DOMESDAY SURVEY 



granting them out at will, moving freemen from one manorial jurisdiction to 

 another, making new combinations or severing old connexions in wholesale 

 fashion. ' Ralph the Staller,' Earl Ralph's father, joined Earl Gurth's estate 

 in Bentley to the manor of Bergholt as a berewick. King William himself 

 gave back three manors to Norman, their pre-Conquest lord, but granted 

 away others ; Phin, who held his honour under both King Edward and King 

 William, added eight freemen and a sokeman to one of his small manors after 

 the Conquest ; Geoffrey de Mandeville received 2 carucates as a manor ' by 

 the King's gift ' {ex dam Regis), which a freeman of the Abbot of Ely had 

 held ' by mere commendation ' [commendatione tantum) in the time of King 

 Edward. At Buxhall twenty-five freemen who held 3 J carucates in the soke 

 of the king {in soca regis) were ' delivered ' [liberati) to Frodo, the brother of 

 the Abbot, for a manor of 3J carucates of land. At Brandeston, in Loes 

 Hundred, William ' de Arcis ' held one manor, where in King Edward's time 

 there had been two, one of 60 acres, held by a married priest, the other of 

 80 acres, created by King Edward, and added to the smaller estate." 



It has seemed worth while to devote a considerable space to the manorial 

 system in Suffolk, since the East Anglian manors are distinctive in character, 

 and illustrate peculiarly well the social and economic changes which followed 

 the Norman Conquest."' The remaining divisions of the land, the terrae, 

 bereivicks, honours, and sokes, may be more summarily dismissed. The term 

 terra is used more vaguely and generally than manerium for a tract of land, 

 which may or may not correspond to a manor. At Halesworth, in Blything 

 Hundred, two manors and an estate of 60 acres held by four freemen are 

 spoken of as tres terras ; at Henstead, in the same district, a berewick of i caru- 

 cate and 30 acres held by two freemen are called duas terras. In both these 

 cases the freemen with their land had been ' added ' to one of the manors.'* 

 At Stutton, in Samford Hundred, where the king's thegn Fribern held two 

 terrae for a manor before the Conquest, we are left to guess the size of the 

 estates which were joined together to form a manor. At ' Wica,' in Brad- 

 mere Hundred, eight commended freemen with i carucate of land and 

 eleven bordars were held de liberatione et pro terra. At Acton, in Babergh 

 Hundred, Ralph Peverel received four freemen pro terra with 50 acres, and 

 at Assington, also on the Peverel estates, a freeman was ' delivered ' pro terra 

 who did not belong to the manor." Of berewicks we hear more, and the 

 term is used more definitely for an estate, often of considerable size, which, 

 from the administrative point of view, is an outlying member of a manor. 

 The berewick may lie in one hundred and the manor to which it belongs in 

 another, as at Woolpit and at Fornham St. Genevieve," where two berewicks 

 of St. Edmund's Abbey in Thedwastre Hundred ' belonged to halls' in another 

 hundred. The most striking instance of a berewick lying far from its manor 

 is Harold's holding of 5 carucates at Harkstead, near the estuary of the 

 River Stour, which was a berewick [bervita) of his lo-hide manor of Bright- 

 lingsea {Bride see seid), on the estuary of the River Colne, in Essex. Bright- 

 lingsea and Harkstead together rendered two nights' farm to the king, but 



»' Dom. Bk. 287, 338*, 330^, 331, 393^, 394, 411, 355/5, 431^. 



'' Cf. VinogradofF, op. cit. 305-7 ; Dom. Bk. 299, 399^ ; cf. 400. 



" Dom. Bk. 299, 399^. 



" Ibid. 41 \b, 421, 416^ ; ' Asetona, i liber homo liberatus pro terra, sed non pertinet manerio.' 



•* Ibid. 362, 362^. 



375 



