Cambridge Inquisition facts for kids
The Cambridge Inquisition – also known as Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis or ICC – is a very important historical record from the time of the Domesday Book in 1086. It gives us more details than the Domesday Book itself. This document has also been key in helping historians understand how the Domesday Book was put together.
What is the Cambridge Inquisition?
Even though we only have a copy from the 12th century, the ICC shows us an early step in how the Domesday Book was created. It shares information gathered by local people, called jurors, from different areas like hundreds and vills (small villages) in Cambridgeshire. This information was organized by location.
The ICC includes details about more places than the Domesday Book. It also gives values for land and property from both 1066 (when William the Conqueror took over England) and 1086 (when the Domesday Book was made). Plus, it lists the names of the jurors, both English and French.
One interesting thing is that the ICC even recorded details about farm animals, like oxen, cows, and pigs. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle complained that "not even one ox, nor one cow, nor one pig escaped notice in his survey!" These animal details were not included in the main Domesday Book.
Debates About the Domesday Book
Historians have long debated how the Domesday Book was made. The Cambridge Inquisition plays a big part in these discussions.
In the late 1800s, a historian named J H Round suggested that the way the ICC was organized by geography was how the whole country's survey was first done. He thought that all the information was collected this way, and only later was it rearranged into the Domesday Book's final form, which was organized by who owned the land.
Later, in the mid-1900s, another historian, V. H. Galbraith, had a different idea. He thought that other documents, like the Exon Domesday, which were already organized by landowners, were more central to the survey. He saw the information from local jurors as less important.
However, in the 21st century, there's been new interest in the ICC. Many historians now think it might have been a very important guide for how the Domesday survey was carried out across England.
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