A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



rent 33J quarters of oats at \od. a quarter, 79 hens, 340 eggs, 89 days' carry- 

 ing, and 80 mornings' work ; while another 40 molmen at the same place had 

 each to do three ploughings, receiving from the lord 4 loaves, 8 herrings, 

 and 24 eggs as food, and also to do among them 140 weeding works. At 

 Fornham 10 cottagers who held an acre apiece rendered \od. for each acre as 

 bedrep-silver and had to weed 30 acres of corn {^\d. an acre) and reap 30 acres 

 (at yl. an acre), which works out at the extraordinary rate of \s. %d. an acre. 



The average value which is assigned to the arable land in the demesne of 

 these twelve manors is 4^/. an acre. Meadow is commonly valued at \s. 6d. 

 and pasture at is. Of the wood a portion varying from a seventh to a fif- 

 teenth is allowed to be cut each year, and this is valued at from is. bd. to 2j. 

 an acre. It appears to be implied in the language of the ' extent ' that the 

 demesne in several cases was actually rented out at these prices. This would 

 seem to have been a necessity when the demesne comprised, as in several 

 cases, more than half the land of the manor. Even if all the services due 

 from the villeins had been exacted they would not have sufficed. Such 

 renting out of the demesne must have played a large part in the break-up of 

 the manorial system. Wind and water-mills contributed a not inconsiderable 

 amount to the manorial receipts. The mill of Saxham was worth ioj., that 

 of Fornham 20J., that of Rickinghall 30J., and that of Redgrave ^6 13;-. 

 The market of Botesdale, which was attached to Redgrave, brought in £^\, 

 and that of Bungay was valued in 1 270 at ^d i y. A^d.^ and its two fairs at 

 j^4 1 3J. 4^." The annual value of pleas and perquisites was on the average 

 about loj., but at Melford it was 40j-., and at Redgrave 6oj. 



A striking example of the action of the economic forces which were 

 gradually remoulding the status of the population as exhibited in the condi- 

 tions of land tenure is furnished in the account which the Hundred Rolls 

 give of the manor of Gorleston, which was included in the half-hundred of 

 Lothingland, and was reckoned as ' ancient demesne.' In Edward the Con- 

 fessor's time, when the Earl Gurth held it, there were twenty villeins 

 attached to the manor, but when the Domesday Survey was made these had 

 been reduced to twelve." The manor remained in the King's hands from 

 the Conquest till the reign of Henry III, by which time the villeins had 

 again increased to twenty. The total amount of land held by them was 258 

 acres, and it would seem to have been originally divided into lots of 1 2 acres, 

 since fifteen of the holdings were still of this size, while one was of 24 acres, 

 another of 35, two others of 8j and 4I, and one of 6 acres. The King's 

 bailiff received 29J. 3d', as annual rent from these ' bondmen,' but this hardly 

 represented half the value of the land to the King. The villeins also paid 

 2 2 J. 4^'. every year in place of the customary services which they owed on 

 the royal demesne.'" Before the middle of the 13th century they had ceased 

 to perform these services, and were giving their whole attention to their own 

 land, much as if they were freemen. What still marked them as villeins was 

 the equality of their holdings, which passed undivided from father to son or 

 to whatever successor the lord might appoint. There can be no doubt that 

 the holdings were divided into strips, probably of half an acre each, dis- 

 tributed over several large open fields which were cultivated according to a 

 course common to the whole village. But each holding of 1 2 acres, though 



» Suckling, Hist. o/Suff. i, 120. » Dom. Bk. ii, 283. * Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 161. 



642 



