by Tim Pestell
FIGURE 11.2. (a) Bawsey and its surrounding parishes; (b) East and West Rudham and surrounding parishes; (c) Hindringham and its surrounding parishes.
Losinga’s monastic cell at Lynn may, therefore, also have had an Anglo-Saxon precursor and it should be noted that one carucate of the bishop’s demesne was granted from Gaywood for the maintenance of Lynn priory. The difficulty is proving a clear link between Bawsey and the bishop’s manor at Gaywood by 1086. Domesday Book mentions Bawsey only twice; once as the holding of a freeman, Wulfgeat, holding half a carucate of land in Bawsey and nearby Ashwicken of Count Alan, valued at only five shillings; and second, in the holdings of Robert Malet, as a carucate of land in Bawsey forming a berewick of Glosthorpe (DB Norfolk, fos i49a–b and 153b).
The tenurial history of this area is difficult to reconstruct from Domesday alone, for instance Glosthorpe subsequently disappeared into Bawsey parish. The parish of Leziate to the south-east of Bawsey and slightly larger in area, makes only one appearance in Domesday, within the annexations of Baynard at the end of the Norfolk entries. Robert Malet was recorded as having two free men here with sixty acres and four of meadow worth five shillings (ibid., fo. 276b). The present parish is much larger than this, implying an acreage recorded under another landholding. More work needs to be done to resolve the early tenurial structures and parish boundaries, but two observations can be made. First, the ‘productive’ site at Bawsey lay only a mile to the north of Mintlyn church and close to the Mintlyn parish boundary. Bishop William de Raleigh created a park in Gaywood about i240, apparently incorporating land in Mintlyn. Second, the entire distance from the new church at Lynn to that at Bawsey is just over four kilometres, with Lynn itself representing a western movement in settlement, on an ancient demesne holding of the bishop. Although not certain, it seems likely that a landholding once including the ‘productive’ site at Bawsey, was originally owned by the East Anglian bishops. Not only might this provide an explicable context for why the bishops held what was an isolated holding in this western area of Norfolk, but why the village became deserted in the Middle Ages – if its former trading role had become shifted to Lynn.
More certain associations between Middle Anglo-Saxon ‘productive’ sites and subsequent medieval religious houses come from our remaining three West Norfolk sites, at Burnham, Wormegay and Rudham.
FIGURE 11.3. The parish church of Burnham Overy St Clement’s from the south.
Burnham
Some time in the late twelfth century, an Augustinian priory of
Clement’s from the south. Peterstone was founded by an ancestor of the Cheney family, dedicated to St Peter, in Burnham Overy (Knowles and Hadcock 1971, 170). Overy is one of seven parishes, once nine, which comprise the Burnhams. Covering nearly forty square kilometres with the large recorded population of i33 people at Domesday, this whole group of parishes almost certainly once formed a substantial multiple-estate; its name incorporates the early -ham place-name ending which would apparently support this early importance. A variety of entries in Domesday Book shows Burnham to have been broken down into a number of manors, of which the most important were held by the king at Burnham Overy, with three carucates of land and another two carucates as outliers, and by William de Warenne at Burnham Thorpe, with two carucates of land and a church with eighty acres of land (DB Norfolk, fos 128a and 169a). Trying to reconstruct the form and origins of Burnham is dangerous because the area has received little archaeological investigation, although some dependent settlements are suggested in the north and south tuns of Burnham Norton and Burnham Sutton.
Most problematical is the interpretation of Burnham Thorpe and Overy. Not only would Thorpe suggest a later and subsidiary settlement, so too might ‘Overy’, meaning ‘over the river’, being on the east bank of the River Burn (Mills 1991, 63). These, however, were the two largest manors by Domesday. Thorpe’s church with eighty acres suggests the presence of a community of priests here by the Conquest, yet, its dedication to All Saints, and the surviving church which shows modest work no earlier than thirteenth-century in date, do little to reinforce this. By contrast, such evidence does appear in the royal manor of Burnham Overy where St Clement’s church was built in the eleventh century as an aisleless cruciform building, its central tower now partially demolished (Fig. 11.3). Further investigation here is deserved and it is of potential interest that Burnham, in Domesday Bruneham, may conceivably have been the royal vill of Bruna. According to the early twelfth-century Bury St Edmunds chronicle, the Annals of St Neot’s, the East Anglian bishop Hunberht is said to have consecrated the martyr Edmund as king of East Anglia here on Christmas Day 856 (Dumville and Lapidge 1984, 51). Although the identification is uncertain, the former status of Burnham as a royal estate would be perfectly acceptable and provides a readily understandable context for the appearance here of above-average quantities of coinage and prestige metalwork in the Middle Anglo-Saxon period.
