On the other had, the King seized a tract of over sixty thousand acres in Hampshire for a hunting ground, which he named the New Forest.[1] It was said that William destroyed many churches and estates in order to form this forest, but these accounts appear to have been greatly exaggerated.  The real grievance was not so much the appropriation of the land, which was sterile and of little value, but it was the enactment of the savage Forest Laws.  These ordinances made he life of a stag of more value than that of a man, and decreed that anyone found hunting the royal deer should have both eyes torn out (S205).

[1] Forest:  As here used, this does not mean a region covered with woods, but simply a section of country, partially wooded and suitable for game, set apart as a royal park or hunting ground.  As William made his residence at Winchester, in Hampshire, in the south of England (see map facing p. 38), he naturally took land in that vicinity for the chase.

120.  The Great Survey; Domesday Book, 1086.

Not quite twenty years after his coronation William ordered a survey and valuation to be made of the whole realm outside of London.  The only exceptions were certain border counties on the north were war had left little to record save heaps of ruins and ridges of grass-grown graves (S109).

The returns of that survey were known as Domesday or Doomsday Book.  The English people said this name was given to it, because, like the Day of Doom, it spared no one.  It recorded every piece of property and every particular concerning it.  As the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” (S46) indignantly declared, “not a rood of land, not a peasant’s hut, not an ox, cow, pig, or even a hive of bees escaped.”

While the report showed the wealth of the country, it also showed thje suffering it had passed through in the revolts against William.  Many towns had fallen into decay.  Some were nearly depopulated.  IN Edward the Confessor’s reign (S65) York had 1607 houses; at the date of the survey it had but 967, while Oxford, which had had 721 houses, had then only 243.

The census and assessment proved of the highest importance to William and his successors.  The people indeed said bitterly that the King kept to book constantly by him, in order “that he might be able to see at any time of how much more wool the English flock would bear fleecing.”  The object of the work, however, was not to extort money, but to present a full and exact report of the financial and military resources of the kingdom which might be directly available for revenue and defense.

121.  The Great Meeting; the Oath of Allegiance to William, 1086.

In the midsummer following the completion of Domesday Book, William summoned all the barons and chief landholders of the realm, with their principal vassals or tenants, to meet him on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.[1] It is said that the entire assemblage numbered sixty thousand.  There was a logical connection between that summons and the great survey (S120).  Each man’s possesions and each man’s responsibility were now known.  Thus Domesday Book prepared the way for the action that was to be taken there.