THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

LIX:SUFFOLE AND NORFOLK :—NORMAN AND EARLY PLANTAGENET PERIODS.

WE have no special records of any resistance offered by the Anglo-Saxons and Danes of Suffolk and Norfolk to the Norman invaders. Gyrth (or Gurth), the gallant brother of King Harold, who fell at his side in the fatal battle of Hastings, must have held large possessions in Suffolk, besides the earldom of that county (which, as we have seen, he acquired on the death of Earl Leofric of Mercia), for "the number of persons recorded in Domesday as having held estates under him is very consider- able." Then came the distribution of the lands of the conquered thanes among the followers of the Conqueror, and the creation of that social organization of which we have the record in Domesday Book. From this record we learn that the number of tenants-in- chief within Suffolk at the time of the Survey was 74. Under the 74th head, however, are 56 vavasores Regis entered as liberi homines without mention of their names. These in dignity stood next below the barons and higher thanes. Spelman con- siders them to have answered to the Lords of the Manor or owners of knights' fees in later times. They may have been the relics of the old Saxon and Danish aristocracy. The number of tenants-in-chief in Norfolk was 63. The under- tenants in Suffolk amounted to 625, in Norfolk to 435. The bordarii in Suffolk were 6,205 in number ; those in Nor- folk, 9,537. An important class of sochemanni appear in both counties, in Suffolk amounting to 998, in Norfolk to 4,571. The liberi homines of Suffolk (including the 56 vavasores Regis) are 5,314, and there are several other entries under the same title with modifications, the most frequent being that of liberi homines commendati (those of that rank who had placed themselves in feudal relations to some superior lord), who amount to 1,895. In Norfolk there are 4,277 liberi homines, and 117 liberi homines commendatione tantum. The villani of Suffolk amount to 2,812, those of Norfolk to 4,356. The slaves in Suffolk are 909 ; in Norfolk, 995. There are also many other entries under both counties implying modifications of tenure among the free classes, besides the burgesses of towns to whom we shall have to refer hereafter. This great diversity of nomenclature seems to imply a far less subversive conquest of the two counties than in most parts of England. Probably the fact that Earl Ralph was looked upon rather as succeeding to his father's earldom than as a foreign conqueror may have contributed to this result ; at any rate, the Survey for Suffolk and Norfolk gives us an impression of free- dom and an element independent of the closer bondage of feudal- ism far beyond what we experience in most of the other counties. The small proportion of slaves in an enumeration amounting in Suffolk to 20,491, and in Norfolk to 27,087,—and Sir Henry Ellis observes that it is very clear from frequent entries alii ibi tenent, plures ibi tenent, that this total for Suffolk does not comprise even all the agricultural tenantry of the county—points in a re- markable manner to the spirit of liberty which prevailed in this Province, and which survived the depressing influences in this respect of the Norman Conquest.

The tenants-in-chief in Suffolk, under the Domesday Survey, held together above 600 manors. Of these, " Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, William Warren, Earl of Surrey, William Malet, Lord of Eye, Geoffrey de Mandeville, Richard Fitz-Gilbert, Earl of Clare, Hugo de Montfort, Roger Bigot, and Ralph Baynard obtained enormous grants. Robert Moreton, Odo, Earl of Albe- marle, Eudo de Rie, Robert de Todeni, Robert de Stafford, Alberic de Vere, Robert de Limesi, Hugh de Grantmesnil, Peter de Valoines, Sweyn de Essex, Roger d'Aubreville, and Robert le Blund also acquired considerable estates. Of these 20 puissant chieftains, who thus entered on the lands of the dispossessed Saxons," observes Mr. Suckling, " the history is very remarkable. Eudo de Rie died without an heir male. The sons of three were banished the realm. The grandson of Sweyn de Essex, standard- bearer to Henry II., was deprived for cowardice. The line of three became extinct in the persons of their sons ; three became extinct in the male line in the third generation, and totally in the seventh or eighth ; two were extinct in the fourth ; one in the fifth ; two in the sixth generation, and one in the ninth. The line of` Alberic de Vere, however, after various forfeitures, misfortunes, and violent deaths, continued till the beginning of the eighteenth century, when it was extinguished in the person of Aubrey de Vere, who died without issue male in 1703. Robert de Stafford is represented through the female line by the descendant of that more ancient Dane. Robert de Todeni merged in female heirs in the seventh descent, and is represented, like the great Earl Warren, through female heirs only, by the house of Howard, but not one of them has left his name among the noble and the great. Had a persecuted Saxon seer predicted to those proud barons in the day of their triumph this complete and, in many instances, speedy annihilation of their fortunes and their race, his prophecy would have been received with a scornful laugh ; but what had been the indignation of the Norman could he have known that the line of many of these dispossessed and despised Saxons should flourish in wealth and holiour ages after his own lineage was lost and forgotten !"

