Misdemeanour and Mishap in Kirkley Roads

Introduction

Great Yarmouth’s attempted dominance of Lowestoft and control of the latter’s trade only came to an end during the second half of the 17th century, when its legally backed dominance was ended and the Suffolk town placed beyond its jurisdiction. For three hundred years, the head-port viewed its upstart rival as “a town of great smuggling” – not in the popular, clichéd sense of casks of spirits, packs of tobacco and bales of silk being brought ashore at night (an 18th century image), but simply by reference to the evasion of customs duties payable on a wide range of commodities being imported and exported, at all times of day and night and at any time of year. This article is intended to give the reader some idea of the problems faced by Great Yarmouth in its attempts not only to maintain its legally granted authority, but to collect customs duties owing to The Crown (a major source of revenue) and to maintain some degree of order and legality within its area of head-port jurisdiction. For Lowestoft’s part, the material presented will serve to show its growing commercial activity, its bending of the rules as far as it was able (or dared) to, and its place (as a coastal community) in the trade and politics of the nation.

   Map. The local coastline in the late 17th century 

• This shows how the Lothingland coastline looked by the late 17th century, with the sandspit once forming the entrance to Yarmouth harbour  now washed away by the rise in sea levels and by tidal action.

• The sandbank named as Barnard is incorrect. The Barnard lay further to the south, off Kessingland. The one shown here under that name is the Newcome Sand.

• Erosion had also destroyed most of the parish of Newton, leaving a narrow cliff-edge strip 

to become part of Corton – which was eventually given to Hopton in the boundary changes of 1974.

• Although the offshore sandbanks changed from time to time in terms of size, this was not a major factor as far as navigation was concerned and their configuration remained basically the same. 

• The Holm Sand, off Lowestoft, derived its name from OE holm (meaning “small island”), which is probably indicative of the mass of marine sediment discernible at low tide.

• Breydon Water (with the rivers Yare, Bure and Waveney feeding into it) held a sufficient amount of tidal stream to provide a significant flushing action on the ebb, thereby enabling Yarmouth’s harbour mouth to be kept largely clear of silt and sand.

Lowestoft’s development as a maritime community is attested by the number of references to be found in public records of the 14th and 15th century, and the map  above gives some idea of why so much activity took place close by. The outlying sandbanks created safe anchorage for vessels between themselves and the shoreline in times of bad weather – as long as the channels between could be safely negotiated (particularly The Stamford/Stanford and the St.Nicholas Gat). If not, then the banks could easily be the means of causing craft to founder, especially in north-easterly gales, with loss of life and property. In calmer conditions, though, Kirkley Roads – later to become known as Lowestoft North Roads and South Roads – provided a haven for shipping that was both locally bound or in transit for other destinations both in England and on the continent of Europe. 

There is a good description of its capacity, written on a map possibly drawn as a precursor of some kind to the survey of coastal defences carried out by the Duke of Norfolk in May 1545, which I to be found in the Cottonian Manuscripts held in the British Library. Here is what was said: “From the Stamparde [Stanford] to Saint Nicholas Gat there is harbour for five hundred ships and they may ride at low water at eight fathom and may come to land at all times and hours what wind so ever blows and lieth five miles in length.” There are a number of other annotations, two of which give the depth of water at high tide in both the Stanford Channeland the St. Nicholas Gat: three fathoms and five fathoms, respectively (eighteen feet and thirty feet). The inshore shelter available off Great Yarmouth was nowhere near as good or extensive as that at Lowestoft, which is why so many vessels (even those headed for Yarmouth) laid up off the Suffolk town. And, while riding at anchor there, they were sufficiently far removed from the head-port and its officers for their operators to think that illegal trading activity was worth taking a chance on.

The name Kirkley Roads, as applied to the local inshore reaches during the 14th century particularly, is likely to have derived from the fact that the Kirkley township was once located closer to the coastline than that of Lowestoft. Once the latter settlement had moved to a cliff-top site from its earlier inland one and established itself there, during the first half of the 14th century, the name gradually ceased to be used – leaving Lowestoft North Roads and Lowestoft South Roads to become  its successors. The word road itself (being a shortened form of roadstead) was one in common use during the Late Medieval period to refer to sheltered areas of inshore waters, where vessels of all kinds could anchor up. Customs duties, in England, had been applied to a number of standard goods exported from the country towards the end of the 13th century, during the early years of Edward I’s reign (1272-1307). Payment on the export of wool (the country’s main staple) was imposed, as well as on sheepskins, hides, leather, lead, tin, butter, cheese, lard and grease. During the 14th century, cloth and wax [beeswax] were added. There were standard rates of payment for each commodity, with 6s 8d being levied on each sack of wool and every 300 sheepskins (later reduced to 240) and 13s 4d on every last of hides (200 in number). A sack of washed wool, ready for export, was generally reckoned at twenty-six stones in weight (364 pounds). All other goods paid 3d per pound’s worth of value. 

