Help Main Page Return to Domesday Book Domesday Book is
preserved in the Public Record Office. Until it was rebound in
1986, Domesday Book consisted of two volumes, distinctive in
appearance and content, each of different origin. Little
Domesday contained the three counties of Essex, Norfolk and
Suffolk. It was produced by local scribes working for the royal
commissioners charged with gathering the data for East Anglia
and Essex. It was never subjected to a final editing process,
nor reduced to the standard format of Great Domesday. It is not
known why Little Domesday was left unfinished, though the
complexity of the information it contains, or the death of the
Conqueror before his project was complete, are the most likely
explanations. Great Domesday contains the remaining 31 counties
of Domesday England, abbreviated from a much larger body of data
gathered by the Domesday Inquest. Palaeographers are confident
that it is almost entirely the work of a single scribe. It is
written to a reasonably standard - an