This page needs to be proofread.

DOMESDAY SURVEY recent period have been an island. The place-names of Flegg seem to point to an early settlement of Scandinavians, since nearly all of them end in ' by,' and a purely 'Danish' community could be most simply established in a district with definite boundaries, from which the earlier inhabitants could be easily excluded. The large proportion of small freeholders in Flegg is thus in all probability not accidental, but due to its specifically ' Danish ' char- acter. Again, the division between East and West Flegg is a natural one, and other hundreds will be found to have rivers and marshes for their boundaries. We shall, however, find in Domesday equally strong traces of a highly artificial arrangement. Thus the northern hundreds, Smethden, Docking, Brothercross, Gallow, and North Greenhoe, show signs of having been laid out so as to give each hundred a proportion of salt-marsh for its sheep. We do not know precisely how the boundary ran between Brother- cross and Gallow, but the remarks on the measurements and geld of Burnham indicate some kind of artificial arrangement.^ The same cause may have led to the transfer of Saxlingham from Holt hundred to the comparatively distant hundred of Gallow, where it seems to be required to make up the geld. The transfer of Snettisham to Freebridge hundred,^ which seems to upset the fiscal arrangements of Smethden hundred, is probably due to the influence of Stigand ; and Salthouse is doubtless in North Erpingham, owing to its being a berewick to Siward's manor of Sherring- ham. The most noticeable changes in the map of Norfolk since Domesday are the inclusion of Emneth in Freebridge hundred, the abolition of the hundred of Docking, which was thrown into Smethden hundred, and the rearrangement of the hundreds of Brothercross and Gallow in such a manner that the former has all the coast and the latter the inland villages, the old boundary, the River Wensum, being disregarded. The former unity of East Anglia,' typified by Norfolk and Sufi'olk having not only a common earl, but also a common bishop, the seat of whose see at one time was at Thetford on their border, prepares us for certain cases of inter-relation. Diss, for instance, though in Norfolk and giving name to a Norfolk hundred, is surveyed under Suffolk as a royal manor in the hundred of Hartesmere.* But Burston, its outlyer to the north, is surveyed under Norfolk, though valued under Diss in Suffolk.' The ' half hundred of Diss ' also is surveyed under Norfolk. Thetford, on the other hand, as Domes- day admits, lay partly in the one and partly in the other county, and yet is surveyed wholly under Norfolk. Gillingham in Norfolk, opposite Beccles, appears to be only mentioned under Gorleston, Suffolk, to which was appurtenant a small estate there. The two counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, as they appear in Domesday Book, are marked off from the other counties of England by the peculiarity of their system of assessment. This has been well explained by Mr. J. H. Round,* but it will not be amiss to repeat the conclusions to which his researches lead. The counties were divided for purposes of assessment into hundreds, and the hundreds into leets, which were areas of equal, or approximately equal, assessment. Unhappily, the traces of these leets are ■ Dom. Bk. f. 237^. • Ibid. f. 142. ' This paragraph is by Mr. Round. * Dom. Bk. f. 282. ' ' Hoc appendet ad Dice in Sutfulc et ibi appretiatur' (f. 1 14). ° Feuii. Engl. pp. 98-103.