A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



Perhaps the most striking change to which Domesday bears witness in 

 Norfolk is the conversion of these commendati, or ' homagers,' into consuetudi- 

 narii, or customary tenants. The process (known to Domesday as iuvasio) 

 has been referred to above. 



King's officer, bishop, and baron all took a hand in the game.^ On one 

 ground or another, or perhaps none at all, the small free landowner, the 

 yeoman as we should call him, was annexed to a neighbouring manor and 

 his free status lost. Ralf ' Talisbosc,' notorious in Bedfordshire and elsewhere 

 for acting in this way as a royal bailiff,^ is found adding two freemen here 

 also to the king's manor of Foulsham.' As in Bedfordshire, Ivo ' Tallebosc ' 

 seems to have been also associated with the royal manors.* The term 

 ' adcensavit ' in the passage cited in the note is explained by the action of a 

 king's reeve — an Englishman like others of his class — ^Ethelwine of Thetford, 

 who annexed a freeman at Scratby to the royal manor of Ormesby.' A 

 whole section is devoted to the land-grabbing {invasionibus) by the local 

 bishop." In the bulk of these cases the holders of the land had been ' merely 

 commended' to Bishop y^thelmaer ; in others the land had been simply 

 seized by his successor, Bishop Erfast ; in all, the gain had accrued to the new 

 bishop, William. Rainald, son of Ivo, was similarly the gainer by the greed 

 ofWihenoc his predecessor. Nine entries under Rainald's fief and four more 

 under his ' invasiones ' at the end of the county's survey ^ reveal this 

 insatiable Breton wrongfully adding to his lands,* while others show that his 

 robberies extended into Norwich itself.* The lawless aggression in the 

 county revealed by the Domesday Survey enables us to understand the rapid 

 submersal of the smaller landowners in those stormy times. 



Domesday for Norfolk is not very precise as to the nature of consuetudo. 

 It distinguishes it from census^^ from which we may guess that it is not 

 thought of as a fixed money payment; and yet we read that Halvergate at 

 the time of the survey was worth ^\o blanch, 40J. de consueiuditie by tale, and 

 20s. de gersuma. We may probably conclude that the services of the thirteen 

 sokemen were estimated to be worth ^1 a year. In the boroughs we find 

 a fixed money payment called consuetudo, but we are not entitled to transfer 

 this conception to the country. In the case of the sokemen of Ely at 



' This paragraph is by Mr. Round. 



- See V. C. H. Beds. i. 194. ' Dom. Bk. f. I \^b. 



' At Redenhall Earl Ralf ' adcensavit ' twenty freemen who were commended to Rada, and Ivo Tallebosc 

 after him. 



' < Hoc addidit Ailwin' de Tedfort ad censum de Ormesbey T. R. Will' ' (Ibid. f. 273). 



* ' De invasionibus ejusdem feudi ' (Ibid. fF. 197^201^). 

 ' Ibid. ff. 275/5-279. 



* Some of these may be quoted as illustrating the process : * Hanc terram invasit Wihenoc . . . Hos 

 [x liberos homines] invasit Wihenoc. Wihenoc occupavit earn ; ideo tenet R[ainaldus]. . . . Huic manerio 

 addidit Wihenoc ii socemannos Sancti Benedicti. ... In Banincham . . . i villanus de Caustuna xvi ac. 

 ii sol. val. Hoc invasit Wihenoc ; et reddebat v sol. in Caustuna idem villanus ' [this is a very interesting 

 passage. Domesday shows that the villeins on the royal manor of Cawston had diminished from thirty-six to 

 thirty-five, and here we seem to have the missing one with his holding not in Cawston but in Banningham, 

 seven miles away, and paying a money rent. All the ten sokemen appurtenant to Cawston had been secured 

 by subjects, two of them being in Rainald's hands at the time of the Survey]. ... In Dereham tenet Rainald 

 filius Ivonis vi liberos homines . . . quos invasit Wihenoc, commendatos tantum suo antecessori . . . Hos 

 omnes occupavit Wihenoc . . . Addidit Wihenoc i liberum hominem.' 



' ' Adhuc [burgenses] xii ac. et dim. prati quas tulit eis Wihenoc ; modo habet Rainaldus filius Ivonis. 

 Et adhuc ii ac. prati quae jacebaut ad ecclesiara Omnium Sanctorum ; illas etiam tulit Wihenoc, et modo habet 

 Rainaldus' (Ibid. f. 116). 



'» Ibid. f. 1 3o3 (Fersfield). 



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