DOMESDAY SURVEY 



was the soke of the hundred-and-a-half of Clackclose, which went, so the 

 Ramsey Cartulary tells us, with Wimbotsham and Downham Market.^ The 

 abbey does not seem to have increased its holding in Norfolk since the 

 Conquest. 



The Conqueror's foundation of St. Stephen's, Caen, held Well Hall and 

 Gayton, formerly part of Stigand's possessions. No other religious house 

 appears as a tenant-in-chief, but Cluny held West Walton of William de 

 Warenne,^ the nucleus of an estate which duly developed into Castle Acre 

 priory ; and St. Riquier near Abbeville held a small estate in Palgrave from 

 the same lord. 



In the Norfolk Domesday there is a little group of lay tenants whose 

 lands take precedence even of the bishop's. They are the five barons of 

 comital rank who held in Norfolk, together with Robert Malet, William de 

 Warenne, and Roger Bigod. 



Odo, bishop of Bayeux and earl of Kent, may be most conveniently 

 treated as a lay baron.* His lands come next to the king's, and he takes 

 precedence of the other Comites. His estates in Norfolk — Snettisham, with 

 its dependencies, Framingham and Cringleford — had all belonged to Stigand. 

 On Odo's fall they returned to the crown. Following the earl of Kent, 

 we find Robert count of Mortain and earl of Cornwall, Count Alan of 

 Brittany (or rather Penthievre), Count Eustace of Boulogne, and Hugh earl 

 of Chester. 



Of these, Count Alan * was the chief landowner, and his fief formed a 

 considerable portion of the later honour of Richmond. Costessy, however. 

 Count Alan's chief manor, became detached from the rest of the honour, 

 being granted to the Mowbrays by the crown on the first escheat of the fief. 

 Count Alan, as we have seen, profited by the fall of Earl Ralf, and seems 

 to have had a definite share of the earl's lands granted to him.^ The count 

 appears in Domesday as holding a composite estate rather than as representing 

 any definite ' antecessor,' since Gurth, Harold, Edric of Laxfield, Alfah, 

 Alestan, and others are mentioned as previous holders. The history of the 

 honour of Richmond belongs more properly to Yorkshire, as that of Mortain 

 does to Cornwall, but Count Alan himself may be regarded as an East Anglian 

 magnate, since we learn that he was buried at St. Edmund's.^ 



The lands of Robert Malet which became the later ' honour of Eye,' 

 lay, as might be expected, mainly in the south of the county ; though they 

 included lands as far north as Bacton. Although William Malet, and Robert 

 after him, appear as the representatives of Edric of Laxfield,'' the Malet fee did 

 not include all Edric's property. Domesday has supplied a few details of the 

 life of William Malet. He had already died as a monk of Bee* at the date of 

 the survey,' and we learn that at some previous date he went on the king's 



' Ramsey Cart. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 214. 



' Dom. Bk. f. 1 60. 



' Cf. y.C.H. Essex, i, 342. 



* A discussion of the pedigree of three ' Counts Alan ' will be found in Munford's Analysts of Dom. Bk. 

 for Norfolk (1858), pp. 9-12. See also Anselme, Hist, de la Maison Royale de France, iii, 49, 52. 



' Dom. Bit. fF. 147, 150, 254. 



' Dugdale, Mon. iii, 140. 



' Dom. Bk. ff. 148^, 1503, 154, etc. 



' Lanfranc, 0pp. (ed. 1648), App. 53. 



' Dom. Bk. fF. I33<5, 189, 276*. 



2 17 3 



