i] An Elizabethan Survey and Domesday Book. 19 



1086 there were two teams in demesne. Therefore it is practically 

 certain that the area of arable in the tenants' hands in 1086 could 

 not have exceeded 373 acres. Dividing this by 34, we find that the 

 average holding must have been less than 1 1 acres. 



The maximum arable area that it seems possible to concede to 

 Twanton is 765 acres. There were three teams in demesne in 1086 ; 

 allowing 50 acres to the team, 615 acres are left as tenants' land; 

 dividing by 62, we get 9*9 acres as the average holding. 



But before accepting these small numbers as correctly represent- 

 ing the area of the average tenement, we have to consider whether 

 some of the recorded population have not been counted twice. Thus, 

 Professor Maitland, in his analysis of Domesday, says, * There is 

 reason to think that some of the freemen and sokemen of [Norfolk 

 and Suffolk] get counted twice or thrice because they hold land 

 under several different lords ^' 



But in Fornesseta (St Mary's) only two persons could have been 

 counted a second time, for the three sokemen were connected with 

 Bigod's manor, and of the nine recorded freemen seven were 

 Bigod's men and two were connected with Bishop Osbern's manor. 

 Assuming that the latter were also Bigod's men, the number of 

 persons would be reduced by two, and the area of the average holding 

 increased to 117 acres. This is the maximum area possible. 

 There is reason to believe that the actual area was less than this. 



Of the 42 freemen and sokemen in Twanton, four 'and a half 

 held of Earl Alan ; the rest held of Bigod, some immediately and 

 others, apparently, through mesne lords. It is impossible to 

 determine certainly how many of them may have been counted 

 more than once ; but the weight of probability strongly favours the 

 assumption that the average tenement in Twanton was not more 

 than II or 12 acres. 



We are prepared to find many small servile tenements in a 

 district where the bordarii were so numerous^, but the holdings of 

 the freemen must also have been very smalP. 



^ Domesday Book and Beyond^ 20. 



2 Maitland, Domesday, 40. Cf. Vinogradoff, Grotvth of Manor, 338. 



^ Very small tenements seem to have been characteristic of East Anglia generally. Light 

 on this point is obtained from the ' Three Manorial [East Anglian] Extents of the Thirteenth 

 Century,' printed in translation by Rev. W. Hudson in Norfolk and Norwich Arch. Soc, 

 Norfolk Archaeology, xiv. 1-56 (1899). 



