98-613: The Liber Exoniensis or Exon Domesday is the oldest of the three manuscripts originating with the Domesday Survey of 1086, covering south-west England. It contains a variety of administrative materials concerning the counties of Cornwall , Devon , Dorset , Somerset and Wiltshire . It is MS 3500 in Exeter Cathedral Library. The leaves were first numbered about 1500, when they were bound as two volumes. They were rearranged and rebound in 1816, when
196-486: A baron's possessions; and it also showed to what extent he had under-tenants and the identities of the under-tenants. This was of great importance to William, not only for military reasons but also because of his resolve to command the personal loyalty of the under-tenants (though the "men" of their lords) by making them swear allegiance to him. As Domesday Book normally records only the Christian name of an under-tenant, it
294-415: A definitive reference point as to property holdings across the nation, in case such evidence was needed in disputes over Crown ownership. The Domesday survey, therefore, recorded the names of the new holders of lands and the assessments on which their tax was to be paid. But it did more than this; by the king's instructions, it endeavoured to make a national valuation list, estimating the annual value of all
392-523: A great political convulsion such as the Norman Conquest, and the following wholesale confiscation of landed estates, William needed to reassert that the rights of the Crown, which he claimed to have inherited, had not suffered in the process. His Norman followers tended to evade the liabilities of their English predecessors. Historians believe the survey was to aid William in establishing certainty and
490-657: A large tribute from the conquered. Soon after, a report was sent to Charlemagne , then at Aachen contemplating a campaign against the Danish king, Godfred , stating that the Frisians had already collected through taxation and paid a sum of one hundred pounds of silver. These events are recorded in the Annales regni Francorum and the Vita Karoli Magni , both works of Charlemagne's court historian, Einhard , and in
588-429: A matter of royal favour, and were adjusted to meet changing circumstances ... in this way Danegeld was a more flexible instrument of taxation than most historians have been prepared to allow." Henry I granted tax liberties to London in 1133, and exempted the city from taxes such as scot , Danegeld, and murdrum . From the late twelfth century, a levy on moveables, which required the consent of parliament, replaced
686-572: A mill for every forty-six peasant households and implies a great increase in the consumption of baked bread in place of boiled and unground porridge . The book also lists 28,000 slaves , a smaller number than had been enumerated in 1066. In the Domesday Book, scribes' orthography was heavily geared towards French, most lacking k and w, regulated forms for sounds / ð / and / θ / and ending many hard consonant words with e as they were accustomed to do with most dialects of French at
784-502: A seventh circuit for the Little Domesday shires). Three sources discuss the goal of the survey : After this had the king a large meeting, and very deep consultation with his council, about this land; how it was occupied, and by what sort of men. Then sent he his men over all England into each shire; commissioning them to find out 'How many hundreds of hides were in the shire, what land the king himself had, and what stock upon
882-641: A stipendiary Danegeld of an undisclosed amount to hire as mercenaries some Vikings with which to harass his opponent for the ducal throne of Brittany, Vurfand , Count of Rennes . The most important Danegeld raised in East Francia was that used by Charles the Fat to end the Siege of Elsloo and convert the Viking leader Godfrid into a Christian and a Duke of Frisia (882). Local Danegeld may have been raised in
980-402: A subject of historical debate. Sir Michael Postan , for instance, contends that these may not represent all rural households, but only full peasant tenancies, thus excluding landless men and some subtenants (potentially a third of the country's population). H. C. Darby , when factoring in the excluded households and using various different criteria for those excluded (as well as varying sizes for
1078-531: A suis eos sedibus amovit. A smaller group of Danes left Gaul intending to settle among the Bretons. Thrice doing battle with the same, they overcame them. The vanquished Nominoe fled with his own, then through messengers bearing gifts removed the same Danes from their settlements. The possibility that the Danes were bought off by methods other than the raising of cash is raised by an incident in 869, recorded in
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#17327942642671176-548: A time after the Great Fire of London . From the 1740s onwards, they were held, with other Exchequer records, in the chapter house of Westminster Abbey . In 1859, they were transferred to the new Public Record Office , London. They are now held at the National Archives at Kew. The chest in which they were stowed in the 17th and 18th centuries is also at Kew. In modern times, the books have been removed from
