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the earl of East Anglia was Gyrth, King Harold’s brother, but he died at Hastings.
Soon after, King William appointed Ralph “the Staller” as earl. Ralph, as his name
suggests, was an important figure at Edward the Confessor’s court and a significant
East Anglian landholder. He was also a pre-Conquest immigrant from Brittany,
holding the lordship of Gael there. Around 1069 he was succeeded in the earldom by
his son Ralph de Gael. However, he lost his lands and title after his involvement in
the rebellion of 1075. 53 The earldom was eventually revived, with the title of earl of
Norfolk, for Hugh Bigod ca.1140-1. 54 Until the reign of Elizabeth I, the counties of
Suffolk and Norfolk, were very often treated as a double sheriffdom in which to
some extent the old identity of East Anglia was retained.
Like other eastern counties, in 1086, when Domesday Book was compiled,
Suffolk was divided into administrative units called hundreds:
The exact meaning of term is lost in antiquity, but it is generally
accepted by scholars that the term relates to one hundred hides,
or a hundred variable units of land each sufficient to support an
extended family unit, the terra unius familia of Bede. 55
For this thesis my concern is the hundreds of eastern Suffolk, namely
Bishop’s (also known as Hoxne), Blything, Loes, Plomesgate, Wilford, and the half
hundred of Parham (see Map 2, p. 21). In this region there were some important
rivers. In the north there is the River Blyth in Blything Hundred. The River Alde runs
through the central part of eastern Suffolk, on the borders of Plomesgate Hundred
and the detached part of Bishop’s Hundred. The River Deben marks the southern
boundary of Wilford Hundred and the region. 56 Although eastern Suffolk is a
completely flat region, almost all of it is below two hundred feet, with extensive
marshlands along the coast and in the river valleys. The region is very lightly
53
Ibid., pp. 215, 218, 221; Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 425-6, 610-12.
54
Davis, King Stephen, p. 138.
55
Warner, Origins of Suffolk, p. 144.
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