Some Descendants of Norman Kempe: Domesday Sheriff of Suffolk A collection of kinfolk of the Kemps and Bellamys of Suffolk and Lincolnshire by Denis Bellamy (2004) Dedication To my great grandparents, the last of the countryfolk, and to my grandchildren in remembrance of their Suffolk roots. This map is part of the first Ordnance Survey of England published in 1835. It depicts the countryside around the Suffolk villages of Cratfield and Laxfield where my mother's kinfolk, the Kempes emerged in the 16th century parish books. Their home was Mill Farm Cratfield, which is marked at the top of the map. From there my branch of the tree passed through the market town of Framlingham, reaching the birthplace of my grandfather in Aldeburgh in the mid-19th century. On this migratory pathway my great great grandfather briefly re-entered the map as farm bailiff at Laxfield's Little Boats Hall. As I write my mind is fixed on the year 1558, and the image of John Kempe the elder, leading the villagers of Cratfield down the hill from Cantley Farm to cross the stream at Wash Lane, on their annual procession of beating the bounds. A message for the little 'twigs' Your family tree is a sort of 'family map'. stretching back through the centuries. It shows all your family and some of the people in other families who are related to you. We all have our own family tree. It is not often written down because people forget to tell their children about what they know personally about their family heritage, Because families join together when people have children, so the map grows a new part or branch- it starts to look a bit like a tree. You are a new name on the family map- a sort of new twig on your family tree. You are joined to a branch that's your mum and dad! Your mum and dad were babies once too! They both came from different families, each with its own family tree. Your relatives are all the people on your family tree, no matter how far back in time it goes. If your mum and dad have any brothers or sisters, they are your uncles and aunts. If your uncles and aunts have any children, they are your cousins. Grandmas and grandads are your mum's mum and dad, and your dad's mum and dad. You have four of them on your family tree. Your great-grandparents were your grandma's and grandad's mums and dads, so you've got eight of them. They were born a long time ago. Each 'great' goes back about 25 years- the more greats you add, the further back in history you go. You are special- there has never been anyone like you before in the world. But you inherit qualities from your parents, from the way you look to the way you think. You may look like your mum or your dad- or a mixture of both. Sometimes you inherit your looks from people further back in your family tree. You may be good at things Mum and Dad can't do. Perhaps this is part of being a special human being. Or maybe you get things you are especially good at from one 'side' of the family. Just like your looks, you can get talents from grandparents or ancestors from long ago. If you are related to me and my sister Rosemary you can trace your family tree back to people who lived about a thousand years ago. Your family map can be followed through our parents, Arthur Bellamy and Edna May Kemp. If they had not met one day in Grimsby, you would not exist. Your heritage is not only the people from history you are related to . Your heritage is also the places where they lived, the things they did, and what they saw around them. You can meet your great-ancestors in imagination, particularly if you go to the places where they were born, or where they brought up their families. There is a family map of the Bellamys and Kemps on the opposite page, which also shows the the places where our ancestors lived. Your family tree will keep growing. But right now you are the fresh new twig on a brand new branch, on a very, very old family tree. There are always new things to find out, and imagine, about the history of people and places. Good hunting! Denis Bellamy (a grandad with a great great future) Some Decendants of Norman Kempe: Domesday Sheriff of Suffolk Preface Cardiff (2002) It is the lodestone of family genealogists to connect their ancestry with one of the people named in Domesday, the first national census. The Kemp family of Suffolk have this distinction in that they are the descendants of Norman de Campo (alias Kempe), the county sheriff under both Edward the Confessor, and his successor King William. My mother was Norman's 21st great grandaughter. Norman's base was the village of Peasenhall in the valley of the River Yox, a relatively insignificant stream draining part of the eastern edge of the Suffolk boulder clay plateau. This account of the Suffolk Kemps pays homage to the notion of community that implies belonging and sharing a common heritage. The social historian W.G. Hoskins put it this way; "Men lived in a place that had meaning and significance for them; their roots went down deep into the cultural humus formed by centuries of ancestors before them on that spot. In general people found all their earthly needs and wants met within a radius of three or four miles at the most, within sight of their own church spire" Peasenhall (1086) In 1086 a great survey of landholding in England was carried out on the orders of William the Conqueror, and its results were recorded in the two volumes, which, within less than a century, were to acquire the name of Domesday, or the Book of Judgment 'because its decisions, like those of the last Judgment, are unalterable' This detailed survey of the kingdom, unprecedented at that time in its scope, gives us an extraordinarily vivid impression of the life of the eleventh century. The thoroughness of the inquiry was such that there was 'no single hide nor a yard of land, nor indeed...one ox nor one cow nor pig which was there left out' . In the Confessor's time land was held in the Suffolk village of Peasenhall by Norman de Campo (alias Kemp), as two manors, with 2 carucates of land and 4 acres of meadow. There were 8 villeins, 10 bordars, 2 serfs, and 2 ploughteams in demesne, while there were 5 belonging to the tenants. The wood was considerable, for there was estimated to be sufficient for the sustenance of 200 hogs. The value in Saxon times was 6os. but by the time of the Survey it had risen to 80.s. There were also 4 freemen under commendation, holding 40 acres with a ploughteam and a half, and wood for 8 hogs, all of the value of 6s. The above-named Norman continued in possession, and at the time of the Domesday Survey he had the soc of the manor and of two of the freemen, the King and the Earl having that of the other two. The tenant in chief was Roger Bigot. Cratfield (c.1550) John Kempe, Norman de Campo's 9th great grandson, farmed approximately 27 acres within the manor of Cratfield le Roos. A time-traveller from ancient Egypt deposited in Cratfield would have had no difficulty in identifying with the Kempes in terms of their wood-based technology, their use of oxen as draught animals, their sowing of seed by hand, and the spirit of place and sense of security that engaged the villagers in a regular round of religious ceremonies through the farming year.1086 3 Table of Contents VOLUME 1 ....................................................................................................................................................5 Chapter 1 Kinship history ...............................................................................................................................6 Chapter 2 Back in Time: Framlingham to Cratfield......................................................................................13 Chapter 3 Norman de Campo alias Kempe; thegn and sheriff ......................................................................25 Chapter 4 The Kemp Clan ............................................................................................................................34 Chapter 5 Cratfield: A Place of Kemps.........................................................................................................39 Chapter 6 Links with other places.................................................................................................................51 Chapter 7 Manors lords & farmers ..............................................................................................................54 Summary.......................................................................................................................................................67 Decendant trees.............................................................................................................................................69 Descendants of Norman de Campo........................................................................................................70 Main lines of descent ....................................................................................................................................80 Genealogical Report .....................................................................................................................................92 Norman de Campo.................................................................................................................................93 Appendices .................................................................................................................................................109 Cratfield Churchwardens Accounts 1654/5 ................................................................................................110