Not quite twenty years after his coronation William ordered a survey
and valuation to be made of the whole realm outside of London. The
only exceptions were certain border counties on the north were war had
left little to record save heaps of ruins and ridges of grass-grown
graves (S109).
The returns of that survey were known as Domesday or Doomsday Book.
The English people said this name was given to it, because, like the
Day of Doom, it spared no one. It recorded every piece of property
and every particular concerning it. As the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle"
(S46) indignantly declared, "not a rood of land, not a peasant's hut,
not an ox, cow, pig, or even a hive of bees escaped."
While the report showed the wealth of the country, it also showed thje
suffering it had passed through in the revolts against William. Many
towns had fallen into decay. Some were nearly depopulated. IN Edward
the Confessor's reign (S65) York had 1607 houses; at the date of the
survey it had but 967, while Oxford, which had had 721 houses, had
then only 243.
The census and assessment proved of the highest importance to William
and his successors. The people indeed said bitterly that the King
kept to book constantly by him, in order "that he might be able to see
at any time of how much more wool the English flock would bear
fleecing." The object of the work, however, was not to extort money,
but to present a full and exact report of the financial and military
resources of the kingdom which might be directly available for revenue
and defense.