Doomesday Box and Book
In December 1085 William the Conqueror commissioned the book to be written. William invaded England in 1066 and defeated them during the Battle of Hastings, where he killed King Alfred with an arrow to his eye. The first draft was completed in August 1086 and contained records for 13,418 settlements in the English counties south of the rivers Ribble and Tees (the border with Scotland at the time). The system of landholding as depicted throughout the Domesday Book was based on a rigid social heirachy called the feudal system which was imposed on England after William took over the country. This is what my heroine is resisting by becoming the Saxon Shadow.
“Dom” in the name is an older form of the modern word “doom.” Today the word is mainly used in a negative sense, but originally it was more neutral and meant essentially “judgement” or “reckoning.” So Domesday meant in the Day of Reckoning. The accounts set down in the Domesday book were considered to be accurate and final, with no possible appeal.
The original Domesday Book has survived over 900 years of English history and is currently housed in a specially made chest at The National Archives in Kew, London. This site has been set up to enable visitors to discover the history of the Domesday Book, to give an insight into life at the time of its compilation, and provide information and links on related topics.
Reference
(1999). Referred by http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/index.html.
