The Domesday Book, a comprehensive survey of England commissioned by William the Conqueror, records an estimated 6,500 watermills across the country. This staggering number, averaging one mill for every 50 households, indicates that water power was already the backbone of the English economy in the late 11th century. The mills were used primarily for grinding grain, but also for fulling cloth and other industrial processes, demonstrating the widespread integration of water power into daily life and feudal society.

The Domesday Book's mills provide the economic and social context for the world of medieval English poetry, from the Anglo-Saxon chronicles to the works of Chaucer. The ubiquitous watermill was a familiar landmark and a source of both sustenance and social interaction, often appearing in literature as a symbol of rural life, community, and the cyclical nature of agrarian existence, a theme that persists in English pastoral poetry for centuries.