The name Domesday comes from the Old English word dom (of which the Modern English doom is descended), meaning accounting or reckoning
The Domesday Book is the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William I of England, or William the Conqueror. While spending the Christmas of 1085 in Gloucester, William “had deep speech with his counsellors and sent men all over England to each shire to find out what or how much each landholder had in land and livestock, and what it was worth” (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). One of the main purposes of the survey was to determine who held what and what taxes had been liable under Edward the Confessor; the judgment of the Domesday assessors was final—whatever the book said about who held the material wealth or what it was worth, was the law, and there was no appeal. It was written in Latin, although there were some vernacular words inserted for native terms with no previous Latin equivalent, and the text was highly abbreviated. The name Domesday comes from the Old English word dom (of which the Modern English doom is descended), meaning accounting or reckoning