1274-540: A town, where separately-recorded properties had been demolished to make way for a castle. Early British authors thought that the motivation behind the Survey was to put into William's power the lands, so that all private property in land came only from the grant of King William, by lawful forfeiture. The use of the word antecessor in the Domesday Book is used for the former holders of the lands under Edward , and who had been dispossessed by their new owners. Domesday Book
1372-604: A tribute from the population of the region before leaving. This event is recorded in the Annales Fuldenses , Annales Bertiniani , Annales Xantenses , and the Vita Hludowici imperatoris of Thegan of Trier . In 846, during the reign of Louis's son Lothair I , the Vikings compelled the Frisians to collect a census to pay them off. The Bertiniani and Xantenses annals record how Lothair, though aware of
1470-547: A year: in 863 Salomon made peace and the Vikings, deprived of an enemy, ravaged Neustria. In Kievan Rus during the rule of the Swedish Rus (from where the name Russia derives), the Slavs had to pay an annual tribute to the Vikings known as the dan from at least 859 onward. Prince Oleg , who was a relative of Rurik the Viking, after moving to Kiev, imposed a dan on the people of Novgorod of 300 griveni / per year "for
1568-632: Is already released" ( Danosque victores tributum victis inposuisse, et vectigalis nomine centum libras argenti a Frisionibus iam esse solutas ). No further Danegeld was collected in Frisia until late in the reign of Louis the Pious (died 840). In 836 some Northmen, having burnt Antwerp and the marketplace at Wintla , agreed to leave on the payment of some tribute, the amount of which the Annales Fuldenses do not specify. In 837, either because
1666-401: Is devoted to the somewhat arid details of the assessment and valuation of rural estates, which were as yet the only important source of national wealth. After stating the assessment of the manor , the record sets forth the amount of arable land , and the number of plough teams (each reckoned at eight oxen) available for working it, with the additional number (if any) that might be employed; then
1764-462: Is examined more closely, perplexities and difficulties arise." One problem is that the clerks who compiled this document "were but human; they were frequently forgetful or confused." The use of Roman numerals also led to countless mistakes. Darby states, "Anyone who attempts an arithmetical exercise in Roman numerals soon sees something of the difficulties that faced the clerks." But more important are
1862-533: Is held at the National Archives at Kew , London. Domesday was first printed in full in 1783, and in 2011 the Open Domesday site made the manuscript available online. The book is an invaluable primary source for modern historians and historical economists . No survey approaching the scope and extent of Domesday Book was attempted again in Britain until the 1873 Return of Owners of Land (sometimes termed
1960-552: Is not possible to search for the surnames of families claiming a Norman origin. Scholars, however, have worked to identify the under-tenants, most of whom have foreign Christian names. The survey provided the King with information on potential sources of funds when he needed to raise money. It includes sources of income but not expenses, such as castles, unless they needed to be included to explain discrepancies between pre-and post-Conquest holdings of individuals. Typically, this happened in
2058-648: Is not recorded in the sources, although it is possible that some monies were raised this way. It is more likely that purely local Danegeld were raised in times of emergency. In 847 the Breton leader Nominoe was defeated three times by some Danish Vikings before finally opening negotiations with their leaders and enticing them to leave by offering them gifts, as recorded in the contemporary Annales Bertiniani : Dani partem inferioris Galliae quam Brittones incolunt adeuntes, ter cum eisdem bellantes, superant; Nomenogiusque victus cum suis fugit, dein [per] legatos muneribus
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#17327942642672156-506: Is of great illustrative importance. The Inquisitio Eliensis is a record of the lands of Ely Abbey . The Exon Domesday (named because the volume was held at Exeter ) covers Cornwall , Devon, Dorset , Somerset, and one manor of Wiltshire . Parts of Devon, Dorset, and Somerset are also missing. Otherwise, this contains the full details supplied by the original returns. Through comparison of what details are recorded in which counties, six Great Domesday "circuits" can be determined (plus
2254-525: Is the oldest 'public record' in England and probably the most remarkable statistical document in the history of Europe. The continent has no document to compare with this detailed description covering so great a stretch of territory. And the geographer, as he turns over the folios, with their details of population and of arable, woodland, meadow and other resources, cannot but be excited at the vast amount of information that passes before his eyes. The author of
2352-799: The News Chronicle , reported that Robert Hudson of the Department of Overseas Trade had visited the German Embassy in London two days before, to meet the German Ambassador Herbert von Dirksen and Helmuth Wohlthat of the Four Year Plan organisation, to offer Germany a huge loan worth hundreds of millions of pound sterling in exchange for not attacking Poland. The media reaction to Hudson's proposed loan
