[831] Had these towns been described in Great Domesday, they would probably have been definitely placed outside the Terra Regis.
[832] D. B. ii. 311, 312, 385.
[833] D. B. ii. 319 b.
[834] D. B. ii. 389 b: ‘semper unum mercatum modo 43 burgenses.’ For Sudbury, see D. B. ii. 286 b; for Beccles, 369 b.
[835] D. B. i. 136 b: ‘In burbio huius villae 52 burgenses.’ The word burbium looks as if some one had argued that as suburbium means an annex to a town, therefore burbium must mean a town. But the influence of burh, burg, bourg may be suspected. A few pages back (132) the burgum of Hertford seems to be spoken of as ‘hoc suburbium.’ It is of course to be remembered that burgus or burgum was a word with which the Normans were familiar: it was becoming the French bourg. It is difficult to unravel any distinctively French thread in the institutional history of our boroughs during the Norman age; but the little knot of traders clustered outside a lord’s castle at Clare or Berkhampstead, at Tutbury, Wigmore or Rhuddlan may have for its type rather a French bourg than an English burh. Indeed at Rhuddlan (i. 269) the burgesses have received the law of Breteuil.
[836] For Taunton, see D. B. i. 87 b: ‘Istae consuetudines pertinent ad Tantone: burgeristh, latrones, pacis infractio, hainfare, denarii de hundred, denarii S. Petri, ciricieti.’ Compare the document which stands as K. 897 (iv. 233): ‘Ðæt is ærest ... seo men redden into Tantune cirhsceattas and burhgerihtu.’ See also K. 1084 (v. 157): ‘ut episcopi homines [apud Tantun] tam nobiles quam ignobiles ... hoc idem ius in omni haberent dignitate quo regis homines perfruuntur, regalibus fiscis commorantes.’
[837] D. B. ii. 5 b.
[838] D. B. ii. 104.
[839] D. B. i. 163.
[840] D. B. i. 75.