Background to Domesday Book

 

 

From the mid 7th century Mercia, between Northumbria and the Thames, with Surrey, was suzerain over the rest of the southern English, of Kent, the East Angles, the East, South and West Saxons. Only Wessex, itself divided into sub-kingdoms or Shires, sustained resistance, and in 829 Egbert of Wessex wrested suzerainty from the Mercians. But, soon after, the Scandinavian Northmen overran Britain and Ireland and also northern France, where they settled and named Normandy.

 

In England they settled the Dane Law, east of Watling Street (the A5) and the river Lea, basing their armies on fortified Boroughs, each maintained by a large area. They were subdued by Egbert's grandson. Alfred (871-899) and his son Edward (899-925), who built similar Boroughs; Edward's son and grandson, Athelstan and Edgar, annexed Northumbria, heavily settled by Norwegians, and revived the ravaged monasteries.

 

Edgar's son Ethelred faced renewed invasion by the King of Denmark. To buy or fight off the Danes, he levied a tax (geld) on each 'hide', originally 'land for one family', but reckoned in DB at 120 acres, and maintained other imposts, chiefly for the church, on each plough; 5 hides was taken as a usual unit of liability for military service.

 

The assessments of hides and plough capacity were revised at different times in different areas, and in the Dane Law the 'carucate' commonly replaced the hide. About 1008, Mercia was organised in Shires based on Boroughs. But the Danes prevailed, and when Ethelred and his son Edmund Ironside both died in 1016 without adult heirs, the Danish King, Canute, became King of England. Earl (eorl; Scandinavian jarl) became the normal title of regional rulers, formerly termed 'Aldermen'.

 

Canute appointed three great Earls, Siward the Dane (Macbeth's enemy) in Northumbria; Leofric, a Mercian noble, husband of Lady Godiva (died after 1066); and, south of the Thames, Godwin, probably of Sussex, who married his sister-in-law, Gytha. When Canute's sons died childless, Ethelred's son Edward (the Confessor, 1042-1066) returned from exile in Normandy, with Norman friends, one of whom, Ralph, son of his sister Goda, became Earl of Hereford. Edward could not control the Earls, and in the end concentrated on renewing monasteries, especially Westminster.

 

Godwin, backed by popular dislike of the Normans, dominated the government, and married his daughter Edith to the King. He was succeeded by his son Harold in 1053, and Leofric's son Algar succeeded Harold as Earl of East Anglia. Siward died in 1055, and Harold's brother Tosti became Earl of Northumbria.

 

Leofric died in 1057, followed in Mercia by Algar, who died in 1062, succeeded by his son Edwin. Harold's brothers Gyrth and Leofwin became Earls of East Anglia, with Oxford, and of Kent and the Home Counties. But in 1065 the Northumbrians expelled Tosti and chose Edwin's brother Morcar. Siward's son Waltheof became Earl of Huntingdon.

 

King Edward died on 5 January 1066. His nearest relative was a child, Prince Edgar, grandson of Edmund Ironside, but the danger was too great for a child King. The King of Norway, with Tosti, and Duke William of Normandy both threatened invasion. Harold was crowned. He watched the south, but the Norwegian invasion came first, and destroyed the armies of Edwin and Morcar.

 

Harold marched north and annihilated the Norwegian army, but in the meantime William landed. Harold hastened south, but was overwhelmed by William's mailed cavalry and trained archers, at Battle, near Hastings, on 14th October. London briefly resisted in Edgar's name, but with no army left, soon submitted to William, who was crowned at Westminster on christmas Day.

 

At first, the surviving English kept their lands, but a series of rebellions soon destroyed almost all remaining magnates, whose lands passed to Norman successors, and tens of thousands of smaller men, who had formerly 'held freely', were placed under them. Bishops and Abbots were one by one replaced by Normans. England was garrisoned by castles, large, small and tiny. The great Earldoms were discontinued, and by 1086 only two remained, in the borderlands of Cheshire and Shropshire; more were created, in and after 1087/8.

 

Effective local power passed to the King's Sheriffs, most of them changed every few years. In 1084 an exceptionally heavy geld was collected. The King raised a large army of foreign mercenaries, and, to meet a threatened Danish invasion in 1085, billeted them on English landholders, 'each according to his land'. Tax and billeting revealed evidence of out-of-date valuations and disputed claims to land and to exemptions.

 

That experience was a main immediate cause of the Domesday Survey, to discover how much cultivated land there was, what it was worth, and who held it, rightfully or wrongfully.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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