DOMESDAY SURVEY 



sokemen of Stigand, and all seem to have been transferred to Eudo son of Clam- 

 ahoc, Ralf's predecessor in title, from the crown manor of Hingham/ Yet 

 these ' freemen ' are distinguished as liberi from the twenty-five sokemen of 

 Deophamjust as the three freemen are distinguished from the thirteen sokemen 

 in Fersfield.' Apparently the same man might be a freeman or a sokeman, 

 according to the relation in which he was regarded/ Freedom, however, 

 was itself relative : freemen might constitute a valuable property. Thus 

 Earl Ralf's freemen in Blofield and Walsham hundreds were worth jC^S/ 

 and Stigand's freemen in Earsham hundred had rendered /a a year under 

 penalty of double if they failed to pay/ At the date of the survey they ren- 

 dered >Ci6 as part of the farm of Earsham.' No doubt in many cases these 

 freeholders paid an actual fixed rent or census to their lords. Thus Godric 

 was accountable for the rent of land held by a poor widow in Mileham which 

 she was too poor to pay ; ^ and we hear of a freeman of Thirning who ' fuit 

 in censu de Salla regis ' in Earl Ralf's time. We also hear of a sub-reeve of 

 Earsham who held certain lands and ' abstulit censum.' * 



But we are not entitled to assume that all freeholders not holding by 

 military service paid rent, we may perhaps even guess that the juries 

 regarded such payment as a derogation of freedom. There were two other 

 bonds possible between the freeman and his lord — 'Commendation' and 

 'Soke' — and Domesday for Norfolk is full of references to both of them. 

 They are clearly regarded as differing in kind, and might bind the same 

 man to two different lords. 



' Commendation ' is constantly presented to us as the slightest bond pos- 

 sible. ' Nil habuit nisi commendationem ' recurs at every point of the 

 survey. In one precious instance we have the word ' homage,' apparently 

 implying the same connexion.' We gather that a man might ' commend ' 

 himself to whom he would, ^^ as Edric of Laxfield's sokeman in Haddiscoe 

 ' commended himself to Aluin, and as a freeman in Gateley 'became Bishop 

 Arfast's man.' ^^ As in later times we find ' homage ' coupled with and dis- 

 tinguished from ' service,' so in Domesday we have consuetudo set over against 

 commendatio, and both distinguished from ' soke.' Thus Hermer de Ferrieres 

 had nineteen freemen in Garveston. The hundred asserts and offers to prove 

 by ordeal that Turchetel, Hermer's predecessor, had the ' commendation ' 

 only and no consuetudo, while one of Hermer's men maintains on the same 

 terms that he had all consuetudo except the soke, which belonged to Ely.^^ 

 We find further that a man might be commended to more than one lord 

 even for the same piece of land.^' Thus we find a man whose commen- 

 dation was divided between Ralf Baynard's predecessor and the abbot of 

 St. Edmund's.'" 



' Dom. Bk. f. nob. ' Ibid. f. 1303. 



' Ibid. f. 121 (Kimberley). ' Ibid. fF. 1 23, 123^, 129^. 



' This is clearly what Cowell, quoting a Peterb. MS., calls Libera tvara. 'Libera wara est unus reddltus 

 et est talis conditionis, quod si non solvatur suo tempore, duplicatur in crastino, et sic deinceps indies.' 

 (Cowell, Law Diet. s. v. ffara.) 



« Dom. Bk. f. 1393. ' Ibid. f. 121. * Ibid. f. 199. 



' Ibid. f. 172, Plumstead. '" Ibid. f. 182. " Ibid. f. 197^. " Ibid. f. 207. 



" A remarkable case of the commendation of one Englishman to another in King William's time is that 

 of.iElfstan, a thegn of Harold, who commended himself to ' Alwin ' of Thetford, Roger Bigod's predecessor. 

 His land passed, with Alwin's, to Roger, but the hundred challenged Alwin's right on the ground that he had 

 obtained ./Elfstan's land without the king's writ or livery of seisin. This illustrates the importance of the 

 king's writ in all transactions affecting land (J. H. R.). " Dom. Bk. f. 249^. 



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