William the Conqueror’s followers, the last invaders of England, thought it necessary to impress the natives with their might. Throughout the land they erected castles, but these were simple affairs at first, built of earth and wood, lumps and bumps on today’s landscape, not the lasting stone monuments to their mastery we now visit. These later strongholds were not built to keep out the Saxon peasantry, but for the lords to fight private battles with each other, or even with their king.

The Gulafras (Gullivers) and the Manors of Suffolk:

Most landlords did not depend on royal patronage for their continuing tenure, but by keeping the peace on their lands, chiefly by respecting the pre-Conquest rights of their tenants, and managing their manors and estates diplomatically, especially in their relations with neighbouring magnates. There is also evidence of greater stratification among the landowning classes, with many examples of sub-tenanting of manors and more flexible arrangements where the management of freemen was concerned. To understand this, we need to look at those families other than the Bigods who, for one reason or another, did not become tenants-in-chief, or as continuously wealthy and powerful as they did.

In the case of the Goulaffre/ Gulafra family in Suffolk, this may have been due to their desire (at least initially) to continue to maintain and manage lands in Normandy, under Duke Robert. Under the Conqueror’s eldest son, Guillaume Goulafriere fought in the First Crusade which left Normandy in 1096. His estates in England passed to his son, Roger, who was Lord of Oakenhill Hall Manor in the reign of Henry II. The main branches of the family are documented as holding lands in East Anglia, especially Suffolk, and Essex, between Domesday (1086) and 1273. There are also references to the family name, or variants of it, in court records for Sussex, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

In Suffolk, where Copinger’s 1905 book helps us to piece together something of the history of each manor, we find that in pre-Conquest times, the village of Aspall had two small manors, one held by Brictmar in the time of Edward the Confessor, a freeman under commendation to Edric. He held thirty acres, which at Domesday was held by Robert Malet as the tenant of his mother. She was the widow of William Malet, a baronial tenant-in-chief, who accompanied the Conqueror from Normandy and was one of the few Norman barons proven to be present at Hastings, taking care of Harold’s body after the battle, on William’s command. Legend has it that his William Malet’s mother was English, and that he was the uncle of King Harold’s wife Edith (the claim being that he had a sister Aelgifu who married Aelfgar, Earl of Mercia, who was the father of Edith). Despite his obviously divided loyalties, William of Normandy rewarded his faithfulness. He was soon appointed High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, and given the great honour of Eye (Priory), with lands in Suffolk and several other shires. It was in fact the largest lordship in East Anglia. He built a motte and bailey at Eye, and started a market there. He died in 1071, probably in trying to crush the rebellion of Hereward the Wake, and on his death was one of the twelve greatest landholders in England. His son Robert became a close advisor to Henry I, and at the time of The Domesday Survey, held 221 manors in Suffolk alone.

The other manor, also thirty acres, was originally held by Siric, another freeman. Robert Malet was the tenant-in-chief in 1086, but Stigand was tenant. Whether or not this was the Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury, whose uncanonical appointment was one justification given by the Pope for his support for William, we cannot be sure. Although he died in 1072, Stigand’s significant land tenure is still recorded in Domesday in his name, and we know that he continued to hold manors in Elmham and Ashingdon in Essex, where he had been bishop, even after he was deposed by William in 1070. It seems that, here at least, the Saxon freehold may well have survived the Conquest, since William was not strong enough (at first) to remove Stigand. Our image of the Duke of Normandy as an all-powerful conqueror appears somewhat removed from the reality. William Gulafra also held three acres in Aspall, valued at fifteen shillings.

The villages of Oakley and Brome, enumerated together in Domesday were composed of two carucates (or hides – 100-120 acres), one in each village. Here, William Gulafra was a sub-tenant of Robert Malet, holding thirty acres and two freemen, each with half an acre, sharing a ploughteam, an acre and a half of meadow and a mill, valued at ten shillings. In Thrandeston, Robert Malet had sixteen acres, valued at two shillings, held as tenant by William Gulafra. Okenhill Hall Manor, or Saxhams, as it was known locally, also formed part of the great Malet holding.  Another of the manors originally held by William Gulafra came to be known as Mandeville’s Manor. Interestingly, this estate of Leuric seems already to have been under Norman protection in the time of the Confessor, though what that meant in terms of land-holding is unclear. At the time of Domesday, it was one of the manors held by William Malet, who passed it to his son Robert. William Gulafre held it in the time of Henry I and passed it to his son, Roger Gulafre, and so it came via Philippa Gulafre into the eventual control of the Mandevilles.

Ashfield was one two Saxon manors, one held by Godman and the other by Brictmar (who also held land at Aspall), both of whom were freemen. The first was thirty acres, and the second twenty-four. There were also twenty-seven acres held by four other freemen. At the time of Domesday, Robert Malet held four of these manors, apparently as tenant-in-chief, but the fourth of these was held by William Gulafra (of ‘Earl Hugh’), ten acres valued at twenty pence (presumably, per acre).

