ANALYSIS

OF

The Domesday Book of Norfolk.

IMM

THE KING'S LAND.

MMEDIATELY after the Conquest, William assumed to himself the absolute property, with but few exceptions, of the whole territory of England, retaining in his own hands considerable tracts of land, either to form chases or parks for field sports, or to yield him a certain revenue in money, or to be as farms for the provision of his household, or, lastly, to be a reserve fund, out of which, at some future period, to reward services which might be rendered to him. This "terra regis,' as it is uniformly called in Domesday Book, consisted, for the most part, of lands that had been possessed by the Confessor in demesne, or in farm, or had been held by his thains, and other servants: thus, eight of the manors retained by the Conqueror in his own hands in Norfolk, had been ancient demesne of the crown; four had belonged to Earl Harold; two to Earl Guert, the brother of Harold, and who fell with him at the battle of Hastings; and fourteen to Archbishop Stigand. The rest had been the property of various Saxon nobles, and servants of the crown, whom the Conqueror had ejected. These lands formed the demesne of the crown, and are what are now meant when we speak of ancient demesne of the crown. According to Brady, these crown lands consisted,

in all England, of fourteen hundred and twenty-two manors or lordships in several counties, besides abundance of farms and lands in Middlesex, Shropshire, and Rutlandshire; and they yielded a revenue so enormous, that the King is stated by Ordericus Vitalis to have been possessed of £1061. 10s. 1d. per day, exclusive of presents made to him on various occasions, and of the fines paid to him by criminals as compositions, or commutations for the punishment of their crimes; not to mention the contingent profits that contributed so largely to fill the royal treasury. These various sums are estimated by Baron Maseres as equivalent to twenty-seven or twenty-eight millions of pounds sterling per annum, of present money,1-a sum so enormous that it is hardly to be credited; it is certain, however, that William's income, from these various sources, must have been exceedingly great.

Ninety-five manors, varying in size and value, with their numerous berewites, scattered over every hundred in the county of Norfolk, were appropriated by the Conqueror to his own share of the spoil. Of these, fourteen were in demesne, sixty-seven were managed for the crown by Godric the steward, and the remaining fourteen, from all which Archbishop Stigand had been ejected, by William de Noiers. It should, however, be here observed, and the same holds good also in the case of the tenants in capite, that the real amount of the landed property held in possession, is to be estimated from the revenue of those lands only that were actually held in demesne; although, from all the manors which were sub

1 See Historia Anglicana Selecta Monumenta, by Baron Maseres, 4to, p. 258. To arrive at this computation, we must bear in mind that, in the Conqueror's reign, the pound was a pound weight of silver, and therefore contained more than three times as much silver as a pound sterling does at the present time; and farther, we must conceive that the value of money toward the close of the eleventh century was about twenty times as great as in the middle of the nineteenth. But even this is thought to be a low estimate by some, for, according to Hume, we are to conceive every sum of money mentioned by historians" of this period as if it were multiplied more than a hundred-fold above the sum of the same denomination at present."

tenanted, the lord received certain high or chief rents and privileges, as lord paramount.1

2

The King's fourteen manors which he held in demesne were, Great Massingham, Southmere, Fakenham, and Cawston, which had been held by Harold; Saham-Tony, Hingham, Holt, Wighton, Foulsham, and Yarmouth, which had been held by King Edward; Ormesby, which had been held by Guert; Moulton, from which certain freemen had been ejected; and Norwich and Thetford. These manors yielded annually to the royal treasury £491. 78.; in King Edward's time they yielded only £246. 138. The King's lands also, which were managed for him by Godric the steward, and by William de Noiers, were greatly increased in rental; a proof, among others, that the landed property in England, at least in Norfolk, when the Survey was taken, was not diminished in value, as compared with what it had been in Edward the Confessor's time. We shall allude to this subject again, at the end of the Table of Tenants in Capite.

1 Hallam, in his Supplemental Notes to the View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, p. 276, observes, that "the vast extent of the Norman estates in capite is apt to deceive us. In reading of a baron who held forty, fifty, or one hundred manors, we are prone to fancy his wealth something like what a similar estate would produce at this day. But, if we look at the next words, we shall continually find that some one else held of him; and this was a holding by knight's service, subject to feudal incidents no doubt, but not leaving the seigniory very lucrative, or giving any right of possessory ownership over the land. The real possessions of the tenant of a manor, whether holding in chief or not, consisted in the demesne lands, the produce of which he obtained without cost by the labour of the villeins, and in whatever other payments they might be bound to make in money or kind."

2 The King's name appears in the list of Invasions, at the end of the account of Norfolk, in Domesday Book, as being unlawfully possessed of a portion of land at Forneseta (Forncet), valued T. R. E. at 10d.; which value was the same T. R. W.

3 Godric managed 67 manors, valued T. R. E. £266. 17s. 8d.; T. R. W. £518. 8s. 5d. William de Noiers managed 14 manors, valued, T. R. E.

£146. Os. 4d.; T. R. W. £314. 7s. 10d.

TENANTS IN CAPITE.

King William having, as we have seen, retained a large portion of the lands of England for his own use, within a short time after his establishment on the throne, granted out the remainder to various persons:-first, to the great ecclesiastics, and members of monasteries; next, to a few Saxons, or native Englishmen, who, in rare instances, were allowed to possess lands, though under a new master; and lastly, and chiefly, to Normans and other foreigners who had accompanied the Conqueror in his expedition, and assisted him in obtaining the throne. These were the men who, thus holding immediately of the King, were called tenants in chief, and who rendered their services, military and civil, to the crown, and did homage to the King whenever he pleased to summon them.1 Of these tenants in chief there were, in all England, about 1400, including ecclesiastical corporations: they are all found enumerated in Domesday Book, each having his several manors distributed in the most orderly manner, under his appropriate title, with their value, tenure, and various services.

In Norfolk there were sixty-two of these great tenants of the crown, including the abbeys of Bury, Ely, Ramsey, Hulme, and Caen.

"The tenants in chief," observes Mr. Hunter, "were the most eminent persons of the time, those whose actions were the subject of the general historian, and whose deaths were of sufficient consequence to claim a place in the public chronicles of the age.

The following brief notices of some of those who held of the King in this county, have been collected from various sources. Of many of the great proprietary usurpers who once held sway in Norfolk, little or nothing is now known beyond the bare name; others, however, have been more for

1 These great lords, in several instances, held lands as sub-tenants, as well as in chief.