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or parsons? what customary rents, prestations, and services, are to be paid and rendered out of the lands? what has been added to the manor, what what with-held from it, and by whom? what land is waste, what the whole was let for in the time of king Edward? and what the net rent, whether it was too dear rented, or whether it might be improved[1]? But all entries in it are not alike, they being more or less exact and particular in some counties than others, according to the care, diligence, and industry of the commissioners, and scribes.

The making this survey was a great design in the Conqueror; and it is plain he considered the finishing of it as an event of great importance; a charter, granted by him soon after, having this remarkable date. "Post descriptionem totius Anglia." Mad. Form. Angl. p. 238.

Various are the views the Conqueror is said to have had in directing it. The Saxon chronicle tells us that, "Rex magnum concilium et graves sermones habuit cum fuis proceribus de hac terra, quomodo incoloretur, et a quibus hominibus, quidque rex ipse haberet terrarum et pecudum in eo comitatu; et quantum census[2] annui deberet percipere ex eo comitatu." Chron. Saxon. anno 1082.

  1. ↑ See note (Q).
  2. ↑ The improvement and increase of arable lands, subsequent to the year 1013, might be very good reasons with William the Conqueror for making his survey.
B3
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