DOMESDAY SURVEY 



churches ' {ecclesiae 'villae),^''^ while at Combs the ' parishioners ' [parrochiani) of 

 the church of Stow had been transferred to Combs Church."' The rights of 

 the parish church and the growth of daughter churches or chapels to meet 

 the needs of increasing population are well illustrated on the royal manor of 

 Thorney, Here four brothers, freemen, had built a chapel on their own land 

 near the cemetery of the mother church {mater ecclesia), and had made an 

 arrangement about fees, which is carefully recorded in the Survey."* Another 

 chapel, which had been built at Wissett, in Blything Hundred, was under the 

 parish church, which was served by twelve monks [monachi).^''^ Of the way 

 in which the Church acquired land there are several interesting examples in 

 the Suffolk Survey. At Stonham 20 acres had been given to the Church by 

 nine freemen ' for their souls.' "' St. Edmund's Abbey held land which 

 Gernon de Peiz gave back when he became a monk.'" The married priest 

 Edmund gave the land which he received with his wife to the abbey of 

 Ely."^ Most of the land held by the Church was ' free land ' [libera terra), the 

 ' freedom ' probably here referring to exemption from the geld or from 

 military services,"* and of a large number of Church estates it is expressly 

 stated that they were held 'in alms' {pro elemosina, in elemosina).^^ Occa- 

 sionally, as at ' Lundale ' in Lackford Hundred, a church without land {sine 

 terra) is recorded. The clergy could, of course, hold of lay lords and by lay 

 tenure. In Suffolk, in addition to the tenants-in-chief, Juichell the Priest 

 and Walter the Deacon, we may note the freeman, Godric the Priest, com- 

 mended first to the outlawed Edric, and then the ' man ' {homo) of Norman ; 

 Godwin the Priest, the ' man * of Harold ; Warin {Guarinus), a priest of whom 

 Walter of Dol was seised when he made forfeiture ; Aluric the Deacon, a 

 commended freeman ; Algar, priest and freeman ; Edwin, priest and soke- 

 man ; and the ' half-priest ' who was ' added ' to William of Warenne's 

 manor of Middleton. Among the freemen of Roger Bigod we also find 

 Liuric the Deacon, a ' half-freeman,' and Ansketil the Priest, Roger Bigot's 

 chaplain {capellanus), who held a carucate of land which had belonged to 

 seven freemen, one of them a deacon, and two other small estates.'*^ 



Something has already been said of what may be called the official class, 

 but we may note in passing that a ' beadle ' {bedel) with the English name of 

 Brictmar held a freeman on the ' land of the vavasours,' for whom he had 

 given pledge,"'^ while at Hemingstone, in Bosmere Hundred, Almar ' the king's 

 reeve' {praepositus regis), also, presumably, an Englishman, had stepped into 

 the shoes of the freeman Lewin.'*' 



Into the difficult and technical question of the exact meaning of ' free- 

 dom ' in the i ith century this is not the place to enter.'** It will be enough 

 to notice the relatively large number oi liberi homines in Suffolk,''' and to point 



'" Dom. Bk. 361^, 362. '" Ibid. 291^ ; VinogradofF, op. cit. 434. 



'" Dom. Bk. 28 13. '" Ibid. 293. "° Ibid. 438, ' pro animabus suis.' 



»" Ibid. 363/J. '" Ibid. 4313 ; Inq. El. (Rec. Com.), 521^, 522a. 



'" Dom. Bk. 3S7. 357^» 360;^, &c. ; VinogradofF, op. cit. 255, 413 ; cf. Dom. Bk. 316, 12 acres of free 

 land in lay hands. '*" Dom. Bk. 36 13, 362^^, &c. 



"' Ibid. 334, 334^, 3423, 343, 3523, 353, 377, 400, 423^. Cf. 283, Weston : a church and 20 acres 

 held by ' the King's freemen.' 



•"Ibid. 446. '«' Ibid. 352. 



•** Cf. Maitland, Dom. Bk. and Beyond ; VinogradofF, Growth of the Manor ; Engl. Soc. in the Eleventh Cent. 



'^ Ellis, Introd. to Dom. ii, 489, 490. As many of the freemen are named, and the same names recur 

 frequently, some of them may have been counted more than once, but there is great difficulty in identifying 

 these small men. 



403 



