Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/474

 A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK and Robert Malet's mother' have a section to themselves at the end of the Suffolk. Survey."- Robert Malet's fief wras of great extent, though some of his father's possessions had passed into other hands, and he was not the sole successor of Edric of Laxfield."* He had estates in seventeen and a half hundreds, and held the boroughs of Eye and Dunwich,"* with the lands of many an English thegn and freeman. Among the under-tenants to whom Robert had granted out these estates were Walter Fitz Aubrey, himself a tenant-in-chief of the Crown, Robert de Glanville, William Gulafra, and Walter of Caen.=« A Norman under-tenant might, like Robert de Glanville, hold lands in various parts of the county, as the representative of many free English land- holders,^'* or the lands of a wealthy Englishman might be divided up among several Normans, as with the estates of Godwin Alfer's son, a tenant of the king in Babergh Hundred and of the queen in Carlford Hundred, who was succeeded by Hubert, Walter Fitz Aubrey, and Humphrey son of Robert.-" Sometimes the change of lords made for simplification, as at Wyverstone, where Hubert took the place of a freeman commended to Edric of Lax- field, with a wife commended to the Abbot of St. Edmunds, and of a group of three freemen and their mother, also commended to two overlords.'" But in the majority of cases a fresh link was inserted in the feudal chain, and the English freeman, if he remained on his holding at all, remained as the tenant of a Norman under-tenant. Where Godwin ' Alsies sone,' Queen Edith's thegn, had held, presumably of the Crown, before the Conquest, Hubert now held of Robert Malet, who held of the king, and where Cus, a freeman commended to Edric of Laxfield, held 90 acres as a manor, Walter held of Malet and two freemen with 14 acres had been added to the estate."' The succession to Edric of Laxfield, who had been outlawed by the Confessor and then pardoned and restored to his lands, led to disputes which are inter- esting from the light which they throw on the position of English freemen before the Conquest and on post-Conquest judicial procedure,^"" and before leaving Robert Malet it may be noted that among his under-tenants was Walter son of ' Grip,' a name which recurs frequently in Domesday Book.'" The fief of Roger Bigot, the founder of the second house of East Anglian earls, is surveyed immediately after the lands of Robert Malet."" Its distinctive characteristic in Suffolk, as in Norfolk, is the large number of freemen who held under the earl. They have a special section of the Survey to themselves,'*" and it is possible that, as many of them had previously been under William and Robert Malet, or commended to the sheriffs Toll and »• Dom. Bk. 450. "* Below, p. 410, 411. "'Dom. Bk. 304, 3043, 305, 306, 3063, 310, 311, 312*, 313, 313*, 314, 317, 318, 319, 319*, 320, 324*, 325*, 327, 329*. William de Arcis, the Crown tenant-in-chief, was also a tenant of R. Malet. For Walter of Caen and his connexion with the Stuarts and the Chesneys, cf. F.C.H. Nor/, ii, 21, n. II. "'Ibid. 304, 314*. "* Ibid. 309. "' Dom. Bk. 329, 329* ; i, 78, 83* ; cf. ' Wilgrip,' i, 249*, 254, 258* ; ii, 404*, and ' Guillegrip ' one of Henry I's ' Novi Homines ' ; Ord. Vit. Ecd. Hist, xi, chap. 2.
 * " Ibid. 349*, 432*, 433, 435, 437i, 438, 439, 440*, 441, ^li, 442*, 443, 443^, 444.
 * Dom. Bk. 304, 304*, 308*, 309, 315*, 317*, 319, 327, 329.
 * " Ibid. 306, 3073, 308.
 * " Ibid. 3io3, 313, 332, 342* ; cf. 179*. Freeman, Norm. Coiij. v (ist ed.), 799.
 * " Dom. Bk. 3303 ; KC.H. Nor,, ii, 19. «» Dom. Bk. 333*, 344.