How did they do a census in like medieval times?

Question:did they have paper and ink or something?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: did they have paper and ink or something?

I remember seeing a painting in some textbook years ago that was supposed to be a depiction of an official recording names in the Domesday Book. This is what they called the official census the Normans took after they invaded England in 1066.

The painting (probably done in the 19th century) showed an official seated at a table that had been set up in the middle of a field. He had open before him a huge book and he was writing in this book with a quill. In front of him, standing in line, were a bunch of peasants, there to have their names officially recorded in the Domesday Book.

Keep in mind that most people lived on tenant farms in those days, and were subject to their feudal landowner, which was the noble; an earl, count, or duke. The overseers of these noble estates had a pretty good idea who lived where on the estate. It would just be a matter of going around and telling everyone that they needed to go down to the estate house and be recorded in the census. More than mere names were recorded. As the census was the basis for taxation, it was important to know how many livestock a peasant had, or how many acres he had under cultivation.

Towns were small. The local magistrate was responsible for collecting the census information. Again, in a town of a couple hundred, he knew everyone anyway. It would be a similar process where they gathered everyone together and recorded them in the book. Larger towns were sometimes subject to the crown, not a local noble, but the census was still taken, as the crown had the right to tax them. Cities weren't big. At the end of the 1st millenium, London's population was somewhere around 10,000. Officials would go door to door.

As for accuracy, so many people had so many reasons to inflate or understate the numbers, that I'm sure there was some amount of fudging going on. Corruption aside, I bet it was pretty accurate in the rural areas and less accurate in the cities. The feudal lords kept pretty tight reigns on their estates.

Hope that helps!

They had paper and ink but the census were very inaccurate none the less.