A HISTORY OF NORFOLK A[rfastus] episcopus in tempore utrorumque [Radulforum, sc.],' concluding from it 'that the elder Ralf was living as late as 1070, in which year the episcopate of Erfast begins.' But it has been shown by the writer^ that Mr. Freeman misread the passage and that the context (' Ailmarus episcopus de utroque postea Arfastus episcopus ') clearly shows that we should read it ' habuit A [ilmarus] episcopus in tempore utrorumque,' and that therefore the elder Ralf died before vEthelmasr was deposed in April, 1070. Questions of title at the time of the survey often turned upon the younger Ralf's possession before his forfeiture. Thus we read of his officers exchanging with those of St. Edmund's Abbey four of his tenants at Gissing for four of theirs at Burston, ' quando Rad. comes fuit potestativus et sui et terrae sua^ ' (fol. 2b). Under Wymondham we detect an allusion to his tragic fall. The plough-teams of its tenants had diminished from sixty to twenty-four, and Domesday explains that ' banc confusionem facit Rad. de Warr (i.e. Waer) antequam forisfaceret ' (fol. 137^). When Ralf retreated from Cambridge before the royal troops he must have passed through Thetford and Wymondham, and one cannot resist the conclusion that the bulk of the missing oxen (288) were slaughtered by his Breton followers. There were burgesses of Norwich also who had cause to rue the day when Earl Ralf's rebellion in their midst involved them in his fall from power.* Most of King Edward's estates in Norfolk remained in the hands of King William. He retained Saham Toney, Hingham, Holt, Wighton, and Foulsham, and the manor of Diss in Suffolk, with their dependent members. The remainder of the king's direct holding was made up of Harold's manors of Great Massingham, Southmere, Fakenham, and Cawston, and Gurth's manor of Ormesby, But in Norfolk, as in Essex,' there had been considerable alienations of crown land before the Conquest. This is clearly stated in the cases of Swaffham, which ' pertinuit ad regionem,'* and Sporle which 'fuit de regno.' ' In both cases King Edward gave the manors to Earl Ralf, and the latter manor returned to the crown upon his forfeiture. But we may safely put down some of Harold's lands to the same source, as, for instance, when we read that Necton, which afterwards fell to Ralf de Toesni, ' reddebat sex noctes de firma.' ' Again we may conjecture that manors which paid rents in honey had at some time belonged to the crown. We know that Kenninghall belonged to King Edward, though we find it described as part of Earl Ralf's escheat, and we may probably say the same of the same earl's manor of Buckenham, and of Stigand's manor of Thorpe-next-Norwich. We cannot, however, limit these food-rents to royal demesne, since we know that Toli the sheriff gave a ploughland in Broome to St. Edmund's, and held it of the saint ' per firmam duarum dierum,'^ while the Inquisitio Eliensis^ tells us of a freeman in Lurling who held ploughlands of Ely, and rendered two ' sesters ' of honey. These notices are only incidental, and we shall probably be right in assuming that detailed information as to rents is only given as a rule in the case of property which was, at or before the date of Domesday, in the king's hands. ' Round, Feud. Engl. pp. 428, 429. ' ' Isti fugientes et alii remanentes omnino sunt vastati partim propter forisfacturas R. comitis' (fol. 117^). ' v. C. H. Essex, i, 336. * Dom. Bk. f. 140. ' Ibid. f. 119^. ' Compare Mr. Round's conclusions in a similar case ; F. C. H. Essex, i, 336. '• Dom. Bk. f. zilb. ' Hamilton, In^. Com. Cantab, p. 140. 12
