A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



service* into the fens/ presumably in 1071,' Between these two dates a good 

 deal of his property seems to have passed into other hands. His widow was 

 living at the date of the survey,* and seems to have recovered some property 

 from Odo, bishop of Bayeux.' She held 20 acres at Borston which the 

 queen had given to her son Robert. « 



Following the account of Robert Malet's lands come those of the lands 

 of the two greatest lay holders, William de Warenne and Roger Bigod. The 

 history of the Warenne family belongs more properly to that of the county 

 of Sussex than to our present subject ; nor do we learn much from the 

 Norfolk Survey about William's own life. His property in the county, as a 

 glance at the map will show, was almost all west of Norwich. Castle Acre, 

 his own residence, where his wife Gundreda had died the year before the 

 survey, may fairly be regarded as the centre of gravity of his fee in Norfolk. 

 Domesday Book makes a somewhat unmethodical distinction between the 

 portion of this property which William held as the representative of his 

 brother Frederic,^ and that which he held ' for the Exchange ' or ' for the 

 Chatellenie ' or honour ' of Lewes.' ^ The history of this exchange is not clear ,^ 

 but for whatever reason the exchange was made, it was made manor for manor, 

 since we are told that so much land or so many freemen were delivered ' for a 

 manor 'or ' to make up a manor.' ' These lands were the new part of the fee," 

 and seem to have been made up largely of Stigand's forfeited estates. They 

 consequently included lands like the Ely lands in the south-west of the county, 

 of which Stigand had wrongful possession. The Alveva whose Norfolk lands 

 also formed part of this exchange was presumably the Countess Alveva, mother 

 of Earl Morcar," and her lands must have come into the king's hands at the 

 same time as those of Stigand. 



Domesday tells us but little of Frederic, the original holder of the Warenne 

 fee in Norfolk. We gather from the Chronicon Monasterii de Hyda and from 

 the uncertain authority of the Gesta Hereivardi^^ that he was William's brother, 

 and that he was slain by Hereward in the rebellion of 1070. Domesday 

 represents him as the successor of a Saxon Toka holding large estates in the 

 north and west of the county. The two gifts to religious houses at West 



' Dom. Bk. f. 247. The Domesday juries seem to say that he died on this expedition ; cf. f. 332^ 



' Ibid. fF. 1333, 260. 



' Mr. Freeman held that he could not be identical with the William Malet who died at Bee, because he 

 ' died fighting in the marshes of Ely ' (vol. iii, 2nd ed. p. 777), a statement which he repeats in vol. iv (ist ed. 

 p. 473), and vol. v (p. 39), relying on the Norfolk passage (f. 133^) 'quando ivit in maresc' But Mr. Round 

 has suggested {Academy, 26 April, 1884) that 'maresc' (a most unlikely word) is a scribal blunder for 'euruic' 

 (i.e. York), which would make perfect sense (J. H. R.). 



* Dom. Bk. f. 155. ' Ibid. f. 450. 



^ Ibid. f. 157^, sqq. ' Ibid, and fF. 162^, 163. 



* Mr. Salzmann points out that an examination of the Domesday Survey of Sussex shows that a manor in the 

 hundred of East Grinstead in the count of Mortain's ' rape ' or honour of Pevensey had belonged to William de 

 Warenne's Lewes rape {V.C.H. Sussex, i, 418), and another still did so (ibid. 419), while William himselfheld 

 land in the count's hundred of Rotherfield (ibid. 420), which suggests that these two hundreds, with those of 

 Hartfield and ' Riston,' lying north-west of the archbishop's hundred of Mailing, may have originally belonged — 

 as they do geographically — to the Lewes honour, but have been taken away by the king and given to the count 

 of Mortain, William de Warenne being compensated by the grant of these Norfolk lands. However, it seems 

 also possible that the story may be connected with the Warenne benefactions to Cluny, since we find of Barnham 

 Broom ' Hoc totum est de escangio de LaquisaV terra sanctorum ' (Dom. Bk. f. i66b). But against the evidence 

 of this single passage must be put the constant references to the ' castellatio ' and ' castellum ' of Lewes and the 

 £ict that William's benefactions to Cluny were almost entirely made after the date of the Domesday Survey. 



' Dom. Bk. f. 164. Hoc est pro uno manerio de Laquls. '" dc nova terra, Dom. Bk. f. 165^. 



" Ellis, Int. to Domesday, i, 370 n. 

 " Liber de Hyda (Rolls Ser.), 295 ; Gesta Her. (in Gaimar, Rolls Ser.) i, 369. 



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