The Domesday Book
The Domesday Book is often the most quoted when it comes to the discussion of English History. However,
in a lot of respects it is an "easy way out" for neophyte historians, and I count myself in the catagory,
and it doesn't help if your region is not mentioned in either of the two books.
The region of the Belchamps is referred to in Little Domesday as Thunderlow for Belchamp Walter and the
region as a whole as Hinkford (various spellings). Little Domesday refers to the whole region as being "held"
by the Canons of St.Paul before Conquest.
Domesday is our most famous and earliest surviving public record. It is a highly detailed survey and
valuation of land holding and resources in late 11th century England. The survey was a massive enterprise,
and the record of that survey, Domesday Book, was a remarkable achievement.
There is nothing like it in England until the censuses of the 19th century.
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Little Domesday is the first draft or ‘circuit summary’ covering the counties of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk.
Because the information from Little Domesday was never entered into Great Domesday, Little Domesday was
kept as the final record for East Anglia.
Another related document, called Exon Domesday, survives at Exeter Cathedral. Most historians believe that
this was the circuit summary for the south-west. The information
from Exon Domesday did get written up into Great Domesday, unlike that in Little Domesday.
