Askeby ⁊ Estan cum sua possessione.[1] Et apud Sumertonam abstulit ipse .E. dimidiam manredam Anundi cum dimidia possessione.[2] Et filius Egelwy.ʼ Stannardus post abbatis Alfwoldi obitum apud Burch triginta acras de terra Eluiue . et tres manredas abstulit cum suis possessionibus.[3] Et apud Ouby abstulit ipse S. domum Leofchildi ⁊ dimidiam possessionem eius.[4] Et apud Tyrne dimidium possessionis Ulfketeli ⁊ .iiii. toftas terre quas ei Alfwoldus abbas accommodauit.[5] Et postquam abbas Richerus abbaciam suscepit aufert ipse .S. in Ouby Aileue cum dimidia possessione . ⁊ unam acram que pertinet ad aulam de Askeby.[6] In Askeby Wlfmerum filium Tukke cum tribus acris terre ⁊ unam manredam Edwini cum familia sua.[7] Et apud Saxlingham Iuc de Verdun aufert
- ↑ There is nothing in Domesday to connect Alwi of Thetford with Ashby. It is, however, probable that Tukke and Estan are included among the six free men annexed to the estate in Oby which Ringulf had formerly possessed and Stanhard held of Roger Bigod in 1086 (D. B. ii. 174 b). St. Benet held a manor in Ashby which included thirteen sokemen (ii. 216 b).
- ↑ Roger Bigod claimed that the king had given to Alwi his predecessor a free man in Somerton with twenty-one acres (D. B. ii. 174 b). This free man may have been the Anund of the text.
- ↑ Abbot Ælfwold died on 14 November 1089. Stanhard's encroachments are therefore subsequent to Domesday. The property in Burgh St. Margaret of which Stanhard dispossessed St. Benet may be identified with a small estate comprising thirty acres of arable, four acres of meadow, three bordarii, and a demesne team assigned by Domesday to the abbey in Burgh (ii. 217). An important writ of William II commands that St. Benet's abbey and Raunulf the monk be put in seisin of, among other property, thirty acres and three bordars in Burgh (Mon. Ang. iii. 86; Davis, Regesta, no. lxxx). As this writ was issued after the death of Abbot Ælfwold, the identity of the thirty acres and three bordars to which it relates with the thirty acres and three manredae of the present text is hardly open to question. As, moreover, the writ expressly states that the property is assigned to St. Benet in the king's breves which are in his treasury at Winchester—that is, in the returns to the Domesday inquest—it follows that the word manredae is used in the present text to cover men who are described in Domesday as bordarii. The identification is valuable for its bearing upon the condition of the class of cottagers in East Anglia, for it shows that they, like the higher peasant classes, were bound to their lords by the tie of homage.
- ↑ Above, p. 227, n. 6.
- ↑ St. Benet held a manor of one ploughland in Thurne which included ten sokemen with forty-five acres (D. B. ii. 216 b). In 1086 Stanhard son of Alwi held under Roger Bigod in Thurne half a free man with twenty-one acres under whom there held one free man with four acres (ii. 174 b). Stanhard's tenure is probably explained by an entry in the list of Norfolk invasiones (ii. 277 b): 'In Turna i liber homo sancti Benedicti commendatione tantum xliii acrarum, et fuit exlex, et quia Aluuius fecit illegem habet dimidium terrae, in feudo Rogeri Bigot. …' It is a curious entry, and its interpretation is difficult. But it may be suggested that this free man, after his inlawry had been secured by means of Alwi, returned to occupy half his original holding under St. Benet. In that case he may be identical with the Ulfketel of the text, and the half of his tenement which remained to him may have been annexed by Stanhard, Alwi's son, at some time subsequent to Domesday, perhaps upon Ulfketel'a death.
- ↑ Above, p. 227, n. 2.
- ↑ Above, p. 227, n. 6. Wulfmer filius Tukke was probably the son of Tukke the smith of Ashby.
them Alwi's men, and one a man of Bishop Almar, were held in 1086 by Stanhard of Roger Bigod (D. B. ii. 174 b). The hundred also bore witness that an unnamed man of Roger Bigod seized half a free man of St. Benet, who is included among seven free men in Repps and Rollesby annexed to Roger's manor of Sutton (ii. 174). St. Benet's fee still included the holdings of six free men in Repps (ii. 217).
