CHAPTER II. 



THE DEMESNE. 1270— 1307. 



FORNCETT was one of a large number of East Anglian manors 

 held by the Earls of Norfolk. From the chief seat of the Earls, 

 at Franilingham, Suffolk, these manors were administered partly as 

 distinct units, partly as members of one great estate. The local 

 officers of Forncett were in constant touch with the officers of the 

 central administration and with local officers of other of the Earls' 

 manors in Norfolk. 



Considered from the Earls' standpoint, the manor of Forncett 

 was, primarily, a source of revenue in money and in kind. It helped 

 to fill their treasury and to supply food for their great household. 

 Some of the cash receipts were paid by the .local officers to the 

 collector of Framlingham or to itinerant accountants ; but much of 

 the money never reached the central treasury but was disbursed by 

 the local officers, upon order of the Earl, to his creditors in Norwich 

 or the vicinity^ Thus the scattered manors, each with a fisc of its 

 own, facilitated the payment of debts, while the necessity of trans- 

 ferring cash over a long distance was avoided. 



Material for a study of the relations of the manors to the Earls' 

 household and to one another is furnished in the valuable series of 

 Bigod's Account Rolls, preserved in the Public Record Office, but 

 in this volume we are only concerned with the internal economy of 

 one of these manors. 



Judged by the standards of the thirteenth century, the Forncett 

 manor-house seems to have been almost palatial^ For while the 



^ Instances of such payments occur in nearly all of the rolls, e.g. : 



* In expensis militum hundred! coram justiciariis apud Norvvicum pro negotio Comitis et 

 libertatibus suis salvandis x\s. i'lid.' Min. Acc'ts, 935/6. 



* Liberati W. H. praeposito de Parva Framingham ad opus mercatorum xxiiii/. per 

 i. talliam. Item lib' W. C. praeposito de Sudfeld ad opus mercatorum xx/. per i. talliam. 

 Item lib' R. H. praeposito de Dichingham ad opus mercatorum xxi/. \\s. per i. talliam. Item 

 lib'. R. B. praeposito de Hanewrthe ad opus creditorum xliii/. xviiij. per i. talliam.' Min. 

 Acc'ts, 935/8. 



2 See description of houses of Henry III. and Edward I. in Wright, Homes of other 

 Days, 152. 



