A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



A[rfastus] episcopus in tempore utrorumque [Radulforum, sc.],' concluding 

 from it 'that the elder Ralf was living as late as 1070, in which year the 

 episcopate of Erfast begins.' But it has been shown by the writer^ that 

 Mr. Freeman misread the passage and that the context (' Ailmarus episcopus 

 de utroque postea Arfastus episcopus ') clearly shows that we should read it 

 ' habuit A [ilmarus] episcopus in tempore utrorumque,' and that therefore the 

 elder Ralf died before vEthelmasr was deposed in April, 1070. 



Questions of title at the time of the survey often turned upon the 

 younger Ralf's possession before his forfeiture. Thus we read of his officers 

 exchanging with those of St. Edmund's Abbey four of his tenants at Gissing 

 for four of theirs at Burston, ' quando Rad. comes fuit potestativus et sui et 

 terrae sua^ ' (fol. 2\\b). Under Wymondham we detect an allusion to his 

 tragic fall. The plough-teams of its tenants had diminished from sixty to 

 twenty-four, and Domesday explains that ' banc confusionem facit Rad. de 

 Warr (i.e. Waer) antequam forisfaceret ' (fol. 137^). When Ralf retreated 

 from Cambridge before the royal troops he must have passed through 

 Thetford and Wymondham, and one cannot resist the conclusion that the bulk 

 of the missing oxen (288) were slaughtered by his Breton followers. There 

 were burgesses of Norwich also who had cause to rue the day when 

 Earl Ralf's rebellion in their midst involved them in his fall from power.* 



Most of King Edward's estates in Norfolk remained in the hands of 

 King William. He retained Saham Toney, Hingham, Holt, Wighton, and 

 Foulsham, and the manor of Diss in Suffolk, with their dependent members. 

 The remainder of the king's direct holding was made up of Harold's manors 

 of Great Massingham, Southmere, Fakenham, and Cawston, and Gurth's 

 manor of Ormesby, But in Norfolk, as in Essex,' there had been considerable 

 alienations of crown land before the Conquest. This is clearly stated in the 

 cases of Swaffham, which ' pertinuit ad regionem,'* and Sporle which 'fuit de 

 regno.' ' In both cases King Edward gave the manors to Earl Ralf, and the latter 

 manor returned to the crown upon his forfeiture. But we may safely put down 

 some of Harold's lands to the same source, as, for instance, when we read 

 that Necton, which afterwards fell to Ralf de Toesni, ' reddebat sex noctes de 

 firma.' ' Again we may conjecture that manors which paid rents in honey had 

 at some time belonged to the crown. We know that Kenninghall belonged 

 to King Edward, though we find it described as part of Earl Ralf's escheat, 

 and we may probably say the same of the same earl's manor of Buckenham, 

 and of Stigand's manor of Thorpe-next-Norwich. We cannot, however, limit 

 these food-rents to royal demesne, since we know that Toli the sheriff gave a 

 ploughland in Broome to St. Edmund's, and held it of the saint ' per firmam 

 duarum dierum,'^ while the Inquisitio Eliensis^ tells us of a freeman in Lurling 

 who held \\ ploughlands of Ely, and rendered two ' sesters ' of honey. 

 These notices are only incidental, and we shall probably be right in 

 assuming that detailed information as to rents is only given as a rule in 

 the case of property which was, at or before the date of Domesday, in the 

 king's hands. 



' Round, Feud. Engl. pp. 428, 429. 



' ' Isti fugientes et alii remanentes omnino sunt vastati partim propter forisfacturas R. comitis' (fol. 117^). 



' v. C. H. Essex, i, 336. * Dom. Bk. f. 140. ' Ibid. f. 119^. 



' Compare Mr. Round's conclusions in a similar case ; F. C. H. Essex, i, 336. 



'• Dom. Bk. f. zilb. ' Hamilton, In^. Com. Cantab, p. 140. 



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