chapter 1._

For a different statement see the following: "The recently attempted invasion from Denmark seems to have impressed the king with the desirability of· an accurate knowledge of his resources, military and fiscal, both of which were based upon the land. The survey was completed in the remarkably short space of a single year [1085-1086]. In each shire the commissioners made their inquiries by the oaths of the sheriffs, the barons and their Norman retainers, the parish priests, the reeves and six ceorls of each township. {795} The result of their labours was a minute description of all the lands of the kingdom, with the exception of the four northern counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland and Durham, and part of what is now Lancashire. It enumerates the tenants-in-chief, under tenants, freeholders, villeins, and serfs, describes the nature and obligations of the tenures, the value in the time of King Eadward, at the conquest, and at the date of the survey, and, which gives the key to the whole inquiry, informs the king whether any advance in the valuation could be made. ... The returns were transmitted to Winchester, digested, and recorded in two volumes which have descended to posterity under the name of Domesday Book. The name itself is probably derived from Domus Dei, the appellation of a chapel or vault of the cathedral at Winchester in which the survey was at first deposited."

_T. P. Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional History,