Domesday Book

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Brentry l How Norman Rule Reshaped England; England is indelibly European. Economist, Dec 23, 2017.
http://www.economist.com/news/ch ... le-reshaped-england

Note:
(1) "Nigel Farage, the on-and-off leader of the UK Independence Party, is known to wear a tie depicting the Bayeux tapestry, a 70-metre long piece of embroidery depicting the event * * * The tapestry is peppered with severed limbs and heads of vanquished Englishmen."
(a)
(i) Nigel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel
(section 1 etymology)

section 1 is hard to comprehend. Read on.
(ii) Neil
www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Neil
(b)
(i)
(A) Bayeux Tapestry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayeux_Tapestry
(introduction; section 6 Recorded history)
(B) History of the Bayeux Tapestry. Undated
www.bayeux-tapestry.org.uk/historyofthetapestry.htm

details how significance of the tapestry was appreciated, in 1720s.

There, the home page (titled "The Bayeux Tapestry: A Guide") states, "It is generally assumed to have been made within a decade of the Norman conquest but there are several competing theories about who it was made for and where it was made."  The Wiki pages does not say when and where  the tapestry was made.
(ii) Baiocasses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiocasses
(Bayeux takes its name from the Celtic tribe)

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(2) "The reasons for the invasion were complex. Early in 1066 Edward the Confessor, then king of England, had died heirless, sparking a crisis of succession. His brother-in-law, Harold Godwinson, took over. But Harold's claim to the throne was weak and he faced resistance, especially in the north of the country. William, Duke of Normandy, just across the English Channel, reckoned that he was the rightful heir: according to William of Poitiers, a chronicler, Edward had said that he wanted the young William to succeed him.
(a) Edward, King of England (1002?-1066). Encyclopaedia Britannica, undated.
https://www.britannica.com/biogr ... f-England-1002-1066
(i) summary of the relationship: Edward's father-in-law was Godwine (en.wikipedia.org: Godwin), whose daughter Edith Edward married and one of whose sons was Harold Godwinson.
(ii) "In the years following Edward's death, his reputation for piety grew"

That (piety) was where Edward's byname (the Confessor) came from.
(iii) byname (n): "NICKNAME"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/byname
(b)
(i) William the Conqueror (c 1028 – 1087; In the 1050s and early 1060s William became a contender for the throne of England, then held by the childless Edward the Confessor, his first cousin once removed)  en.wikipedia.org
(ii) cousin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin
(section 1.1 First cousins; section 1.4 First cousins once removed: one generation removed)
(c)
(i) William of Poitiers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Poitiers
(a Norman)
(ii) Poitiers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poitiers
(map)
(iii) Quite a few sources in the Web label William of Poitiers as a "Norman apologist" -- that is, a defender.

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(3) "The Bayeux tapestry shows what happened next. In September William invaded from France with an enormous army. At the Battle of Hastings [Oct 14, 1066 (950 years ago last year)], on the southern coast of England, Harold was killed * * * William went on to be crowned on Christmas Day, 1066. * * * The Anglo-Saxon system of government and economy was razed to the ground."

Hastings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings
(map; section 1.1 Early history: name)

(4) "The best source for assessing the impact of the Norman conquest is the Domesday Book, a survey of English wealth commissioned by William in 1085. For 13,418 places under William's rule, Domesday Book contains data both on who the owner of the estate was and how valuable it was as measured by how much 'geld,' or land tax, it could yield in a year. For some counties, it also tallied the population, the amount of livestock and even the ploughs. Its thoroughness suggested it could have been used for a final reckoning on the day of judgment—hence the name. Its 2m words of Latin, originally inscribed on sheepskin parchment in black and red ink, were recently digitised by researchers at the University of Hull.  Respondents to the survey were generally asked to give answers corresponding to three time periods: 1066, 1086 and an intermediate period shortly after 1066, which reflects when the manor was first granted to its existing owner. This makes it possible to perform a before-and-after analysis of the conquest."
(a)
(i) Domesday Book
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book
(The name "Domesday Book" (Middle English for "Doomsday Book") came into use in the 12th century; The manuscript is held at The National Archives at Kew, London; section 1 Content and organization)

