What Is the Domesday Book?

The Domesday Book is the oldest surviving public record in England and one of the most remarkable documents in Western history. Commissioned by William the Conqueror at Christmas 1085, it was a complete survey of landholding in England, who owned what, how much it was worth, and what resources it held. Completed in 1086, it recorded approximately 13,418 settlements across England.

The name “Domesday” (meaning “Day of Judgment”) reflected the finality of its records: like the Last Judgment, there was no appeal. If the Domesday Book said you owned a piece of land, you owned it. If it said you didn’t, you were out of luck. The survey was both an administrative tool and a statement of absolute royal authority over the conquered English landscape.

The Norman Conquest and the Coffins

On October 14, 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, defeated King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings. The Norman Conquest that followed was one of the most transformative events in English history. William replaced the entire Anglo-Saxon aristocracy with Norman lords. Every significant estate in England changed hands. The new landholders were William’s allies, the men who had fought beside him.

By Coffin familytradition, Sir Richard Coffin came with William at Hastings and was granted the Manor of Alwington. The 2026 Coffin medieval audit could not document this. The Domesday Book of 1086 records Alwington as held by Hamelin under Robert, Count of Mortain (not by a Coffin), and the standard published pedigree (Vivian’s Visitations of Devon) carries the family back only to a Richard Coffin in the reign of Henry II (1154-1189), with no Hastings companion. The documented Coffin presence at Portledge begins in the 13th century; the family held the estate until it was sold in 1998. The Norman-knight origin is preserved as labeled family tradition in the archive basement.

What the Record Shows

The tradition holds that the Coffins were recorded at Alwington in the Domesday survey, documenting the family to within twenty years of the Conquest. The 1086 entry does not bear this out: the lord of Alwington in 1086 was Hamelin, holding under Robert, Count of Mortain. No Coffin appears. Only about fifteen of the men who fought beside William at Hastings can be named with certainty (Cokayne, The Complete Peerage), and the Coffin is not among them; the “came over with the Conqueror” Battle Abbey Roll is a late, corrupt surname list of little evidential weight.

What isdocumented is still unusually deep. The Coffin family held Portledge in the parish of Alwington from the medieval period; surviving fabric of the house dates to about 1234, and the line is set out in Vivian’s Visitations of the County of Devonback to a Richard Coffin in the reign of Henry II (1154-1189). That is a documented Devon tenure of some seven centuries down to the estate’s sale in 1998, but it begins in the century after the Conquest, not on the battlefield at Hastings.

From medieval Portledge in Devon to colonial New England with Tristram Coffin in 1642, from Nantucket to the whaling industry to abolitionism to General Electric. The Devon-to-Nantucket descent is documented; the Conquest-era origin above it is family tradition, not record.

The Coffin Coat of Arms

The Coffin arms are blazoned: Azure, three bezants between eight crosses crosslet Or. In plain language: on a blue field, three gold coins arranged between eight small gold crosses. The azure (blue) field signifies loyalty and truth. The bezants (gold roundels) represent coins, historically associated with the Crusades and Byzantine gold. The crosses crosslet indicate faith and devotion. Together, the arms suggest a family of crusading faith and established wealth, consistent with the family’s tradition of Norman origin (the arms themselves are first recorded centuries after the Conquest).

The Coffin coat of arms: Azure, three bezants between eight crosses crosslet Or