2450-705: The County Palatine of Durham – and parts of Wales bordering and included within English counties). Space was left in Great Domesday for a record of the City of London and Winchester , but they were never written up. Other areas of modern London were then in Middlesex , Surrey , Kent , and Essex and have their place in Domesday Book's treatment of those counties. Most of Cumberland, Westmorland, and
2548-524: The Miracula sancti Bavonis , a life of Saint Bavo . That these various Viking impositions were paid by the taxation of the Frisians is made evident in a record of events in 873. In that year, according to the annals Fuldenses , Bertiniani , and Xantenses , the Viking leader Rodulf sent messengers to the Ostergau calling for tribute. The Frisians replied that they owed taxes only to their king, Louis
2646-641: The Record Commission edition was published. There was no " original order " of the quires , which were in effect separate working documents. Five principal types of record can be distinguished: Domesday Book#Survey Domesday Book ( / ˈ d uː m z d eɪ / DOOMZ -day ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at
2744-420: The hundred or wapentake in which they lay, hundreds (wapentakes in eastern England) being the second tier of local government within the counties. Each county's list opened with the king's demesne, which had possibly been the subject of separate inquiry. Under the feudal system, the king was the only true "owner" of land in England by virtue of his allodial title . He was thus the ultimate overlord, and even
2842-450: The military service due, markets, mints , and so forth. From the towns, from the counties as wholes, and from many of its ancient lordships, the crown was entitled to archaic dues in kind, such as honey . The Domesday Book lists 5,624 mills in the country, which is considered a low estimate since the book is incomplete. For comparison, fewer than 100 mills were recorded in the country a century earlier. Georges Duby indicates this means
2940-590: The taifa kingdoms. It is estimated that the total amount of money paid by the Anglo-Saxons amounted to some sixty million pence , and at the farm where the runestone Sö 260 talks of a voyage in the West, a hoard of several hundred English coins was found. In southern England the Danegeld was based on hidages , an area of agricultural land sufficient to support a family, with the exception of Kent, where
3038-531: The "Modern Domesday") which presented the first complete, post-Domesday picture of the distribution of landed property in the United Kingdom . Domesday Book encompasses two independent works (originally in two physical volumes): "Little Domesday" (covering Norfolk , Suffolk , and Essex ), and "Great Domesday" (covering much of the remainder of England – except for lands in the north that later became Westmorland , Cumberland , Northumberland , and
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3136-810: The 19th century. They were held originally in various offices of the Exchequer : the Chapel of the Pyx of Westminster Abbey ; the Treasury of Receipts; and the Tally Court. However, on several occasions they were taken around the country with the Chancellor of the Exchequer: to York and Lincoln in 1300, to York in 1303 and 1319, to Hertford in the 1580s or 1590s, and to Nonsuch Palace , Surrey, in 1666 for
3234-512: The 900th anniversary of the original Domesday Book. In August 2006, the contents of Domesday went online, with an English translation of the book's Latin. Visitors to the website are able to look up a place name and see the index entry made for the manor, town, city or village. They can also, for a fee, download the relevant page. In the Middle Ages, the Book's evidence was frequently invoked in
3332-463: The Belfast agreement might be built on sand, but I hoped otherwise. But as we have seen, Danegeld has been paid, and the thing about Danegeld is that one keeps on having to pay it. Concession after concession has been made. What will be the next one? To emphasise the point, people often quote Kipling's poem "Dane-Geld", especially its two most famous lines. For example, journalist Tony Parsons quoted
3430-554: The Danegeld to the Exchequer may be assessed by its return of about £2400 in 1129–1130, which was about ten per cent of the total (about £23,000) paid that year. Judged by an absolute rather than a contemporary standard, there is much to criticise in the collection of the Danegeld by the early 12th century: it was based on ancient assessments of land productivity, and there were numerous privileged reductions or exemptions, granted as marks of favour that served to cast those left paying it in an "unfavoured" light: "Exemptions were very much
3528-558: The Danegeld to the Vikings in West Francia took place in 845 when, under Ragnar Lothbrok , they tried to attack Paris . The Viking army was bought off from destroying the city by a massive payment of nearly six tons of silver and gold bullion. In November 858 a Danegeld was being collected, probably to pay off Bjørn (Berno) , who had ravaged the Seine and its district for the whole previous year (857). In 862 two groups of Vikings—one
3626-514: The Danegeld/ You never get rid of the Dane." The poem ends thus: It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation, For fear they should succumb and go astray; So when you are requested to pay up or be molested, You will find it better policy to say: – "We never pay any -one Dane-geld, No matter how trifling the cost; For the end of that game is oppression and shame, And
