Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/473

 DOMESDAY SURVEY tion or soke,"* but much of it came from the thegns and freemen of Earl Gurth, from Edric Grim, Edric of Laxfield, and Edith the Fair,*" and from the abbeys of St. Edmund and Ely, In Ipswich, Alan seems to have acquired Gurth's comital rights, the third penny of the borough, and part of the profits arising from the pleas of the shire.*'" The fief of Hugh of Chester was also composed of the estates of English or Danish thegns and freemen,'" and here, as in Norfolk, Roger Bigot seems to have held some of the forfeited lands of Walter of Dol of the earl.*'* The antecessor of Count Eustace of Boulogne in the hundreds of Lackford and Stow was Ingelric or Engelric, the priest and ' commissioner of lands.' *'' In Risbridge and Samford Hundreds he succeeded Leuric the thegn, two freemen, and a freewoman, while at Rattlesden, in the hundred of Thed- wastre, he had encroached on the lands of the abbey of Ely.*'* Although Robert Malet, whose fief is surveyed immediately after that of Count Eustace, was not of comital rank, he was one of the most powerful of the Suffolk magnates. His father, William Malet, is repeatedly mentioned in the Domesday Survey as a Suffolk landholder and the successor of the Saxon Edric of Laxfield.*" He held an important position in the county early in the reign of William the Conqueror, and was the founder of the great honour of Eye,*" In the manor of Eye, which had belonged to Edric of Laxfield under King Edward, he built a castle and established the market which brought him into competition with Bishop Aylmer.*" He was dead at the date of the Survey, but the manner of his death is uncertain. He may have fallen, as the Suffolk Domesday distinctly asserts, ' on the king's service,' *" or he may have found a more peaceful end as a monk of Bee,"" though this seems hardly compatible with the fact that he was seised of lands and men ' on the day of his death,' **** His widow survived him, and held estates in the hundreds of Bosmere, Claydon, Wil- ford, Hartismere, Loes, and Bishop's, including the lands of ' the queen's fee' in the hundreds of Bishop's and Hartismere,*" and loo acres of Robert's demesne at Eye, the caput of his barony, in which we are tempted to see her dower farm. 'The claims in dispute between the Bishop of Bayeux '" Dom. Bk. 29z3, 293, 294^, 295, 297, 297^. 1363, et seq. '*" Ibid. 294, 294.^, ' Cum tercio denarlo de duobus hundretis.' "' Ibid. 298^, et seq. '" Ibid. 152, 153, 299(5, izib, 322. Mr. Round thinks it probable that Walter of Dol was a Breton who lost his lands at the time of the revolt of the earls. F.C.H. Nor/, ii, 10. "' Dom. Bk. 303 ; above p. 386 ; V.C.H. Essex, i, 343, et seq. '" Dom. Bk. 303 ; Ini^. El. (Rec. Com.), ^ija. »" Dom. Bk. 148^, 305, 3123, 313, 3323, 373*, 3763, 379, 4403, 441, 442^, 4433, 444. "^ Round, Feud. Engl. 429, 430. From the fact that a writ of William I relating to Suffolk is addressed to Bishop ./Ethelmasr, Abbot Baldwin, and W. Malet, Mr. Round has argued that William ' held a position in Suffolk . . . analogous to that of sheriff,' and has suggested that ' he may have succeeded Northman in that office.' Robert Malet was sheriff in Suffolk at a later date ; above, p. 389. '" Above, p. 393. 376^, 380*, 407, 4403, 4423, 443^, 444. "' V.C.H. Norf. ii, 17 ; Freeman, Norm. Conj. iii (2nd ed.), n. PP ; iv (2nd ed.), n. W ; v (ist. ed.), 39, Round, op. cit. 329, 331, 429, 430 ; Academy, 26 Apr. 1884. The mention of the monk William Malet is in Lanfranc, 0pp. (ed. Giles), i, 341. "^ Dom. Bk. 2761J, 440^, 442^, 443^, 444. "' Apparently land with which the queen had enfeoffed Robert ; cf. Dom. Bk. 155, where Robert Malet'i mother held land at Borston which Robert had received ' ex done regine.' 395
 * " She was also his 'antecessor' in Herts, and Cambs.; F.C.H. Essex, i, 350 ; Dom. Bk. i, 193^, et seq.;
 * " Dom. Bk. 332^, ' Quando ivit in servitium regis, ubi mortuus est' ; cf. 133^, 189, 276^, 294, 373^,