King commissions a shire-by-shire survey of England
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Ingram/Giles translation) records under 1085 that after a large meeting and deep consultation with his council about how the land was occupied, the king sent his men into each shire of England, commissioning them to find out how many hundreds of hides were in the shire, what land and stock the king himself had there, and what dues he ought to have from the shire each year.
What this does and does not establish
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a monastic chronicle, used here through the 19th-century English translation of Ingram/Giles (Old English not checked); this records what the Chronicle says, not independent confirmation. The passage follows the king's midwinter court at Gloucester, so the commission may belong to the turn of 1085/1086 by modern reckoning. The Chronicle passage itself does not name the resulting record; the translator's note 110 (attached to a passage under 1087) calls that later passage "an evident allusion to the compilation of Doomsday book, already described in A.D. 1085", which is the translator's identification, not the Chronicle's words.
- Quoted from a published English translation, not from the original-language text.
- Region
- Europe
- Theme
- Politics and institutions
- Kind of record
- Placed in a year. A source places this in one year. It is listed under that year; no day precision is invented.
How it is dated
- Date reference
- A.D. 1085.
- How we use it
- Placed in the year under which the Chronicle enters it. For events near the turn of the year this may differ from the modern calendar year, and some annals in the Chronicle are known to be dislocated.
The date reference is this project’s reading of the source’s date. It may give an era name, a reign or a calendar in a normalised form rather than in the source’s own words; the dating notes say what the source prints.
Dating notes from the research record
The year is the heading under which this translation of the Chronicle enters the passage; the Chronicle's own year-beginning (Christmas, Annunciation or September, varying by manuscript) is not converted.
File names and line numbers in these notes, and in the limits above, refer to the project’s retained copies of the cited sources. Names such as calendar_headers are the project’s calendar look-ups, and “the investigator” is the research step that prepared the record.
Sources and quoted text
Line and character numbers under “Location” refer to the project’s retained copy of the source. For database rows, “Edition” names the batch of rows that was fetched together.
Source 1 · Supports the statement
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (English translation by J. Ingram, with J. A. Giles)
Anonymous Anglo-Saxon chroniclers; translated by James Ingram (1823) and J. A. Giles (1847)
Published English translation, as quoted
After this had
the king a large meeting, and very deep consultation with his
council, about this land; how it was occupied, and by what sort
of men. Then sent he his men over all England into each shire;
commissioning them to find out "How many hundreds of hides were
in the shire, what land the king himself had, and what stock upon
the land; or, what dues he ought to have by the year from the
shire."Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Source: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, tr. J. Ingram and J. A. Giles, Project Gutenberg eBook #657. Wording is a 19th-century translation; the Chronicle's year headings follow its own reckoning.
Exact source version
29fd0af2fcddbade6ab661734fa77c2d8fdd938b0ff3a639bdfc2c757cceb134Source 2 · Context for reading it
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (English translation by J. Ingram, with J. A. Giles)
Anonymous Anglo-Saxon chroniclers; translated by James Ingram (1823) and J. A. Giles (1847)
Published English translation, as quoted
(110) An evident allusion to the compilation of Doomsday book,
already described in A.D. 1085.Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Source: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, tr. J. Ingram and J. A. Giles, Project Gutenberg eBook #657. Wording is a 19th-century translation; the Chronicle's year headings follow its own reckoning.
Exact source version
29fd0af2fcddbade6ab661734fa77c2d8fdd938b0ff3a639bdfc2c757cceb134Checks and changes
Source checked 2026-11-04. An independent AI evidence review supports this bounded, attributed wording. That review does not guarantee historical truth. How records are checked
No correction has been made to this record’s statement or limits.
Revision s1p_1085_asc_1
Exact revision fingerprint
a34d2b7bbde50ded89a697b91341dc35b98c65a8e608f9ff297057500a1e186c