Henry VIII’s ‘Tudor Domesday Book’ to open to the public

A nationwide survey commissioned by Henry VIII on the property and wealth of 16th century England and Wales is to be made publicly accessible for the first time. 

The survey, known as the Valor Ecclesiasticus, set out to discover the financial state of the Church of which the Tudor king had just made himself head in his Break with Rome.  

Valor Ecclesiasticus counted 8,000 parish churches, 650 monasteries, 22 cathedrals and numerous chapels, chantries, colleges, schools, hospitals and poor houses. It took note of their buildings and grounds, their farmland and the commercial, industrial and residential property in which they were invested. And it recorded the names of many of the men and women who lived and worked with these great enterprises and even gave attention to the large number of children, elderly and sick who depended on them for their welfare. 

Professor Adrian Bell, who is working on the project from the University of Reading, said: “The Valor Ecclesiasticus provides a unique opportunity to revisit key issues relating to the financial and economic history of the Tudor period, including a re-evaluation of the religious estates seized by the Crown and how this transfer of wealth - the most significant in English history - impacted both locally and nationally.  

“We will examine the beneficiaries of this transfer, how these valuations influenced contemporary taxation policies, and what happened to the pensions and other church livings which were in effect nationalised in the course of this process. These questions surrounding the relationship between private wealth and public finance continue to have relevance today.” 

The 1535 survey covered 50 counties and captured their landscapes in remarkable detail, describing meadows and orchards, moorland and woods, waterways and a wide variety of working environments from market stalls to open-cast coal mines.  

But its historical legacy has been limited: the original record on rolls of parchment was printed only once by Parliament’s Record Commission nearly 200 years ago, in an abbreviated Latin transcript so clumsy and difficult to read that generations of historians have steered clear.  

Rediscovering the Tudor Domesday will present the complete, nationwide survey on a free-to-access website. Users will be able to explore every locality in England and Wales as they were in Tudor times. 

Funded by a grant of almost £1.5m from UK Research & Innovation’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, the three-year project will also engage schools, heritage organisations, regional archives and community groups across the UK from Cumbria to the South Coast.  

Led by the University of Exeter, The Tudor Domesday establishes a partnership with The National Archives, the University of Nottingham, the University of Reading, the National Trust as well as community groups in the South, Midlands and North. 

For more information about the Valor Ecclesiasticus see the National Archives’ Discover the Dissolution site.