colneis

The existing traces of the fourteenth century, ecclesiastical, political, domestic, commercial, indicate a period of great activity and general prosperity, retarded indeed by the two great pestilences which occurred, the first just before the half-century, the second about thirteen years later.

The times were evil, and no better in England than elsewhere. In the Court, conjugal infidelity had been followed by parricidal rebellion. In the towns, filth and vice reigned supreme. In the country, the cry of the op pressed went up to heaven, for few on earth seem to have heard or heeded. Justice slumbered, and iniquity throve apace.

Both the military Orders which ramified over Europe were represented in Suffolk – the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem at Battisford, and the Templars at Dunwich and Gislingham.

THE thrilling events of the Norman Conquest told on Suffolk chiefly by change of proprietorship. The men whose names ended in wulf, ketyl, bert, and win went out, and the men whose names began in Fitz, De and Le came in.

For some half a century East Anglia remained in the hands of the Danes, and of such as they suffered to continue in their possessions. The proverbial happiness of those without annals cannot be claimed for these parts. The little glimpses afforded to us by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are not bright. If we may judge by the analogy of Northumbria, lands were portioned out and tilled 47. As settlement went on, fresh bands from the teeming population of the home country were invited over and in all parts of England the struggle with the Danes was carried on with little intermission.