Rudham
Rudham provides another challenge in reconstruction but, like Burnham, would appear to have been the centre of a multiple-estate, the division into East and West forming the first hint at a formerly larger land unit (Fig. 11.2b). Domesday Book makes this more explicit, including in its valuation two churches with sixty acres, and within the extensive holdings of William de Warenne, a number of outliers, including Bagthorpe, Houghton, Barmer, Syderstone and Helhoughton (DB Norfolk, fo. 169a-b). The fact that a church at Houghton had no land attached suggests it was a chapelry dependent upon Rudham. Finally, the fact that sixty-nine sokemen were attached to Rudham again infers an earlier estate centre. The discovery here of an increasingly large quantity of Middle Anglo-Saxon material would appear to root this place’s importance back to at least the eighth and ninth centuries. Rudham came to be the site of a medieval priory founded in about 1140 by William Cheney, for which the two churches in Rudham, of St Mary and St Peter were given as an initial endowment. From aerial photographs of an otherwise unknown large cruciform church, it would appear that construction of the monastic buildings was never completed before it was moved to a new site within East Rudham by which the priory was subsequently known, as Coxford (Knowles and Hadcock 1971, 155).
Wormegay
The ‘productive’ site at Wormegay, located on a sandy island in the Nar valley, was found close to the unspectacular medieval church of St Michael. Recent research into Wormegay’s Domesday entries has indicated an antecessorial pattern suggesting a pre-Conquest estate centre, probably the manorial caput of Thorketel, antecessor to the Domesday tenant Hermer de Ferrers (Liddiard 2000, 31–3). This possibility is made more likely by the island subsequently being chosen as the location for a castle by Reginald de Warenne, who married Alice de Wormegay, heiress of the honour of Wormegay and a descendant of Hermer. Not only was a castle established, but an Augustinian priory, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Holy Cross and St John the Evangelist, in 1174– 5 (Vincent 1999). There therefore appears to have been a received importance to Wormegay in the eleventh and twelfth century which echoes a similar situation in the Middle Anglo-Saxon period.
Other Norfolk sites
Let us now turn to consider three other ‘productive’ sites in Norfolk. On the basis of coinage recovered, Hindringham in north Norfolk has some claim to be ‘productive’, having yielded four sceattas, a penny of Offa and a Louis the Pious gold solidus forgery, in addition to an array of Middle Anglo-Saxon pins and strap-ends. This cluster of finds (SMR 24909 and 25071) is to the east of St Andrew’s church, in a parish which is large but otherwise has little particularly to recommend it. Despite no mention of a church in any of the Domesday entries it was a substantial estate of four carucates, held by the bishops of East Anglia (DB Norfolk, fo. 192a). Hindringham is also of interest in sitting adjacent to three important parishes (Fig. 11.2c). Great Walsingham has also yielded quantities of Middle Anglo-Saxon metalwork while in Little Walsingham, presumably once a part of a larger land unit, the Augustinian priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary was founde
d c. ii53 by Geoffrey de Fervaques (Knowles and Hadcock 1971, 177). Little Walsingham was certainly a minster church in the Late Anglo-Saxon period, before its Norman refoundation: Domesday Book reveals that within the lands of Ranulf Peverel, the manor of Walsingham included one church with sixty acres of land, three times the average valuation for a church in Norfolk and Suffolk (DB Norfolk, fo. 254a).
To Hindringham’s north-west is Wighton, a royal manor and the hundredal manor for North Greenhoe (Williamson i993, 102). The proximity of a major royal estate with one held by the local diocesan may again point to some earlier relationship. Finally, to the north, in Binham a Benedictine priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary was founded by i093 by Peter and Albreda de Valognes (Knowles and Hadcock 1971, 52). The evidence for any post-Conquest importance to Hindringham itself is weak and should not be overstressed. It is of note, though, that the ‘productive’ site forms a focus of activity in an area with other parishes of interest, to one of which Hindringham may potentially once have been attached, to form a larger single land unit.