The first ten items named in the paragraph above were classified as ancient custom and, after 1303, foreign merchants were required to pay an extra fifty per cent surcharge on them (these would have been non-resident ones, commonly referred to as aliens; those who lived in England for at least part of the year were usually called denizens). Certain imported products were also liable for the payment of duty – notably, wine, which was rated at 2s per tun (252 gallons) and which seems to have been customed early on in the 14th century (the levy had risen to 3s, by the 15th). 

It has been noted how port towns (involved in overseas trade) occupied an important place in the urban hierarchy during medieval times, with eight of the twenty wealthiest English communities in 1334 [Lay Subsidy] being ports and seven of the most populous having the same status in 1377 [Poll Tax]. By 1524 [Lay Subsidy], half of the country’s wealthiest towns were seaports. Great Yarmouth, with its area of jurisdiction covering most of the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts (from Blakeney to the Orwell estuary), would have been among them – its adjacent head-ports to either side being Lynn and Ipswich. It has been calculated that, in 1203-4, Yarmouth had 1.4% of national overseas trade (Ipswich had 0.7%); by 1478-82, it had declined to 1.0% (Ipswich’s share was 2.1%). 

In neither case, was either port numbered among what might be termed as the “big players”. That distinction went to Hull, Boston, Lynn, London and Southampton during the earlier phase cited, and to Hull, London, Southampton and Bristol during the later one (underlining is used to indicate the number one position each time). What is not indicated in the figures is the importance of coastal trade, which went unrecorded in national customs records, but which would have played a vital role in the distribution of imported goods from the ports of entry to other coastal stations for sale and dispersal. It would also have involved the use of smaller, handier craft than the ones employed in overseas carriage.      

In the opinion of one leading maritime commentator (Marianne Kowaleski), coastal trade might possibly have constituted 75% of all English trading voyages and, in being carried out by smaller ships, was largely in the hands of owner-masters of vessels – such seafarers being the predominant presence in the command of craft up to c. twenty tuns carrying capacity. In contrast to this pattern, ownership of the larger, deep-sea trading ships tended to be vested in merchants of different kinds, who hired masters and crews for specific voyages and for the length of time these took. Rates of pay were agreed in advance and the mariners could choose to request right of portage on board the particular craft in which they served. This entailed their being allowed an allotted area of hold-space for the storage and conveyance of goods of their own, which could then be sold when their destination was reached – an arrangement which could stand in lieu of part, or even the whole of, their wages. This privilege – which was collaborative one, not awarded on a purely individual basis – was most claimed on the wine-run to France, where one tun (a measure of 252 gallons) free of freightage cost was allowed, but other victuals (notably, garlic, onions, herrings and grain) also had portage claims made. 

The tun itself would have been not conveyed on board ship – being far too large (at 252 gallons volume) to shift and load. It was a land-based storage container for wine, consisting of seven barrels capacity (thirty-six gallons to the barrel). Even the barrel itself might have proved a little unwieldy for both wet and dry goods and it is likely that half-barrels (rundlets, later known as kilderkins) and quarter-barrels (firkins) were used for general conveyance. And, therefore, one tun cubic capacity in a ship’s hold would have accommodated fourteen rundlets and twenty-eight firkins.

The flexibility regarding earnings may have been one factor in shipmasters of the medieval period developing a degree of entrepreneurial skill. Commanding a vessel which ventured overseas was a many-sided responsibility, requiring navigational skills, commercial acumen, man-management ability, oversight of provisioning the ship, knowledge of foreign ports, awareness of danger(s) at sea, a certain grasp of maritime law, and knowledge also of any current European political situation. Geoffrey Chaucer included a ship’s commander among his assembly of pilgrims and the man of Dartmouth presented in The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (begun c. 1387) may perhaps have been typical of a late 14th century high-ranking mariner. The portrayal is not an entirely flattering one, with theft of cargo (wine from Bordeaux!) and acts of piracy attributed to him, but his navigational expertise is also referred to – as well as his extensive knowledge of the southern North Sea and The Mediterranean. Chaucer, as Comptroller of Customs in the port of London from 1374-86, probably based his Shipman on people he had met in the everyday course of his official duties. For most of his period of service he collected the levy due on wool, hides and skins, commodities which had wine added to them in 1382. His salary was £10 per annum.   

