nor so much as--it is a shame to tell, though he thought it no shame
to do--an ox nor a cow nor a swine was left that was not set in his
writ." The chronicler who wrote these words was an English monk of
Peterborough. Englishmen were shocked by the new regularity of
taxation. They could hardly be expected to understand the advantages
of a government strong enough through regular taxation to put down the
resistance of rebellious earls at home and to defy invasion from
abroad. The result of the inquiries of the king's commissioners was
embodied in Domesday Book, so called because it was no more possible
to appeal from it than from the Last Judgment.

[Illustration: Reduced facsimile of part of Domesday Book.]

13. =William's Great Councils.=--Though William was himself the true
ruler of England, he kept up the practice of his predecessors in
summoning the Witenagemot from time to time. In his days, however, the
name of the Witenagemot was changed into that of the Great Council,
and, to a slight extent, it changed its nature with its name. The
members of the Witenagemot had attended because they were officially
connected with the king, being ealdormen or bishops or thegns serving
in some way under him. Members of the Great Council attended because
they held land in chief from the king. The difference, however, was
greater in appearance than in reality. No doubt men who held very
small estates in chief might, if they pleased, come to the Great
Council, and if they had done so the Great Council would have been
much more numerously attended than the Witenagemot had been. The
poorer tenants-in-chief, however, found that it was not only too
troublesome and expensive to make the journey at a time when all long
journeys had to be made on horseback, but that when they arrived their
wishes were disregarded. They therefore stayed at home, so that the
Great Council was regularly attended only by the bishops, the abbots
of the larger abbeys, and certain great landowners who were known as
barons. In this way the Great Council became a council of the wealthy
landowners, as the Witenagemot had been, though the two assemblies
were formed on different principles.

14. =The Gemot at Salisbury. 1086.=--In =1086=, after Domesday Book
had been finished, William summoned an unusually numerous assembly,
known as the Great Gemot, to meet at Salisbury. At this not only the
tenants-in-chief appeared, but also all those who held lands from them