To describe all the details here would be too lengthy, but I'll give you an example. There is documentary evidence which suggests quite strongly that the turbary which is now South Walsham Broad was worth a great deal less in 1315 than it had been in 1270. In contrast, South Walsham's arable and pasture lands seem to have maintained their value over this same period. Smith concluded that the only explanation for this turbary becoming "increasingly worthless" was that the formerly dry peat pit must have begun to flood.
If you were the owner of a turbary worth, say, �100, and you then proceeded to dig up and dispose of half the peat in it, how much does your common sense tell you that your turbary is then going to be worth? Peat 'diggings' and 'pits', by definition, are places from which peat has been removed; they no longer contain any peat; why would the presence of water in them affect the value of the remaining reserves?
It was of course the increasing absence of valuable peat, not the increasing presence of water, which caused this turbary to become increasingly worthless. It would have done that even if the diggings had stayed dry. It makes no difference that the worth of land was usually expressed in terms of an annual rent. This cannot be evidence of conditions deteriorating, of formerly dry peat diggings becoming flooded. In point of fact, most of them would always have been full of water.
Clifford Smith found plenty of evidence of water in peat pits dating from the 14th century onwards. Some of these flooded areas were used as fisheries, and by the 16th century the word 'broad' was commonly used to describe them. All of this he rightly advanced to demonstrate that the broads are not natural lakes but flooded peat diggings. He also advanced this same evidence to demonstrate the theory that the basins had first been entirely dug out dry, their subsequent flooding dating from the 14th century. His difficulty here is that there is no evidence that they were, or would have been, free of water in the 12th and 13th centuries.
The whole idea of 14th century flooding stems from the original interpretation of a tiny handful of records, and is based squarely on an assumption that all the peat diggings must have stayed dry during a period when water levels were very low. Yet we now know that there never was such a period. The only real evidence, the evidence from the fens themselves, points strongly, as in fact it always has done, to most of the derelict peat diggings which now constitute the Norfolk Broads always having been full of water. The historical evidence is entirely consistent with this.
To maintain that the Norfolk Broads first became flooded in the 14th century, you have to be able to provide a rational explanation, consistent with the actual evidence, for these huge excavations staying free of water as they expanded throughout the 12th and 13th centuries. Nobody has succeeded in doing that. Nobody can do that.
Forget all about 14th century or 'subsequent' flooding and simply look at the facts without preconception, and it is actually possible to deduce a logical answer to the question, "How did they make the broads?". It is a surprisingly simple answer, and one in many respects quite different from all previous speculations on the subject. I will tell you all about it in Part 2.
In the meantime, when the Broads Authority says that the Broads are flooded medieval peat pits, that makes excellent sense. When they tell us that these pits flooded in the 14th century, then that, I am sorry to have to say, is non-sense.