Domesday Book goes online

Domesday Book goes online www.nationalarchives.gov.uk-domesday. From correspondents in London

August 04, 2006 09:27pm

BRITAIN'S oldest public record, the 920-year-old census known as the Domesday Book, was put on the internet yesterday, allowing readers to browse the nation's greatest archival treasure from the comfort of home.

The Domesday Book details the landholdings and resources that belonged to King William the Conqueror in 1086. It gives a minute record of the wealth of England and the families settled throughout the countryside at that time. On Thursday, the text of the book in the original Latin, along with an English translation, was put online at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk-domesday.

Visitors will be able to search a place name and see the index entry made for the town, city or village.

"It is important that people of all ages should be able to read and use this national treasure," said Adrian Ailes, Domesday expert at the National Archives.

"Everyone can now enter The National Archives' website, discover how and why Domesday was made and read about its enormous importance in history."

The ancient document is thought to have been called "Domesday" - a reference to the biblical day of judgment or "doomsday" - because there would be no appeal from the census takers' rulings.

The book was commissioned in 1085 when England was threatened with invasion from Denmark. To pay for a mercenary army, William needed to know what financial and military resources were available to him. He sent buttessors to more than 13,000 places across the country.

The book was voted the nation's finest treasure in 2005, yet the National Archive which keeps it says that less than 1 per cent of the population has seen the original.

Although 80 percent of Britons have heard of the book, not everyone knows what it is, the archive said, revealing that in a survey 2 per cent of the population thought it was the name of a novel by best-selling author Dan Brown.