The large village of Debenham consisted of three Saxon manors, the first held by Edric, freeman under commendation to William Malet, with sixteen bordars, twelve ploughteams in demesne and three beloging to the freemen, four acres of meadow, wood enough to support sixty hogs, a rouncy (a cart-horse), four beasts, forty hogs, thirty sheep and forty goats. At the time of Domesday, the manor was held by William Gulafre, of Robert Malet. There were only one and a half ploughteams belonging to the freemen, woodland for only forty hogs, six beasts, twenty hogs, forty-five sheep and twenty-eight goats. The value of the whole estate had declined from sixty shillings to fifty shillings at the time of Domesday, which shows that the Conquest could well have had a negative effect on the wealthier Saxon manors, possibly due to the amount of woodland which was cut down for building castles.William Gulafra also held over the freemen on Malet’s other holding of thirty-six acres, the value of which had declined from ten shillings to six. This suggested that he managed the Saxon freemen for Malet, perhaps as an intermediary who understood them better and who respected him as a farmer. He also held Malet’s sixth estate of ten acres, which had half a ploughteam and was valued at two shillings.

Winston appears, again, to have had a very independent status as a manor, because it was held in the time of the Confessor by the Abbot of Ely, in demesne. Like Stigand, he was a Saxon, Thurstan, appointed by Harold but, unlike Stigand, he was also honest and hard-working, so William did not replace him, even when he (famously) gave Hereward the Wake sanctuary from William’s soldiers in 1071, helping him escape through the Fens. Although the Abbey was fined heavily, and its lands were confiscated, it was only after Thurstan’s death that William appointed a Norman monk in his place. Perhaps William was also mindful of the powerful symbolism of Ely to the Saxons. Then, following the return of its manors in 1081, Simeon was made Abbot, an old but very wise and able churchman, who was related both to William and to Stigand’s successor as Bishop of Winchester. The Abbey’s land in Winston consisted of forty acres, six villeins, four bordars, two ploughteams in demesne and three belonging to freemen, six acres of meadow and woodland for a hundred hogs. There was a church with eight acres, two rouncies, four beasts, twenty hogs and fifty sheep. It was valued at four pounds. At Domesday, it was still held by the abbot, but with only one ploughteam in demesne and woodland for sixty hogs. Its value had increased to four pounds and ten shillings, however, the only manor showing evidence of becoming wealthier. This prosperity, we are told, had come from additional freemen working the thirty acres of the abbot’s land. William Golafra also held nineteen acres of land, with a ploughteam, an acre of meadow and two bordars, valued at four shillings. Again, it is worth speculating that Golafra held the manor during the confiscation and that, on its reinstatement to Ely, helped the elderly abbot, who was taken up with restoring the Abbey and its treasures, by recruiting and managing the additional freemen from other manors where he had an interest, such as in Debenham. It may also be that the unbroken and consolidated tenure of these forty acres in the hands of the Abbots of Ely, together with Golafra, was a major factor in their continued productivity and value, despite a reduction in woodland similar to that in other villages.

The Domesday Evidence Evaluated:

 

As we have seen, the basic system of land holding and administration continued in use. We know a great deal about this from documentary sources pre-dating the Conquest: law codes, charters, wills, letters and so on. We also have the Domesday Books. Drawn up twenty years after the Conquest by the Norman king, it might be thought that it was an entirely Norman-manufactured account. This would be a great mistake, however. It records the state of affairs in the time of King Edward and now, so that it provides a factual description of each manor both before and after the Conquest. It seems to build both on a variety of earlier documents and a variety of oral testimonies. It is not an attempt to introduce new systems of land holding, feudal dues and taxes, but to explain who held what, by what right, and at what value. William wanted to know exactly what his kingdom was like and what taxes he could expect from each manor, but he was not trying to increase taxes or introduce a new system. If he had been trying to do either, it is unlikely that there would have been so many references to the decreasing worth of the land due to the Conquest. He must have known that the effects of the Conquest carried a heavy cost, in particular the cost of the felling of timber to construct castles and the diverting of labour away from the fields for these purposes. He knew he could not tax the land for more than it was worth.

Some features of Anglo-Saxon law were altered: the position of women was drastically downgraded by the Conquest, even that of those among the great landlords, because they lost the right to hold property independently of fathers or husbands, even when widowed, without special leases and covenants granted on petition by the courts. However, a great deal else was retained. Domesday is both a monument to Norman England and Saxon England because it shows how the basic structure of government, land-tenure and feudal society as a whole remained basically the same throughout the first twenty years of Norman rule as it had been in the reign of King Edward. However, it does also record sudden destruction and lasting devastation and shows a distinct change in the names of many of the chief landlords and their sub-tenants, from British, Danish or Saxon to Breton, Norman or French. The peasants still trudged out to till the fields, whoever was collecting the taxes and whatever names their lords went by. They bore a yoke, sure enough, but it wasn’t particularly Norman. It was one most of them them had born for centuries.