3724-544: The Eastern kingdom as needed, such as by one Evesa to ransom her son, Count Eberhard, at a "very great price" in 880, according to Regino of Prüm . The first Danegeld ever raised was collected in Frisia in 810. In that year a Danish fleet of some two hundred vessels landed in Frisia, harassing first all the coastal islands and then the mainland before defeating the Frisians in three battles. The victorious Danes then demanded
3822-598: The English than to take whatever booty they could plunder. Further payments were made in 1002, and in 1007 Æthelred bought two years peace with the Danes for 36,000 troy pounds (13,400 kg) of silver. In 1012, following the capture and murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the sack of Canterbury , the Danes were bought off with another 48,000 troy pounds (17,900 kg) of silver. In 1016 Sweyn Forkbeard's son, Canute , became King of England. After two years he felt sufficiently in control of his new kingdom to
3920-420: The Frisians were unprepared or defected from their Frankish overlords, some Vikings managed to land on Walcheren , capture several counts and other leading men and kill them or hold them for ransom. They then proceeded to exact a census wherever they could, funnelling an "infinite" amount of money "of diverse kinds" into their coffers. They then moved to the mainland, where they assaulted Dorestad and extorted
4018-469: The German , and his sons ( Carloman , Louis , and Charles ), and a battle ensued, in which Rodulf was killed and his troops routed. One later, tenth-century source, Dudo of Saint-Quentin 's De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum , records that Rollo forced the Frisians to pay tribute, but this is unlikely. All the various Frisian Danegeld was purely local in nature, raised by the local leaders and
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4116-660: The London area only rarely. In 1861–1863, they were sent to Southampton for photozincographic reproduction . In 1918–19, prompted by the threat of German bombing during the First World War , they were evacuated (with other Public Record Office documents) to Bodmin Prison , Cornwall. Likewise, in 1939–1945, during the Second World War , they were evacuated to Shepton Mallet Prison , Somerset. The volumes have been rebound on several occasions. Little Domesday
4214-564: The Sheriff had one hundred and seventy-six manors in Devon and four nearby in Somerset and Dorset . Tenants-in-chief held variable proportions of their manors in demesne , and had subinfeudated to others, whether their own knights (often tenants from Normandy), other tenants-in-chief of their own rank, or members of local English families. Manors were generally listed within each chapter by
4312-475: The aforementioned Annales and by Regino of Prüm . In that year Salomon, King of Brittany , put an end to some pagan raids by payment of five hundred heads of cattle. The more local type of Danegeld is exemplified by two chronologically close events in the County of Vannes . According to a record in the cartulary of Redon Abbey , the bishop Courantgenus was ransomed from Viking captivity in 854. His ransom
4410-421: The alternative spelling "Domesdei" became popular for a while. The usual modern scholarly convention is to refer to the work as "Domesday Book" (or simply as "Domesday"), without a definite article. However, the form "the Domesday Book" is also found in both academic and non-academic contexts. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that planning for the survey was conducted in 1085, and the book's colophon states
4508-476: The article on the book in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica noted, "To the topographer, as to the genealogist, its evidence is of primary importance, as it not only contains the earliest survey of each township or manor, but affords, in the majority of cases, a clue to its subsequent descent." Darby also notes the inconsistencies, saying that "when this great wealth of data
4606-489: The average household), concludes that the 268,984 households listed most likely indicate a total English population between 1.2 and 1.6 million. Domesday names a total of 13,418 places. Apart from the wholly rural portions, which constitute its bulk, Domesday contains entries of interest concerning most towns, which were probably made because of their bearing on the fiscal rights of the crown therein. These include fragments of custumals (older customary agreements), records of
4704-690: The behest of King William the Conqueror . The manuscript was originally known by the Latin name Liber de Wintonia , meaning "Book of Winchester ", where it was originally kept in the royal treasury. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that in 1085 the king sent his agents to survey every shire in England, to list his holdings and dues owed to him. Written in Medieval Latin , it was highly abbreviated and included some vernacular native terms without Latin equivalents. The survey's main purpose
4802-642: The costs of conquest, rather than for buying-off the Viking menace. He and his successors levied the geld more frequently than the Anglo-Saxon kings, and at higher rates; the six-shilling geld of 1084 is infamous, and the geld in Ely of 1096, for example, was double its normal rate. Judith Green states that from 1110, war and the White Ship calamity led to further increases in taxation efforts. By 1130 Henry I
