TAX FAIRNESS IN ELEVENTH CENTURY ENGLAND

2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 173-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
John McDonald

Alongside the Roman census from Augustus' time and the ecclesiastical surveys or polyptychs of the 8th and 9th century Carolingian kingdoms, the Domesday Survey of 1086 occupies a most significant place in accounting history. Domesday Book, the outcome of the Survey, lists the incomes, tax assessments, wealth and resources of most estates in England and was used as a working accounting document by the monarch and public officials to raise taxes, distribute resources and consolidate power. Although the Domesday document itself survives, many details of its construction and use have been lost in the mists of time. This paper describes research to discover how taxes were levied and which estates and tenants received favorable treatment.

Antiquity ◽  
1936 ◽  
Vol 10 (39) ◽  
pp. 306-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. W. Morgan

The distribution of woodland and the stages of its gradual disappearance were of fundamental importance in the early historical geography of England. Wood was a valuable element in medieval economy and one of the chief factors affecting the nature of settlement, The evidence concerning the extent of the woodland in early England is of two kinds : (1) the surface geology, which provides a basis for the reconstruction of the original extent ; (2) the statistics of the Domesday Book: these refer to the eleventh century, but they may have some retrospective value. The present essay is an attempt to examine the Domesday evidence for the south and south-western counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall.


1987 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 47-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Ayton ◽  
Virginia Davis

England was a rich prize for William the Conqueror to have won at the battle of Hastings. His conquest was followed by a major redistribution of the wealth of his new kingdom. By the end of his reign, a tenurial revolution had swept through the lay landholding community, leaving only a handful of Anglo-Saxons as tenants-in-chief. The Church had undergone considerable changes of personnel; only one bishopric was still in English hands (Worcester), and of the greater Benedictine houses only Bath and Ramsey were still ruled by English abbots. Domesday Book, the great survey of England made in 1086, although difficult to interpret, provides much information to enable an examination of ecclesiastical wealth, its nature, and its distribution, in the late eleventh century.


2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 91-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tehseen Thaver

Within the broader discipline of Qur'anic exegesis, the sub-genre of the mutashābihāt al-Qurʾān (the ambiguous verses of the Qur'an) is comprised of works dedicated to the identification and explication of those verses that present theological or linguistic challenges. Yet, the approach, style, and objective of the scholars who have written commentaries on the ambiguous verses are far from monolithic. This essay brings into focus the internal diversity of this important exegetical tradition by focusing on the Qur'an commentaries of two major scholars in fourth/eleventh-century Baghdad, al-Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/1016) and Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d. 415/1025). Al-Raḍī was a prominent Twelver Shīʿī theologian and poet while ʿAbd al-Jabbār was a leading Muʿtazilī theologian during this period; al-Raḍī was also ʿAbd al-Jabbār's student and disciple. Through a close reading of their respective commentaries on two Qur'anic verses, I explore possible interconnections and interactions between Shīʿī and Muʿtazilī traditions of exegesis, and demonstrate that while ʿAbd al-Jabbār mobilised the language of Islamic jurisprudence, al-Raḍī primarily relied on early Islamic poetry and the etymology of the Arabic language. Methodologically, I argue against a conceptual approach that valorises sectarian and theological identity as the primary determinant of hermeneutical desires and sensibilities.


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