assessment

Latin, appreciare.

Assessments, normally provided by juries, were supplied on a variety of topics but most commonly in relation to manorial valuations.

It is not clear how such assessments were arrived at. Sometimes Domesday records that they were provided by the men of the shire or the men of the Hundred; sometimes the verdicts of juries were recorded, particularly when the valuations were deemed to be oppressive or where there was disagreement between the jurors themselves. Where this was the case, the disagreements were invariably between the English and French members of the jury, the French always assessing the estate at a higher value than the English. The extent to which juries provided valuations is unclear though the considerable number of references to assessment suggest that it was not uncommon.

For assessments of oppressive valuations, see Reginald Lennard, Rural England, 1086-1135: a study of social and agrarian conditions (1959); and Robin Fleming, Domesday Book and the law: society and legal custom in medieval England (1998).

See also codes for miscellaneous items.