The first recorded census in the western world
comentada em 12/08/2022 00:50

It was not enough for William the first to sit on the English throne at Christmas 1066 to pacify England.  He still had plenty of enemies and there was a lot of violence. It was only around 1076 that the island was brought to peace. Chroniclers at the time praised William, saying that that a man could carry gold on his hands and take long walks without being bothered.  Chroniclers add that all laws imposed by the Conqueror were respected, among them one a quite innovative one: the man who sexually assaulted a woman was to be immediately castrated. William also realized that the island was too large and he needed to know in detail what wealth was under his control, so that taxes could be collected. He decided, in 1086, to send groups of census takers all over his realms, who, in little more than a year, swept the island from south to north and managed to write down all the wealth of the island, family by family: first and last names, size of property, kinds of grains grown, exact number of livetock - cows, pigs, chickens.  It took a little over a year. It was all written down in two huge books, nicknamed the Doomsday Books. The traditional interpretation is that what was written there was truth that could not be doubted until the Day of Judgment. These two relics still exist, under lock and key in the London Public Registry Building.  They are stored in two metal boxes, the very same ones as 900 years ago. The English still nowadays consult the facsimiles to see if they can find any genealogical roots there. Sometimes they do. These two handwritten books are the first recorded census in the Western world. They are written in Latin, the official lingua franca of Europe at the time.