In the distribution of the manors of Norfolk we find mention, out of the property of Ralph Guader or De Gael, Earl of Norfolk and Suffolk, of the manors of Bucham, Acles, Half riate, Fiacelle,

Castor, Belege, Middleton, Eccles, and Walsham. Hugh d'Avrantes, Earl of Chester, had, at the time of the Survey, 12 manors ; Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, 22 manors ; Alan Rufus or Fey- gaunt, Earlof Richmond, son of Eudo, Earl of Brittany, 81 manors; Walter Giffard, Earl of Buckinghamshire, son of Osborn de Bolebec, 28 manors ; William, Earl of Warren and Surrey, 139 lordships ; Endo de Rie, fourth son of Robert de Rie, nine manors, his eldest son being also appointed Governor of Norwich Castle. William d'Albini, Pincerna, or Butler to the King, had given him the possessions of a Saxon thane, Edwin, comprising the four

manors of Snethisham, Sharburn, Stanhoe, and Buckenham, besides a confirmation to him of the lands which came by Maud his wife, daughter of Roger Bigot, consisting of ten knights' fees.

The manor of Buckenham d'Albini, held by the service of Butler,

from which office he took the additional surname of Pincerna. Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, his kinsman, had the

manor and lordship of Tutterford. Ralph de Limesi had one manor ; Peter de Valoines 20 lordships ; Ralph de Baynard 44 manors ; Ralph de Toni, son of Roger de Toni, standard-bearer of Normandy, had 19 lordships. In the county of Norfolk 379 lordships and manors were transferred from the Saxon or Danish proprietors to men of the conquering races.

The position and possessions of these great Norman intruders proved as unstable and transient as in the case of Suffolk, and now scarcely a vestige of their names or their families can be traced. The property of Earl Ralph de Guader passed on his attainder to

Hugh Bigot, and continued in his family till the time of Edward II., when (1312) Thomas de Brotherton had a charter in tail general of the houses and estates of Roger Bigot, Marshal of England, and Earl of Norfolk. In the reign of Edward III. the manors in the hundred of Brothercross, which till then had belonged to the Earls of Warren and Surrey, were given to John of Gaunt. The great estates in the hundred of South Erpingham descended from the Barons de Rie to the Marshals, Earls of Pem- broke, and thence to the family of Morley. The possessions of the Albinis remained in the family till the reign of Henry when they passed by marriage into the family of Montalt. The estates of Ralph de Toni went by marriage, in the reign of Edward II., into the family of Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick.

The earldom of East Anglia (Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cam- bridge) remained in the Crown from the forfeiture of Earl Ralph de Guader till the close of the reign of Henry I. Then, as we are told by Roger de Wendover, " Hugh Bigot, son and heir of Roger Bigot, Sewer to the latter Sovereign, being present at the King's death in Normandy, hastened back to England, and testified on oath before the Archbishop of Canterbury and others, the nobility of the realm, that King Henry willed upon his deathbed that Stephen, his nephew, and not the Empress Maud, his daughter, who had grievously displeased him, should succeed him on the English throne ; for which oath King Stephen, in the first year of his reign (1135) made this Hugh Earl of Norfolk."

