12 An Elizabethan Sut^ey and Domesday Book. [ch. 



and rendered only three plowings yearly and a few other light 

 labour services. 



The customers were not numerous. Week-work seems to have 

 been charged upon only 21 J, later upon 25, out of some 135 bond 

 tenements^ It seems highly probable that these few customers were 

 the successors of the villeins and bordiers — 20 in number — who held 

 directly of Bigod, and whose representatives T.R.E. belonged to 

 Colman's and to Olf's manors. And it seems equally probable that 

 the bond sokemen represent the bordiers and villeins who were under 

 some tenant freeman or sokeman, to whom they probably owed food- 

 rents, or other dues, though in some cases their immediate overlord 

 seems to have had no demesne land on which they could have 

 been employed. But they pertained to the manor of Forncett, 

 their land could be conveyed only with the license of the lord of 

 Forncett, and they owed the lord of Forncett a few days' plowing 

 yearly I 



About the year 1086 there seems to have been a tendency toward 

 the bringing together of many estates into one lordship and the 

 consequent growth of large manors ; while later the process of 

 subinfeudation worked opposite results. These tendencies are illus- 

 trated in the history of Forncett manor. After 1086 the manor of 

 Clavers in Forncett was carved out of land that had previously 

 formed part of the manor of Forncett^ and the manors of Aslacton 

 Park's and Aslacton Priory out of Aslacton, a berewic to Forncett 

 manor^ ; while among the holdings of Bigod's freemen were estates 

 that seem to have developed into the manors of Moulton and of 

 Shelton^ 



In Depwade Hundred in 1086 we count 24 manors and 4 

 berewics ; some of the manors are very small and cannot be 

 identified with later manors. 



^ See below, pp. 67, 68. 



2 The number of bond sokemen in the later period cannot be determined ; for among the 

 holders of the 135 bond tenements there were apparently not only customers and bond 

 sokemen but also some free sokemen and the tenements of the two classes of sokemen cannot 

 be distinguished from one another. For evidence of this see below, p. 83 ff. Since many 

 Domesday entries prove that there were in 1086 sokemen and even freemen who could not sell 

 their land 'sinelicentiadomini' (Round, Feudal England, 2%passwi, and Maitland, Domesday, 

 105), it is not strange that free sokemen should be found among the holders of ' terra nativa.' 

 Like the bond sokemen the free sokemen appear to have rendered light labour services to the 

 lord of Forncett. It seems probable that the free sokemen represented 'sochemanni ' of 1086, 

 who could not withdraw from their land without license from their lord. Of course, other 

 of the Forncett 'sochemanni' of 1086 may have been represented at a later period by 'libere 

 tenentes.' 



^ Blomefield, op, cit. v. 259. ^ Blomefield, v. 177. ^ Blomefield, v. 204, 263. 



