Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/439

 DOMESDAY SURVEY and an entry in a i 2th-century survey of the hundred of Thingoe, made for Abbot Sampson of St. Edmundsbury,'' gives the name of the twelve leets of Thingoe Hundred, with their constituent vills. The peculiar feature of the Norfolk and Suffolk Domesday Surveys is the existence of a system of supplementary assessment for the geld, based on these leet divisions. In many of the East Anglian entries a new term occurs, ' the formula which prescribes how much geld the landholders of the vill must pay " when the hundred pays 20J.," "' and, coupled always, or nearly always,'* with this formula, the measurements of the vill expressed in leagues and furlongs or quarentines {quarentenae).^^ By setting this Domesday assessment of the geld over against the vills of the Thingoe leets, as given in the 1 2th-century survey, Mr. Round has shown that the hundred in this case was divided into twelve blocks of equal assessment, each paying 20^. when the hundred paid ^i sterling to the geld, and called leets}^ It is worth noting that ^od. is the Danish ora^ at least in one of its forms, the twelfth part of a pound sterling, the eighth part of a mark." This may point to a Scandinavian origin for the leet system, which would be quite in keeping with the character of Suffolk, a carucated county, which had formed part of ' Guthrum's Kingdom,' and was settled as well as conquered by the Danes.'^ Following the clue offered by the leet organization in Thingoe Hundred, it is possible to find much evidence which implies the existence of an ordered system of assessment of the same nature throughout the county. The total assessment of the twenty-four hundreds at ^i a hundred would be £,1^. The actual assessment, as stated in Domesday Book, is £^11 s. 5|^., distributed among the hundreds in the following proportions : — Name of Hundred ^ t, d. Name of Hundred ^ i. d, • Thingoe 100^ Bishop's o • Thedwastre i o i^ Bradmere o • Risbridge i o i| Lothing O Lf^l^ford 109^ Half Hundreds ■ Blackbourn 1 7 9t t 1 • 1 1 .Wilford o IQ 8i Loth'"g^*"'^ ° . Carlford o IQ 7f " ^^'^J""^, ° Stow o

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4 T oi88" Ipswich [100 ' head-pennies '] . ."o . Colneis 0186 Hundred and a Half ■ Claydon 0184. Samford 164^ . Plomesgate 0175 r, u u j j - Bosmere 017 3 Double Hundred • Blything O 17 iij' Babergh i 13 i| ■S'""g^°' ° ^ " Total . . . . 21 II 5l • Hartismere o • ' ^ " Gage, Suff. Hund. oflh'mgoe, Introd. xii ; Select Pleas in Manorial Courts (Selden Soc), Introd. p. Ixxiii^ n. A ; Round, Feud. Engl. loi ; Chron. Joe. de Brakelonda (Camden Soc), 21. " Maitland, Dom. Bk. and Beyond, 431, n. I ; Dom. Bk. 382^; ' Stoches,' assessed at '4</. in gelto de 20 solidis,' 372; St. Edmund's Bury, ' et quandoin hundreto solvitur adgeltum unam libram, tunc inde exeunt 6od. ad victum monachorum.' " In one case [Dom. Bk. zb, ' Brumfort ' (Bramford)] the lineal measurements are given without the geld. ^ Dom. Bk. 304, ' Edwardestuna. Habet hoc manerium sex quarentenas in longo et sex in lato et de gelto 10^.' " Feud. Engl. 98 et seq. " It appears to have been variously worth i6d. and 2od. Liebermann, Gesetze der Angelsachsen : Glossary 'ora' ; cf. Chadwick, Anglo-Sax. Institutions; Index, 'ora' ; Dom. Bk. 312 ; Dunwich, 'forisfacti sunt de ii oris' ; cf. Round, 'The Domesday Ora ' (Engl. Hist. Rev. xxiii, 283). For the whole question of the Suffolk ' ora ' cf. below, p. 409. "* Round, Feud. Engl. Ti.-i~. " It is interesting to note that Ipswich half-hundred was almost exempt from geld, and that Bradmere was practically assessed as a half-hundred. The ' head-pennies ' are not here included in the geld. Cf. below, p. 416. I 361 46