Page:History of Norfolk 1.djvu/25

 THE HUNDRED OF DISS

hundred hath its name from the capital town, which is so called from the mere situate on its south side; dice in the Saxon language signifying a standing water, lake, or ditch. It is bounded on the south by the river Waveny, which now divides Norfolk and Suffolk, on the west by the hundred of Giltcross, on the north by Depwade, and on the east by the half hundred of Earsham, which joined with the half hundred of Diss, makes up a whole hundred, or, according to the old division, two whole hundreds, and completes the deanery of Redenhall, in the archdeaconry of Norfolk, and diocese of Norwich; the fee of it wholly belonged to Edward the Confessor, as demean of the Crown, till he granted to Ulfiet and Stigand the soc of their own lands, and to the Abbot of St. Edmund's Bury  the half part of the soc and sac of his lands, and of all his freemen.

But by the way, it will be necessary to observe, that what we now call Diss Hundred, in the Confessor's time was a hundred and half; the hundred was called Wineferthinc Hundred which Earl Ralph held, upon whose forfeiture it came to the Crown, and was added to the King's half hundred of Dice, and continued ever after as part of it, and this is the reason that the title in Domesday is, the hundred  and half hundred of Dice; the fee of which, with all the jurisdiction thereof (except what belonged to the Abbot, to Ulfiet, and Stigand) came into the Conqueror's hands, and the soc  and sac  of