A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK
- Norman,' probably the sheriff of that name,"^ stated that the king had sent
him a writ bidding him put Ralph de Savigny in seisin of all the freemen of whom Hubert de Port had seised the Bishop of Bayeux. He accordingly put Ralph in seisin of the priest Suarinus, though he owned that he did not know whether the bishop had previously been seised of him by Hubert. When the king's barons came into the county they found this arrangement holding good as between Roger Bigot, who represented the bishop and the claim through Ralph de Savigny, and Earl Hugh, who represented the claim through Walter of Dol. ' And so,' the entry concludes, ' let it remain in peace until the case be decided' [donee sit derationatus) , Here the ' king's barons ' ratify the status quo ante, pending a final legal decision, while an appeal is made to two earlier acts of seisin, one by the king's sheriff and the other by Hubert de Port. Of Hubert we are told in a later entry "* that he adjudged (deracionavit) one of the Malet estates in Hartismere Hundred to be free land, and seised the Bishop of Bayeux of it ' because freemen held it.' But the mother of Robert Malet had been in possession [saisita), as the hundred testified, ' on the day when Ralph the Earl made forfeiture, and up to the plea [placitum) of Hodiham.' Now, the land was ' in the King's peace,' as the king decreed {j)recepit), between the bishop and Robert's mother."' Are we here on the track of one of those special inquests which the ' king's barons ' held from time to time even before the Great Survey ? ^'° The Suffolk Domesday gives us welcome, if fitful, glimpses of several such inquests, and of the pleas which the royal judges heard. There is evidence that Hugh de Montfort, Roger Bigot, Richard Fitz Gilbert, Thorold the Sheriff of Lincoln- shire, and others were 'holding pleas' at St. Edmundsbury in 1076—9, shortly after the revolt of the earls, Ralph of East Anglia and Roger of Hereford.^" An- other eyre or commission of earlier date, which has left traces on the Suffolk Survey, is assigned by Professor Freeman to the year 1068,^*^ and connected with the entry which refers to ' the redemption of the lands' of the English after the Conquest. We are told of a small estate on the lands of St. Edmund's Abbey that the abbot pledged [invadiavit) this land to (contra) the king's barons, namely, W. the bishop, Engelric, and Ralph the Staller (Sta/ra) for looj.^*' Elsewhere, the Abbot of St. Edmunds held an estate in pledge or mortgage (in vadimonio) by the grant [concessu) of Engelric, ' when the English redeemed their lands.' ^" The suit before Geoffrey of Coutances, when the abbey of Ely claimed its alienated lands, seems to be referred to in two other entries, where Roger Bigot is said to hold of the abbot ' by the decree [precepto) of the Bishop of St. L6,' ^" or ' because the abbot proved his right {derationavit) '"Dom. Bk. 438. '" Ibid. 450. Hubert de Port was a tenant-in-chief of the Crown in Hampshire ; Dom. Bk. i, b. Hugh de Port, who held land in Hampshire, Berkshire, Dorset, and Cambridgeshire, was a tenant of the Bishop of Bayeux in Hampshire ; ibid, i, 44^, 45, 51, 651^, 83. Ralph de Savigny is found in 1086 holding a number of freemen of Roger Bigot, who held of the Bishop of Bayeux ; ibid, ii, 373—8. '" Odiham was a royal manor in Hampshire. There was also Odiham Hundred in Hampshire and Odeham in Essex ; Dom. Bk. i, 38, 49^ ; ii, 73. '* Round, Dom. Studies, ii, 547-9. '" Round, Feud. Engl. 329. "* Freeman, Norm. Conj. iv, 25-6, 723-4 ; Round, Feud. Engl. 428-9 ; Com. of Land. 28-36 ; Vino- gradoff, op. cit. 220, n. i ; V.C.H. Essex, i, 355. '" Dom. Bk. 3671}. "* Ibid. 3603 ; Professor Freeman sees here, apparently, a commission for the 'general redemption' of the lands of the English ' as a body.' For redemption after forfeiture cf. ibid. 443^. '" Ibid. 383; St. L6 was the earlier seat of the bishopric of Coutances. The parallel passage in the InquisiAo Eliensis has ' coram episcopo Constantiensi ' ; Inj. El. (Rec. Com.), 5 243. 386
