Advanced search
Publication Cover
Medieval Archaeology Volume 6, 1962 - Issue 1
Submit an article Journal homepage
32
Views
4
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

The Medieval Trade of the Ports of the Wash

Eleanora Carus-WilsonUniversity of London
(Professor of Economic History)
Pages 182-201 | Published online: 19 May 2016

  • This article is based on a paper read on 14 April, 1962, at the Spring Conference of the Society for Medieval Archaeology, held at King's Lynn.
  • F. M. Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, 1066–11 66 (1932), p. 26.
  • W. G. Hoskins, Local History in England (1959), p. 81.
  • N. S. B. Gras, The Early English Customs System (Cambridge, Mass., 1918), PP. 221–2; Bristol was not included in this tax return for 1203–5. Comparisons must be tentative because of uncertainty, especially in regard to Boston and Lynn, as to the exact coverage of the returns.
  • Hoskins, op. cit. in note 3, pp. 81–3.
  • The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Life of St. Guthlac, Hermit of Crowland, ed. C. W. Goodwin (1848), p. 21, quoted in H. C. Darby, The Medieval Fenland (1940), p. 8.
  • Cf. British Museum Cotton MS, Julius D VII, ff. 50–53, published in fascimile in Four Maps of Great Britain Designed by Matthew Paris about A.D. 1250 (London, British Museum, 1928).
  • E. Miller, The Abbey and Bishopric of Ely (1951), pp. 95–7.
  • H. E. Hallam, The New Lands of Elloe (University of Leicester, Department of English Local History, Occasional Papers, no. 6, 1954), passim.
  • Darby, op. cit. in note 6, p. 52.
  • Miller, op. cit. in note 8, pp. 82, 94–5.
  • Miller, op. cit. in note 8, pp. 85–6; N. S. B. Gras, The Evolution of the English Corn Market (Cambridge, Mass., 1915), p. 62.
  • E.g. Calendar of Close Rolls, 1227–31, p. 356; id., 1259–61, p. 379 (cf. p. 489); Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1317–21, pp. 207–8, 304, etc.
  • Austin Lane Poole, From Domesday Book to Magna Caria, 1087–1216 (1951), p. go, citing Pipe Roll 10 Ric. I; Calendar of Close Rolls, 1227–3 I, p. 362; cf. Calendar of Close Rolls, 1303–7, p. 247.
  • E.g. Calendar of Close Rolls, 1253–4, p. 124.
  • E.g. Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum, ed. T. D. Hardy (Record Commission, 1833–4), I, 606 b, 607, 607 b; Calendar of Close Rolls, 1242–7, pp. 484, 538, 542; cf. Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1317–21, p. 432, etc.
  • L. F. Salzman, English Trade in the Middle Ages (1931), p. 365; Calendar of liberate Rolls, 1226–40, p. 405; id., 1240–45, p. 74; cf. id., 1245–51, p. 138.
  • Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum, ut supra in note 16, I, 464 b, 607 b.
  • Ibid., 606 b, 607; Calendar of Close Rolls, 1254–6, p. 443.
  • Eileen Power, The Wool Trade in English Medieval History (1941), pp. 33, 35; T. A. Raftis, The Estates of Ramsey Abbey (Toronto, 1957), pp. 144–152; cf. Pegolotti, as in note 22 infra.
  • Power, op. cit. in note 20, pp. 22–3, 33.
  • Pegolotti, La Pratica della Mercatura, ed. A. Evans (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), p. 258 et seq.; see also W. Cunningham, The Growth of English Industry and Commerce (5th ed., 1927), pp. 629–41; and H. C. Darby, An Historical Geography of England before 1800 (1948), p. 243.
