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Domesday Book recorded land for a particular purpose

A translated entry for Patcham lets readers examine what was recorded and compare values across named moments. Those categories do not add up to a complete portrait of everyone who lived there, including many women and children.

8–10 min

Questions you could explore

  • What would be lost by treating a surviving administrative record as a complete census?
  • How might the survey's administrative purpose affect what its entries emphasize?

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