section 2 Name: "The manuscripts do not carry a formal title. The work is referred to internally as a descriptio (survey), and in other early administrative contexts as the king's brevia (writings). From about 1100, references appear to the liber (book) or carta (document) of Winchester, its usual place of custody; and from the mid-12th to early 13th centuries, to the Winchester or king's rotulus (roll)."  (The Italic words are Latin.)
(ii) There is only one original, of two volumes (Great and Little). No duplicates or copies.
(A) Discover Domesday. National Archives, undated.
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/discover-domesday/

Quote:

"In 1066 William Duke of Normandy defeated the Anglo-Saxon King, Harold II, at the Battle of Hastings and became King of England. In 1085 England was again threatened with invasion, this time from Denmark. William had to pay for the mercenary army he hired to defend his kingdom. To do this he needed to know what financial and military resources were available to him.

"It was called Domesday by 1180 [Wikipedia is imprecise: '12th century'] .

(B) Domesday book. Online Etymology Dictionary, undated
www.etymonline.com/index.php?all ... amp;search=domesday
("from Middle English domes, genitive [ie possessive] of dom "day of judgment" (see doom)" )

* For the noun doom, its Middle English spelling is dome, dōm, whereas Old English is dōm -- according to www.dictionary.com (citing Random House) and www.wiktionary.com (no citation).  Incidentally, the -dom suffix in "kingdom" is also derived from Old English dōm.
(b)
(i) geld
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/geld

As a transitive verb, it is defined as "castrate" -- hence a "gelding" is "a castrated male horse."   

As a noun, it is "the crown tax paid under Anglo-Saxon and Norman kings."
(ii) taxation in medieval England
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_medieval_England
(c) University of Hull (1927- ; public; located in Kingston upon Hull (upon the River Hull), a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England)  en.wikipedia.org

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(5) "Despite this initial damage, however, the conquest ended up helping the English economy. Wonks have long supposed that immigration tends to boost trade: newcomers are familiar with their home markets and like to export there. The Normans were invaders, not immigrants, but Edward Miller and John Hatcher of Cambridge University conclude that the 'generations after 1066 saw a progressive expansion both of the scale and the value of * * * external commerce.' English wool, in particular, was popular on the continent."

The quotation is found in
Edward Miller and John Hatcher, Medieval England; Towns, commerce and crafts, 1086-1348. Routledge, 2014 (first published by Longman in 1995), at page 182
https://books.google.com/books?i ... p;lpg=PA182&dq="generations+after+1066+saw+a+progressive+expan

(6) "The Normans * * * ramped up infrastructure spending. Within 50 years every English cathedral church and most big abbeys had been razed to the ground, and rebuilt in a new continental style, says George Garnett of Oxford University. He points out that no English cathedral retains any masonry above ground which dates from before the conquest.  New castles and palaces came too. * * * All these changes helped the economy along. * * * Slaves, a significant minority of the population before the invasion, were freed * * * Over 100 new towns were founded in 1100-1300; the population of England jumped from 2.25m to 6m.  The conquest was longer-lasting and more brutal in the north. People in places like Northumbria and York did not consider themselves English, let alone French (their allegiances were more with the Scots and Scandinavians). So they launched a series of rebellions shortly after the Normans took power.  William showed no mercy in crushing them. His campaigns came to be known as the 'harrying of the north.' "

Life in the 11th Century.
domesdaybook.co.uk/life.html
("The total population of England in 1086 cannot be calculated accurately from Domesday for several reasons: only the heads of households are listed; major cities like London and Winchester were omitted completely; there are no records of nuns, monks, or people in castles")