1086 - Domesday / Doomsday Book
Background to the book
The "Domesday Book" (aka "Doomsday Book") is a record of the Great Survey of England and parts of Wales, completed in 1086 for King William I (aka William the Conqueror), to better understand who owned or lived on the land, its value, and hence what land tax was due to the King.
Entry for this Manor
Domesday book entry for the manor
The National Archives, E31/2/2
For this manor (effectively the parish, but with a strip extending down to the River Nene), the entry translates as -
"In Chelveston and Caldecott - 1 hide and 3 virgates. There is land for 3 ploughs. 6 sokemen have these there, and 3 acres of meadow".
A hide = 120 acres and a virgate = 30 acres, and the number of ploughs is referring to the taxable amount of land that can be ploughed by a team of eight oxen. Meadow refers to land bordering streams and rivers, which could be used for haymaking and grazing.
A sokeman was a class of tenant, between a freeman and bondsman. They owned and paid taxes on their land themselves. They could buy and sell their land, but owed service to their lord's soke (court). They provided their lords with money (rents) and court attendance, rather than the manorial labour of a bondsman.
William Peverel (the Elder) was the lord of the manor, and also Tenant-in Chief (i.e. he held lands directly from the King). He appears to have been a favourite of the King (some sources suggest he was an illegitimate son) and received many manors as a reward for his service in the Norman Conquest of 1066. The 1086 survey records William Peverel as holding 162 manors, particularly in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
Domesday plaque
In 1987 the Parish Council agreed to purchase a Domesday Plaque to commemorate 900 years of the book and this parish's entry in it. It hangs in the porch of the parish church.
The Domesday plaque celebrating 900 years (1986)
which hangs in the porch of St John the Baptist church.