Statistics Notes for Norfolk
(version 1b)

Previous studies: Despite its age, the totals and annotation in Sir Henry Ellis, A General Introduction to Domesday Book, vol. 2, pp. 488-93, still have some value. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, pp. 400-403, and Darby, Domesday England, pp. 336-71, supply totals and an invaluable analysis of problems with the statistics for the Domesday county; and H.C. Darby, 'Norfolk', in Domesday Geography of Eastern England, edited by H.C. Darby, pp. 97-152, analyses the data and its problems for the modern county. R.W. Finn, Domesday Studies: the Eastern Counties (1967), is a valuable analysis of the problems peculiar to the statistical data in Little Domesday. Barbara Dodwell, 'The free peasantry of East Anglia in Domesday', Norfolk Archaeology, vol. 27 (1941), pp. 145-57, provides a breakdown by Hundred of the figures for free men and Freemen, though only for 1066. A sophisticated analysis of the value and limitations of the Domesday statistics for the comparative study of the conditions of 1066 and 1086 is provided by R.W. Finn, The Norman Conquest and its effects on the economy, 1066-1086; but since his totals exclude certain figures they have not been included in the spreadsheet below. Finally, problems in interpreting the statistics for Domesday valuations, Domesday waste, and landed wealth are examined respectively in Palmer, 'The Conqueror's footprints in Domesday Book', in The medieval military revolution, edited by Andrew C. Ayton and J.L. Price (1995), pp. 23-44; 'War and Domesday waste', in Armies, chivalry and warfare in medieval Britain and France, edited by Matthew Strickland (1998), pp. 256-75; and 'The wealth of the secular aristocracy in 1086', Anglo-Norman Studies, vol. 22 (2000), pp. 279-91.

Circuits: Norfolk is considered to have been in circuit 7, along with Essex and Suffolk, the only three counties omitted from Great Domesday. These counties are recorded in Little Domesday, the only complete 'circuit return'. The characteristics of the text and formulae which define the circuit are analysed by Carl Stephenson, 'Notes on the composition and interpretation of Domesday Book', Speculum, vol. 22 (1947), pages 1-15.

County: the statistics are those contained in the folios for the Domesday county which may explain some discrepancies between our county totals and those of Darby whose figures are sometimes adjusted to take account of vills divided by the county boundary or entries misplaced by the Domesday scribe: see the relevant volume of the Domesday Geographies.

Duplicates: Duplicates, or possible duplicates, often with differences of detail, are:
•	8,17	8 men duplicated in 16,1.
•	8,37	Freemen and free men probably duplicated in 15,7.
•	8,39	34 Freemen duplicated in 15,8.
•	8,40	7 Freemen duplicated in 15,9.
•	10,15	holding at Guist duplicated (but cancelled) in 10,34.
•	15,1	26 Freemen duplicated in 23,9.
•	50,9	marked for deletion; duplicated in 57,1.
•	50,10	marked for deletion; duplicated in 57,2.
•	65,17	duplicated in 1,208.
Duplicates which are not simply claims are included in our totals but coded to allow them to be treated separately.

Boroughs: three boroughs are recorded: Norwich (novus burgus) and Thetford (burgus) contain burgesses and urban sites, Yarmouth 70 burgesses. There are no separate sections for boroughs in Little Domesday although the description of Norwich has some points of similarity with such sections in Great Domesday. Statistics for Norwich are recorded in the Boroughs database but the standard statistics are also included in the DomesdayStatistics database.

Geld: Uniquely, the geld units in East Anglia are given in carucates and acres (a bovate is mentioned once, virgates 3 times). We have assumed with most commentators that there were 120 acres to the East Anglian carucate; a case has been made for a 100-acre carucate (Darby, ibid., p. 109 note 3) but Maitland's argument for 120 acres (ibid., p. 483) is compelling. These carucates and acres are fiscal units, of course, not measurements of area. Unusually, many entries (42) fail to record this assessment.
	Another unique feature of the East Anglian geld is its record of the contribution of each vill to the geld levied on the Hundred, together with the dimensions of the vill. This information is supplied only in relation to some manors, and not for every vill. Unfortunately, it cannot be used to remedy deficiencies in the record of carucation as attempts to relate the two systems have failed to do so convincingly. However it is calculated, therefore, the assessment for the county is to a certain extent incomplete.
	There are many ambiguities in the data. The larger manors often record details of losses and gains, some of which are statements of title rather than of tenure and are therefore recorded elsewhere. Where such statements are ambiguous, we have erred on the side of assuming that the assessments are additional to the stated manorial total. Another complication is that it is often unclear whether the separately recorded holdings of the Freemen, free men, churches and others are included in the stated total or additional to it. On balance, it is more likely that they are additional in most cases so we have followed Maitland (ibid., p. 430) in making this our working assumption where there are no clear indications to the contrary. Maitland thought that there was a danger that 'some of the acres held by parish churches' might be counted twice; but these are separately recorded in the database.
	The 'free land' attached to churches is included in the assessment but assumed to be exempt from taxation. Tax reductions are recorded for a few holdings, and in a few cases the assessment is stated to be unchanged; but as these are exceptional cases, we have made no assumptions about whether this is the normal state of affairs.

