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Of the ecclesiastics by 1086, the bishop of Thetford, William de Beaufour,
Simeon the abbot of Ely and Gilbert bishop of Evreux were Norman. Baldwin the
abbot of St Edmunds was French from outside of Normandy, but he had been
appointed by Edward the Confessor in 1065. 65 The holdings of the Odo Bishop of
Bayeux in eastern Suffolk were, in effect, a lay tenancy-in-chief, held personally by
Odo, unconnected with his Norman bishopric. The lands of the bishop of Thetford
were recorded in two different parts in Domesday Book. This land division reflects
the distinction between the lands of the bishop and the lands of the church of the
bishopric. These distinctions were quite common. Sometimes lands were set aside
for the abbots of monasteries as well. 66 In eastern Suffolk the lands held by laymen
were about fourteen times larger than the ecclesiastical lands. The royal demesne in
eastern Suffolk was modest, valued at £38 4s 6d (see Table 1). There were also
some unnamed freemen of the king holding three shillings’ worth of land.
In Domesday Book as a whole, about 15% of the land was royal demesne
and about 26% belonged to the bishoprics and monasteries. However, in eastern
Suffolk, the royal demesne accounted for only around 6% of the total and the
ecclesiastical lands amounted to only around 14%. Relatively speaking therefore, the
lay tenants-in-chief held a much greater proportion of land than in the country as a
whole (see Table 1). 67 It may be that an area containing many scattered freemen and
relatively few large, compact manors had been less attractive for ecclesiastical
institutions or for the retention of royal demesne. It is worth noting that most of the
Douglas, William, pp. 15, 119-132, 136, 144, 200, 207, 212, 216, 223, 243-5, 269, 290, 294-9, 307-9,
383, 412, 413; Keats-Rohan, Domesday People.
65
Knowles, Brooke & London, Heads of Religious Houses, i, pp.45, 80; Norwich Episcopal Acta,
pp.xxviii-xxxi.
66
Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders, pp. 230-1.
67
For the figures for England as a whole, see Corbett, “Development”, p. 508.
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