Manuscript(s) Exeter Cathedral Library, MS 3500, arranged and rebound in 1816 Length 552 folios, single column | ||
The Liber Exoniensis or Exon Domesday is a composite land and tax register associated with the Domesday Survey of 1086, covering much of Southwest England. It contains a variety of administrative materials concerning the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire. The sole surviving copy is MS 3500 in the Exeter Cathedral Library.
Contents
The leaves may have been rearranged and rebound in 1816, when the first edition of the volume appeared in print. The original arrangement of the quires cannot be recovered. Five principal types of records can be distinguished:
- The greater part consists of records obtained from the returns of the Domesday Inquest, covering Somerset, Cornwall, Devon (incomplete), Dorset (incomplete) and one entry for Wiltshire. Most entries have identical counterparts in Great Domesday. However, while the Great Domesday entries are organised county by county, Exon has them arranged by landholder.
- Summary accounts of geld, a form of public tax assessed on the hide. Three (A, B and C) are for Wiltshire, while single summaries are included for Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset. For every hundred, the total number of hides is given, and of these, the number of hides that owed geld and those that did not because they were held in demesne by the king or his barons. The text ascribes the collection of geld to an inquisitio geldi (Geld Inquest), which was undertaken around the time of the Inquest, probably in 1086.
- Terre Occupate (or Terrae Occupatae), i.e., lists of lands in Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall that were appropriated, e.g., by illegal means.
- Two lists of hundreds in Somerset, Devon and Cornwall.
- Summaries of fees held by individual tenants-in-chief as well as an index-list of 26 fees.
References
Liber Exoniensis Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA