Domesday Day Book for Cliffe Kent - Cliffe History

Domesday Book, our earliest public record, is a rare and remarkable survey which details landholding and resources in late eleventh-century England. No other Western European state produced anything even broadly comparable in its scope until several centuries later. In its sophistication and in the comprehensiveness of its information*, Domesday Book remained unequalled until the nineteenth century. Moreover, the wealth of information that it contains illuminates one of the most crucial times in our history: the conquest and settlement of England by William I and his Norman and northern French followers.

Nevertheless, it could not have been made without the comparatively advanced administrative system that William inherited from his Anglo-Saxon predecessors. By the year 1000 AD most of England was already divided into the network of shires that was to persist with relatively little alteration until the reorganization of the county boundaries in 1974.

During the last years of his reign William’s power was threatened from a number of quarters. Hie North was chronically rebellious, and in 1085, King Canute of Denmark and King Olaf of Norway gathered a great fleet of ships and made preparations for an invasion.

The invasion did not materialize, but such a large and costly exercise may have indicated to the Conqueror the need to reassess Danegeld in order to maximize the revenue, and the value of knowing, in as much detail as possible, precisely what his subjects possessed in England. A reassessment of geld was therefore set in motion and took place at about the same time as the Domesday survey (it only survives for the south-western counties), but this was not, as many Victorian historians believed, the principal object of the exercise. Domesday is far more than just a fiscal record. It is a detailed statement of lands held by the king and by his tenants and of the resources which went with those lands.

* Contary to general belief the Domesday survey did not cover everything in the kingdom. Quite often, for various reasons, churches were not always included e.g. in Kent there were over 400 churches but less than half were recorded in the Domesday Book. 

One of the most important near-contemporary accounts of the making of the Domesday survey is that of the Anglo-Saxon chronicler. He tells us that at his 1085 Christmas court at Gloucester William had much thought and very deep discussion about this country—how it was occupied or with what sorts of people.

This passage hints at the dismay and apprehension later expressed in the naming of the survey as Domesday, because of the association with the Day of Judgement, that terrible verdict against which there was no appeal.

Another important description of the survey was written within a few years of its completion by Robert, Bishop of Hereford, one of the ecclesiastics whom William had brought to England. The king’s men, he wrote,

Here we are given invaluable clues about when and how the inquiries were undertaken and, in recent years, most historians have come to agree on the general outlines of this vast operation. There were already earlier lists of lands and taxes in existence, some dating from the Anglo-Saxon period, others from after 1066, which were kept both in the principal royal city of Winchester and locally in the shires. They too were drawn upon for the survey. All of England, apart from the northern counties, which were not yet firmly under Norman control, was divided into seven circuits. The final circuit to be completed was that the Eastern, which consisted of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, some of the most populous counties of England. This final circuit was never included in the Great Domesday Book but as a supplement known as Little Domesday Book.

The Domesday account of Kent contains peculiarities. Only in Kent is the sulung which is divided into four yokes the unit of land assessment.

• Sulungs = the sulung was both a unit of assessment and a peasant landholding unit, found only in Kent. Like the corresponding units in other counties, the sulung was derived from the vocabulary of ploughing, sulh being the Old English word ...for a plough. The sulung appears normally to have been twice the area of the customary hide or carucate, approximately 240 acres.
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  The yoke was both a unit of assessment and a peasant landholding unit, found only in Kent. Like the corresponding units in other counties, the yoke was derived from the vocabulary of ploughing, the yoke being the term of each of the four paired-oxen which composed the standard plough team. The yoke was therefore a quarter of the Kentish plough, the sulh, approximately 60 acres.

  
  

It is usually assumed that the sulung was larger than the more common hide, but it probably also represented the amount of land on which one family could live for one year. Administratively the shire was divided into hundreds as were most English shires. But in Kent the hundreds were grouped into seven lathes. East Kent had the lathes of Wye, Borough, Lympne and Eastry. West Kent had Aylesford and the half-lathes of Milton and Sutton. The lathes continued to be the basis of Kentish local government until the 1974 Local Government Reorganization.

All the original entries in the Domesday Book were written in 11th century clerical Latin, so stylised and abbreviated that it is beyond the scope of a graduate in Latin, without special training.

During the Victorian period many different translations were made which varied greatly in reliability which led to great confusion to students of history.

It was not until 1968, under the leadership of Dr. John Morris, that an accepted translation was agreed. The first county volumes appeared in print in 1975.

The Cliffe entries are shown below, both as the whole page and individual entries.

