DOMESDAY SURVEY 



The commissioners and their instructions, i — Their procedure, 2 — The Domesday hundreds, 4 — 

 The assessment of geld in East Angh'a : The Leet, 5 — Measurements and geld, 6 — Mr. Corbett's 

 hypothesis, 8 — Manors and berewicks, 9 — Domesday landowners : The king ; Ancient 

 demesne, 9 — The forfeiture of Earl Ralf, 10 — The great escheats, 13 — The church: The bishop, 

 14 — The religious houses, 15 — The lay barons, 17 — Their antecessores, 21 — Minor tenants-in- 

 chief, 21 — The clergy, 21 — Pre-Conquest landowners, 22 — The stock on the manors : Cows, 

 horses, 23 — Sheep and salt-marsh, 23 — Swine and woodland, 24 — Mills and fisheries, 25 — 

 Saltpans, 26 — Bees, 26 — Hawks and deer, 26 — Industries and markets, 26 — The inhabitants 

 of the manor : Villeins, bordars, and serfs, 27 — The effects of the Conquest, 27 — The under- 

 tenants, freemen and sokemen, 28 — Their services, rent, 29 — ' Commendation ' and ' Custom,' 

 29 — Mill-soke and fold-soke, 31 — Restrictions on the sale of land, 32 — Manorial jurisdiction : 

 soke, 32 — The pleas of the crown, 34 — Judicial procedure, ordeal, 34 — Currency, 35 — The 

 boroughs, 35 — Conclusion, 37. 



WHEN King William's commissioners began to survey the county 

 of Norfolk they were acting, we may assume, on instructions 

 similar to those of the commissioners for the county of 

 Cambridge, which have fortunately been preserved to us/ 

 Professor Maitland renders them as follows : — ' 



The king's barons inquired by oath of the sheriff of the shire and of all the barons and 

 of their Frenchmen and of the whole hundred, the priest, reeve, and six vtllani of every 

 vill, how the mansion [mansio) is called, who held it in the time of King Edward, who 

 holds it now, how many hides, how many plough-teams on the demesne, how many 

 plough-teams of the men, how many vtllani, how many cotarii, how many servi, how many 

 liberi homines, how many sochemanni, how much wood, how much meadow, how much 

 pasture, how many mills, how many fisheries, how much has been taken away therefrom, 

 how much added thereto, and how much there is now, how much each liber homo and 

 sochemannus had, and has : All this thrice over, to wit as regards the time of King Edward, 

 the time when King William gave it, and the present time, and whether more can be had 

 thence than is had now. 



A hasty glance at the description of almost any manor in Norfolk will 

 show how nearly these instructions correspond with the information which 

 we find recorded. The typical entry in Domesday Book tells what tenant-in- 

 chief owns such a manor, who held it in King Edward's time (i.e. ' on the 

 day on which King Edward was alive and dead'), the name of the under- 

 tenant (if any) in 1086, and all the other particulars enumerated above. 

 We do, however, mark certain discrepancies. Instead of hides we hear of 

 carucates or ploughlands, as we do also in Suffolk, and in Yorkshire, Lincoln- 

 shire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Leicestershire. We do not as in 

 the five latter counties hear anything of bovates. Our carucates are divided 

 into halves, but the smaller fractions are usually expressed in acres, though in 

 one case, at Merton,^ we hear of a virgate, and feel doubtful whether to 

 render it as a quarter-carucate or as a quarter-acre, a rood.* 



' Hamilton, Inq. Com. Cantab, p. 97. ' Dom. Bk. and Beyond, p. 24. 



' Dom. Bk. f. 252. * Cf. virgata, f. 207^, and virga, if. 184, 264^5. 



2 I I 



