The Manorial Courts of Lothingland Half-hundred

Mid-16th to Mid-18th Century

The Manorial System served both as the foundation of land ownership and management and of maintaining the peace and good order of each local community. It had its origins in  Early Medieval times (what was formerly known as the Anglo-Saxon period) and was further shaped and developed following the Norman Conquest – which is now taken as being the start of the Late Medieval era. Thus, by the Early Modern period (broadly, the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries), Lothingland Half-hundred had a time-honoured system of manorial courts to handle a wide range of local matters appertaining to the holding of land and to the personal conduct of its people. Serious criminal acts (treason, murder, assault resulting in serious injury, witchcraft, highway robbery, arson, burglary, rape, grand larceny, forgery, counterfeiting and smuggling) were dealt with either at Quarter Sessions (held four times a year) or at the six-monthly Assizes. What may be described as misdemeanour or nuisance came under the aegis of the annual, local, manorial leet courts – bodies which also elected officers for the coming year (namely constables, ale-tasters searchers-and-sealers of leather and pinders).

The Hundred was an Anglo-Saxon administrative unit of the Shire (County), created for the purposes of governance and collection of taxes. Its size was determined by it having at least 120 hides of cultivated land (there being 120 acres to the hide), which adds up to a total of 12,000 acres in all. Lothingland had 6,264 acres of arable land at Domesday (1086) – a total which may have been a little smaller than in 1066 and which placed it in the category of Half-hundred. The Mutford jurisdiction was only about half this size, at 3,210 acres (again, which may have been smaller than in 1066), but it too was classed as a Half-hundred – there being no such entity as a Quarter-hundred.

Hundred boundaries were probably mainly established by using natural land-forms, such as rivers, streams, hills and valleys, and by human re-shaping of local topography with roads, tracks and footpaths. The location of settlements and their boundaries would have been another factor, as would the existence of large estates which had been built up in some areas during later Anglo-Saxon times. In East Norfolk and North-east Suffolk, it is also likely that the Danish invasions of the 870s played a part, with the consequent re-shaping of communities and re-distribution of land.   

The information following, on the Lothingland manorial court structure, derives from Suffolk Archives, Ipswich, 194/C1/1 –  Half-hundred Court Book for 1594-1612. 

1. Half-hundred Tourn held twice a year at Mutford Bridge, on a Wednesday in April/May and a Thursday in October. The parishes in Mutford Half-hundred also had their business conducted on the same day. This court was the descendant of the old Sheriff’s Court, held twice-yearly in each hundred or half-hundred of Suffolk county. It mainly handled the election of officers (e.g. bailiff, constable and coroner) and cases of misdemeanour and breach of manorial rules not dealt with in the Half-hundred’s individual, manorial, annual leet courts.

2. East Leet (Corton, Gunton, Hopton and Lowestoft) held annually at Corton, in the first Thursday in Lent, for swearing of the homage to the Lord of the Half-hundred and to the individual lords of the four component manors. Admiralty Court business (mainly wreck of the shore and marine salvage) was also conducted there, relating to the foreshore area of the Leet’s communities. 

• Having been sworn in, the Lowestoft jurors (chief tenants of its manor) probably only attended for Admiralty matters – the town having its own separate Leet Court (as the Half-hundred’s largest community) held on the first Saturday in Lent.
• Swearing of the homage to Lord of the Half-hundred and to the Lords of the individual manors would have been carried out at all six Lothingland leets.
• Corton was probably chosen originally as the East Leet venue since, before Gunton was created from land belonging both to it and Lowestoft, it would have been the mid-point between Lowestoft and Hopton. 
• Gunton was a post-Domesday community.
• The small coastal parish of Newton (located to the east of Hopton) is not referred to because it had been largely destroyed by sea erosion by the mid-16th century and its remaining acres subsumed by Corton.
• Mutford Half-hundred had its own Admiralty Court, generally found referred to as a Water Leet and covering the coastal parishes of  Kirkley, Pakefield and Kessingland. It was probably held in one venue, not named.

3. West Leet (Ashby, Herringfleet and Somerleyton) held annually at Blundeston on the first Monday in Lent. 

4. South Leet (Blundeston, Flixton, Lound and Oulton) held annually at Blundeston on the first Monday in Lent. 

• This grouping, using the same venue on the same day, was probably the result of these communities forming a geographical block of parishes bounded by East Leet, North Leet and the Gorleston-Southtown jurisdiction.
• Blundeston was probably chosen as venue, being seen as a convenient mid-point for the seven communities. 
• Ashby, Blundeston and Oulton were all post-Domesday Communities. 

5. North Leet (Belton, Bradwell, Browston and Fritton) held annually at Belton on the first Tuesday in Lent. 

• Bradwell was a post-Domesday community and Browston one included in that Survey as an individual entity. It eventually became part of Belton.

6. Gorleston/Southtown Leet held annually at Gorleston on the second Wednesday in    Lent. Admiralty Court business was conducted there, relating to the Gorleston shoreline.

• Southtown (sometimes referred to as Little Yarmouth because of its proximity to Great Yarmouth) was a post-Domesday community formed from the northern sector of Gorleston. 
• At Domesday (1086), Gorleston was hub of the Lothingland Half-hundred manor, but its influence began to decline when Lowestoft (a manorial outlier) was made a manor in its own right in 1211. This was followed in 1228 by both manors being granted by Henry III – among many other royal estates – to Lady Dervorgille de Balliol, in exchange for lands held by her in Cheshire (these being seen as a defensive barrier against the Welsh). With Lothingland and Lowestoft being held in tandem thereafter, the latter community was bound to increase in size and importance at Gorleston’s expense.
• Gorleston and Southtown had their own leet court probably because of the former once having been the Lothingland hub. Also, after Lowestoft – but with less than half of its number of inhabitants – Gorleston and Southtown, collectively, had the Half-hundred’s largest population. 

