Crown and taxation

For the Crown estate, valuable statistics have been compiled by W.J. Corbett, 'The development of the duchy of Normandy and the Norman Conquest of England', in Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 5 (1926), pages 481-520. Certain important features of the royal demesne have been studied by Robert S. Hoyt, The royal demesne in English constitutional history, 1066-1272 (1950), and B.P. Wolfe, The royal demesne in English history (1971), who criticises and corrects certain features of Hoyt's analysis. P.A. Stafford, 'The farm of one night and the organisation of King Edward's estates in Domesday', Economic History Review, second series, vol. 33 (1980), pages 491-502, has some interesting observations on the organisation of the Anglo-Saxon royal estate. The royal estates are beautifully mapped in Elizabeth M. Hallam, Domesday Book through nine centuries (1986).

Taxation - central to Domesday Book - is discussed in almost all serious studies; but Sally P.J. Harvey, 'Taxation and the economy', in Domesday studies, edited by J.C. Holt (1987), pages 249-64, is particularly important. In addition, Judith Green, 'The last century of Danegeld' English Historical Review, vol. 96 (1981), pages 241-58, has an interesting slant on the subject.

The problem of the weight of taxation in the late Anglo-Saxon period has been debated at length by M.K. Lawson and John Gillingham. Lawson's contributions can be found in: 'The collection of danegeld and heregeld in the reigns of Aethelred II and Cnut', English Historical Review, vol. 99 (1984), pages 721-38; '"Those stories look true": levels of taxation in the reigns of Aethelred II and Cnut', English Historical Review, vol. 104 (1989), pages 385-406; 'Danegeld and heregeld once more', English Historical Review, vol. 105 (1990), pages 951-61; and Cnut: the Danes in England in the early eleventh century (1993); while those of John Gillingham are in: '"The most precious jewel in the English Crown": levels of danegeld and heregeld in the early eleventh century', English Historical Review vol. 104 (1989), pages 373-84, and 'Chronicles and coins as evidence for levels of tribute and taxation in late tenth- and early eleventh-century England', English Historical Review, vol. 105 (1990), pages 939-50.