From Crown to Town: The Cost of Being Counted

Following his conquest of England in 1066, William of Normandy had limited knowledge about the true wealth of his new country. Fearful of invasion from opposing Danish forces, William needed funds to fortify his military power. To get the money, he sent his men across the entire realm to each of its shires, appointing sheriffs to divide shires into “hundreds”, with reeves or bailiffs to administer each such hundred. In this methodical manner, he discovered the total amount of wealth his subjects possessed and then taxed away a share of it. Nearly a millennium since King William’s day, governments still rely on quantifying property to generate revenue. This pattern repeats itself in the modern-day United States.

The Historical Impact of Domesdei

William’s survey was not popular with his people. In fact, they believed it was so catastrophic that they nicknamed the record book “Domesdei,” or “Domesday,” after God’s final day of judgment when every soul (or, in this case, parcel of land) would be assessed with no appeal.¹ One of the most popular accounts of Domesday comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle² written by an English monk dwelling in King William’s court, “Then he sent his men all over England into every shire to ascertain how many hundreds of ‘hides’³ of land there were in each shire, and how much land and livestock the king himself owned in each county, and what annual dues were lawfully his from each shire. He also had it recorded how much land his archbishops had, and his diocesan bishops, his abbots and his earls.”⁴ The chronicle goes on to describe William’s census in even more extreme detail, “So very thoroughly did he have the inquiry carried out that there was not a single ‘hide’, not one virgate of land, […] not even one ox, nor one cow, nor one pig which escaped notice in his survey.”⁵

The monk behind the chronicle had reservations and suspicions surrounding the Domesday survey, reflecting the general attitude of the townspeople. He describes it as “shameful to record, but it did not seem shameful for [William] to do.”⁶ And, without a stimulating Keynesian multiplier argument to justify taxing away the wealth of the people,⁷ the survey proved to be even more troubling. Another account of Domesday, discovered in 1907, was written by Robert, Bishop of Hereford, who also expressed the devastating influence the survey had on England, “And the land was vexed with many calamities arising from the collection of the royal money.”⁸