4900-485: The emperor to pay 1 grivna to every man on Oleg's ships in exchange for going away. According to the Russian chronicles, the followers of Prince Igor in 945 : ... said to him "The servants of Sveiald are adorned with weapons and fine raiment, but we are naked. Go forth with us, oh Prince, that you and we may profit thereby.” Igor heeded their words and attacked Dereva in search of tribute ( dan ). He demanded
4998-562: The entirety of the County Palatine of Durham and Northumberland were omitted. They did not pay the national land tax called the geld , and the framework for Domesday Book was geld assessment lists. "Little Domesday", so named because its format is physically smaller than its companion's, is more detailed than Great Domesday. In particular, it includes the numbers of livestock on the home farms ( demesnes ) of lords, but not peasant livestock. It represents an earlier stage in processing
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#17327942642675096-468: The extent of being able to pay off all but 40 ships of his invasion fleet, which were retained as a personal bodyguard, with a huge Danegeld of 72,000 troy pounds (26,900 kg) of silver collected nationally, plus a further 10,500 pounds (3,900 kg) of silver collected from London. This kind of extorted tribute was not unique to England: according to Snorri Sturluson and Rimbert , Finland , Estonia and Latvia (see also Grobin, now Grobiņa ) paid
5194-456: The former Seine Vikings, and hired them against Salomon for 6,000 pounds of silver. The purpose of this was doubtless to prevent them from entering the service of Salomon. Probably Robert had to collect a large amount in taxes to finance what was effectively a non- tributary Danegeld designed to keep the Vikings out of Neustria. The treaty between the Franks and the Vikings did not last more than
5292-453: The geld. The principle of "no consent, but exemption", gave way to that of "consent, but no exemption". That a country-wide Danegeld was ever collected in the Duchy of Brittany is uncertain. Certainly they were paid off on more than one occasion, and such payouts may have included money (besides other valuables), but the imposition of a tax on the people to pay either a stipend or a tribute
5390-453: The greatest magnate could do no more than "hold" land from him as a tenant (from the Latin verb tenere , "to hold") under one of the various contracts of feudal land tenure . Holdings of bishops followed, then of abbeys and religious houses , then of lay tenants-in-chief , and lastly the king's serjeants ( servientes ) and thegns. In some counties, one or more principal boroughs formed
5488-548: The king's brevia ((short) writings). From about 1100, references appear to the liber (book) or carta (charter) of Winchester, its usual place of custody; and from the mid-12th to early 13th centuries to the Winchester or king's rotulus ( roll ). To the English, who held the book in awe, it became known as "Domesday Book", in allusion to the Last Judgment and in specific reference to the definitive character of
5586-597: The kingdom concerning the matters contained in the book, and recourse is made to the book, its word cannot be denied or set aside without penalty. For this reason we call this book the "book of judgements", not because it contains decisions made in controversial cases, but because from it, as from the Last Judgement, there is no further appeal. The name "Domesday" was subsequently adopted by the book's custodians, being first found in an official document in 1221. Either through false etymology or deliberate word play ,
5684-567: The land in the country, (1) at the time of Edward the Confessor 's death, (2) when the new owners received it, (3) at the time of the survey, and further, it reckoned, by command, the potential value as well. It is evident that William desired to know the financial resources of his kingdom, and it is probable that he wished to compare them with the existing assessment, which was one of considerable antiquity, though there are traces that it had been occasionally modified. The great bulk of Domesday Book
5782-464: The land; or, what dues he ought to have by the year from the shire.' Also he commissioned them to record in writing, 'How much land his archbishops had, and his diocesan bishops, and his abbots, and his earls;' and though I may be prolix and tedious, 'What, or how much, each man had, who was an occupier of land in England, either in land or in stock, and how much money it was worth.' So very narrowly, indeed, did he commission them to trace it out, that there
5880-696: The larger of two fleets recently forced out of the Seine by Charles the Bald , the other a fleet returning from a Mediterranean expedition—converged on Brittany , where one (the Mediterranean group) was hired by the Breton duke Salomon to ravage the Loire valley . Robert the Strong , Margrave of Neustria , captured twelve of their ships, killing all on board save a few who fled. He then opened negotiations with
5978-419: The late eleventh century. In Anglo-Saxon England tribute payments to the Danes was known as gafol and the levy raised to support the standing army, for the defence of the realm, was known as heregeld (army-tax). In England, a hide was notionally an area of land sufficient to support one family; however their true size and economic value varied enormously. The hide's purpose was as a unit of assessment and