  • Power, op. cit. in note 20, pp. 28–31, 34–5.
  • H. J. Hewitt, Medieval Cheshire (1929), p. 48.
  • P.R.O. Exchequer K.R. Customs Accounts, 5/1, 2, 4, 5 (15–25 Edward I).
  • E. M. Carus-Wilson, Medieval Merchant Venturers (1954), pp. 211–213.
  • Ibid., pp. 211–213, 218 note 4.
  • Sverrissaga, translated by J. Sephton (1899), p. 129.
  • Carus-Wilson, op. cit. in note 26, pp. 229, 233–4; Records of the Borough of Leicester, ed. Mary Bateson, I (1899), 83, 84, 86.
  • Carus-Wilson, op. cit. in note 26, p. 212.
  • P.R.O. Exch. K.R. Customs Accounts, 5/7, 6/2.
  • A. R. Bridbury, England and the Salt Trade in the Later Middle Ages (1955), pp. 16–21; supra, p. 184; M. W. Beresford & J. K. S. St. Joseph, Medieval England, an Aerial Survey (1958), pp. 238–242.
  • Bridbury, op. cit. in note 32, ch. ii and appendix E; P.R.O. Exch. K.R. Customs Accounts, 5/7, 5/10, 6/2.
  • L. F. Salzman, English Industries of the Middle Ages (1923), p. 41 et seq.; Victoria History of the Counties of England, Derbyshire, II (1907), 323 et seq.
  • See, e.g., Calendar of Close Rolls, 1251–53, p. 246.
  • Victoria History of the Counties of England, Derbyshire, II, 324.
  • Calendar of Close Rolls, 1247–51, p. 490; id., 1251–53, p. 125; id., 1256–59, p. 231; Calendar of Liberate Rolls, 1226–40, pp. 133, 394; id., 1245–51, pp. 306, 314, 334, 336, 359; L. F. Salzman, Building in England to 1540 (1952), p. 263; The Great Roll of the Pipe for the Second Tear of the Reign of King John, Michaelmas 1200, Pipe Roll Society, n.s. XII (1934), 89, 209; id. for the Fourteenth Tear of the Reign of King Henry III, Michaelmas 1230, Pipe Roll Society, n.s. IV (1927), 337.
  • Calendar of Liberate Rolls, 1226–40, p. 475; id., 1247–51, p. 314; L. F. Salzman, op. cit. in note 37, p. 263.
  • The Great Roll of the Pipe for the Thirtieth Tear of the Reign of King Henry II, A.D. 1183–1184, Pipe Roll Society, XXXIII (1912), 2, 29.
  • Calendar of Liberate Rolls, 1245–51, pp. 272, 347, and cf. 295; Calendar of Close Rolls, 1247–51, pp. 346, and cf. 468.
  • Power, op. cit. in note 20, p. 73.
  • The summary wool customs accounts for each year during this decade are enrolled on the Pipe and Chancellor's Rolls (P.R.O., E.372 and E.352); from early in the fourteenth century they are separately enrolled on the Enrolled Customs Accounts (E.356). All the wool export figures from these accounts, together with cloth export figures and graphs showing the trends of trade in Boston, Lynn and other ports and for England as a whole, have now been published in E.M. Carus-Wilson and Olive Coleman, England's Export Trade (1275–1547, 1963).
  • M. K. James, ‘The fluctuations of the Anglo-Gascon wine trade during the fourteenth century,’ Economic History Review, 2 ser. IV (1951). 176.
  • M. K. James, ‘The non-sweet wine trade of England during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries’ (unpublished Oxford D.Phil, thesis, 1952), p. 338.
  • James, op. cit. in note 44, pp. 209, 302, 387; P.R.O. Exchequer K.R. Accounts Various, 77/10.
  • Calendar of Liberate Rolls, 1226–40, pp. 331, 338, 386, 469, 474; id., 1240–45, pp. 167, 235–7, 309; Calendar of Close Rolls, 1242–47, p. 193.
  • Calendar of Close Rolls, 1253–54, p. 119; P.R.O. Exch. K.R. Customs Accounts, 5/9, printed in Gras, op. cit. in note 4, p. 288 et seq.
