DOMESDAY SURVEY 



mention in the Suffolk Survey of the ' addition ' or ' attachment ' of freemen 

 to manors, and the loose way in which this connexion was frequently effected, 

 show that the process was far from being complete in 1086/'' The freemen 

 and their land were often valued separately from the rest of the manor to 

 which they had been joined, as at Kelsale, where the separate values of manor 

 and freemen in the days of King Edward are followed by a statement of the 

 present total value of the manor with the freemen ; '" at Thorington, where 

 the values of manor and freemen's land are given separately, but the whole is 

 assessed to the geld as one estate {terra) ; '" or at Freckenham, where the 

 freemen added by Earl Ralph seem to stand even outside the geld assessment, 

 as if they had been arbitrarily forced into an already matured organization."* 

 But the bond would soon become closer, the system would consolidate, and 

 the general effect of the Conquest would be to depress the freemen and to 

 force them down to the level of the unfree peasantry/" Finally, we may 

 call attention to the occasional mention in the Survey of women as land- 

 holders,**" and to the references to ' half free ' men, and even to a ' quarter 

 of a freeman,' phrases in which Professor Vinogradoff sees an allusion to 

 the division of commendation, soke, and customary dues.*"^ 



The precise difference between the liberi homines and the sochemanni, who 

 are found in considerable numbers in Suffolk, has never been satisfactorily 

 defined. The two terms are sometimes, as we have seen, interchangeable,*"^ and 

 a sokeman might have freemen under him.*"' Still, the sokeman is generally 

 described as a less independent man than the liber homo, more restricted in his 

 power of giving and selling his land, more intimately associated in the 

 manorial economy, and more heavily burdened with services and customary 

 obligations.*"* If we look through the list of St. Edmund's manors in the Suffolk 

 Survey, we see that the men who could not alienate their land without licence, 

 who ' belonged to the Saint's fold,' and who were subject to ' commendation and 

 soke and all customs,' were more often sochemanni than liberi homines.*^^ Of one 

 we are specially told that he was ' entirely ' [omnino) the sokeman of the Abbot 

 of Ely, while at Elmswell five sokemen were entirely [omnino) under the saint, 

 and could not give or sell without the abbot's licence. Professor Vinogra- 

 doff is inclined to emphasize this inability to alienate land, and to regard the 



'" Dom. Bk. 282^, Ringsfield ; 307^, Chilton ; 308, Cransford ; 312, Westleton. Vinogradoff, op. cit. 

 212, et seq. 331, 423, 430. 



^^ Dom. Bk. 330^, 331 ; cf. 350, Boxted. Freemen set to farm. Now manor and freemen together 

 worth £6. 



'" Ibid. 41 2* ; cf. 384^, Wetheringsett. 



"' Ibid. 381. That the relative positions of the entries concerning the ' added ' freemen and the geld are 

 significant appears in the passages referring to the Ely manor of Rattlesden in Domesday Book and in the Injuiiitio 

 Eliensis. In both the freeman is added after the geld entry, and this correspondence points to a careful 

 copying of the exact order of the original return. Dom. Bk. 381. Inq. El. (Rec. Com.), 522^. 



*" Cf. Vinogradoff, op. cit. 210-18, 410, 424, et seq. 472, 473. Maitland, Dom. Bk. and Beyond, 60, 

 et seq. For cases of definite oppression of Suffolk freemen, cf Dom. Bk. 282^, Ringsfield ; 284^, Herring- 

 fleet ; 287.5, Bergholt ; cf 301, Ilketshall. 



*" Dom. Bk. 3473, Kettleburgh ; 354^, Wortham ; cf. 299^, Middleton. ' Esmoda tota femina Toll 

 vicecomitis.' 



*" Ibid. 288^, ' Burghea '; 297, Glemham ; 299^, Middleton ; 387, Bredfield. Vinogradoff, op. cit. 423. 



"" Ante, p. 404. A freeman in Dom. Bk. entered as a sokeman in the Inq. El. 



*" Dom. Bk. 371, Stoke Ash, Wickham. 



*" On this whole subject cf Vinogradoff, op. cit. 431 et seq. ; Maitland, op. cit. ; Index, ' Sochemanni ' ; 

 Round, Feud. Engl. 18-19, ^^' 24-26, 28-34 ! f^-C.H. Herts, i, 265 et seq. 



*'' Dom. Bk. 356^, 357, Risby, Horringer, Whepstead, Nowton, &c. ; 364, Ingham ; 364^, Stanton ; 

 368^, Mendham, &c. 



405 