7. Burgh Castle Leet held once a year in the parish on the first Friday in Lent.

• Burgh's independence was the result of its having once been a Royal Serjeanty, with the manor held in return for specified military service to the Crown. This situation sprung directly from the estate being granted to Ralph the Crossbowman for his services at the Battle of Hastings (1066) – he who built a small motte-and-bailey castle in the south-western corner of the old Roman shore-fort of Garrianonum.

8. General Court for the Half-hundred held three times a year as follows: Gorleston (Holy Thursday), Lound Wood Head (Thursday following 24 June – this being the Feast of St. John the Baptist) and Lothingland Mouth (Thursday following 6 October – this being the Feast of St. Faith the Martyr). 

• Matters dealt with included the admission of chief tenants to local manors, complaints not dealt with in the Half-hundred leet courts, non-attendance of jurors at these, election of officers and occasional cases of misdemeanour. Lound Wood was a large local landscape feature of the time and Lothingland Mouth was another name for the Mutford Bridge area. The three venues were strategically located in the northern, middle and southern sectors of Lothingland Half-hundred.
• The Lound Wood Head court is found occasionally to have dealt with matters of marine salvage not carried out by the East Leet jurisdiction.  

9. General Court for the Half-hundred held once a year at Gorleston, on the first Friday in Lent, and dealt with matters of complaint and the non-attendance of jurors at the area leet courts.

10.  General Court for the Half-hundred held once a year at Bradwell, on the first Friday in Lent, and dealt with matters of complaint and the non-attendance of jurors at the area leet courts.

• One possible explanation to be given for these two courts of identical date and function  being held on the same day (and in communities adjacent to each other) is that they may have served the northern sector of the Half-hundred. 

11. General Court for the Half-Hundred held every three to six weeks at Gunton Score and dealt with matters of complaint and the non-attendance of jurors at the area leet courts.

• Gunton Score is what became known, much later, as The Ravine – following the creation of Belle Vue Park from part of the old North Common, in 1874. It formed a section of the Lowestoft-Gunton parish boundary. 
• The references to matters of complaint in Nos. 8, 9, 10 & 11 probably signify lesser Common Law offences, with monetary debts owing certainly being one of the matters handled.
• It is possible that, with the Gorleston and Bradwell general courts handling matters relating to the northern half of Lothingland, the one held at Gunton Score did the same for the southern sector.
• The choice of the season of Lent for holding the various Leet Courts was a religious one. Lent was (and still is) the period of spiritual preparation for the Christian Festival of Easter – a time of reflection on personal shortcomings and of traditional abstinence from life’s physical pleasures (mainly sexual activity and the consumption of rich food and alcoholic drink). In an Age of Faith, it would have been deemed entirely appropriate that the annual review of good order in the Lothingland manors should be carried out at this time, when the Church of England authorities were keen to create a sense of personal moral failing of all kinds in people and to stress the need for contrition. Thus, the breaches of manorial rules noted and recorded (and the fines payable for such) would have fitted in with the general mood of the Lenten season. 
• The General Court for the Half-hundred (No. 8) also has religious connotations attaching to it in the references made to Holy (Maundy) Thursday and to the feast days of St. John the Baptist and St. Faith.
• In addition to the overall court structure, described above, each and every manor would have held Court Baron sessions at regular intervals (in the case of Lowestoft, every four to six weeks). This particular forum was originally created as a private court of the manorial lord (during the Late Medieval period), in which he or she sought to assert his or her rights over the tenants and they attempted to maintain their own rights against him or her. With the passage of time, it increasingly became a court for dealing with matters of complaint and with the transfer of real estate – especially the latter.
• There were twenty-five manors in the Half-hundred of Lothingland altogether, as follows: Ashby (1) named eponymously; Belton (1) named Gapton Hall with Belton; Blundeston (2) named eponymously and Gonville’s; Bradwell (3) named eponymously, Caxton and Hobland; Burgh Castle (1) named eponymously; Corton (1) named eponymously; Flixton (2) named eponymously and Lawney’s; Fritton (2) named eponymously and Caldecot; Gorleston (3) named eponymously, Bacon’s and Spitling’s; Gunton (1) named eponymously; Herringfleet (2) named eponymously and Loudham & Titshall’s; Hopton (1) named eponymously; Lound (2) named eponymously and Stalhams in Lound; Lowestoft (1) named eponymously – with the former manor of Akethorp having become an estate belonging to Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1479 and no longer holding its own courts; Oulton (2) named eponymously and Houghton. 
• Gapton, Caldecot and Akethorp were all Domesday settlements which ceased to exist in their own right during the century following the Survey.
• There are no specific references to the buildings in which all of these meetings were held, but local manor houses (where they existed) would have been used for court baron sessions and maybe also for the leet court and general court gatherings. Local inns also served as venues and it is known, in Lowestoft’s case, that its annual leet assemblies (first Saturday in Lent) were held in one of the town’s premier inns such as The Crown or The Swan.
• In the case of No. 8, the General Court for the Half-hundred, held at Mutford Bridge, there was a building of some kind situated near the site of the present-day public house  called The Commodore – but, its exact nature is not known. 

CREDIT:David Butcher