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Exon Domesday
About 1086
At Christmas 1085, King William I, known as William the Conqueror, ordered a survey of people and property in England. The country was divided into several regions, excluding the far north. In January 1086, royal officials travelled to every region to record in meticulous detail the names of landowners, the taxable value of their lands, and the wealth of resources on their estates, including the precise numbers of labourers and even animals – every sheep, pig and goat. The survey became known as the Domesday Inquest.
In late 1086 and early 1087, administrators collated the reports from each region to produce a final version, the Great Domesday Book - the country’s oldest official public record, now housed at The National Archives. Remarkably, Exon Domesday is the only surviving regional report. It covers the whole south-west region, including Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and parts of Wiltshire, and was written in a highly abbreviated form of Latin by two dozen scribes. Exon Domesday is a vital link in the Domesday process; comprising 103 booklets, it contains much unique information that was not copied across into the Great Domesday Book.
How and why Exon Domesday survived is unclear. An early 12th-century bishop of Exeter, who perhaps had worked in the king’s service, probably recovered the manuscript and brought it to the Cathedral, intending to use it in the administration of his diocese . Today, Exon Domesday offers a fascinating glimpse of the politics, society, and landscape of the south-west a thousand years ago.