Imports (wine)

All the material which now follows, up to the end of this article draws heavily upon the transcribed and printed public records (now available Online) known as the Calendar of Patent Rolls (CPR), the Calendar of Close Rolls (CCR) and the Calendar of Fine Rolls (CFR) – with occasional use made of the Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (CIM). The earliest reference to be found there connected with the Lowestoft area and relating to any of the nationally taxable commodities concerns wine: seen in an order of December 1308, given to John Aleyn and Henry de Drayton [citizens of Great Yarmouth], to collect 2s per tun on imported wine in Yarmouth, Cromer, Blakeney and Kirkley. Twenty-three years later, in October 1331, similar authorisation was given to Hamo de Borton, with Cromer being omitted – while, in September 1334, William de Wylimound was appointed to act in Kirkley and Yarmouth only, probably because to deal with North Norfolk as well would have been stretching his capabilities somewhat. 

Some notion of the difficulties inherent in customs officers carrying out their duties may be seen in an directive of December 1370, given to Hugh Fastolf [of Great Yarmouth], sub-admiral of the King’s fleet, and ordering him to confiscate twenty tuns of uncustomed wine [5,040 gallons], plus the offending ship and its other cargo. The vessel, of unnamed origins and identity, had anchored in Kirkley Roads and sold the wine to certain Norwich merchants – both parties hoping to gain by avoiding payment of the duty (amounting to the sum of £2 – a not inconsiderable amount, considering that a labourer of the time would probably have taken the best part of a year to earn this amount of money). There are other passing references to wine as part of vessels’ cargoes in a number of recorded incidents, other than ones connected with smuggling, and these are sufficient to show that the importation of French wine was an important activity.   

The chief port of dispatch for French wine was Bordeaux and its product to satisfy the English market consisted mainly of claret. There was a wide pattern of distribution for its reception and selling-on and the three East Anglian head-ports all played their part. During the late 14th century (1372-86), Lynn had 3.6% of the ships involved in carriage, with 4.3% of the overall carrying capacity; Yarmouth had 3.7% and 3.9%, respectively; and Ipswich, 3.2% and 3.1%.  By the middle of the 15th (1442-9), carriage had declined as follows: Lynn 1.9% and 3.4%, Yarmouth 0.7% and 0.3%, and Ipswich 1.5% and 1.5%. London, in comparison, had figures of 7.3% and 9.9% (1372-86) and 8.5% and 12.7% (1442-9). Altogether, the East Coast ports (including London) had 32.7% of the ships and 40.6% of the carrying capacity during the earlier phase of the trade and 27.1% and 34.9% during the later one. This shows that the greater share of traffic lay with ports along the South and South-west coasts of England, particularly in the later phase – which, given their proximity to the area of production of the wine, should come as no great surprise.

Exports (wool and cloth)

Of the main outgoing commodities, it may well be thought predictable that the most commonly referred to in terms of both general traffic and illegal conduct was wool – up to 35,000 sacks (364 lbs per unit) of which were exported annually during the early 14th century. English wool was highly rated on the European mainland for its length and durability of fibre and it always fetched a good price. Hence, the temptation to maximise profit by evading the high duty imposed upon it [half a mark, per sack, in the terminology of the time, meaning 6s 8d] – even though it could be a capital offence for any Englishmen caught offending. By the middle of the 14th century, it seems to have become a problem along much of the Suffolk coast for the authorities, and in February 1343 a commission of five local men was authorised to arrest any craft smuggling wool and other goods at Ipswich, Orford, Dunwich and Kirkley. Less than three months later, in May, a Flemish vessel (the Skynkewyn, meaning “wine-pourer”) was arrested in Kirkley Roads for smuggling wool and, in November, continuing investigation in the area was ordered to be carried out by a man named John Sigor.

A separate incident of June, the same year, shows a government official (named Saier Lorymer) being authorised to deliver to Henry Speke and Haukyn Sunderman [a German?] forty quarters of wheat (eight bushels to the quarter) – or the money for this, if it had been sold – which had been taken from a ship arrested by him in Kirkley Roads. The vessel had loaded in Newcastle-on-Tyne and was bound for Guelders [Gelderland, in central Holland]. Certain uncustomed wool had been found on board, which did not belong to either of the men named and of which they had no knowledge. Fifteen months later, in September 1344, Lorymer was ordered to sell (as quickly as he could and for the best possible price) 120 wool-fells [sheepskins, with the wool attached] and a sack and a pocket [half-sack] of wool, all of which had been found uncustomed in a Berwick-upon-Tweed ship called the Godyer. 

