A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



manor {quia non possunt carere sua pastura reddunt ei consuetudineni)} No 

 doubt the same method was found efficient in other cases also. 



It will be seen that before the Brevia of the tenants-in-chief could take 

 the form in which we now have them, they must have undergone a great 

 deal of revision, and it is not wonderful that they should have lost something 

 in the process. We are fortunately able to produce a definite instance of 

 this from the Inquisitio Eliemis. That document presents so close a resem- 

 blance to Domesday in its account of the Norfolk manors of Ely, that it has 

 been assumed that it was actually copied from Little Domesday as we now 

 have it.' This cannot, however, be the case, since it includes an account of 

 Burgh Apton, which Domesday omits." The correspondence is, however, so 

 close, that we must conclude that the same returns were copied into both 

 books. We can determine from Domesday the order in which the returns 

 were arranged. They were compiled hundred by hundred, in accordance 

 with the verdicts of the juries, and were arranged more or less in the follow- 

 ing order : — Clackclose, Freebridge, Docking, Smethden ; South Greenhoe, 

 Grimshoe ; Wayland, Shropham, Guiltcross ; Launditch, Forehoe, Midford ; 

 Gallow, Brothercross, Holt, North Greenhoe, North Erpingham ; Walsham, 

 Blofield, West Flegg ; Henstead, Earsham, Diss, Loddon ; Eynesford, 

 Taverhall, South Erpingham, Tunstead, Happing ; East Flegg ; Humble- 

 yard, Depwade, and Clavering. 



We see, accordingly, that Little Domesday, though more primitive than 

 the larger volume, can hardly have sprung into existence in 1086.* We have 

 too many stages to allow for : the original inquiry by the commissioners, first 

 of the lord, then of the hundred ; the preparation of the verified returns by 

 the comparison of the statements of the lords with the verdicts of the juries 

 of the hundreds ; and lastly the copying out of the amended Brevia into the 

 form in which we now have them. And there is, as we have seen from 

 the allusions to the Rotuli Wintonie, some temptation to place the final stage 

 as late as 1 100, even in the case of the smaller of the two volumes, which 

 contains the counties of Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk, and is styled Little 

 Domesday Book. The other volume, which contains much less detail, is 

 obviously later and shows signs of much more careful compilation. 



Proceeding from the manner to the matter of the survey, we must first 

 consider its main object, the assessment and collection of the king's geld, for 

 which purpose the unit was the hundred, and we shall see that these units as 

 we find them in Domesday are not primitive. We may, however, make a 

 good guess at the economic conditions of Norfolk when the first assess- 

 ment was made by noticing the relative sizes of the hundreds, as it 

 is clear (if the hundreds were areas of equal assessment) that the popula- 

 tion must then have been thickest in the smallest hundreds. The 

 arrangement of the Domesday hundreds in Norfolk differs a little from 

 the modern arrangement, as will be seen from the map. In some cases 

 the boundaries have been dictated by physical considerations. Thus 

 the two hundreds of East and West Flegg must at a comparatively 



' Dom. Bk. f. 274. s Round, Feud. Engl. p. 137. ' Hamilton, Inq. Com. Cantab.^. 136. 



*It was observed by Mr. Round {Feud. Engl. pp. 139-140) that 'It seems to have been somewhat 

 hastily concluded that because the survey (" Descriptio Anglia: ") took place in 1086, Domesday Book (which 

 styles \lidi Liber de Wlntonid) was completed in that year.' The colophon to ' Little Domesday' refers, in his 

 opinion, to the survey, not to the volume. 



