Part II.—Domesday Book.
The most ancient record in which we find any mention of Lowestoft is Domesday Book. As this is the case with nearly every other town and parish in England, Lowestoft is not behind other places in evidence of antiquity.
But Lowestoft not only appears in Domesday as a parish and a village, but it appears as a Royal manor—or at least as one of the numerous estates or demesnes held by William the Conqueror, as his private property—as the successor of Edward the Confessor and Canute. On the strength of this archæological distinction, the town in the time of Elizabeth and Charles I., claimed the privileges of lands in ‘ancient demesne.’ These privileges were that the town was excused from contributing to the expenses of the members of Parliament for the county, and its inhabitants were not to be called upon to go to Beccles or Bury as jurymen, but only to their own Manor Courts at Corton. The exercise of these privileges has, I understand, been abandoned for some time, and we have condescended to take part in the judicial and political system of the country like other places. What this ancient “demesne of the Crown” was we shall see presently. You have all, I doubt not, heard of Domesday Book, but you will be able to appreciate better the value and meaning of the information it gives us if I remind you shortly of its history.
In 1066 William won the Battle of Hastings, and on the strength of this victory claimed England as its conqueror, and not merely as the chosen successor of Edward. As conqueror of the country the whole of England was at his disposal, and he gave the lands of the Saxon (or according to Mr. Freeman and Mr. Green, ‘English’) proprietors to his French followers. They made full use of the King’s grant, and in a few years almost every Saxon landlord had disappeared, or if any remained, they remained as tenants of small portions of their estates to the ownership of which a Norman landlord had—as they called it—“succeeded.” We are told of one Norman Knight, who having fought for William at Hastings, refused to take any share in this wholesale robbery. He had done his duty as a vassal in fighting for William, and he preferred to return to Normandy and be contented with his own property there; not so though the rest.
You must understand that the great change brought about by the conquest was at first only a change of landlords, and involved no alteration in the laws and customs by which property was held. The parishes, the manors, the farms, the occupying tenants, and the labourers on the estates were not disturbed. Even the live and dead stock on the farms were all claimed by the new owners, and to a large extent actually got possession of by them.
After this process of ousting the Saxon landlords had been going on for some years—not, as you may suppose without a good deal of fighting and cruelty—the country was becoming settled, and the King thought it time to learn in whose possession its lands were, and what their estates were worth. So he appointed a commission of enquiry, to go through the whole country and report to him the names of all the possessors of estates, and what amount of land producing corn their estates contained, and what live and dead stock, including the tenants belonging to each estate, were on the land, and what each manor and estate was valued at. The results of this enquiry, which took some six years to complete, were put together by clerks, and written out in as concise a manner as possible on parchment—and so Domesday Book was formed.
As the commissioners had to ascertain so far as they could, what differences had taken place in the ownership and occupation of land, and in its condition and value, since the Conquest, Domesday Book, although made some 20 years after England was under the Normans, gives us a picture of the country as it was in later Saxon times, and it is from this book that most of our knowledge of the condition of England in the Saxon period is derived.
The Parishes of Lothingland.
The map [13] represents the Hundred of Mutford and Lothingland (then called the two half hundreds of Mutford and Lothingland) as it is now divided into parishes. Nearly all these parishes are mentioned in Domesday under their present names (though of course not spelt precisely in the same way). Many, if not all, of them had probably existed under the same name, and with much the same boundaries some 300 years before, under the Saxon and Danish kings of East Anglia. They appear in Domesday as the known areas in which the estates reported upon were situated, but the parishes themselves were not the subject of the survey, nor does the term “parish” appear either in English or Latin. The word “Villa” is frequently used to denote these areas, just as “Town” was commonly used as an equivalent for “parish” in much later times. The book is written in a sort of Latinised English, but the names of places retain the vernacular form. As they are spelt very differently in different entries, Domesday is no authority for the correct spelling of any of our parish names. But the form they bear in Domesday throws much light on their etymological origin. To what extent the estates mentioned in Domesday were contained in the parishes to which they are allocated is doubtful. In a few cases the several manors returned as being situated in a particular parish would appear to require a larger area than the parish now contains, but in nearly all cases the amount of land reported upon as being under tillage in a parish is very much less than the land now under cultivation.
