Exeter Cathedral possesses one of the most important manuscripts from medieval England: Exon Domesday was almost certainly presented to William ‘the Conqueror’ at a meeting of his barons at Old Sarum on 1 August 1086. Its core is the immediate source of that magnificent abbreviation ‘the Domesday Book’ (Great Domesday), for the five-south-western counties. It also contains lists, summaries, tax accounts and details of changes to the structure and obligations of manors. It gives more personal and place-names than its successor and it counts animals. Now a large fragment but offering significant proof of the reach and sophistication of the early English state. Its booklets were written at speed by two dozen Francophone scribes whose erasures and corrections together with its content and arrangement provide key evidence for the ‘Domesday Process’.
The Exon Domesday is a unique surviving draft of William the Conqueror’s famous Domesday survey of 1086. It has been at Exeter Cathedral since at least the 14th century. Covering the counties of Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Wiltshire and Somerset, this 1,000-page document gives an extraordinary insight into life – and taxes – in Norman England. […]