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#17327942642676076-448: The latter was completed, if not started, by William II following his accession to the English throne; William II quashed a rebellion that followed and was based on, though not consequence of, the findings of the inquest. Most shires were visited by a group of royal officers ( legati ) who held a public inquiry, probably in the great assembly known as the shire court. These were attended by representatives of every township as well as of
6174-439: The law courts. In 1960, it was among citations for a real manor which helps to evidence legal use rights on and anchorage into the Crown's foreshore; in 2010, as to proving a manor, adding weight of years to sporting rights (deer and foxhunting); and a market in 2019. Domesday Book is critical to understanding the period in which it was written. As H. C. Darby noted, anyone who uses it can have nothing but admiration for what
6272-404: The local lords. The unit of inquiry was the Hundred (a subdivision of the county, which then was an administrative entity). The return for each Hundred was sworn to by 12 local jurors, half of them English and half of them Norman. What is believed to be a full transcript of these original returns is preserved for several of the Cambridgeshire Hundreds – the Cambridge Inquisition – and
6370-412: The meanings of certain formulas which are not uncommon." Darby says that "it would be more correct to speak not of 'the Domesday geography of England', but of 'the geography of Domesday Book'. The two may not be quite the same thing, and how near the record was to reality we can never know." Danegeld Danegeld ( / ˈ d eɪ n ɡ ɛ l d / ; "Danish tax", literally "Dane yield" or tribute)
6468-403: The name also came to be associated with the Latin phrase Domus Dei ("House of God"). Such a reference is found as early as the late 13th century, in the writings of Adam of Damerham ; and in the 16th and 17th centuries, antiquaries such as John Stow and Sir Richard Baker believed this was the name's origin, alluding to the church in Winchester in which the book had been kept. As a result,
6566-422: The nation that plays it is lost!" Kipling's poem was set to music by filk musician Leslie Fish on her 1991 album, The Undertaker's Horse . In the United Kingdom , the term "Danegeld" has come to refer to a general warning and a criticism of any coercive payment, whether in money or kind. For example, as mentioned in the British House of Commons during the debate on the Belfast Agreement : I feared that
6664-427: The numerous obvious omissions, and ambiguities in presentation. Darby first cites F. W. Maitland 's comment following his compilation of a table of statistics from material taken from the Domesday Book survey, "it will be remembered that, as matters now stand, two men not unskilled in Domesday might add up the number of hides in a county and arrive at very different results because they would hold different opinions as to
6762-414: The outrage, was unable to stop it, and the Vikings left Frisia laden with booty and captives. The last recorded Danegeld raised by the Frisians was paid in 852. In that year 252 Viking ships laid anchor off the Frisian coast and demanded tribute (of what kind we do not know), which was procured. Their demands met, the Vikings left without devastating the territory, as recorded in the Annales Bertiniani and
6860-429: The people without royal aid or approval. In Lotharingia the Danegeld was only collected once. In 864 Lothair II exacted four denarii from every mansus in the kingdom, as well as large number of cattle and much flour, wine, and beer. The whole amount is not recorded, nor whether it was paid as a stipend or as a tribute , but it was paid to a Viking band led by one Rodulf . It has been suggested that Lothair
6958-462: The poem in The Daily Mirror , when criticising the Rome daily La Repubblica for writing "Ransom was paid and that is nothing to be ashamed of", in response to the announcement that the Italian government paid $ 1 million for the release of two hostages in Iraq in October 2004. In Britain the phrase is often coupled with the experience of Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler . On 22 July 1939, two British newspapers, The Daily Telegraph and
7056-580: The preservation of peace". The payments to Kiev continued until 1054 with the death of Prince Jaroslav of Kiev. When Prince Oleg made his expedition against Constantinople in 907, he demanded that the Romans "pay tribute to his men on his 2,000 ships at the rate of 12 griveni per man, 40 men reckoned to a ship". The treaty negotiated between Oleg and the Roman Emperor Leo VI the Wise committed
7154-528: The previous tribute and collected by violence from the people with the assistance of his followers.... William Shakespeare made reference to Danish tribute in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark , Act 3, scene 1 ( King Claudius is talking of Prince Hamlet 's insanity): ... he shall with speed to England, For the demand of our neglected tribute Danegeld is the subject of the poem " Dane-geld " by Rudyard Kipling , whose most famous lines are "once you have paid him
7252-582: The record. The word "doom" was the usual Old English term for a law or judgment; it did not carry the modern overtones of fatality or disaster . Richard FitzNeal , treasurer of England under Henry II , explained the name's connotations in detail in the Dialogus de Scaccario ( c. 1179): The natives call this book "Domesday", that is, the day of judgement. This is a metaphor: for just as no judgement of that final severe and terrible trial can be evaded by any subterfuge, so when any controversy arises in
