A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



TABLE II— VILLS AND MANORS {continued) 

 Wadgate. [Vill containing no Manors] 



The phrase quicunque ibi teneat, which frequently follows the geld 

 entry, seems to imply that the assessment is not regarded as ' tenurial ' 

 or manorial ; it lies on the land as a public obligation, independent of 

 accidents of changing tenure and special privileges. Still there was un- 

 doubtedly a tendency to shift public burdens on to the shoulders of the 

 greater landholders, and possibly to make the lords of the manors responsible 

 for the collection of the geld. Although in Suffolk, when the Domesday 

 Survey was taken, the vill had by no means lost its importance as a fiscal 

 unit, in a very large number of cases the geld and the manor were linked 

 together.^' In one instance, where manor and vill coincide, the lineal 

 measurements and geld are definitely related to the manor." In another, at 

 Thurlow, in Risbridge Hundred, both vill and manor are measured and 

 assessed.*^ It seems safe to conclude that in Suffolk, towards the close of 

 the iith century, the manorial organization of the county was not fully con- 

 solidated, though it was fast consolidating, and that the political and adminis- 

 trative duties of the vill or township were being gradually transferred to the 

 manor. Within the hundreds and leets two rival systems of local government 

 were striving for the mastery, the ' communal ' or ' villar ' system, and the 

 'feudal' or 'manorial' system. The result was cross-division, inter-connexion, 

 variety, and complexity, and final compromise. The 'manorial superstructure' 

 rested on the foundation of the vill or township. °' 



Of the two systems, the older villar or ' communal ' organization has 

 left many traces. In the modern county of Suffolk there are 517 civil 



" VinogradofF, Engl. Soc. in the Eleventh Cent. 199-200, 211, 218. 



" Dom. Bk. 304. ' Edwardestuna. Habet hoc manerium vi quarentenas in longo et vi in lato et de 

 gelto loJ. quicunque ibi teneat.' 



" Ibid. 286, 37 13, 397. These entries show (i) the minor and 5 freemen valued separately, but measured 

 and assessed as a whole ; (2) 9 freemen valued separately ; (3) 10 freemen and the church, valued together 

 and followed by the measurements and assessment of the whole (Jota) ; (4) 2 sokemen valued separately. 



" VinogradofF, op. cit. 390-402. 



368 



