Page:VCH Norfolk 2.djvu/59

 DOMESDAY SURVEY sokemen of Stigand, and all seem to have been transferred to Eudo son of Clam- ahoc, Ralf's predecessor in title, from the crown manor of Hingham/ Yet these ' freemen ' are distinguished as liberi from the twenty-five sokemen of Deophamjust as the three freemen are distinguished from the thirteen sokemen in Fersfield.' Apparently the same man might be a freeman or a sokeman, according to the relation in which he was regarded/ Freedom, however, was itself relative : freemen might constitute a valuable property. Thus Earl Ralf's freemen in Blofield and Walsham hundreds were worth jC^S/ and Stigand's freemen in Earsham hundred had rendered /a a year under penalty of double if they failed to pay/ At the date of the survey they ren- dered >Ci6 as part of the farm of Earsham.' No doubt in many cases these freeholders paid an actual fixed rent or census to their lords. Thus Godric was accountable for the rent of land held by a poor widow in Mileham which she was too poor to pay ; ^ and we hear of a freeman of Thirning who ' fuit in censu de Salla regis ' in Earl Ralf's time. We also hear of a sub-reeve of Earsham who held certain lands and ' abstulit censum.' * But we are not entitled to assume that all freeholders not holding by military service paid rent, we may perhaps even guess that the juries regarded such payment as a derogation of freedom. There were two other bonds possible between the freeman and his lord — 'Commendation' and 'Soke' — and Domesday for Norfolk is full of references to both of them. They are clearly regarded as differing in kind, and might bind the same man to two different lords. ' Commendation ' is constantly presented to us as the slightest bond pos- sible. ' Nil habuit nisi commendationem ' recurs at every point of the survey. In one precious instance we have the word ' homage,' apparently implying the same connexion.' We gather that a man might ' commend ' himself to whom he would, ^^ as Edric of Laxfield's sokeman in Haddiscoe ' commended himself to Aluin, and as a freeman in Gateley 'became Bishop Arfast's man.' ^^ As in later times we find ' homage ' coupled with and dis- tinguished from ' service,' so in Domesday we have consuetudo set over against commendatio, and both distinguished from ' soke.' Thus Hermer de Ferrieres had nineteen freemen in Garveston. The hundred asserts and offers to prove by ordeal that Turchetel, Hermer's predecessor, had the ' commendation ' only and no consuetudo, while one of Hermer's men maintains on the same terms that he had all consuetudo except the soke, which belonged to Ely.^^ We find further that a man might be commended to more than one lord even for the same piece of land.^' Thus we find a man whose commen- dation was divided between Ralf Baynard's predecessor and the abbot of St. Edmund's.'" ' Dom. Bk. f. nob. ' Ibid. f. 1303. ' Ibid. f. 121 (Kimberley). ' Ibid. fF. 1 23, 123^, 129^. ' This is clearly what Cowell, quoting a Peterb. MS., calls Libera tvara. 'Libera wara est unus reddltus et est talis conditionis, quod si non solvatur suo tempore, duplicatur in crastino, et sic deinceps indies.' (Cowell, Law Diet. s. v. ffara.) « Dom. Bk. f. 1393. ' Ibid. f. 121. * Ibid. f. 199. ' Ibid. f. 172, Plumstead. '" Ibid. f. 182. " Ibid. f. 197^. " Ibid. f. 207. " A remarkable case of the commendation of one Englishman to another in King William's time is that of.iElfstan, a thegn of Harold, who commended himself to ' Alwin ' of Thetford, Roger Bigod's predecessor. His land passed, with Alwin's, to Roger, but the hundred challenged Alwin's right on the ground that he had obtained ./Elfstan's land without the king's writ or livery of seisin. This illustrates the importance of the king's writ in all transactions affecting land (J. H. R.). " Dom. Bk. f. 249^. 29