A predecessor to today’s tax rolls, it functioned as a hit list for the conquering state to divide property up as it wished. “There was no single hide nor yard of land,” read a contemporary account, “nor indeed one ax nor one cow nor one pig was there left out, and not put down on the record.” Eventually the attempt to keep track of the population for purposes of taxes led to the Magna Carta, the foundational statement of limits on the state’s power.
The Doomesday Book established the precedent for many other attempts at compiling information. But according to Martin Van Creveld (author of The Rise and Decline of the State, 1999), the information-gathering techniques of these times were so primitive, and the governments so decentralized, that the data were largely useless. On the Continent, for example, no government was in the position of demanding a comprehensive census. That began to change in the 16th century, when the nation-state began to gain a foothold against the countervailing power of the church, free cities and local lords. In France, the first modern philosopher of the state, John Bodin, urged that a census be taken to better control the people.
Should the Census be abolished?
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