In his history of the Norman Conquest Mr. Freeman says of Domesday:—“Domesday teaches better than any other witness of those times can teach us, that the England of the 11th century and the England of the 19th are one and the same thing.” We will now see what it teaches us about Lowestoft.
Lowestoft in Domesday Book.
In the return of the King’s estates in the Half-hundred of Lothingland (Ludingland as it was written) we have a rather long account of the King’s Manor of Gorleston, which appears to have been the headquarters from which the royal estates in Lothingland were administered for several hundred years. It states that “Gurth (Earl Gurth, the brother of Harold, killed at the battle of Hastings) held Gorleston in King Edward’s time, and after giving the details of his property in Gorleston,
“There are 24 fishermen belonging to this manor at Gernemutha (Yarmouth) and a beruita (or subordinate manor) in Lothu Wistoft (Lowestoft). [14] It contains four carucates. In King Edward’s time there were five villani (bond tenants of the upper class)—now only three. Both then and now there are ten cottage tenants. Then there were five servi (slaves), now only three. Then and now there are two ploughs employed on the demesne (the Kings own land). In Edward’s time the tenants employed five ploughs on their land, now only three. There is woodland for eight pigs, and five acres of pasture. In King Edward’s time there were thirteen geese, now only eight. There were then and now ten pigs, and 150 sheep.”
We have here the account of a small estate, comprising some 400 or 500 acres of cultivated land, of which part was in demesne, and cultivated for the King, and the rest was comprised in one or two large open fields, which were divided into allotments, and cultivated by the tenants for themselves, all of whom could have their little homesteads, and their shares in the plough-oxen, and other live stock kept on the land.
This estate had not passed from the hands of the Saxon Earl Gurth to those of William without disturbance. Three of the villani and two slaves had disappeared. They had, perhaps, been in Earl Gurth’s army, and had fallen with him at Hastings. Several acres of land had fallen out of cultivation, and though the pigs and sheep had remained at the same number, the geese were reduced from thirteen to eight.
Besides the King’s berwick there was a small manor in the parish called Aketorp, belonging to a freeman named Aylmar, a priest, probably the priest of the parish. His name tells us that he was an Englishman, and not one of the Conqueror’s Frenchmen. His little property consisted of 80 acres, on which there were three cottage tenants. One plough was used on the demesne. There were seven other tenants who had land requiring half a plough. (They must have had other means of supporting themselves.) There was wood for five pigs, and one acre of pasture.
Priest Aylmar had not been disturbed by the Conquest, and his little property was in the same condition in 1085 as it was in 1066. The rest of the land in the parish would be common or waste land, over which the cattle, sheep, and pigs of the lords and their tenants could roam and feed.
So far as Domesday furnishes us with express authority, the population of the parish in Edward’s time consisted of 31 different families. But I think that there may have been a few others—poor freemen—not belonging to these estates, and not coming within the scope of the survey, who gained a living partly by assisting the tenants in their agricultural work, and partly as fishermen, having their boats on the shore or at Kirkley Haven, which was quite alive at this time. These men would be the earliest representatives of the free population of the parish which was destined in after times, when trade had sprung up, to form the main population of the town of Lowestoft.
The church is not mentioned, but, as there was a resident priest, there can be no reason to doubt that there was a parish church—probably a small wooden building on the site of the present church. Churches were more numerous in Suffolk and Norfolk in Saxon times than in any other part of England. Several churches are mentioned in other parishes near, apparently because they had some substantial amount of glebe land belonging to them.
Neighbouring Parishes.
We shall understand somewhat better the picture which Domesday gives us of Lowestoft if we take a glance at the accounts which it gives of some other parishes in the immediate neighbourhood.