  • K. Gjerset, History of the Norwegian People (New York, 1932) 1, 470.
  • Salzman, op. cit. in note 34, p. 275, quoting Rot. Parl., 11, 221.
  • The Great Roll of the Pipe for the Thirty-second Year of the Reign of King Henry II, 1185–1186, Pipe Roll Society, XXXVI (1914), 116; Salzman, op. cit. in note 37, pp. 245–8.
  • Gras, op. cit. in note 4, pp. 288 et seq, 374 et seq.; Calendar of Close Rolls, 1303–7, p. 125.
  • M. Postan, ‘The trade of medieval Europe: the north,’ Cambridge Economic History of Europe II, ed. M. M. Postan and E. E. Rich (1952), 180, 188; Elspeth Veale, ‘The London fur trade in the later middle ages’ (unpublished London Ph.D. thesis, 1953), pp. 297, 301, 334 et seq.
  • See Gras, op. cit. in note 4, pp. 288 et seq., 374 et seq. for imports at Lynn and Boston.
  • Veale, op. cit. in note 52, pp. 13, 70 et seq.
  • Ibid., p. 99.
  • Ibid., pp. 97, 316; Calendar of Liberate Rolls, 1245–51, p. 273; Calendar of Close Rolls, 1242–47, p. 418.
  • Egil's Saga, translated by E. R. Eddison (1930), p. 30.
  • Calendar of Liberate Rolls, 1226–40, p. 384; cf. id., 1226–40, p. 340; id., 1240–45, pp. 138, 185, 211, 298; The Great Roll of the Pipe for the Twenty-second Year of the Reign of King Henry II, 1175–6, Pipe Roll Society, XXV (1904), 77. Falcons and hawks appear in the earliest customs accounts of imports at Boston (1303), and some of the falcons are valued at three times as much as the goshawks (hostours): Gras, op. cit. in note 4, pp. 296, 300.
  • E.g. The Great Roll of the Pipe for the Fifth Year of the Reign of King Henry II, 1158–9, Pipe Roll Society, 1 (1884), 45; id. for the Thirty-first Tear of the Reign of King Henry II, 1184–5, Pipe Roll Soc., XXXIV (1913), 91; id. for the Thirty-second Year of the Reign of King Henry II, 1185–6, Pipe Roll Soc., XXXVI (1914), 57, 68.
  • Calendar of Close Rolls 1242–47, p. 365: Letters of Henry III, ed. W. W. Shirley (Rolls Series, 1862), 1, 216–17, 486; cf. also id., 1, 485 and 11, 330 for Norwegian merchants in Boston and Lynn.
  • Id., 1, 486. For presents of falcons (including three ferfalcons ‘of the more elegant kind’) and furs from King Magnus to Edward I see, e.g., Rymer, Foedera (London, 1704), 1, 533.
  • T. F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England (Manchester, 1928), IV, 360.
  • Walter of Henley's Husbandry, ed. E. Lamond (1890), p. 145.
  • A Lincolnshire Assize Roll for 1298, ed. W. S. Thomson (Lincolnshire Record Society, XXXVI, 1939), p. 123.
  • Ibid.; P.R.O. Exchequer K.R. Customs Accounts, passim.
  • Carus-Wilson, op. cit. in note 26, pp. 215–20.
  • E. M. Carus-Wilson, ‘La guède française en Angleterre: un grand commerce du moyen age,’ Revue du Nord, XXXV (1953), 89 et seq.
  • J. W. F. Hill, Medieval Lincoln (1948), p. 311.
  • Rot. Parl., II, 319. For the area covered see FIG. 68.
  • James, op. cit. in note 43, passim; op. cit. in note 41, p. 339.
  • P.R.O. Exch. K.R. Customs Accounts, passim; Gras, op. cit. in note 4, pp. 273 et seq., 288 et seq., 374 et seq.
  • The brass was later removed to the church of St. Botolph.
  • Postan, op. cit. in note 52, pp. 224–26.
  • Carus-Wilson, op. cit. in note 26. p. 242.
  • Ibid., chart facing p. XVIII; P.R.O. Exch. L.T.R. Customs Accounts (E.356), as note 42.
