Domesday : The Inquest and the Book

Domesday Book is the main source for an understanding of late Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest; and yet, despite over two centuries of study, no consensus has emerged as to its purpose. David Roffe proposes a radically new interpretation of England's oldest and most precious public record. He argues that historians have signally failed to produce a satisfactory account of the source because they have conflated two essentially related processes: the production of Domesday Book itself and the Domesday inquest, from the records of which it was compiled. Domesday Book was a land register drawn up for administrative purposes in the aftermath of the revolt against William Rufus in 1088. By contrast, the Domesday inquest was commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1085, following the threat of invasion from Denmark. It addressed the deficiencies in the national system of taxation and defence, and resulted in a renegotiation of the burden of geld and knight service. This study provides new insights into the inquest as the principal means of communication between the crown and the free communities under its sovereignty, and will challenge accepted notions of kingship in the eleventh century and beyond.