One entry in Domesday details 13 salt-houses in Droitwich from which three salt-workers paid 300 measures of salt to the King. By the time of Domesday Droitwich was a major salt-producing area. An urban settlement had developed around this natural resource at Droitwich in Worcestershire since Roman times. Salt was another important commodity, essential for preserving fish and meat. Many served their local areas with goods like livestock and fish. Increasingly, trade was the focus of the boroughs. An entry for Lincoln details 970 occupied residencies in 1066. Domesday offers some details that indicate the size of towns, such as the number of burgesses who lived there or the number of residencies. Other large towns at the time included Norwich, York and Lincoln, with populations of between 4,000 and 5,000 each. The two largest towns in England - London with at least 10,000 inhabitants and Winchester with around 6,000 - are not covered in Domesday Book. Within the 20 years from 1066 to the making of Domesday more than 300 houses were built on land in Bury St Edmunds that had previously been used for agriculture. Some towns developed around a new castle, or around a monastery, as at Bury St Edmunds. In some existing towns such as York and Lincoln houses were destroyed to create space for castle building. In Norman England these grew in importance as military, religious, administrative and trading centres.Ĭastles, often built on a town’s high ground, became an important aspect of military control. The Anglo-Saxon King Alfred had encouraged the development of burhs in the ninth century as a form of defence against Danish invaders. A burh referred to a fortified town, rather than to a town’s size or economic status. Domesday records around 112 towns or boroughs, a term with its origins in the Anglo-Saxon 'burh'. Domesday Book is inconsistent in its treatment of towns providing a very incomplete record we therefore need to be careful in drawing firm conclusions from the information it gives us. Many, for example Colchester, Lincoln and York, had their origins in Roman Britain. By 1066 towns were already a recognisable feature in England.
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