NARRATOR:The year is 1085, life in Britain is changing. Invasions have come and gone for centuries, and different Kings rule the separate parts of Britain. Malcolm III in Scotland.
NARRATOR:Princes in different parts of Wales.
NARRATOR:And William the Conqueror has been King of England for nearly 20 years.
NARRATOR:The King has let the people of England know he’s in charge by brutally crushing rebellions in the North. But what about invasions from abroad?
NORMAN COURTIER:My Lord, I fear there will be more attacks from overseas.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR:Huh! What should be done?
NORMAN COURTIER:A survey of the kingdom is needed my Lord, to find out how much you can raise in taxes and how many people you have for an army.
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR:Very well. I want every free man, every slave, every farm, fishery, mill, pig and plough, everything to be counted at once.
NARRATOR:The King's orders have to be carried out throughout the land.
NARRATOR:Special people known as Commissioners are sent all over England to collect information the King wants. This has to be written down, so a record can be kept.
NORMAN FATHER:Alright everyone, I’ve got to go and survey the land and its people. We have to record who lives where and what they have.
NORMAN BOY:Well that don’t sound very interesting.
NORMAN FATHER:Well it’ll be very interesting for the King when he finds out just what he owns and how much money he has.
NORMAN MOTHER:How long will you be gone?
NORMAN FATHER:Some months, it’s a big task.
NORMAN GRANDDAD:I don’t like the sound of this new survey. Sounds like King William is just out to get his hands on more money. I will never forgive him for how he treated our people.
NORMAN BOY:Why? What did he do?
NORMAN GRANDDAD:Well the King came with a big army to stop the people rebelling in the North. They tried to make it impossible for people to live there. They burnt our homes and crops and destroyed our farm animals.
They even ploughed salt into the field so that food wouldn’t grow, and took land from us Anglo Saxons and gave it to his Norman Barons and Bishops. And I was lucky and I managed to run away. But many people died from starvation.
NORMAN BOY:But if the Normans own this land then how come we still live here?
NORMAN GRANDDAD:We have to rent it and pay the Lord, by working for him and giving him food, which reminds me, you have to take these eggs to him.
NARRATOR:The job of the survey is to discover and list exactly who owns what.
NORMAN FATHER:We’ve come to find out what you have on your land for the King’s great survey.
NORMAN LANDOWNER:I have written down what I have.
MONK:This will be double checked at the Great Assembly to make sure the information you’ve given is true.
NARRATOR:Over the months, the Commissioners learned that the country isn’t all equally wealthy. Some areas are devastated.
MONK:This is a wasteland, there’s nothing here.
NORMAN FATHER:Perhaps the King should have thought about this before he burnt it all down and made the land infertile.
NARRATOR:But they also find that much of the country is well off.
NORMAN LORD:On my Manor I have 26 farmers with 20 ploughs between them, and eight slaves, two mills and 120 sheep.
MONK:Yes, that’s what’s written down here.
NORMAN FATHER:And er, how many geese do you say you have?
NORMAN PEASANT:Six sir.
NARRATOR:The information that the Commissioners gather is written in Latin by Monks known as ‘Scribes’, into what becomes called, ‘The Domesday Book’.
NARRATOR:Dom means judgement in old English, and the people feel that they are being examined, counted and judged, just like on God’s final judgement day.
NORMAN COURTIER:The Domesday Book my Lord.
WILLIAM THE CONQUERORAt last, now it is written down, it is law, now I know everything. Who owns what, where they live, what they are worth to me.
NARRATOR:And now the Domesday survey is finished, the Commissioners can finally return to their own towns and villages.
NARRATOR:Back home there’s at least one new arrival.
NORMAN BOY:Daddy's home.
NORMAN GIRL:Dad’s home.
NORMAN FATHER:We’ve counted everything, everything!
NORMAN MOTHER:Here’s something that you haven’t counted.
NARRATOR:Time passes and new people arrive. New ideas begin and old ideas fade. But while some things change, some remain the same.
NARRATOR:People just like us living their lives here in Britain.
Video summary
An exploration of life post-1066, the rule of King William and the compilation of the Domesday Book.
Faced with the threat of foreign invasion, King William wants to know how much tax he can raise, so sets out to record every person, every manor and every animal in his country.
The process of collecting the data is explained.
This is from the series: The Story of Britain
Teacher Notes
Could be used to introduce the concept of the Domesday Book and start discussions on how it was used then and today.
Why did William make the Domesday Book? What information is contained in the Domesday Book?
Students can be encouraged to look at the online version of the Domesday Book for a place near them and see what they can learn from it about their local area.
This clip will be suitable for teaching History at KS2 in England and Wales and KS1 and KS2 in Northern Ireland.
Also Early 1st and 2nd Level in Scotland.
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