This sample of Domesday Book text relates to a parcel of land in a village in Essex, under the ownership of one Grim, a reeve – the 83rd landowner listed for the county in the Little Domesday section of the book, which covers East Anglia. (A reeve was a royal official charged with managing the King’s own estates.)

The writer tells us that in Bowers (the village now known as Bowers Gifford, just outside Basildon), Grim owns two hides of land. A hide was a unit of measurement of land for tax purposes, usually defined as the amount that would support one household throughout the year with what could be grown on it.

A plough, too, is a measure of land, but specifically of arable land. One unit of ploughland is a quantity that would require a team of eight oxen to work it. Grim’s land was worked by one team and a pair of unpaid slaves in the time designated as TRE. This stands for Tempore Regis Edwardi, “in the time of King Edward”. One of the tasks the Domesday Book sets itself is to compare land values and the extent of estates between the time it was being written (1086) and the situation of 20 years earlier, under the reign of King Edward the Confessor before the Norman Conquest.

At the time of writing, there are two units of ploughland “in demesne”, which means that the produce of this area was grown for the benefit of the lord, rather than the tenants who worked it. These latter have been allocated half a plough’s worth, and encompass two different kinds of peasants – three villans (or tenant farmers) and six bordars (lowlier farmers who had access to only about a quarter of the amount of land the villans enjoyed). There were also three slaves.

Some of the land is pasture, as opposed to arable land, and is sufficient to graze an estimated 100 sheep.

One of the two hides Grim holds has been allotted to him by King William, after it was forfeited to the sovereign by its previous occupiers. The King’s gift, certified by Robert fitzWymarc, the county sheriff in charge of overseeing royal estates, has thus doubled Grim’s holdings of land. This was a time in history when there were no surnames, so Grim is just Grim, but the sheriff’s name identities him as Robert, son of Wymarc ("fitz" being equivalent to the Celtic "mac").

The overall monetary value of the land has increased from 40 shillings (£2) in the time of King Edward, to 50 now.