Simon Keith, a local amateur historian and author of ‘Surveying the Domesday Book’ tells us about himself. His career as a surveyor has given him a unique perspective on this important, historic work.
“I am a retired Chartered Surveyor and came to live in Retford in 2019. During 2020 in the peace and quiet of the town, I completed ‘Surveying the Domesday Book’. I analysed Domesday using professional knowledge gained over 55 years, in private practice, government, the UN and the World Bank.”
What is the Domesday Book?
“The Domesday Book was compiled for William the Conqueror in 1086. It is a property list: a national survey of 13,000 villages throughout England. King William was a famous tyrant, but had the ruthless power to carry out this enormous task. I consider that its purpose was to establish an accurate record of landowners property and tax paying potential.”
It demonstrated his power and certainly reads like a survey. Who better to interpret a survey than a surveyor? This is how ‘Surveying the Domesday Book’ came about.
“I realised that the assessors and surveyors were my professional ancestors. They used the same skills that I used in my profession. They did a remarkably good job. I salute them. I bring practical experience; all DB literature supposes that the whole task was fully completed between Christmas 1085 and autumn 1086. However, decades in my profession demonstrate that this timetable is logistically impossible. No previous Domes-day authors have had hands-on experience of creating such a property list.
“There is no complete agreement amongst scholars of DB’s purpose. It is a tax document – to facilitate the collection of ‘geld’. The author Maitland (1896) said so; I give clear reasons for my agreement.
“In my book I answer these questions: WHY was DB done, WHAT information did it collect, HOW did it collect and record the answers to more than 250,000 questions posed in 21,000 manors throughout England. That is a lot of work! The English translation is 1,200 pages long, of which Nottinghamshire is 28 pages. It was an enormous logistical task, how would you do it? You have only horses and donkeys for transport and must write everything on parchment with a goose feather pen. Moreover, you will have to speak English and French and sometimes Danish and write the results in Latin.”
Does Retford feature in DB?
“Retford is mentioned only briefly. There is more about Ordsall and Grove and other local villages.
“Future writing in the works are on three subjects. 1. Calculating agricultural population in Anglo-Norman times. It might be that the population was larger then than usually estimated. 2. How much can we learn about woodland management in medieval times? 3. I am greatly interested the 1249 Ely Coucher Book which lists the Bishop of Ely’s manors. It contains useful information about farming and estate management of this land. Also, I will be talking about the Domesday Book at a meeting of the u3a history group in 2025.”
Simon’s book is now available via Amazon and book shops.