The parishes in Lothingland, in which the greatest number of estates are returned are Somerleyton, Lound, and Belton. I believe that these parishes contain the best agricultural land in the district. The church in Somerleyton is mentioned as having 20 acres of glebe belonging to it, but the parish priest—or parson as he was afterwards called—appears to have possessed a small manor of 40 acres in addition.
Gunton is not mentioned in Domesday. Corton appears as containing an estate belonging to the Crown, of which no details are given, except that it was valued at 20s.
The lost Newton is mentioned as a small estate of 30 acres, owned by a freeman, and valued at 3s. Newton existed for several hundred years as a small hamlet to the north of Corton, but has been long since carried away by the sea, except parts of one or two fields still left on the top of the cliff.
In the Half-Hundred of Mutford, the parishes of Kessingland, Carlton, and Mutford, appear as containing large villages, and several estates which had passed from Saxon Thanes to Norman Barons.
In Mutford there were two churches, with lands belonging to them in Rushmere, Kirkley, Pakefield, and Gisleham. In the account of Pakefield we hear that Earl Gurth possessed one mediety of the living, which was divided between two Rectors up to the 17th century. It is probable that the prototype of the present double church was in existence then.
Herring Rents.
Domesday contains evidence of much interest in connection with the history of our herring fishery, in the returns of herring rents from farms in this neighbourhood.
One of the largest Norman landowners in these parts was Hugo de Montfort. He appears to have been connected with the sea when in Normandy, for it is said that he supplied William with 60 ships to carry his men over to England. Whether Hugo was very fond of herrings, or because he wished to encourage the herring fishery we know not, but it appears that when he had turned out the English landowner Burchard, and taken possession of his farms, he not only raised the money rents, but he required many of the tenants to supply him with herrings in addition.
In Kessingland he became the landlord of a small estate held by four freeman, which had been valued at 10s., but from which Hugo demanded a rent of 22,000 herrings. [17]
In Rushmere he had a farm which paid him as rent 700 herrings.
In Gisleham he had two small farms, from one of which he got 2s. 6d. and 200 herrings, and from the other 5s. and 300 herrings.
In Carlton he had one farm from which he got 3s. as rent and 400 herrings, and from another 5s. and 300 herrings.
In Kirkley he had a farm from which he got 3s. and 200 herrings.
He also got herring rents from farms in Worlingham, Weston, Wangford, and some other places which I cannot identify.
This Norman Baron doubtless desired to encourage the herring fishery, and so imposed these herring rents on his tenants who occupied farms near the coast, where herrings could easily be obtained. Had he possessed any land in Lowestoft I have no doubt that we should read in Domesday of herring rents being paid from this parish. The large number demanded from the four freemen in Kessingland is good evidence, I think, of the herring fishery being carried on there at this time to a considerable extent. Kessingland was a large village at this time, with a haven in the little river which now separates it from Benacre. Although Domesday makes no mention of any fishermen, or fishing trade, in the returns for these parishes, the herring rents are conclusive evidence that herrings were caught off this coast it large quantities at this time. Sea-fishing was probably carried on also by the inhabitants of Pakefield and Kirkley at this time.
Kirkley does not appear to have ever been more than a small village, although it gave its name to the Roads off this coast.
Carlton was a large and populous village at this time, and appears to have been so from early Saxon times. It is supposed that the name is taken from the large number of “Ceorls,” or “Karls,”—as we should now say “Working-class people”—who lived there. Lake Lothing would furnish them with an easy passage to and from the sea, and when landed at Carlton the fish would be on the old Roman road leading to Beccles, Norwich, and Bury. Doubtless the herrings which Hugh de Montfort got from his farms in this parish were caught by fishermen living there. Fishing in small boats, by what we should now call “longshore-men,” had probably been carried on from these sea-side villages for hundreds of years before Domesday.
But at this time the herring fishery had become established at Yarmouth, and the celebrated Free Fair was already held there during the autumn season. In the account of Gorleston we have noticed that 24 men belonging to that manor were said to be fishermen living away at Yarmouth. As there were as many as 70 burgesses in Yarmouth in the time of King Edward, and the town paid a large rent to the king, we may be quite safe in regarding Yarmouth as doing a large business in the herring trade even in late Saxon times.