Ploughlands: In Norfolk, as in Essex and Suffolk, ploughlands are not recorded and 'possible' ploughteams only sporadically. Darby has argued, with some reservations, that an estimate of the ploughlands might be inferred from the details of the increases and losses of ploughteams since 1066, though he does not propose a figure on this basis (ibid., p. 110); David Roffe has suggested that the pre-Conquest ploughteams were equivalent to the ploughlands of Great Domesday, but has provided no figure.

Ploughteams: In Norfolk, as in other counties in circuit 7, ploughteams are normally recorded separately for the demesne and for the villagers. In many instances, however, the formulae are ambiguous, simply stating that the ploughteams are 'there', without specifying ownership. With one exception, we have interpreted these cases conservatively, allocating ploughteams to the demesne or to the villagers only where the evidence appears to be reasonably clear; the total ploughteams for an entry may therefore be greater than the sum of the lords' and men’s teams, enabling such cases to be identified. The one exception is the treatment of the ploughteams of Freemen and free men. These are not usually designated as demesne or men's ploughteams, and on the handful of occasions where the scribe has described them as lords' teams it may be suspected that he has nodded and is describing T.R.E. conditions. We have respected these designations but have otherwise allocated such teams to the men. Their 'possible' ploughteams are treated in the same way. Both figures should be treated with caution, however: as the data on the free men is frequently ambiguous, any error in allocating them to 1086 may result in a corresponding error in the allocation of ploughteams to the men. Another problem is that a number of entries specify 'later' figures without a corresponding 'now'; we have assumed that 'later' refers only to the intermediate date and that the absent 'now' in such cases signifies zero. Little Domesday sometimes supplies ploughteam data for 1066 and an intermediate date but recording these is beyond the scope of the present project.

Livestock: Little Domesday records livestock, often for three dates. This data is subject to the same ambiguities as the triple valuations (below), with the additional complication that the meaning of the text is often determined simply by punctuation, and more than usually prone to scribal or editorial error. In general we have assumed that the dates in such formulae as "Then and now 15 cattle, 4 sheep, 2 pigs" apply to all three categories but that 'then' in "Then and now 15 cattle; 4 sheep, 2 pigs" applies only to the cattle. "Then and later 100 sheep." not followed by 'now' is assumed to mean that that there were no sheep in 1086.

Population: The main categories of rural population for Norfolk are villagers, smallholders, Freemen, free men, and slaves. No cottagers are recorded in Norfolk (or elsewhere in Little Domesday) though they are numerous in the adjacent county of Cambridgeshire (but not Lincolnshire). Only three other categories are named: fishermen, priests, and men, eleven of these described as 'customary' men.
	Little Domesday often supplies population data for 3 separate dates, though the data for Norfolk is not as detailed as that for Essex; but compiling this data is beyond the scope of the present project.
	The figures for the free population are riddled with ambiguities. In a large number of cases the date to which the figures refer is omitted, ambiguous, or in some instances demonstrably wrong. Additionally, the tenurial status of the free population is often unclear, and one scholar may record a peasant where another identifies an independent landowner. Anonymous free men, or even Freemen, might have different lords and hence be recorded more than once, though the existence of 'half' peasants among both groups in inconsiderable numbers may imply that such double-counting is not a serious risk. And there are other problems (Darby, ibid., 114-18). In recording this data we have made the following assumptions where there is no evidence to the contrary: (1) that the holdings of the free population existed at both dates; (2) that free men recorded with separate holdings, and those added to manors, were independent landowners before 1066; (3) that free men recorded as though part of the manorial population in 1066 have been accepted as such unless there are indications of independence; (4) that most Freemen were part of the manorial population in 1066; and (5) that both free men and Freemen had been subsumed into the manorial population by 1086.
	The first of these assumptions will have produced most of the discrepancies between highest and lowest counts; but there are sufficient individual cases to demonstrate that such formulae as 'in x, y free men' should normally be construed as 'in x, [there are and were] y free men' even when the formulae includes the pre-Conquest overlord and the phrase 'before 1066', as in 'in x, [there are and were] y free men under the patronage of z before 1066'. Finally, fractions of peasants have been recorded as such, on the assumption that the missing fractions may be recorded elsewhere.

Woodland: is usually recorded in terms of the pigs it would support. Figures are recorded as text to accommodate non-numerical data but can easily converted to numerals where appropriate; the coding of the units employed allow them to be treated separately.

Meadow: is invariably recorded in acres. Figures are treated as for woodland.

Pasture: no consistent formulae is employed; recorded in dimensions, acres, sheep, etc. Figures are treated as for woodland.