I will end this consideration of Norfolk ‘productive’ sites with Caistor St Edmund and Burgh Castle. Both are Roman sites, Caistor a walled town which was formerly the administrative centre Venta Icenorum, the latter a Saxon Shore fort, possibly the Gariannonum of the Notitia Dignitatum (Davies 1996; Gurney 1996). By 1086 Caistor was held by the abbey of Bury St Edmunds as a manor of three carucates, having a church with eleven acres valued at sixteen pence (DB Norfolk, fo. 210a). The only other tenant-in-chief with an interest in Caistor was Ralph de Beaufour, possibly a relative of the then Bishop of Thetford, William de Bellofago (or Beaufour: Harper-Bill i990, xxviii). Ralph’s holding was modest and assessed with his landholdings at Markshall, the adjacent parish. The appellation ‘St Edmund’ is only likely to have been attached to Caistor after Bury came to hold the lordship here, some time after c. 1020 (when the abbey was regularised as a Benedictine foundation). This landholding stands isolated from Bury’s few other Norfolk estates which in itself makes it curious as to why or how Bury should have come by Caistor. The location of St Edmund’s church in the corner of the walled town is reminiscent of a number of Middle Anglo-Saxon minster foundations (Blair 1992, 235–46) suggesting a similar origin here too. The lack of direct evidence for this may reflect not only East Anglia’s limited documentary sources, but Bury Abbey’s own administrative regime. Any wealth the church at Caistor may once have had would be unlikely to have survived long because dues would soon have been re-directed towards the abbey itself, leaving only the modest valuation of the parish church, eleven acres at sixteen pence, to support a priest. This is certainly the case at Horningsea, where Liber Eliensis (11, 32; Blake i962, 105) describes a royal minster being given to Ely Abbey on its refoundation c. 970; by Domesday the estate was still of seven carucates but the church there was not even mentioned (DB Cambridgeshire, fo. 191a). Bury’s ownership of Caistor would also have ensured that no post-Conquest monastery would have ever been founded in this particular vill.
At Burgh Castle, another Roman site has yielded much Anglo-Saxon metalwork and a number of sceattas. An association has also been made, on little evidence, for Burgh being the site of Cnobheresburg, a monastery mentioned by Bede as founded by the Irish monk Fursa (Historia Ecclesiastica, iii, 18–20). Excavations by Charles Green in three short seasons between i958 and i96i revealed evidence for Middle Anglo-Saxon occupation including a cemetery with i67 individuals excavated, three of which had radiocarbon dates varying between ad 600170 and ad 720170 (Johnson 1983, 112). Sadly, Green’s excavations were too small-scale and unclear in their dating and phasing to provide any useful indication of the site’s character. Although a Christian cemetery is indicated, no trace of any accompanying church was found. By Domesday, Ralph the Crossbowman held Burgh as a manor of four carucates and although a church was included in the holding, its attached acreage was the entirely unexceptional ten acres.
The present church at Burgh Castle is outside the walls of the Roman fort and three possibilities appear to exist. First, there may have never been a church within the walls of the fort; alternatively, an Anglo-Saxon church may have fallen out of use – perhaps a minster, becoming abandoned. Finally, and most probably, the construction within the Roman walls of a Norman castle may have led to the church being re-sited, not least as the motte was located in the south-western corner of the fort, the same area in which the Middle Anglo-Saxon cemetery was found. Little is known of this motte’s construction, but a common feature of many Norman castles was the removal of a church or chapel from the area of the bailey to a site outside, for instance at Walton Castle under the Bigod family, and at Castle Acre under the Warennes. While the castle’s builder is unknown, it does not seem to have been a later construction from the ‘anarchy’ of Stephen’s reign. In conclusion, Burgh Castle’s Domesday entry reveals a reasonably-sized estate which, with subsequent motte, suggests a significance was attached to this landholding attracting its redevelopment, again echoing a Middle Anglo-Saxon importance.
