DOOMSDAY or DOMESDAY BOOK, the record of a statistical survey of England, made by royal authority in the reign of William the Conqueror. The origin of the name has been much disputed. Popularly it has often been associated with the final day of judgment. There was a doom-book or dom-boc (q.v.) com posed in the reign of King Alfred, which con tained a collection of the laws and customs of the kingdom, and the doomsday book is con jectured to have taken its name from the fact of its containing the authoritative data on which legal decisions in regard to land and other collateral property were to be given. The gen eral survey of the kingdom was ordered at Christmas 1085, and completed in the following year. It was made by commissioners appointed by the king, who collected the particulars at inquests from a sworn jury, consisting of sheriffs, lords of manors, presbyters, bailiffs, villains; all the classes, in short, interested in the matter. The information collected consisted in specifications of the extent of land in each district, their proprietors, tenure and value; the state of culture, namely, the quantity of meadow, pasture, wood and arable land; in some counties the number of tenants, villains, cotarii and servi; even the sheep and cattle on the different estates were taken, but these were not entered in the permanent record.
Northumberland and Durham were omitted and the northern part of Cumberland and of West moreland. The original 'Doomsday Book' is preserved in the record office. It consists of two volumes; one folio, one quarto. The re publication of this valuable record was under taken in 1767 and completed in 1783. Perfect facsimiles of the whole book in photozincog raphy have also been made.
Taxes were levied on the basis of the dooms day book until 1522, when as a result of another survey, the 'New Doomsday Book' was com piled. 'The Victoria County History) gives a translation of the old doomsday text for each county with a commentary and map.
Consult Ballard, 'The Doomsday (Oxford 1904) ; and 'The Doomsday Inquiry' (London 1906) ; Ellis, H., 'General Introduction to Domesday Book) (2 vols., ib. 1833) ; Mait land, F. W., 'Domesday Book and Beyond' (ib. 1897) ; Round, J. H., 'Feudal England' (ib. 1895) ; Vinogradoff, 'Villainage in England' (ib. 1892).