Wanstead in the Domesday Book

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LOCAL HISTORY

Wanstead in the Domesday Book

The Domesday Book is a survey of England compiled in 1086-7, and is an endlessly rich source of historical material. It has been in official custody since its creation, and is celebrated now as the first of the public records.

Initially known as the King's Book, or the Great Book of Winchester (where it was first kept in the royal treasury), it took its current name, meaning 'the book of the day of judgement', as early as the twelth century. Commissioned by William the Conquerer in 1085, some twenty years after after his conquest of the country, it is an astonishing record of of the country's resources, and the division of those resources between the King and the lords to whom he had granted them.

The historic text of the book consists of two volumes, known as Great Domesday, describing 31 counties between the Channel and the Tees, and Little Domesday, covering Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk. Little Domesday contains references to livestock and details the sheep, pigs and cows in each county, whereas the Great Domesday volume does not extend so far, maybe because at the time such a large quantiy of material was too dense to manage.

Wenesteda
Wanstead appears in Little Domesday, as Wenesteda, listed as Land of the Bishop of London. The following excerpt is taken from Penguin's Translation, Domesday Book:

"St Paul held Wanstead; now Ralph fitzBrian [holds it] of the bishop as 1 manor and 1 hide. [There was] then 1 plough in demesne; now 1&half. Then as now the men [had] 2 ploughs and [there are] 3 villans. [There were] then 7 bordars; now 8. [There were] then 2 slaves; now none. [There is] woodland for 300 pigs. [There is] now 1 mill. Then as now [there was] 1 salt-pan and it is worth 40s."

Wanstead in 1086
It lists Wanstead as being one manor, or estate. And in terms of taxable land, it was declared as one hide, the standard unit of assessment for English land tax at the time, especially for the Geld, or Danegeld, which was an English national tax originally levied by the Danish King Elthelred II, the Unready, as a payment to prevent Danish raids on England. The unpopular tax was abolished in 1051 by Edward the Confessor, but was re-established by Willam the Conqueror immediately after his accession to the throne.

The term 'plough' indicates an estimation of the arable capacity of a manor in terms of the number of eight-ox plough teams required to work it, and may have been used to assess the dues required from the estate. The fact that the plough was recorded as 'demesne' tells us that the produce from the arable land was for the Lord's users and not his tenants, i..e. crops from this land was for the Lords own consumption or to him to sell. It appears that the tenants of the manor had two ploughs of arable land for their own purposes.

There were 3 villans in Wanstead at the time of this survey. A villan was a peasant of higher economic status than others - it seems that there must have been a class system within the peasants themselves, as the book refers to and differentiates between villans, bordars and cotsets - and would usually live in a village. Bordars were villagers, or cottagers, the name coming from the old french word borde, a small wooden hut.

The mill would most likely have been a water mill - the windmill did not appear in England for at least a century after the Domesday Book was compiled - and probably used for grinding corn. There was evidently also a salt pan in use in the area, worth forty shillings.

Domesday Book - A Complete Translation

For anyone interested in reading more, you can find Penguin's complete translation of the Domesday Book at most bookshops and online booksellers such as Amazon or WH Smith.

It is a fascinating read, and by their own claim, it is the first time the texts have been published in one single volume.

The translation was first published by Alecto Historical Editions in 1992, and published in hardback by Penguin in 2002. Edited by Dr. Ann Williams and Professor G. H. Martin.