Also to be sold, at the same time, was a mixed cargo belonging to a vessel from Picardy [northern France], called the Nowell, and consisting of a pipe (126 gallons capacity) and rundlet (18 gallons) of salmon, five pers(e) cloths [grey or blue-grey material] and thirty-one bird-bolts or arrows (tribulos). But that wasn’t the end of the matter, because in November 1344 it transpired that Lorymer had not acted upon his orders concerning both of the offending craft, but had committed their merchandise to the custody of Robert Rivsshale [Ryveshale], the Lowestoft constable, who was now withholding it from him on the orders of Thomas de Drayton [collector of customs in Great Yarmouth and citizen of the town]. De Drayton, in his own turn, was now being required to return the goods to Saier Lorymer – presumably, so that the latter could then sell the uncustomed cargoes as previously ordered to. It is not possible to work out exactly what was going on between these three men, but some kind of corrupt practice may have been taking place, as the collection of customs duties was a notoriously dishonest activity. Another interesting aspect of this particular incident is the way in which two officials of bitterly opposed towns seemed to have sunk their civic differences in a matter of mutual advantage!

There seems to have been a lull in illegal activity during the 1350s and 60s, which was probably at least partly the result of major disruption to all kinds of activity, economic and administrative, caused by the Black Death. However, general orders concerning the searching of ships in Kirkley Roads for uncustomed wool and wool-fells, as well as other merchandise, may be found during the 1370s, 80s and 90s, and specific  examples of evasion of the tax due on the material continued well into the 15th century. In March 1408, for instance, John Drax, a serjeant-at-arms, was ordered to seize a Newcastle ship, which had anchored up after being driven in by bad weather and fear of “the King’s enemies” and which was loaded with uncustomed wool, wool-fells, hides and other merchandise. It was said that the cargo was intended for a continental port, other than the official English point of reception at Calais, but there is no mention of where this was. A month later, a request was recorded (from a group of Berwick-on-Tweed merchants) that the ship and its cargo be released. It was claimed by them that the vessel, called the George of Camfer [Veere, in the province of Zeeland], had been legally loaded at Berwick, was bound for Middleburgh in Seland [Zeeland] and that false accusations of evasion of customs duty had been made. The plaintiffs were placed under the huge penalty of 1,000 marks [£666 13s 4d] if their claim proved to be incorrect – but the outcome is not known.  

On occasions, it would seem that direct avoidance of the law concerning wool may even have been carried out by local people operating from their own coastline. In January 1444, John Hampton Esq. was granted (after confiscation) a crayer called the Katerine, belonging to the port of Flysshyng [Flushing] in Seland [Zeeland], and also an accompanying boat. Both craft belonged to, and were commanded by, Adrian Hughson and they had been arrested early in December 1443 for smuggling wool. It was said that the boat had carried seven fardels [loads] of the commodity out to the crayer, leaving both vessels forfeit to The Crown after their arrest. No local people are actually named in connection with the offence, so presumably they had managed to avoid detection by some means or other. A crayer was a small, single-masted trading craft and its boat (propelled by oars) would have been carried on board and used for a variety of tasks. Interestingly, the East Anglian herring boats, which worked directly off the beaches, were known as fartill boats – the first element deriving from fardel, meaning “a pack” and thereby indicating limited carrying capacity.

Very occasionally, mistakenly confiscated wool was returned to the owners. One such example is to be found occurring in December 1398, when an order was given to customs officers in Great Yarmouth and Kirkley to make restitution of a cargo of wool and sheepskins. The owners, John Grene and John Clyf of Grantham, and John Belasisse and John Swaby of Lincoln, had petitioned that the ship carrying the merchandise – a vessel belonging to the town of St. Botolph [Boston] and owned by Robert Dey – be allowed to proceed to Calais, its cargo having been duly customed in its home-port. According to the official record, it had foundered and split in Kirkley Roads and (while no mention is made of this) it had also obviously undergone repair to its hull and become seaworthy once more, able to continue its journey to France.