7350-707: The results of the Domesday Survey before the drastic abbreviation and rearrangement undertaken by the scribe of Great Domesday Book. Both volumes are organised into a series of chapters (literally "headings", from Latin caput , "a head") listing the manors held by each named tenant-in-chief directly from the king. Tenants-in-chief included bishops, abbots and abbesses , barons from Normandy , Brittany , and Flanders , minor French serjeants , and English thegns . The richest magnates held several hundred manors typically spread across England, though some large estates were highly concentrated. For example, Baldwin
7448-406: The river-meadows, woodland, pasture, fisheries (i.e. fishing weirs ), water-mills , salt-pans (if by the sea), and other subsidiary sources of revenue; the peasants are enumerated in their several classes; and finally the annual value of the whole, past and present, is roughly estimated. The organisation of the returns on a feudal basis, enabled the Conqueror and his officers to see the extent of
7546-792: The same kind of tribute to the Swedes . In fact, the Primary Chronicle relates that the regions paying protection money extended east towards Moscow , until the Finnic and Slavic tribes rebelled and drove the Varangians overseas . Similarly, the Sami peoples were frequently forced to pay tribute in the form of pelts. A similar procedure also existed in Iberia , where the contemporary Christian states were largely supported on tribute gold from
7644-536: The separate Reichsannalen called the Annales Mettenses and the Annales Maximiniani , as well as the work of the so-called " Poeta Saxo ". The total sum paid out is unknown, but it was without doubt raised through taxes, as Einhard in his Vita explicitly says: "And the victorious Danes imposed a tribute on the vanquished, by means of taxes one hundred pounds of silver from the Frisians
7742-511: The south-western provinces to buy off the Vikings rather than continue the armed struggle. One manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle said Olav Tryggvason led the Viking forces. In 994 the Danes, under King Sweyn Forkbeard and Olav Tryggvason, returned and laid siege to London. They were once more bought off, and the amount of silver paid impressed the Danes with the idea that it was more profitable to extort payments from
7840-403: The subject of a separate section. A few have separate lists of disputed titles to land called clamores (claims). The equivalent sections in Little Domesday are called Inuasiones (annexations). In total, 268,984 people are tallied in the Domesday Book, each of whom was the head of a household. Some households, such as urban dwellers, were excluded from the count, but the exact parameters remain
7938-526: The sum of the denarii with a great payment of flour and cattle and even wine and beer to the Northman Rodulf, son of Heriold, and to his hirelings. There is also a story told by Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum of how Reginar Langhals was ransomed by his wife in 880 for all the gold in Hainault , but this is probably a legend. The first payment of
8036-412: The survey was completed in 1086. It is not known when exactly Domesday Book was compiled, but the entire copy of Great Domesday appears to have been copied out by one person on parchment (prepared sheepskin), although six scribes seem to have been used for Little Domesday. Writing in 2000, David Roffe argued that the inquest (survey) and the construction of the book were two distinct exercises. He believes
8134-432: The survey's ninth centenary. On this last occasion Great Domesday was divided into two physical volumes, and Little Domesday into three volumes. The project to publish Domesday was begun by the government in 1773, and the book appeared in two volumes in 1783, set in " record type " to produce a partial- facsimile of the manuscript. In 1811, a volume of indexes was added. In 1816, a supplementary volume, separately indexed,
8232-467: The time. In a parallel development, around 1100, the Normans in southern Italy completed their Catalogus Baronum based on Domesday Book. The original manuscript was destroyed in the Second World War , but the text survives in printed editions. The manuscripts do not carry a formal title. The work is referred to internally as a descriptio (enrolling), and in other early administrative contexts as
8330-573: The tribute payments made to the Vikings, prior to the Norman Conquest, are commonly known as Danegeld, the payments were at the time actually called gafol , meaning "tax" or "tribute". In 1012 Æthelred the Unready introduced an annual land tax to pay for a force of Scandinavian mercenaries, led by Thorkell the Tall , to help defend the realm. Following Æthelred the kings of England used the same tax collection method to fund their own standing armies; this
8428-540: The unit was a sulung of four yokes, the amount of land that could be ploughed in a season by a team of oxen; in the north the typical unit was the carucate, or ploughland, equivalent to Kent's sulung; and East Anglia was assessed by the hundred . Everywhere the tax was farmed (collected) by local sheriffs. Records of assessment and income pre-date the Norman conquest, indicating a system which James Campbell describes as "old, but not unchanging". According to David Bates, it