‘Productive’ sites in Suffolk
Restrictions of space permit only a limited discussion of the Suffolk sites, beginning with Brandon, on the Norfolk-Suffolk border. This ‘productive’ site is well known despite its limited publication (Carr et al. 1988). By Domesday, Brandon was held by only two landowners – Ely Abbey, which had a substantial manor of five carucates including a church with thirty acres, and Eudo the Steward’s minor holding of six sokemen in Brandon and adjacent Lakenheath, which were subsequently acknowledged also to belong to Ely (DB Suffolk, fo. 403a). The Libellus M.thelwoldi episcopi, a vernacular Ely source translated into Latin 1109X1131, describes Bishop Æthelwold buying five hides of land at Brandon and Livermere from a Wihtgar for fifteen pounds, in the late tenth century (chapter 46; Keynes and Kennedy, forthcoming). The purchase of Brandon occurs in the Libellus following a description of Ely’s acquisition of Horningsea in Cambridgeshire, and it precedes an account of how Sudbourne, Woodbridge and Stoke, all in Suffolk, came to the abbey. The significance of these places rests not simply in their being large estates but in all probability having minsters, most clearly Horningsea, which was described as ‘minster of royal rank’ (ibid., chapter 42). The other places should not be regarded any less lightly. For instance, Sudbourne appears to have been a large royal estate in the Sandlings, the royal heartland of the East Anglian kings, and to have included Iken, almost certainly the site of Icanho, a monastery founded in 654 by Saint Botolph (Whitelock 1972, 10). In buying Brandon, Ely Abbey may again have been taking possession of both a large estate and one with a minster. Naturally, whether we can equate the excavated Middle Anglo-Saxon site at Staunch Meadow in Brandon with such a former minster remains open, but it should suffice to state that another ‘productive’ site can be seen to lie within a later landholding of importance to a monastery.
If we turn next to consider the ‘afterlife’ of those sites described by John Newman, Barham and Coddenham, a mixed picture is apparent. At Barham, the majority of the landholdings mentioned in Domesday Book belonged to Ely Abbey, most notably an estate of four carucates, including the church with a modest sixteen acres (DB Suffolk, fo. 383b). The land was, however, more fragmented at Domesday than many of the estates we have considered so far. In Liber Eliensis (11, 97), the estate at Barham is described as being bought from Earl jfflfgar during the abbacy of Wulfric (c. 1052–65) (Blake 1962, i52n and 166).
At Coddenham, Domesday Book preserves evidence for a minster church. In the holdings of Roger Bigod, sometime sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, half a church with 2½ acres of land valued ‘always’ at the paradoxically high 36s.; a church with 12½ acres of land at 25d., and another church with 8 acres valued at i6d. are mentioned (DB Suffolk, fo. 338a). More churches were within the holding of Odo, the Bishop of Bayeux at Coddenham, one with 3 acres valued at 6d., another with i acre at 2d. and ‘two acres belonging to the [unidentified] church
valued at four pence’ (ibid., fo. 375a
). In Ranulf Peverel’s holdings at Coddenham was ‘a part of three churches’ as well as a church with 3 acres at 6d. (ibid., fo. 417a); Roger of Rames had ‘the fourth part of a church and of what belonged to it’ (ibid., fo. 422a) while various undertenants (described as vavassors) held a priest, Frideb (possibly Old English Fridubeorht) with half an acre in elemosina, valued at a penny (ibid., 63.447a and endnote). Such a number of churches or parts of churches associated with one named place suggests they may represent possessions of a minster church and, as Norman Scarfe has suggested, a former large parochia (Scarfe 1999, 52). With these possessions it should come as no surprise to learn that Coddenham was the intended location for a house of Cistercian nuns by Eustace de Merch in the time of Henry II (1154–89). In the event, the foundation was never made and by 1184 the church was instead given as an endowment to Royston Priory (Knowles and Hadcock 1971, 154).
I shall end by considering Burrow Hill, a settlement explored in limited excavations between 1978 and 1985. Lying in the parish of Butley, on numismatic grounds alone it might be described as ‘productive’, five proto-pennies of East Anglian king Beonna, five sceattas and a Kentish penny of Cuthred having been excavated (Sherlock 1984, 44–52). In fact, a variety of objects demonstrates the high status occupation here, including a silver repoussé vandyke, Continental imported pottery and a substantial decorative iron cauldron chain (Fenwick 1984). Butley appears in Domesday Book in the holdings of three landowners, Count Alan, Robert Malet and Roger of Poitou (DB Suffolk, fos 294a; 327b; 348a). None of these holdings were of any size or particularly exceptional, and certainly do nothing to suggest a place of any importance. However, c. 1171 the Augustinian priory of St Mary was founded in Butley by Rannulf de Glanville and his wife Bertha de Valognes (Mortimer 1979, 1). Butley provides a useful final location to consider purely because its ‘afterlife’ appears entirely unexceptional from the documentary evidence. Despite this, it came to have a monastery founded in the twelfth century. If for no other reason than this, we need to consider whether yet another instance of an important Middle Anglo-Saxon site subsequently coming to have a religious house founded nearby in the twelfth century is pure coincidence.