DOMESDAY SURVEY Feltwell and Northwold/ where Domesday tells us that St. Audrey had ' soke and all custom,' we know from the Ely placitum ^ that the sokemen held by uncertain services. They were to plough, reap, and thresh, carry the corn of the abbey, and put away in barns whenever required. They were also to find horses as they might be required, and to carry food to the monastery. We hear that some of them were free, and could sell their land. It does not seem that the ' freemen ' held by these services, though Domesday is not quite explicit.^ On the other hand, we find consuetudo used in at least one case * to imply profits of jurisdiction. The term ' freeman ' does not, as we shall see, always connote complete independence. Besides the tie of commendation the freeman might be bound to do suit to his lord's fold ^ or his lord's mill. The former tenure, ' fold-soke,' is frequently mentioned in the Domesday account of East Anglia. The manure of the sheep was doubtless valuable, and the obligation on the tenant of driving his sheep to his lord's fold must have been a source of con- siderable profit to the lord. The Domesday jurors seem not to have been unanimous as to the compatibility of this service with 'freedom.' In Loddon hundred the distinction is sharply drawn between six tenants in Hillington who were in soca falde and six who were liberi ; * while in the neighbouring hundreds of Humbleyard and Clavering those who hold by fold-soke and commendation only are distinctly classed as freemen. ' Freedom ' is doubt- less relative, and in Clackclose hundred the possibility of degrees of freedom is clearly recognized.^ The possession of ' fold-soke ' did not of itself confer any jurisdiction. Thus the tenants who owed fold-soke to Ely in Hoe were sokemen of the king's manor of Mileham and presumably freemen of the hundred of Launditch.' Fold-soke and commendation do however seem to go together, and in Deepwade hundred we find both bound up with the lord's right of pre-emption of his tenant's land. Thus tenants in Tibenham and Fritton holding both before and after the Conquest of different lords were alike under this obligation.^" In Walsham hundred we find an exceptional state of things. Here jurisdiction followed fold-soke. Earl Algar had had soke over his bordars and over the tenants who held by fold-soke ; the others were freemen. Their soke belonged to the king and the earl, i.e. they owed suit to the hundred-court." It will be noticed that the hundreds in which fold-soke is mentioned, i.e. Clavering, Loddon, Humbleyard, Henstead, Deepwade, Walsham, Clack- close, and Smethden, are not precisely the hundreds where Domesday places the largest numbers of sheep, and it is possible that the coveted privilege of a free-fold ^^ may have played some considerable part in the greater development of sheep-farming in other parts of the county; but the actual distribution of both items is so uncertain that we are not warranted in drawing any definite conclusion. Besides praedial services and fold-soke, we read of another incident of tenure which seems to be regarded as a diminutio capitis : it is a restriction of ' Dom. Bk. f. 162. ^ Hamilton, Inq. Com. Cantab. 192. ' Dom. Bk. fF. 162, ^l'ib. ■* Ibid. f. 252, Cum omni coiuuetud'me prctcr m. ^ Maitland, Dom. Bk. and Beyond, pp. 76 sq. * Dom. Bk. f. 203/J. ' Ibid. ff. 204, 204^, 208^, 230, 249^, 250. ' Ibid. lO^b, 230^, and cf. 273^. Mbid. f. 214. "• Ibid. fF. 2463, 260. " Ibid. 129^, 194^, 216. '■ Ellis, Int. to Domesday, , 275, quotes several instances from Monasticon. 31