Philip Morgan

In common with other counties a number of Domesday-like texts survive for Kent which appear to bear some relation to Domesday itself. The most notable are the Domesday Monachorum of Christ Church, Canterbury, a Domesday-like account of some ecclesiastical estates, with a different order and different information to Domesday; and an eleventh-century Inquisition of St Augustine's, Canterbury, commonly referred to as the Excerpta, which likewise contains information presented in the fashion of Domesday and refers to the Survey in its own heading. Both texts omit much of the manorial detail to be found in Domesday .

The Domesday Monachorum is in reality a group of four texts, only one of which is claimed as a Domesday satellite. The manuscript survives in a hand of c.1100 but is itself a copy of an earlier document, which its editor, David Douglas, argues was compiled in 1087 from the original returns of the Domesday Survey. It has more recently been argued (by Hoyt, 'Pre-Domesday Kentish Assessment List'), that part at least of another text is an assessment list independent of and earlier than the Domesday Survey itself.

The Excerpta survives only in an emended thirteenth-century copy but is derived from an independent compilation made in or before 1087. This compilation is likewise argued to have been based on the information of the original returns. The thirteenth-century heading of the document refers both to the 'King's Domesday' and to an 'account of the sulungs of the County of Kent', perhaps an assessment list of the kind which appears as part of the Domesday Monachorum.

In recent years the significance of these texts and of the Kent folios in general has assumed a great importance in the debate dealing with the making of Domesday Book. In outline the debate revolves around the question as to whether such texts as the Excerpta and Domesday Monachorum are to be seen as products of the Domesday Survey itself, which is the conclusion of the editors of both texts, or else as part of the framework of Anglo-Norman governance to which the Domesday Survey was the immediate heir. An account of the major theories is to be found inGalbraith, Making of Domesday Book, pp. 146-155; Galbraith, Domesday Book: Its Place in Administrative History; Harvey, 'Domesday Book and its Predecessors'; Harvey, 'Domesday Book and Anglo-Norman Governance'.

The archbishop himself holds CLIFFE. It is assessed at 3 ½ sulungs. There is land for 6 ploughs. In demesne are 1 ½ ploughs; and 20 villans with 18 bordars have 5 ½ ploughs. There is a church, and 2 slaves, and 36 acres of meadow, [and] woodland rendering 12d. TRE the whole manor was worth 6l ; and afterwards 7l ; and now 16l.

The same Ernulf holds 'HAVEN' [in Frindsbury] of the bishop. It is assessed at 3 yokes. There is land for 1 plough, and there is [1 plough] in demesne; and 6 villans with 1 bordar have 1 plough. There are 6 acres of meadow. TRE, and afterwards, it was worth 50s ; now 60s. Osweard held it of King Edward.

As can be seen, Cliffe was still of great importance towards the end of the 11th century.

Who were these people named in the Domesday Book?

In 1042 he became a monk at the Abbey of Bec. An outstanding biblical scholar, Lanfranc became Prior of the Abbey of Bec in 1045. He opened a school in the monastery and was soon attracting scholars from France, Gascony, Brittany, Flanders, Germany and Italy. This included Anselm, the future Archbishop of Canterbury.

Lanfranc established a reputation as one of the world's most important biblical scholars. In 1053 he came into conflict with William the Conqueror over his disapproval of the duke's marriage to Matilda of Flanders. William ordered Lanfranc to leave Normandy but the two men were later reconciled.

In 1063 William the Conqueror appointed Lanfranc as Abbott of St. Stephen's in Caen. Three years later he played an important role in persuading Pope Alexander II to support the Norman invasion of England.

On the death of Maurilius in 1067 Lanfranc was asked to become Archbishop of Rouen. He refused and instead became William's representative in Rome. In 1070 Lanfranc replaced Stigand as Archbishop of Canterbury. Over the next few years he rebuilt Canterbury Cathedral on the model of St. Stephen's in Caen.

Lanfranc ordered that in future no married man was to be ordained as a priest. However, he allowed existing priests to keep their wives.

Lanfranc came into conflict with the Odo of Bayeux concerning the ownership of land in Kent. Geoffrey of Coutances ruled in Lanfranc's favour and the lands were returned to the Church.

Lanfranc crowned William Rufus king on 26th September, 1087. The following year he supported the new king against the attempts by some Normans, including , Robert of Mortain, Richard Fitz Gilbert, William Fitz Osbern and Geoffrey of Coutances, to place Robert Curthose on the throne.

Lanfranc died in Canterbury on 24th May, 1089.

As for the others: those holding lands after the conquest, it would probably take far too long but a brief listing of their holdings is shown below.