All this to be estimated three times, viz. in the time of King Edward, and when King William gave it, and how it is now, and if more can be had for it than has been had. This document is, I think, the best evidence we have of the form of the inquiry, and it tallies strictly with the form of the various returns as we now have them. ... An external evidence failing, we are driven back to the Record itself for evidence of the Conqueror's intention in framing it, and anyone who carefully studies it will be driven to the inevitable conclusion that it was framed and designed in the spirit of perfect equity. Long before the Conquest, in the period between the death of Alfred and that of Edward the Confessor, the kingdom had been rapidly declining into a state of disorganisation and decay. The defence of the kingdom and the administration of justice and keeping of the peace could not be maintained by the king's revenues. The tax of Danegeld, instituted by Ethelred at first to buy peace of the Danes, and afterwards to maintain the defence of the kingdom, had more and more come to be levied unequally and unfairly. The Church had obtained enormous remissions of its liability, and its possessions were constantly increasing. Powerful subjects had obtained further remission, and the tax had come to be irregularly collected and was burdensome upon the smaller holders and their poor tenants, while the nobility and the Church escaped with a small share in the burden. In short the tax had come to be collected upon an old and uncorrected assessment. It had probably dwindled in amount, and at last had been ultimately remitted by Edward the Confessor. Anarchy and confusion appears to have reigned throughout the realm. The Conqueror was threatened with foreign invasion, and pressed on all sides by complaints of unfair taxation on the part of his subjects. Estates had been divided and subdivided, and the incidence of the tax was unequal and unjust. He had to face the difficulties before him and to count the resources of his kingdom for its defence, and the means of doing so were not at hand. In this situation his masterly and order-loving Norman mind instituted this great inquiry, but ordered it to be taken (as I maintain the study of the Book will show) in the most public and open manner, and with the utmost impartiality, with the view of levying the taxes of the kingdom equally and fairly upon all. The articles of his inquiry show that he was prepared to study the resources of his kingdom and consider the liability of his subjects from every possible point of view." _Stuart Moore, On the Study of Domesday Book (Domesday Studies, volume 1)._