Live Stock on the Farms.
Although the returns from the different estates in our neighbourhood are compiled on the same system in Domesday Book, they vary very much in respect of the details given, particularly in respect of the live stock on the manors and farms reported. This is no more than what we should expect.
The returns of the live stock which they possessed would give the Conqueror very useful information as to the amount of taxation his subjects could bear, and he could hardly expect to get many trust-worthy returns on this head. In the accounts of many of the manors they are omitted entirely. In the accounts of others the return of live stock is very small in proportion to the size of the estate. It is probable that the stock owned by the tenants is omitted altogether. Pigs must have been the animals on which the lower class of tenants principally relied for their meat, but the pigs in most of the returns are very few, only eight on the King’s estate in Lowestoft.
In the account of a large manor at Mutford—to which 40 tenants belonged—the return of live stock mentions 7 geese, 30 pigs, 30 goats, and two hives of bees.
Some of the estates appear to have been very well stocked. On the farm of 40 acres belonging to the parish priest of Somerleyton, there was 1 horse, 4 cows, 5 pigs, and 33 sheep—besides the plough cattle. On the King’s farm in Lound, which was not half the size of his Lowestoft estate, there were 50 pigs.
On a farm of 40 acres in Belton there was 1 horse, 2 geese, 7 pigs, 30 sheep, and 3 goats.
In addition to these animals the owners of these estates had draught oxen for ploughing.
It would appear that the produce of the arable land was nearly all required for feeding its human occupants, and that the geese and the pigs and other animals would be limited to such numbers as could find food for themselves in the woods and wild land which was common to the lords and tenants of each manor.
These returns of live stock, although they would have been very valuable to the Conqueror and ourselves, if they were complete and trustworthy, are so manifestly defective and irregularly made in most cases, that they furnish very unsatisfactory materials for forming an idea of the general condition of the peasantry. But as we know that all the tenants of a manor—even the lowest class of bondmen—occupied some land for the maintenance of themselves and their families, with rights of pasturage on the common lands, probably most had some cattle and pigs of their own, and were well provided with the necessaries of life.
The country must have been in a stationary condition for hundreds of years in the Saxon period owing to the entire absence of trade, and the almost entire absence of money. The silver penny was the only coin in circulation, and indeed for some two centuries after.
With little or no opportunities for selling the produce of their estates, the landowners had little reason to improve them, nor could they increase their land under tillage without interfering with the rights of their tenants on the waste land. The system of serfdom, moreover, whilst it secured a living to a large number of people, bound them and their children to the estates on which they held their land, and must have tended to deprive a large part of the population of the country of any stimulus to enterprise or self improvement.
Serfdom.
It appears from Mr. Turner’s computation of the different classes forming the population of Suffolk, as shown in Domesday, that some 10,000 out of the 22,000 were in the condition of serfs, bound to some manor, either as small tenant farmers paying rent as well as services for their land, or as cottage tenants working on the demesne, or as mere slaves or thralls, the absolute property of the lords. [21] I will not take you further into this obscure and complicated question than to say that the bondage of the greater part of the Anglo-Saxon peasantry implied little more than that they were bound to remain on the estate to perform the services for which they held their land. These services were fixed as strictly as a money rent would be, and left them plenty of time for working on their own land, while the law provided various means by which they could obtain freedom for themselves and their children. The Church—at all events the parish clergy—always used their influence to obtain the freedom of the lowest and most servile class. We read of a case where an hereditary serf was holding the high position of bailiff of a large manor. Turner says:—
“It is mentioned in the laws as an incentive to proper actions that through God’s gift a servile thrall may become a thane, and a cœorl an Earl, just as a singer may become a priest and a writer a bishop.” In the time of Ethelstane it is expressly declared that “if a cœorl have a full proprietorship of five hides of land, a church, and a kitchen, a bell house and a burghate seat, and an appropriate office in the King’s hall, he shall thenceforth be a thane by right”
The opportunities, however, which the condition of society in Saxon times offered for a serf to rise from the lowest to the highest ranks must have been very few. In these days trade and the professions furnish such a ladder, but in Saxon times there was no profession but the church, whose members sometimes found remunerative employment as clerks, or by devoting themselves to religious duties rose to the highest offices. The only trades in Saxon times were those of the handicraftsmen, and, except in London and a few other towns, these would be confined to the blacksmith and a few such craftsmen as were indispensable to the smallest agricultural community.
