DOMESDAY SURVEY It seems improbable to the writer that, as the younger Ralf did not marry till 1075, he could have been exiled before the Conquest or have held a command at the battle of Hastings, but the question is full of difficulty. As Mr. Freeman justly observes, it seems impossible to reject the definite statement of the English chronicle that the elder Ralf w^as an Englishman, born in Norfolk,^ though the name is almost out of the question for a man of English birth. The same authority makes the younger Ralf a Breton on his mother's side only, but William of Malmesbury terms him ' Brito ex patre.' What is certain is that the elder of the tw^o Ralfs, the Ralf ' Stalra ' of Domesday, w^as ' staller ' in Edward's days, and, under Norfolk, Domesday shows him receiving from that sovereign great crown or comital manors such as Sporle and Swaffham.^ He is found attesting charters before the Conquest, and he was addressed by William shortly after that event as earl in East Anglia, in conjunction with the bishop of Elmham.* As such he was the ' comes R. vetus ' of the Norfolk Domesday,' from the pages of which also we learn the interesting fact that, as Ralf ' Stalra,' he gave land to the local monastery of St. Benet of Holme, with his wife [cum uxore sua),^ in King William's time, with his permission. It is very difficult to understand what this can mean, for the formula is used in Domesday of lands given with a woman when she entered a nunnery. St. Benet was a house of monks, not of nuns ; nor does one see how or why Ralfs wife should enter a monastery except after his death. If on the other hand the meaning is that his wife joined with him in the gift, one does not see how a Breton heiress came to have land in Norfolk.^ A further complication is introduced by the mention in the Norfolk Domesday of a ' Godwine uncle {avunculus) of Earl Ralf.' Godwine, as Mr. Freeman observed, is a name distinctively English, and as it does not, he rightly contended, exclude a father's brother, he decided that Godwine and the earlier Ralf were brothers ; for if Ralfs wife was a Breton, Godwine could not be her brother. This Godwine is mentioned three times at least (fols. 1271^, 131, 262), and he is charged with robbing another Englishman of his lands at Quidenham so late as 1069. He certainly held land at Sail and Wood Dalling, and probably, in the writer's opinion, was also that Godwine who held at Saxthorpe and Mannington, North Wootton, Lessingham, and Palling, his lands passing to his nephew, the younger Ralf, by whom, shortly after, they were forfeited. The date at which the elder Ralf was succeeded by his son as earl is of some importance to determine, but the vagueness of Domesday in its use of styles, a vagueness to which Orderic also was prone, leaves it in some doubt. Perhaps the most important passage is one relating to Eccles, which was twice cited by Mr. Freeman * and which he rendered ' Hanc terram habuit ' ' Rawulf his facder wass Englisc, and waes geboren on Northfolce.'
- ' Se ylca Raulf was Brittisc on his modor healfe.'
' He is spoken of as earl {comes) in the record of each grant, but this does not prove that he held that title at the time of these grants.
- ' William Kyng gret iEgelmasr Bischop and Raulf Earl and Nordman and ealle myne thegnass on
Sudfolke frendliche' (Feud. Engl. p. 427). ' Dom. Bk. ff. 128^, 129. * Ibid. fF. 158, ii^U, zi-jb, 218. ' According to John of Oxenedes (pp. 291, 292) Ralf ' Stalre ' gave South Walsham to the house, and Earl Ralf gave ' Hovetone,' both before 1046. But the two Ralfs must here be the same. ' Vol. iii (2nd ed.), p. 775 ; vol. iv (ist ed.), p. 727. II
