It’s Not the End of the World.

After all of the speculation of the finish of the Mayan calendar and the world coming to an end in December last year, I thought I’d start the year off with The Domesday Book. I stumbled across this when I was researching holiday places in the UK.  There were references to certain places being listed in this book so I thought further investigation was required. As I’m more of fiction reader and live in a dream world, I didn’t quite know what I would find.

The Domesday Book was commissioned by William the Conqueror and is the compilation of a survey that was completed in 1085 and 1086. There are two volumes to the book. The Little Domesday Book covers Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex and the larger of the two volumes, or Great Domesday Book which includes the remainder of England and some parts of Wales. So why would you do such an astronomical survey and why is it called The Domesday Book? Let me explain.

One of the main reasons for the survey was to determine who owned what land and stock and the taxes that they paid under Edward the Confessor. The book also showed your status in the community. As you would imagine, the judgement of the assessors that completed the survey was final and there was no further discussion to be had on the subject. If the book said that your material worth was 50 quid, then that’s what you were worth and nobody had the right to appeal the outcome.  Hence the name Domesday or day of judgement. Of course, the book was written in Latin and I for one don’t read Latin, so I wouldn’t have known what was in the book anyway.

This ancient book is kept at the National Archives in Kew and you can visit any day except Sundays. I set off this morning for a nice 10.5 mile stroll because there were other things on the way that I wanted to take pics of – all blog related of course, and I needed the exercise after a somewhat hearty Christmas.  When I reached Hyde Park Corner I discovered that I’d left my sacred blog book at home with all of my notes in. So, I continued on the way through West London to Kew and probably would have kicked myself if my feet hadn’t been so sore from all of the walking.

National Archives Kew, West London.

I was quite impressed with the building and the grounds. Although, there was a rather angry swan swimming in the water near the entrance and I don’t think he liked having his picture taken.



The angry swan

 

The replica of the Domesday Book

The book that’s on display at the National Archives is a copy as the original is fragile. They keep it in the dark at a certain temperature to preserve the delicate sheepskin parchment and the handwritten text. The book is apparently starting to wear considerably – so the guys in reception told me. The contents are now available on line in English thank goodness so it’s accessible for anyone, but I’d really like to hold the original, just for a few seconds.

The Domesday Exhibition

Keeping with the tradition of supplying plaques to signify just about anything in the UK, there have been Domesday plaques issued to towns and villages included in the book. What’s more, if you go to the National Archives website, you can actually enter a town or village to find out the names of the families that lived there at the time of the census and how many houses there were and so forth.  I’ve included a couple of links on the bottom of the page for you to play with, just in case you’re overcome with curiosity.

So having visited the National Archives and looked into The Domesday Book so to speak, I find it fascinating that Once upon a time in merry old England, a survey was commissioned, compiled, and is now available for everyone. Check it out.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/

http://domesday.pase.ac.uk/