DOMESDAY BOOK

Domesday Book (doomz-day). The census or survey, ordered by William the Conqueror and

substantially  completed  in  1086,  of  England’s  landholdings, buildings,  people,  and  livestock.  —

Abbr. D.B. — Also spelled Doomsday Book.

“Domesday  Book  had  several  variant  names  —  Liber  de  Wintonia,  Rotulus  Wintoniae,

Scriptura  Thesauri  Regis,  Liber  Regis,  Liber  Judiciarius,  Censualis  Angliae,  Angliae  Notitia  et

Lustratio, Rotulus Regis, Liber  de Thesauro, Exchequer  Domesday….Domesday Book  had as its

main object a fiscal one, and a limited fiscal one at that. Beyond that it does not profess to go, and

if  we  get  any  further  information  from  it  as  to  contemporary  law  and  society,  we  get  it  as  an

indirect  consequence.”  Percy  H.  Winfield,  The  Chief  Sources  of  English  Legal  History  110–11 [Blacks Law 8th]