A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



Norwich for three months in bands of five as were those of Eye at Eye and 

 Orford ; but this ward, too, was being commuted for money. 1 Under 

 Edward I the system broke down, though as early as 1198 the abbot of 

 St. Edmunds had had to hire knights to go to Normandy at 3J. a day, for 

 his own refused on the pretext that they were not bound to cross the sea. 

 Minute sub-infeudation had made a feudal host impossible. In 13 14 the 

 dower of the widow of the earl of Clare consisted of many fiefs in various 

 manors. Amongst others she held : — 



J fee in Helmingham held by Robert de Cressi at 20s. 

 „ Great Bures held by Peter Silvestre's heirs, 50J. 

 £ and £ ,, Gaisle held by Wm. de Hausted, 60s. 



■£$ „ Brokeleye held by John de Cramavill, 51. 

 J ,, Barwe held by John de Cretyng, 20s. 

 1 „ scattered through several manors held by Rob. Mauduyt, 100;. 



Under Henry III the whole of the freemen, the jurati ad arma, were 

 enrolled by name and arms by the constables of every hundred for military and 

 police purposes, while Edward I instituted the commissioners of array, whose 

 business it was to inspect the county contingent and take the most likely 

 men. This led to a decrease in the military power of the sheriff. The higher 

 classes were forced into arms by distraint for knighthood, all those who held 

 ^40 a year in fee being liable. In 1 297 the sheriff was commanded to summon 

 all those who possessed 20 librates of land or more, as well those who 

 held in chief as those who did not, those within the franchises and those 

 without, to prepare at once to follow the king with arms and horses. The 

 county force was now made up of great lords who received a special 

 summons from the king, and whose tenants usually served under them, 

 minor knights who by the fourteenth century served by indenture under a 

 ■chosen lord, and the men picked from the jurati ad arma by the com- 

 missioners of array. In 1345 Edward III reassessed the county; owners of 

 land valued at iooj-., or one knight's fee, to provide one mounted archer, 

 those of £\o to provide a hobeler armed at least with hagueton, visor, 

 burnished palet, iron gauntlets, and lance, the number of men increasing with 

 the income. The Davillers of Brome, 2 it may be noted, held their land by 

 the duty of leading the footmen of the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk 

 from the ditch of St. Edmunds without Newmarket to the Welsh wars. 

 From this time the force was under the command of the chief men of the 

 county, who in Tudor times were appointed by the king to the office of deputy 

 lord-lieutenant. 3 



The Tudor and Stuart kings often sent letters missive to their servants 

 and other gentlemen desiring the person addressed to certify how many men 

 he could put in the field in the service of the king. In 1536 Sir Charles 

 Willoughby, Sir Arthur Hopton of Westwood, Sir Anthony Wingfield of 

 Letheringham, Sir William Drury of Halstead, Sir Thomas Jermyn of 

 Rushbrooke, could all put one hundred retainers in the field ; Sir Thomas 

 Rushe of Chapmans, and John Spryng of Lavenham, sixty ; George Colte of 



1 1324. Richard de Amundeville held Okenhall in chief of the honour of Eye by the service of doing 

 suit at each court of the honour, and zod. to the ward of the castle of the honour at the end of every thirty- 

 two weeks. 



' Cal. of Close (1330-3), p. 244. 



5 Grose, Military Antiquities, ed. 1786, p. 80. 



160 



