Satellites

The word satellite is a modern coinage, used to refer to the large body of Inquest materials which contributed to the making of Domesday Book, such as the Liber Exoniensis, the Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis, the Inquisitio Eliensis, the Yorkshire Summary, and satellites from Bath, Canterbury, Evesham and Worcester among others.

The satellite texts are a valuable aid to interpreting the terminology of Domesday Book, for reconstructing the mechanisms of the Domesday Inquest, and for the light they throw upon the material gathered during the Domesday Inquest, which was more extensive than that digested in Great Domesday.

See H.B. Clarke, 'The Domesday satellites', Domesday Book: as re-assessment, edited by Peter H. Sawyer (1985), 50-70, for a comprehensive account; and David Roffe, Domesday: the Inquest and the Book (2000), for the most recent discussion.