Craftsmen.
Among the few literary productions of the Anglo Saxons which have been preserved, we find descriptions of the more common trades given in the form of dialogues. I take the following from Mr. Turner’s work. The shoemaker (sceowerhta) thus describes his trade:—
“My craft is very necessary to you. I buy hides and skins and prepare them by art, and make of them shoes of various kinds, and none of you can winter without my craft. I make ankle leathers, shoes, and leather hose; bridle thongs, trappings, neck pieces, and halters; bottles, flasks, boiling vessels, wallets and pouches.”
So the Saxon shoemaker was a much more accomplished man than the shoemaker of the present day, for he combined the arts of the tanner, the currier, and the harness maker with that of shoemaking. The smith says:—
“Whence the share of the ploughman or the goad? but from my art.
“Whence to the fisherman his angle? or to the shoe maker his awl? or to the sempstress her needle but from my art?”
In Hereford there are six smiths mentioned in Domesday.
They paid a penny a year rent for their forges, and had to make up 120 pieces of iron for the king from the metal supplied them. He must have been a very skilful blacksmith who could turn out such different ironwork as ploughshares and needles and fishhooks. A very important tradesman was the miller. Mills were a much valued property, and are always mentioned in the Domesday returns.
The Merchant.
What foreign trade was in Saxon time appears from the account which the merchant gives of his business—
“I say that I am useful to the king, and to ealdermen, and to the rich, and to the people. I ascend my ship with my merchandise, and sail over the sealike places, and sell my things, and buy dear things which are not produced in this land, and I bring them to you here with the great danger of the sea, and sometimes I suffer shipwreck, with the loss of all my things, scarcely escaping myself. What do you bring to us?—Skins, silks, costly gums and gold, various garments, pigment, wine, oil, ivory, orichalcus, copper, tin, silver, glass, and such like. Will you sell your things here as you brought them there?—I will not, because what would my labour benefit me? I will sell them here dearer than I bought them there that I may have some profit to feed me and my wife and children.”
So you see the Saxon merchant was an enterprising skipper, who owned his ship, and having filled it with a cargo of English produce, took it over to some foreign port and exchanged it for a cargo of foreign goods, of all sorts and kinds, which he brought back and sold at a high price in England.
The Fisherman.
We have a sketch of a fisherman of the Saxon period, drawn by no less a personage than Alfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was living in the 11th century and was the wisest man of his time, according to the Saxon chronicle. He wrote some colloquies for his pupils to turn into Latin. One of them treats of the fisherman:—
“What gettest thou by thy art?—Big loaves, clothing, and money. How do you take fish?—I ascend my ship, and cast my net into the river; I also take a hook, a bait, and a rod. Suppose the fishes are unclean?—I throw the unclean out, and take the clean for food. Where do you sell your fish?—In the city. Who buys them?—The citizens; I cannot take so many as I can sell. What fishes do you take?—Eels, haddocks, minnows, eel-pouts, skate, and lampreys, and whatever swims in the river. (The Archbishop rather mixed his fresh-water and saltwater fish). Why do you not fish in the sea?—Sometimes I do, but rarely because a great ship is necessary there. What do you take in the sea?—Herrings, salmon, porpoises, sturgeons, oysters, crabs, muscles, winkles, cockles, flounder, plaices, lobsters, and such like. Can you take a whale?—No, it is dangerous to take a whale; it is safer for me to go to the river with my ship than to go with many ships to hunt whales. Why?—Because it is more pleasant to me to take fish which I can kill with one blow. Yet many take whales without danger, and then they get a great price, but I dare not for the fearfulness of my mind.”
