Lesson Y7-U03-L03

Y7-U03-L03 The Domesday Book, 1086 Quiz: KS3 History, Unit 3

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson Y7-U03-L03, The Domesday Book, 1086: 20 multiple choice questions for the KS3 History (National Curriculum), Unit 3: Year 7: Norman England, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. In which year did William order the Domesday survey?

    • 1072
    • 1066
    • 1100
    • 1085

  2. Where was the Domesday survey ordered by William?

    • At Hastings on the south coast
    • At Winchester in Wessex
    • At Westminster Abbey in London
    • At his court in Gloucester

  3. Why was the survey called the 'Domesday Book'?

    • It was printed on a special kind of paper that lasted for ever
    • People compared it to the Day of Judgement, since there was no appeal against it
    • It was named after the Norman town where the first copy was made
    • It was written in a special language that only monks could read

  4. What did the Domesday survey record?

    • Land, people, animals and wealth across most of England
    • Only the names of the Norman barons who fought at Hastings
    • Only the castles built by the Normans in the north of England
    • Only the land that was used to grow food for the monasteries

  5. How many volumes of the Domesday Book survive?

    • One, kept in the Tower of London for safety
    • Two, called Great Domesday and Little Domesday
    • Three, one for each of the main kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons
    • Four, one for each county of the Danelaw in the north

  6. What was the geld?

    • A fee paid to the Church each time a new castle was built
    • A penalty paid by a criminal to the family of his victim
    • A land tax paid by landholders, based on how much land they held
    • A payment made by a thegn to his lord at harvest time

  7. What was the Danish threat in 1085 that made William want money fast?

    • A siege of London by the Scottish army
    • A plague that killed the soldiers of the garrisons
    • A rebellion by the Vikings in the Danelaw
    • A possible invasion from Denmark

  8. Why was the Domesday survey useful for taxing England?

    • It told William which English lords would be executed for disloyalty
    • It listed the names of every Viking who had settled in England
    • It recorded all the Anglo-Saxon coins that could be melted down for gold
    • It recorded the value of each manor, so tax could be worked out fairly

  9. Why did the survey record manor values in 1066 as well as 1086?

    • To prove that the Anglo-Saxons had been richer than the Normans
    • To show how much land and wealth had changed since the Norman takeover
    • To check the ages of the peasants who had been born in 1066
    • To show which manors had been burned during the Harrying of the North

  10. Which factor shows that the survey was about control as well as money?

    • It recorded the weather in each county during the harvest of 1085
    • It recorded who held every piece of land in 1066 and in 1086
    • It recorded the number of Viking longships in the Danelaw
    • It recorded the names of the monks who copied the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  11. Why did royal commissioners use local juries to answer questions?

    • The jurors were the only people in each county who could read and write
    • The jurors had to pay a fine for every answer they gave to the king
    • The jurors had been sent to England from Denmark to supervise the survey
    • The jurors swore an oath to tell the truth about their local area

  12. Why did a second set of commissioners re-check the first?

    • To give the Church a second chance to collect tithes from the manors
    • To remove the names of Anglo-Saxon thegns from the official records
    • To stop cheating and make sure the survey was accurate
    • To tell the Danes where the Norman castles were built in the north

  13. Which reason for the survey was about money?

    • It helped William choose a successor to rule after his death
    • It helped William decide which children should go to school
    • It helped William build a monastery in every county of England
    • It helped William tax England fully and fairly for defence

  14. Which reason for the survey was about control?

    • It made the Church send its tithes directly to the Pope in Rome
    • It made the Danish kings pay tribute to William every year
    • It made the Norman takeover a permanent and unarguable record
    • It made the English lords into knights who owed service to Denmark

  15. Which of these best describes the Domesday Book?

    • A book of Anglo-Saxon poems that were written in the 1000s
    • A huge survey that let William know, tax and control his kingdom
    • A list of saints and monks who were buried in English abbeys
    • A collection of Viking laws that were used in the Danelaw courts

  16. In which year was the Domesday Book completed?

    • 1066
    • 1100
    • 1085
    • 1086

  17. What did the Domesday survey replace?

    • The coins of the Anglo-Saxon kings, which had been melted down
    • The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which had been written by English monks
    • The Viking laws that had been used in the Danelaw courts
    • Old tax records from before 1066, which were out of date and unfair

  18. Why is the Domesday Book valuable to historians studying Norman England?

    • It is a Viking saga written by an outsider decades after the conquest of England
    • It is a poem written by an English monk to praise the Anglo-Saxon kings and their victories
    • It is a detailed official survey made close to the time, although it was written for William
    • It is a diary written by a Norman knight who fought in the battle at Hastings in 1066

  19. If a manor had fallen in value between 1066 and 1086, what could the king learn from the survey?

    • That the manor had been moved to the Danelaw by the Vikings
    • That the manor had been given to the Church as a permanent gift
    • That the manor had lost value, so its tax could be adjusted
    • That the manor had been burned down by English rebels in 1085

  20. Which volume of the Domesday Book covers East Anglia?

    • The Witan's record
    • Great Domesday
    • Little Domesday
    • The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

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