The name Bigot, as Mr. Planche has shown, was probably nothing but a form of the word Visigoth. The prefix to it is not de, but le.

Mr. Edgar Taylor, in his notes to his translation of Ware's Roman de Rou, tells us that he has found the forms Bigot, Bibot, Wigot, Wihot, and Wigehot; and the Frenchmen of the eleventh century,

Wace tells us, continually spoke with scorn of the Normans, and

called them Bigoz and Drarchiers,—the latter term meaning, it is said, consumers of barley, or perhaps, beer-drinkers. We have already

in a former paper spoken of the evidence which exists of the exis- tence down to a much later period than is generally supposed of a Visigothic kingdom in Normandy, detached from the Visigothic kingdom of the south of Gaul ; and the epithet, " Le Bigot," in the case of the family of which we are speaking, probably denoted " the descent of the Bigots from some distinguished chief of that nation," just as we have Le Angevin, Le Breton, Le Fleming, Le Poitevin, Le Scot, &c. " Roger Bigot, the companion of the Conqueror, married Adelize, one of the daughters and coheirs of Hugh de Grantmesmil, Seneschal of England, having been rewarded for his services at the battle of Hastings by the grant of 117 lordships in Suffolk. He took part with Robert Courthouse against William Rufus, and fortified the castle of Norwich on behalf of the former ; but on the accession of Henry I. he adhered to that monarch, became his great favourite, received from him the castle of Framlingham, and by his advice and that of Queen Maud, and Herbert the Bishop, founded the abbey of Thetford, in 1103, and dying September 15, 1107, was buried there, according to Ordericus Vitalis, who has preserved the epitaph on Rogers' tomb." There is great difficulty in reconciling the dates respecting the successors of Earl Hugh ; but Roger Bigot, third Earl of that Christian name, married twice, but had no issue by either wife. " For some reason, which has not been clearly made out, in the 30th of Edward I. he formally surrendered all his titles and possessions to the King, to the entire exclusion of his younger brother John, his right heir ; with a pro- viso that they should be restored to him again, should a child be borne, to him. Dying however, five years afterwards, without such an occurrence, King Edward availed himself of the Earl's gift ; and thus the coronet of East Anglia, and the rod of the

Marshal of England, passed for ever from the great family of Bigot to the still greater of Plantagenet."

The history of the family of Bigot during the above period connects itself naturally closely with that of Norfolk. The first Earl of the family seized the castle of Norwich, on a report of the death of King Stephen in 1136, but it was surrendered to the King in person, who then gave it to his son, William, Earl of Moreton, who was dispossessed of it by Henry II. in 1153. Hugh Bigot on being deprived of the castle declared for the Empress Maud, but soon afterwards again submitted to the King. In the rebellion of the children of Henry II. against their father in 1177 Norfolk was the scene of contest, Hugh Bigot being a sup- porter of the young Princes. He is said to have died attainted of treason. Roger Bigot was " one of the Barons who extorted Magna Charta from King John." In the subsequent war with 'the Barons, the King came into this county, and it was in crossing the Wash from Lynn into Lincolnshire that he lost his baggage. The forces of Louis of France and his confederates afterwards overran the county. In the Civil Wars of the reign of Stephen, Ipswich, while held by Hugh Bigot for Prince Henry, was taken by King Stephen in 1153. In 1173 a battle took place at Formhan St. Genevieve, between Bury and Mildenhall, in Suffolk, when a body of Flemings under the Earl of Leicester in the interest of the Prince Henry of that reign were defeated by the King's army. In the Civil War of John, Suffolk was reduced by William Fitzpiers to subjection to Louis of France.