These whale catchers were Norwegians and Danes, who, when they were not raiding in England, employed themselves in whale fishing off the Norwegian Coast.
Intellectual Condition of our Ancestors.
But these Anglo-Danes of East Anglia were our ancestors. They lived in the same villages, and tilled the same land as the peasantry of the present day, and many of our country parishes must have been in Saxon times very much what they are now, in which the squire and the parson fill the places of the thane and the parish priest and a few farmers holding land under the squire, and agricultural labourers, enough and no more, than are required to cultivate the land, with perhaps a village blacksmith and shoemaker, complete the roll of the resident population. The intellectual condition of our ancestors must have been very low. Mr. Turner describes it as the “twilight of mind,” and he says there is a great similarity in their poetry to that of the natives of New Zealand. Even the thanes and magnates of the land were, with a very few exceptions, entirely uneducated, and if they had learnt to read there would have been few books from which they could have got any knowledge. King Alfred was one of the few who could read in his time. With the upper classes in such a barbarous condition no wonder we are told that gross excess in eating and drinking was their characteristic failing. Even the great and good Alfred is said to have destroyed his constitution by having to take part in banqueting for several days and nights in celebration of his wedding. The prevalence of this low vice may be to a great extent attributed to the want of any means by which the produce of their farms could be made a better use of. It was not until trade sprung up that they could sell their surplus produce and spend the proceeds in the purchase of things which would lead to a higher and more civilised standard of living. But during the whole of the Saxon period the monotonous routine of their agricultural occupations was only varied by war, which was frequent enough; and as war in those days was always accompanied by devastation and slaughter, the slow progress of our Saxon fore-fathers in wealth and civilisation is easily accounted for, and we can well understand how it was that this fertile country was only partially cultivated when the Normans came over, and how it was that the Conqueror found his property in “Lothuwistoft” in such a backward state.
Such was Lowestoft in its infancy—a small agricultural village of less importance than Carlton or Mutford or Kessingland. We shall now lose sight of her for some 300 years. When she again appears in the records of the past she will appear as a town of some importance to the country, and as a rival of Yarmouth in the herring trade.
Etymology of “Lowestoft.”
In conclusion, I will say a few words about the name. In the facsimile copy of Domesday it is Lothu Wistoft. In the grant of the privileges of “Ancient Demesne” by Elizabeth, which recites a certificate from Chancery that the parish was in demesne of the Crown in the time of William the Conqueror the name is spelt “Lothn-wistoft.” Either spelling affords good evidence of the origin of the word, and leaves little room for doubting its etymology. Lothu-wistoft or Lothn-wistoft was the “toft” by Loth-wis or Lothen-wis, or Lothing-wis, “wis” being the same word as “ouse,” a word used in Saxon times as an equivalent for “lake,” as in Wisbech, stagnant or slow moving water, as distinguished from a quick running river. The place was probably at first only called “toft,” a very common word in Saxon times, denoting a small homestead, and not uncommonly found in existing names—as “Toft Monks,” “Stowlangtoft,” &c. “Loth-wis” or “Lothn-wis” was equivalent to “Lothing Lake,” the piece of water which played the important part of separating Lothing, or Lothingland, from the rest of the county of Suffolk. The abbreviation of this long word into a shorter form was inevitable, and as early as 1327 we find it appearing in the Subsidy Rolls as “Lowystofth.” The forms it took after this time are multitudinous, but the later abbreviations and corruptions, due to vulgar pronunciations and bad spelling, are no guide whatever to its original etymology Lothing or Lothingland, Lothingaland, Loddingland, Luddingland—was the “ing” or property of Loth, Lod, or Lud, probably a Danish captain, to whom this district was given by the Danish conquerors of East Anglia after it had been settled in townships by the Angles (compare Kessingland, &c.)
LECTURE II.
Part I.—Lowestoft in the 14th Century.—Rise and Fall of Yarmouth.
Part II.—Rise of Lowestoft.—Parliamentary War with Yarmouth.
Part III.—The Lay Subsidies.