Wealthy landowners census

[robertpeter]

searching my dunford family tree found they were on the 1273 census of wealthy landowners of england .then again in 1274.then again in 1636.now was a census runevery year to find the wealthy landowners in england .i have been told they done this to be able to tax them for ship money.are these records kept .if so we could trace some of our familys who were farmers and landowners.