-meadows, woodland, pasture, fisheries (i.e. weirs in the streams),
water-mills, saltpans (if by the sea) and other subsidiary sources of
revenue; the peasants are enumerated in their several classes; and
finally the annual value of the whole, past and present, is roughly
estimated. It is obvious that, both in its values and in its
measurements, the survey's reckoning is very crude.

Apart from the wholly rural portions, which constitute its bulk,
Domesday contains entries of interest concerning most of the towns,
which were probably made because of their bearing on the fiscal rights
of the crown therein. These include fragments of custumals, records of
the military service due, of markets, mints, and so forth. From the
towns, from the counties as wholes, and from many of its ancient
lordships, the crown was entitled to archaic dues in kind, such as
honey. The information of most general interest found in the great
record is that on political, personal, ecclesiastical and social
history, which only occurs sporadically and, as it were, by accident.
Much of this was used by E. A. Freeman for his work on the Norman
Conquest. Although unique in character and of priceless value to the
student, Domesday will be found disappointing and largely unintelligible
to any but the specialist. Even scholars are unable to explain portions
of its language and of its system. This is partly due to its very early
date, which has placed between it and later records a gulf that is hard
to bridge.

But in the _Dialogus de scaccario_ (_temp._ Hen. II.) it is spoken of as
a record from the arbitrament of which there was no appeal (from which
its popular name of "Domesday" is said to be derived). In the middle
ages its evidence was frequently invoked in the law-courts; and even now
there are certain cases in which appeal is made to its testimony. To the
topographer, as to the genealogist, its evidence is of primary
importance; for it not only contains the earliest survey of a township
or manor, but affords in the majority of cases the clue to its
subsequent descent. The rearrangement, on a feudal basis, of the
original returns (as described above) enabled the Conqueror and his
officers to see with ease the extent of a baron's possessions; but it
also had the effect of showing how far he had enfeoffed "under-tenants,"
and who those under-tenants were. This was of great importance to
William, not only for military reasons, but also because of his