  • Bridbury, op. cit. in note 32, passim; Salzman, op. cit. in note 17, p. 373.
  • Postan, op. cit. in note 52, p. 190.
  • Supra, p. 194.
  • Hoskins, op. cit. in note 3, p. 176 (list of provincial towns giving tax-paying population of each according to the returns of the Poll Tax of 1377).
  • Rolls of Warwickshire and Coventry Sessions of the Peace, 1377–97, ed. Elizabeth G. Kimball (Dugdale Soc., 1939), pp. 27, 28, 46, 83, 85; Rymer, Foedera, sub 28 April, 1356; Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1377–81, pp. 89, 281; id., 1374–77, p. 408; Calendar of Close Rolls, 1374–77 p. 438; P.R.O. Exch. K.R. Memoranda Rolls, Ric. II, Hilary m. 12d.; Ancient Petitions, 296/14790; Rot. Parl., 11, 372a; Statute 50 Edward III, c. 8; for Coventry drapers in Ireland see, e.g., Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1401–05, p. 458; id., 1436–41, p. 222; cf. Coventry Leet Book, ed. M. Dormer Harris (1907–13), p. 426 etc.
  • The Overseas Trade of Bristol in the Later Middle Ages, ed. E. M. Carus-Wilson (Bristol Record Society, VII, 1936), pp. 41, 193; Carus-Wilson, op. cit. in note 26, pp. 5, 7, 8, 258; Chester Customs Entry Book, 1470–85, at the Town Hall, Chester.
  • Literae Cantuarienses, ed. J. B. Sheppard (Rolls Series, 1889), III, 79–81.
  • Calendar of Close Rolls, 1429–35, p. 155; Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1429–36, p. 220.
  • Literae Cantuarienses, ut supra in note 82, III, 80.
  • The Overseas Trade of Bristol, ut supra in note 81, p. 130; P.R.O. Exch. K.R. Memoranda Rolls, 9 Henry VI, Mic. m. 19; cf. Coventry Leet Book, ut supra in note 80, p. 246 etc.
  • Carus-Wilson, op. cit. in note 26, p. 98 et seq.
  • Ibid., pp. 105–6; this carving, with another bench-end fragment showing a smaller ship (PL. XXII, B), was sold by the churchwardens and is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
  • Carus-Wilson, op. cit. in note 26, p. III et seq.
  • M. Postan, ‘The economic and political relations of England and the Hanse from 1400 to 1475’ in Studies in English Trade in the Fifteenth Century (ed. Eileen Power and M. M. Postan, 1933), p. III et seq.; Carus-Wilson, op. cit. in note 26, pp. 133 et seq., 274 et seq.
  • Postan, op. cit. in note 89, pp. 137–8; Carus-Wilson, op. cit. in note 26, pp. 139–142.
  • P.R.O. Exch. L.T.R. Customs Accounts. Some of this wool was exported by up-country merchants like Robert Onley, twice mayor of Coventry, (see, e.g., Boston customs account for 1464). Onley's son was apprenticed to a London mercer, and was thus evidently destined for the newer business, with better growth prospects, of exporting cloth to the Low Countries.
  • James, op. cit. in note 44, p. 356.
  • The Brokage Book of Southampton, 1443–1444, ed. Olive Coleman (Southampton Record Series, V-VI, 1960–61), passim.
  • Gras, op. cit. in note 4, p. 646 et seq.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Order Reprints Request Corporate Permissions

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

Request Academic Permissions

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.

Related research

People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.

Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.

Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.