Values: Values are recorded in modern decimal currency. Until 1972, the English pound contained 20 shillings, each of 12 pence, the units used for most Domesday values, represented by the abbreviations £.s.d for the Latin librae, solidi and denarii. In Norfolk, as in Essex and Suffolk, three dates for valuations are the norm, although a significant number of entries in Norfolk - about one-third - record only the current valuation. In many cases it is possible that this means the value is unchanged (see, e.g., note to 31,5); but no such assumption has been made in recording the data. Where only two dates are given they are overwhelmingly indeterminate, of the 'is and was' variety. The few exceptions specify the earlier date as T.R.E. which is accordingly the date to which 'was' (normally 'then' in Norfolk) valuations are assigned. 'Value always' is a common formulae, interpreted as referring to all three dates. To facilitate comparisons between pre- and post-Conquest landholding, we have created in addition to the two or three valuations a composite field- Value66/QR/86 - which includes intermediate (or failing those 1086) valuations where there is no data for 1066. All valuations - including those in Value66/QR/86 - have been coded to allow significant variations in the formulae to be treated separately. Manors with subholdings should be treated with caution when comparing changes in over time as it is not always clear whether their valuations are additional to the manorial total, and they are sometimes recorded for different dates to those of the main holding; the coding allows them to be treated separately..
	Many royal manors include the payment of premiums; these have been kept separate from the 1086 valuations and recorded as the Render of an estate, that is the 1086 value plus the premium.

Waste: Waste is rarely explicitly recorded in Little Domesday and where it is it mostly refers to only part of a holding, usually the woodland. 'Nothing', or 'none', however, is fairly common, recording zero values for population, ploughteams and stock. Such cases, however, have more in common with the declining valuations and stock losses implicit in the 'possible ploughteams' data for many counties than with the waste recorded in Sussex, along the Welsh border, or in those counties affected by the 'harrying of the north'.

Annexations: The 'annexations' (Chapter 66), unlike the Claims sections in Great Domesday, do not appear to duplicate material found in the main text and have therefore been recorded as additional entries.

Norfolk statistics

Source	Geld	Ploughs	Villagers	Smallholders	Slaves	Freemen	free men	burgesses	Misc. pop	Mills	Churches	Value 1086	
Ellis	-	-	4730	10019	995	4580	4463	1584	167	-	243	-	
Maitland	2422	4853	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	4155	
Darby	2423	5006	4607	9886	973	5410	5227	1620	195	538	249	4094	
Hull	2454	5001	4612	10025	986	5408	5190	1654	207	507	277	3990	
* Population figures from Ellis; his 'halves' counted as such. All figures are rounded. Darby may have excluded holdings in vills in other counties.

Geld	A number of ambiguous entries documented in the notes may account for the discrepancy.
Ploughs	There are a number of ambiguous entries - 1,192. 10,3. 17,56. 21,16;25. 25,6. 31,43-44 (see notes) - but the discrepancy may be due more to the interpretation of some formulae (see note on ploughteams above).
Villagers	Ambiguous entries (1,1;139. 9,87. 15,4 and 49,2) may account for the discrepancy.
Smallholders	A different interpretation of entry 1,215 would reduce our total by 108; part of the remaining discrepancy may be due to different treatment of half-smallholders.
Slaves	Ambiguous entries (1,78;81. 8,34. 9,7) may account for part of the discrepancy.
Freemen	In view of the many ambiguities in the data the close agreement between our totals may be serendipitous; apart from the method of counting of half-Freemen, problematic entries include: 1,1;3;55;57;136;153-54;211;215;231. 8,8. 14,19. 15,1;7-9. 19,24. 21,17. 34,15. 40,1.
free men	In view of the many ambiguities in the data the comparatively close agreement between our totals may be serendipitous; different treatment of half-free men might account for some differences.
Burgesses	Darby appears to have excluded the 2 burgesses of 1,49 and the 32 of 1,61, 22 of these recorded by him under Beccles in Suffolk.
Misc. pop	Darby's total includes 24 fishermen in Yarmouth (SUF 1,32) but excludes 33 men, 2 prebendaries and 6 Englishmen recorded with his Boroughs data; the remaining discrepancy may be due to different views of 14,42 and 31,21. Darby classifies 11 of the men (9,100) as consuetudinarii.
Mills	The discrepancy may be due to fractional churches if counted as whole ones, as was Darby's practice where the fractions could not be matched. There are so many factions in Norfolk, however - over 100 - that it is impossible to pinpoint differences without a detailed breakdown of matches; as much as 80 could be added to the arithmetical total if only fractions within the same vill were counted as matches but Darby's practice was more flexible than this (Domesday Geography of Eastern England, pp. 136-37).
Churches	It is difficult to account for this discrepancy. There are over one hundred fractions of churches recorded in Norfolk so if Darby followed his normal policy of counting fractions as whole churches where they could not be matched, his total should be significantly higher than the arithmetical sum, not lower (see also Suffolk notes). Perhaps he excluded the urban churches of Norwich, Thetford and Yarmouth: see Domesday Geography of Eastern England, p. 138.
Value 1086	Including borough payments, £4233. Darby may have taken a different view of the valuations of churches and subholdings (e.g., 1,174. 6,6. 19,36. 31,15;17. 34,16).

Darby's totals for priests (11) match ours; Ellis records 8.