A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK the unit of assessment for the geld.*" A similar use of two systems of reckoning side by side is found in the present day in the 1 6-oz. pound avoirdupois and the 20-0Z. pound Troy. The primitive trade of the i ith century w^as carried on to a great extent at markets and fairs. In Suffolk there were markets at Thorney, Kelsale, Beccles, Hoxne, Eye, Clare, and Haverhill, and at Aspall, in Hartismere Hun- dred, there was ' the third part of a fair.'"* If we only see boroughs where we find burgesses, we cannot allow the title to more than six Suffolk towns, Ipswich, Dunwich, Eye, Beccles, Clare, and Sudbury, though St. Edmundsbury was rapidly qualifying for burghal rank. Of these, Ipswich,**^ which gave its name to a half-hundred, was the most important, though it had apparently suffered greatly since the Conquest : where under King Edward there had been 538 burgesses rendering customary dues, there were iio in 1086, with 100 'poor burgesses,' too impoverished to pay more than their ' head- pennies ' to the king's geld. There were also 328 waste houses (mansiones) within the borough which were unable to contribute to the geld. It was doubtless owing to this depression that Roger the Sheriff was forced to remit j(^3 of the ^o farm of the town. The mint at Ipswich and the numerous churches and the comparatively dense population may have given it something of an urban character, but here and in the other Suffolk towns the rural element was still very strong, and there was a ' smack of the farmyard ' even about the burgus.**^ This is specially seen at Ipswich in the two ' granges ' with their land and tenants, which had belonged to Queen Edith and to Earl Gurth before the Conquest, and were apparently connected with the frma burgi of which the queen had two-thirds and Gurth one-third, the ' Earl's third penny.' After the Conquest the queen's share came to King William, and Gurth's third penny, with the third penny of two hundreds, the grange and its farm, were granted to Count Alan.**^ Without discussing the question of ' contributory ' tenements and the garrison service of burgesses, we may indicate the connexion between the towns and the great country estates, and the claims made by the county magnates to burgesses, churches, land, and homesteads {mansuras) in the borough.*^" At Dunwich, which had been held by Edric of Laxfield before the Conquest, and had passed to his successor Robert Malet, the burgesses had increased from 120 to 2 3 6, and there were 24 franci rendering customs, and 178 ' poor men ' ; but it is spoken of as a manor, and the ' exchanger ' [cambitor) seems to have been established at Blythburgh, where also corporal punishment was inflicted on the thief who had been caught and tried at Dunwich. The property of such thieves went to the lord of Dunwich, but the king had the fines, paid in oras, of the selected men who refused to attend the hundred court after due warning.*" At Eye, in like
- " Dom. Bk. zidb, Hacheston ; 312, Dunwich ; cf. 360, Cornard ; 290^, Ipswich (mint) ; V.C.H. Norf.
ii, 35. Round in Engl. Hist. Rev. Apr. 1908 ; VinogradofF, Fill, in Engl. 441 (merchet) ; cf. ante, p. 361. "'Dom. Bk. 281^, 330^, 369^, 370, 379, 389^, 418, 428, Haverhill ; the third part of a market worth 13;. 4a'. "' Ibid. 290, z()ob.
- " Cf. Maitland, Dom. Bk. and Beyond, 172 et seq. ; Township and Bon. 68-9, Index, 'Boroughs';
VinogradofF, op. cit. 393, 398, 402 ; Ballard, Dom. Boro. "' Dom. Bk. 290, 2C)ob, 294, 2943 ; VinogradofF, op. cit. 364 et seq. "° Maitland, Dom. Bk. and Beyond, 179 et seq. ; Ballard, Dom. Boro. ; Vinogradoff, op. cit. 401 ; Dom. Bk. 3043, Ipswich; 314^, Playford ; 392^, 393, Ipswich (burgesses dwelling on land of *heir own and rendering customs within the borough) ; 41 lb, zib, 425, 427, 438 (Ipswich).
- " Dom. Bk. 311*, 312, 312^, Dunwich ; 313*, 'Bringas'; 333^, Thorpe; 385^, ' Alnet'ne' ; Mait-
land, Dom. Bk. and Beyond, Index, ' Dunwich.' 410
