Notes on the preparation of the database

Numbering
Folio numbers refer back to the original MS, including recto and dorso (front and back respectively). Each new entry has been given a running number (including rubrics such as “turn eastwards on the other side of the road”).

Names
Latin dirst names have been translated into their modern English equivalents [e.g. Radulphus > Ralph], which might be debated, but other elements are transcribed as seen. We have not made separate columns for first names and surnames, because for many entries there are multiple names of past and present owners and tenants and adjoining owners.

Tenures (free and unfree)
It clearly mattered a great deal to landowners whether their land was free or unfree in tenure. The surveyor is sometimes suspicious or grudging about their claims - “free, as he says”. The Latin word liber is translated as “free” throughout, but the Latin word Nativa has been left because it is considered untranslateable. It relates to the status of a tenant who was unfree and tied to the land and his holding (as would be his descendants). There is no suggestion in this MS that this unfree status still applied to individuals and their families; it is exclusively applied to land tenure.Nevertheless, we have retained the Latin word with all its potential connotations.

Land use
Most entries use the Latin word terra, translated as land. It may appear tautologous, but it seems to have been used deliberately to differentiate from meadow or settlement site. We might assume it signified arable, but it is felt would be going too far to translate it as arable. Sometimes land is described as “enclosed”, and sometimes as a “croft”. The word tenement can sometimes mean a house-site [e.g. “tenement or cottage”] and sometimes an entire holding, depending on context.

Acreages
Decimals are used for half acres and half roods, there si no attempt at any further conversion of units. Once an acre “of great measure” has been noted, which may have been a local customary acre that was bigger than the statute acre. All other measurements are in acres and roods (quarter acres), with no measurements in perches.

Tenements
Many entries state that land was 'parcel of' a named holding or tenement, or in some cases 'of the Lord's Fee'. Context suggests that these holdings had been broken up and reallocated, but it was still a significant fact of local history and geography. This layer of history might already have been long ago; for example, some of the holdings or tenements have OE names such as Cutbaldes [the name of a 7th century monk, an abbot of Peterborough, recorded by Bede]. An intermediate layer of history is indicated by the words 'quondam' [once] and 'nuper' [lately], but the phrases 'in the occupation of' or 'in the tenure of' might equally refer to owners or cultivators of the land. 'Of the Lord's Fee' might indicate that this was land that had previously been demesne or common land. Alternatively it might imply that there had been more than one manor or lordship, lying haphazardly in the fields, which was a common pattern in East Anglia in the later Middle Ages.

Abbutals
Ths is inconsistently recorded, but might be worked out from context, since the survey proceeds plot to plot in a specified direction. Where stated, we have recorded West, East, North and South abuttals in different columns, and added the presumed alignment of each plot. Our archivist has worked from the assumption that the word 'inter' [between] refers to the long sides, and the word 'abuts' refers to the short ends of each plot. Abuttals include significant landmarks such as roads and watercourses.

References
Occasionally tenants had produced charters as evidence, with some indication of their dates. More consistently reference is made to two official sources. One is an Extent of the Manor (with folio numbers). The other also contains folio numbers, and was called the Draggum or Magnum Draggum. This word cannot be found in any Latin dictionaries. Possibly it was a draft survey. The foliation suggests that the order was different from the Extent, but similar to that of the Town
Book.

PF October 2021

Return to the Town Book page