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Domesday Book was not intended to provide
information about population like a census, but historians have made use of
the entries to work out reasonable estimates. The recorded population of
Somerset as given in Domesday Book is 13,764, but the Exeter version gives
13,307. Assuming that each person mentioned was the head of a family, the
total population has been estimated as five times that number i.e. 68,820 or
66,535, It is not known whether the slaves were allowed to marry or not, but
in the South Western counties they formed nearly one fifth of the total number
of persons recorded. On the Glastonbury estates the proportion of slaves was
18% and on the Bath Abbey lands it reached as much as 28%. Monks were not
recorded, and only a very few priests, though there were priests in most of
the towns and probably in the larger villages. No women were recorded, though
there must have been many who worked as servants or dairymaids.
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