DOMESDAY SURVEY 



claimed 4 acres which she held before and after Ralfs forfeiture. The 

 king, however, had given her land to Isaac, and we do not know whether 

 any compensation was made. 



As in Essex and Suffolk, so in Norfolk, the quantity of stock upon each 

 manor is recorded. Besides the oxen for the ploughs, which we m^y fairly 

 set down as eight for each plough,^ we find cows, horses, pigs, sheep, and 

 goats.'' Beehives are also thought worth registering, and in some places we 

 find brood mares. One donkey is recorded at Beechamwell,^ and one mule at 

 Rudham,* but it is incredible that there should have been no others in the 

 county. We may conclude that the others are to be found among the otiosa 

 animalia which head the list of stock for each manor. We know, however, 

 from the Liquisitio Eliensis that ' idle beasts ' is sometimes merely a paraphrase 

 for cows ; since where Domesday records one cow in the Ely manor of 

 Marham, the Inquisitio reports the existence of una animalia J' Domesday is 

 usually reticent about cows as such ; they are not named more than three or 

 four times in the Norfolk Survey.* 



Horses also seem but few. The necessary carting may have been 

 partly done by the plough oxen, and a manor which employs as many as five 

 to eight plough-teams will be content with two runcini'' or even one equus in 

 aiila.^ It seems likely that horses used for riding are not reckoned as part of 

 the farm stock. 



Horsebreeding seems to have been a decaying industry in Norfolk at the 

 time of the survey. There were about two-fifths as many brood-mares 

 running wild as there had been twenty years before, but this may be due to 

 a local change in the south of the county. Thus Edric of Laxfi eld's 220 

 mares at Great Hockham had altogether disappeared, as had Lovell's eleven 

 at Sturston, while at Tottington, close by, Alwi's herd of sixty-three had 

 fallen to fifteen. Roger Bigod and Ralf Bainard may have found horse- 

 breeding unprofitable, but Hermer de Ferrieres seems to have kept up 

 Turchetel's stud at Stow Bardolph and at Great EUingham, and both in 

 Clackclose hundred and in the little horsebreeding district in Happing' 

 hundred the stock seems to have been fairly maintained. Low marshy 

 ground was probably regarded as the most suitable, since we find sheep 

 wherever we find horses, and it is not unlikely that the sheep replaced them 

 in the south of the county, 



Mr. Round has pointed out ^° how important a position in the economy 

 of Domesday is filled by the sheep, as producing milk and cheese, and 

 with this consideration before us we wonder less at the apparent scarcity of 

 cows. We know that the salt marshes were their favourite pasture,^^ and we 

 are not therefore surprised to find the largest flock, numbering 1,300, attri- 

 buted to Walton, one of the ' seven towns ' intercommoning on Tilney 



' Round, Feud. Engl. 35, 36. 



^ As many as eighty goats are found at Bradenham, Dom. Bk. f. 252. 



' Dom. Bk. f. 190^. ' Ibid. f. 169^. ' Ibid. f. 2123; Itig. Com. Cantab, p. 130. 



^ Mr. Round draws attention to a remarkable and possibly unique case at Hempnall, where the manor, 

 in addition to its annual rent, rendered, in live stock, six cows, twenty swine, and twenty rams (f. 249). 

 No cows are mentioned among its standing live stock, which indeed seems small for so large an annual render. 



' e.g. Bacton, Dom. Bk. 1553. * Ibid. f. 246. 



' Horsey in Happing hundred suggests ' Horse Island ' and is close to the Danish district of Flegg. We 

 may not be entitled to regard ' wild horses ' as a Scandinavian characteristic ; still stallion-fighting was one of 

 their most famous amusements. (See e.g. Burnt Njal, ch. Iviii.) 



'° F. CH. Essex, i, 371. " Hence the French term ' pr6 sal6' for mutton (J. H. R.). 



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