land in the country, (1) at the time of King Edward’s death, (2) when the new owners received it, (3) at the time of the survey, and further, it reckoned, by command, the potential value as well. It is evident that William desired to know the financial resources of his kingdom, and probable that he wished to compare them with the existing assessment, which was one of considerable antiquity, though there are traces that it had been occasionally modified. The great bulk of Domesday Book is devoted to the somewhat arid details of the assessment and valuation of rural estates, which were as yet the only important source of national wealth. After stating the assessment of the manor, the record sets forth the amount of arable land, and the number of plough-teams (each reckoned at eight oxen) available for working it, with the additional number (if any) that might be employed; then the river-meadows, woodland, pasture, fisheries (i.e. weirs in the streams), water-mills, saltpans (if by the sea) and other subsidiary sources of revenue; the peasants are enumerated in their several classes; and finally the annual value of the whole, past and present, is roughly estimated. It is obvious that, both in its values and in its measurements, the survey’s reckoning is very crude.
Apart from the wholly rural portions, which constitute its bulk, Domesday contains entries of interest concerning most of the towns, which were probably made because of their bearing on the fiscal rights of the crown therein. These include fragments of custumals, records of the military service due, of markets, mints, and so forth. From the towns, from the counties as wholes, and from many of its ancient lordships, the crown was entitled to archaic dues in kind, such as honey. The information of most general interest found in the great record is that on political, personal, ecclesiastical and social history, which only occurs sporadically and, as it were, by accident. Much of this was used by E. A. Freeman for his work on the Norman Conquest. Although unique in character and of priceless value to the student, Domesday will be found disappointing and largely unintelligible to any but the specialist. Even scholars are unable to explain portions of its language and of its system. This is partly due to its very early date, which has placed between it and later records a gulf that is hard to bridge.
But in the Dialogus de scaccario (temp. Hen. II.) it is spoken of as a record from the arbitrament of which there was no appeal (from which its popular name of “Domesday” is said to be derived). In the middle ages its evidence was frequently invoked in the law-courts; and even now there are certain cases in which appeal is made to its testimony. To the topographer, as to the genealogist, its evidence is of primary importance; for it not only contains the earliest survey of a township or manor, but affords in the majority of cases the clue to its subsequent descent. The rearrangement, on a feudal basis, of the original returns (as described above) enabled the Conqueror and his officers to see with ease the extent of a baron’s possessions; but it also had the effect of showing how far he had enfeoffed “under-tenants,” and who those under-tenants were. This was of great importance to William, not only for military reasons, but also because of his firm resolve to make the under-tenants (though the “men” of their lords) swear allegiance directly to himself. As Domesday normally records only the Christian name of an under-tenant, it is vain to seek for the surnames of families claiming a Norman origin; but much has been and is still being done to identify the under-tenants, the great bulk of whom bear foreign names.
Domesday Book was originally preserved in the royal treasury at Winchester (the Norman kings’ capital), whence it speaks of itself (in one later addition) as Liber de Wintonia. When the treasury was removed to Westminster (probably under Henry II.) the book went with it. Here it remained until the days of Queen Victoria, being preserved from 1696 onwards in the Chapter House, and only removed in special circumstances, as when it was sent to Southampton for photozincographic reproduction. It was eventually placed in the Public Record Office, London, where it can be seen in a glass case in the museum. In 1869 it received a modern binding. The ancient Domesday chest, in which it used to be kept, is also preserved in the building.
The printing of Domesday, in “record type,” was begun by government in 1773, and the book was published, in two volumes fol. in 1783; in 1811 a volume of indexes was added, and in 1816 a supplementary volume, separately indexed, containing (1) the “Exon Domesday” (for the south-western counties), (2) the Inquisitio Eliensis, (3) the Liber Winton (surveys of Winchester early in the 12th century), and (4) the Boldon Book—a survey of the bishopric of Durham a century later than Domesday. Photographic facsimiles of Domesday Book, for each county separately, were published in 1861–1863, also by government.
Bibliography.—The following are the more important works to be consulted:—R. Kelham, Domesday Book, illustrated (1788); H. Ellis, General Introduction to Domesday Book (1833), 2 vols., containing valuable indexes to the names of persons; N. E. S. A. Hamilton, Inquisitio Cantabrigiensis (1876), containing the only transcripts of the original returns and the text of the Inquisitio Eliensis; E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, vols. iv. and v.; F. Seebohm, The English Village Community (1883); Domesday Studies, 2 vols. (1888, 1891), on the occasion of the Domesday Commemoration (1886), by various writers, with bibliography to date; J. H. Round, Feudal England (1895); F. W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond (1897); P. Vinogradoff, Villainage in England (1892) and Growth of the Manor; A. Ballard, The Domesday Boroughs (1904) and The Domesday Inquest (1906), an excellent summary; W. H. Stevenson, “A contemporary description of the Domesday Survey” in The English Historical Review (the general index to which should be consulted) (1907). The Victoria County History contains a translation of the Domesday text, a map, and an explanatory introduction for each county. (J. H. R.)
DOMESTIC RELATIONS, a term used to express the legal relations subsisting between the various units that comprise the family or domestic group. Those units which go to build up the domestic structure of modern society are parent, child, husband, wife, master and servant. The law which deals with the various relations subsisting between them is made up largely of the law of agency, of contract and of tort. See Husband and Wife; Master and Servant; Children, Law relating to; Infant.
DOMETT, ALFRED (1811–1887), British colonial statesman and poet, was born at Camberwell Grove, Surrey, on the 20th of May 1811. He entered St John’s College, Cambridge, but left the university in 1833. He published one or two volumes of poetry and contributed several poems to Blackwood’s Magazine, one of which, “A Christmas Hymn,” attracted much admiring attention. For ten years he lived a life of ease in London, where he became the intimate friend of Robert Browning, of whose poem “Waring” he was the subject. An interesting account of the friendship between the two men appeared in The Contemporary Review for January 1905, by W. H. Griffin. (See also Robert Browning and Alfred Domett, edited by F. G. Kenyon, 1906). In 1842 Domett emigrated to New Zealand where he filled many important administrative posts, being colonial secretary for New Munster in 1848, secretary for the colony in 1851, and prime minister in 1862. He returned to England in 1871, was created C.M.G. in 1880, and died on the 2nd of November 1887. Among his books of poetry, Ranolf and Amohia, a South Sea Day Dream, is the best known (1872), and Flotsam and Jetsam (1877) is dedicated to Browning.
DOMFRONT, a town of north-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Orne, 43 m. W.N.W. of Alençon by rail. Pop. (1906) of the town, 2215; of the commune, 4663. The town, which is picturesquely situated on a bluff overlooking the Varenne, has a church, Notre-Dame-sur-l’Eau, dating from the 11th century. In the middle ages it was one of the chief strongholds in Normandy, and there still remain several towers of its ramparts, and ruins of the keep of its castle built in 1011, rebuilt in the 12th century by Henry II., king of England, and dismantled at the end of the 16th century. The town is the seat of a sub-prefect, and has a tribunal of first instance and a communal college. Cloth is manufactured, and there are granite quarries in the vicinity. Domfront is said to have grown up in the 6th century round the oratory of the hermit St Front, and played an important part in the wars against the
