FERSFIELD
Is bounded on the east and south by Brisingham, on the west by Lopham, on the north by Kenninghall; the hundred of Diss extending to the utmost limits of this parish, and no further.
I find the name of it very differently written, as Fersevella, Fervessella, Ferefeud, Fairfeud, Fairvill, and Fersfell, all which seem to signify, a Fair Fee, or Village.
One part of it was very early in the Abbot of St. Edmund's Bury, being given about 963, along with Brisingham, by Osulph Le Sire, and the Lady Laverine, his wife, and was valued with that manor in the Confessor's and Conqueror's surveys; this fee being not mentioned in Doomesday, under Fersfield, it is evident it must be included in that manor, with which it was infeoffed by Abbot Baldwin, soon after the Conquest, in
Roger le Bigot Earl of Norfolk, and that it was so appears from an ancient manuscript of that abbey, now in Lord Carnwaleis's hands, in which it is said, that Earl Roger held three fees of that abbey, one in Norton, one in Brisingham, and one in Fersfield, for which he paid nothing to the guard of Norwich castle, the abbot being answerable for 7s. every 20 weeks. And in the same book it is found, that the fee in Brisingham was held of the Earl by John de Verdon, that in Fersfield by Sir Robert de Bosco, (or Bois,) and that in Nortone by Richard de Cham; the fee in Fersfield, at the death of Earl Roger, who died in 1107, went to William, his son and heir, and from him to
Hugh Bygod, his brother and heir, who infeoffed
Sir William de Bosco in it in the time of Henry II. whose heir,
Sir Robert de Bosco, held it in 1165; it was near one half of the town, and was ever after held of the Earls of Norfolk, who held it of the Abbot of St. Edmund's Bury.
The other part belonged to Alsius, a Thane (or nobleman) of Edward the Confessor's; the demeans being valued at two carucates; it was then an extensive manor, part of Burston, Bressingham, and Shimpling, belonging to it. The manor with the Berewic, and that
