1. How could William work out how much land he owned?

2. How did the Domesday Book help William control England?
Key question
How did the Domesday Book help William control England?
The Domesday Book

3. Lesson overview How did William survey the country
What did the commissioners ask?
How did the DB help William?
What does the DB look like?

4. How did William survey the country?
1085, William ordered survey
Commissioners visited 13,000 villages
Interviewed priest, steward & 6 elderly villagers
Soldiers threatened to kill liars
Second visit to check

5. What sorts of questions did the commissioners ask?

6. What did the commissioners ask?
How many people lived there?
Who held the land?
What type of people worked on the land?
How many pigs, sheep & cows did each man own?
How many ploughs?
How many mills & ponds?

7. How did the Domesday Book help William?

8. How did the DB help William?
Tax
Military service
Law & order – especially quarrels over land
A page from the Domesday Book.
What language do you think it is written in?

9. Why was it called the Domesday Book?

10. What does the DB look like?
Domesday – God’s judgement
One Winchester monk copied up findings
Wrote on parchment
1000 sheep needed to make book
The Domesday Book

11.  Your task
Choose 4 commissioners and 2 soldiers from the class. The rest will work in pairs as peasants!
While the commissioners prepare their questions, the peasants must agree in their pair upon their answer to Domesday Survey type questions, e.g. how many ponds there are in the village, how many ploughs, who owns the land etc.
After 10 minutes order the peasants to be silent! And then select a pair to interrogate. Send one of the pair outside and then the commissioners can ask their survey questions, e.g. how many people live in the village, how many ponds are there etc? You may want to ask the peasants to swear an oath to be truthful on the Bible! Call in the second peasant when the commissioners have finished and ask them same questions. If there are any major differences in their stories then it is off with their heads!

12. Your task Imagine you are either a farmer or a lord of the manor
Write a letter to King William I to tell him about the royal investigators who have just carried out the Domesday survey in your village, and how you feel about the survey.
Use the extra sheet as well to give you more information if possible.

13. Letter to King William: expectations
Everyone must include…
For even better work, also include …
WOW factor! For excellent work you could also include…
How the survey was carried out (investigators, questions etc)
Description about your reaction to the survey and why
Specific examples of what the investigators found out about in your village
How and why this is a big change for people in England
How William would gain from this, and why that might be unpopular
Examples of other people who may have had a different view than you about the survey and why

14. Red, Amber, or Green? I have only done the minimum for the task and
could have pushed myself further
I have done reasonably well at achieving as
much as I could, but perhaps there is still room
to challenge myself even more next time
I have tried my hardest on this task and
achieved as much as I could