A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



In 1289 these two holdings were manors in the hands of Thomas Fitz Eustace 

 and William Talmache, except that 80 acres of one of them were inherited 

 by Philip Noel. But what in the meantime has become of the thirty free- 

 men whose holdings on the average were about 17 acres apiece ? There is 

 one freeman holding 20 acres, there are two holding 18, three 15, and nine 

 others who hold from 3 to 9 acres. These fifteen hold about 1 50 acres 

 among them. There are a dozen with only one or two acres, and another 

 dozen who hold messuages without other land. The rest of the 500 acres 

 is in the hands of four men : William de Cramaville, Richard de Saxham, 

 Robert de Ros, and John le Beylham, and the way in which they are held 

 reveals something of the process of their accumulation. John le Beylham 

 holds 30 acres of arable besides wood and pasture from the abbot direct, and 

 perhaps we may assume that this was his original holding. He has taken 

 over the entire holdings of three freemen, amounting to 1 2 acres, 5 acres, and 

 2 acres of arable respectively ; and then, no doubt because he found them 

 intermixed with his own acquisitions, he has rented 3 acres from the large 

 manorial holding of William Talmache, Robert de Ros has increased the 

 40 acres he held from the manor of Thomas Fitz Eustace by 12 acres taken 

 over from Edward de Welnetham and 5 acres from Robert de Beylham ; 

 but he has let out 9 acres to William de Cramaville, as well as small 

 plots to others. William de Cramaville holds i 1 5 acres from the abbot 

 directly, and 7 acres from the inherited estates of Philip Noel, and, besides 

 the 9 acres rented from Robert de Ros, he has acquired a freeman's entire 

 holding of 16 acres. On the other hand he has let out 20 acres to the 

 fourth of our group of accumulators, Robert de Saxham. Robert de Saxham 

 holds 27 from the abbot directly and besides the additional 20 acres rented 

 from William he has taken 15 of Edward de Welnetham's acres and 9 J of 

 Robert de Beylham's as well as small lots belonging to six other freemen 

 amounting to 21 acres, making a total of 93 acres. 



This method of building up an estate must not be thought peculiar to 

 the larger holders. A free tenant of 1 5 acres holds land from five different 

 sources ; others of 1 5 and of 9 acres hold land from four sources. In short 

 the evidence points to a universal breaking up and reconstruction of the free 

 holdings, and it cannot be doubted that the resulting distribution of land 

 amongst the freemen exhibited much more inequality than had existed before. 

 The freemen are considerably more numerous than those recorded in Domes- 

 day, but four of them hold two-thirds of the land. Another change must be 

 noted. The number of villein holdings has increased. Domesday records 

 three villeins, twenty-one bordars, and two serfs. But in 1289 there were at 

 least a dozen villein tenancies comprising 180 acres on one of the two manors 

 and 32 acres on the other." 



The researches of Mr. Edgar Powell" and of Mr. Redstone," taken 

 together with the Domesday Book of Ipswich,'' make it possible to form a 



'° Harl. MSS. 743, printed with some omissions in Cullum's Hist, of Hatested, 84-8. The account 

 thus given of Hawstead is derived &oti an Itinerary, a sort of later and lesser Domesday made of the lands of 

 the Abbey of Bury by Solomon de RofFand his colleagues, in the reign of Edward I. Even a brief examina- 

 tion of this important document, which gives details only of free holdings, shows that in many respects Haw- 

 stead is a representative case. The numbers of free tenants are ever^Tvhere increasing, but the size of most of 

 the holdings is exceedingly small. The round numbers given by this sur -y are of doubtful accuracy. 



" The taxation of Ipswich for the Welsh War in 1282 in Proc Huff. Arch. Inst. vol. xii, pt. ii. 



" The ' Chaucer Malyn Family, Ipswich,' in Proc. Suff. Arch. l^t. xii. " Black Bk. of Admiralty (Rolls Ser.). 



646 