8526-535: Was "a national tax of a kind unknown in western Europe"; indeed, J. A. Green asserts that the national system of land taxation developed to raise the Danegeld was the first to reappear in Western Europe since the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. It was used by William the Conqueror as the principal tool for underwriting continental wars, as well as providing for royal appetites and
8624-447: Was a tax raised to pay tribute or protection money to the Viking raiders to save a land from being ravaged. It was called the geld or gafol in eleventh-century sources. It was characteristic of royal policy in both England and Francia during the ninth through eleventh centuries, collected both as tributary , to buy off the attackers, and as stipendiary , to pay the defensive forces. The term Danegeld did not appear until
8722-655: Was imitating the example set by Charles the Bald in 860, when he hired the Vikings of Weland to attack those encamped on the island of Oscellus in the Seine . Neither the reason for Lothair's payment nor the result is recorded in the only source to mention it, the contemporary Annales Bertiniani : Hlotharius, Hlotharii filius, de omni regno suo quattuor denarios ex omni manso colligens, summam denariorum cum multa pensione farinae atque pecorum necnon vini ac sicerae Rodulfo Normanno, Herioldi filio, ac suis locarii nomine tribuit. Lothair, son of Lothair, collecting from his whole kingdom four denarii from every mansus , allotted
8820-508: Was known as heregeld (army-tax). Heregeld was abolished by Edward the Confessor in 1051. It was the Norman administration who called the tax Danegeld. An English payment of 10,000 Roman pounds (3,300 kg) of silver was first made in 991 following the Viking victory at the Battle of Maldon in Essex, when Æthelred was advised by Sigeric , Archbishop of Canterbury , and the aldermen of
8918-400: Was not one single hide, nor a yard of land, nay, moreover (it is shameful to tell, though he thought it no shame to do it), not even an ox, nor a cow, nor a swine was there left, that was not set down in his writ. And all the recorded particulars were afterwards brought to him. The primary purpose of the survey was to ascertain and record the fiscal rights of the king. These were mainly: After
9016-537: Was preserved from the late 11th to the beginning of the 13th centuries in the royal Treasury at Winchester (the Norman kings' capital). It was often referred to as the "Book" or "Roll" of Winchester. When the Treasury moved to the Palace of Westminster , probably under King John , the book went with it. The two volumes (Great Domesday and Little Domesday) remained in Westminster, save for temporary releases, until
9114-517: Was published containing Photographic facsimiles of Domesday Book, for each county separately, were published in 1861–1863, also by the government. Today, Domesday Book is available in numerous editions, usually separated by county and available with other local history resources. In 1986, the BBC released the BBC Domesday Project , the results of a project to create a survey to mark
9212-433: Was quite probably raised on a local level. In 855 the monks of Redon had to ransom the count, Pascwet , from a similar captivity by handing over a chalice and a paten , weighing together sixty-seven solidi in gold. Sometime later Pascwet managed to redeem the sacred vessels from the pagans, and this payment too may have been raised as a sort of Danegeld. Certainly, according to Regino of Prüm, Pascwet later (in 873) paid
9310-475: Was rebound in 1320, its older oak boards being re-used. At a later date (probably in the Tudor period ) both volumes were given new covers. They were rebound twice in the 19th century, in 1819 and 1869 – on the second occasion, by the binder Robert Riviere and his assistant, James Kew. In the 20th century, they were rebound in 1952, when their physical makeup was examined in greater detail; and yet again in 1986, for
9408-442: Was taxing the Danegeld annually, at two shillings on the hide . That year, according to the chronicle of John of Worcester the king promised to suspend the Danegeld for seven years, a promise renewed by Stephen at his coronation but which was afterwards broken. Henry II revived the Danegeld in 1155–1156, but 1161–1162 marks the last year the Danegeld was recorded on a pipe roll , and the tax fell into disuse. The importance of
9506-573: Was the basis for the land-tax that became known as Danegeld. Initially it was levied as a tribute to buy off Viking invaders but after the Danish Conquest of 1016 it was retained as a permanent land-tax to pay for the realm's defence. The Viking expeditions to England were usually led by the Danish kings , but they were composed of warriors from all over Scandinavia , and they eventually brought home more than 100 tonnes of silver . Although
9604-522: Was to record the annual value of every piece of landed property to its lord, and the resources in land, labour force, and livestock from which the value derived. The name "Domesday Book" came into use in the 12th century. Richard FitzNeal wrote in the Dialogus de Scaccario ( c. 1179) that the book was so called because its decisions were unalterable, like those of the Last Judgment , and its sentence could not be quashed. The manuscript
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