In addition to export of the raw material itself, there is also evidence (from the mid 14th century onwards) of a developing English cloth industry – employing the skills of immigrant workers from Flanders. A general order of April 1347 to ports around the country laid down a scale of charges to be imposed on woollen cloth being sent abroad. It gave two rates of payment: the first to be made by merchants living in England, the second (with the fifty percent surcharge referred to earlier) by those visiting from across the sea.  Six types of material of varying size and type are referred to: assized, scarlet, mixed colour, worsted, single bed and double bed, with the appropriate charges to be levied. Evidence of the government’s interest in encouraging the native production of cloth may perhaps be seen in another general order, of February 1357, this time to bailiffs of ports along the whole of the East Coast (including Kirkley Roads). It concerned a wide range of goods leaving the country, which were not to be taken anywhere (on pain of forfeiture) except Bordeaux, Calais and Berwick-on-Tweed – ports under English control, at the time – and the prohibited merchandise included woollen thread.

Twenty-five years or so later, in May 1383, there was direct focus by the authorities on the Island of Lothingland and its inshore reaches, with an order being given to John Seynesbury and Henry Gryme of Suffolk to search all ships in Kirkley Road (the singular form was used), Lowestoft and Lothingland for uncustomed wool, wool-fells, hides, cloths and other merchandise. Arrest(s) and confiscation(s) were to be carried out where appropriate. A decade on, and Lowestoft men were entrusted with the same task, only with a much wider area of scrutiny: from Blakeney to Ipswich. William Spenser was the first one to be given the post of searcher, in February 1392, to be followed by Richard Reynkyn [Rankin] in August 1394 and William Denys [Dennis] and Robert Spexhale [Spexhall] in July 1395. It was possibly in recognition of Lowestoft’s growing importance in the local area that such appointments were made, with perhaps an element – in William Spenser’s case, at least, given his limited geographical brief – of personal knowledge (experience, even!) of what was going on with regard to the evasion of customs.

One particular case of the early 15th century makes for interesting reading, as it shows something of the developing cloth-making industry in north-east Norfolk. Towards the end of May 1407, it is recorded that John Sudbury, the Yarmouth searcher, had seized a large quantity of saye and worsted from a boat making towards the George of Camfer – a craft referred to five paragraphs previously – which was lying in Kirkley Roads. The cloth was not cocketed [customed and approved] and had therefore been forfeited to The King. The owner of the goods, John Baxster of Honing, paid a £100 fine for his subterfuge, received a pardon and regained his merchandise. Again, as in the case noted four paragraphs above, it would seem that the contraband material was being rowed out from the shoreline to a waiting vessel. At least, the owner got his goods back, after paying a punitive fine!

At other times, wool or cloth featured as items of salvage when vessels grounded on local sandbanks. One such occasion was recorded in May 1405, when the Lowestoft bailiff of Michael de la Pole [Earl of Suffolk and lord of the manor of both Lowestoft and Lothingland] was ordered to surrender six and a half cloths salvaged from the Godberade of Camfer, owned and commanded by Arnold Johnsoun. The goods had been legally loaded at Kingston-upon-Hull and the vessel split in a storm off Lowestoft. The bailiff, whoever he was, was (at least, on the face of things) acting in accordance with local manorial law, which gave right of foreshore to the lord of the Half-hundred. The ordinance also stated that half the value of whatever was recovered from a wrecked vessel, or was washed up on the beach, went to the lord and the other half to the finder(s). The case here may have been one of genuine salvage of goods from a stricken ship which, after repair, was able to continue its journey (compare with the incident recorded four paragraphs above), or it could have been the result of opportunism which had taken advantage of the craft’s temporary misfortune.

Another overturning of action taken is to be found seven years later, in May 1412. The customs officials in Great Yarmouth were ordered to allow a Lowestoft ship called the Katerine [Katherine], loaded with cloth and belonging to John Rothenhale and Stephen Wylof [Wyolf], to sail abroad. This directive countermanded a recent royal pronouncement that no vessel over thirty tons [tuns] burden be allowed to do so without special licence from The Crown. It was a measure meant to control the movements of larger craft, capable of carrying sizeable cargoes overseas and sometimes containing merchandise that was not always considered (for economic or political reasons) to be in the best national interest to allow passage across the North Sea. The specific term tuns burden refers to a vessel’s load-capacity – not in terms of weight, but volume. Thirty tuns would have meant a cargo – or its equivalent – of 420 rundlets (eighteen-gallon casks, used for wet or dry goods). By the end of the 17th century the word ton-tun had become differentiated, with the former referring to Imperial-measure weight and the latter to liquid storage-capacity.

The web of international trade and diplomacy was a complex one and nowhere is this better illustrated than in a directive of May 1343, which sanctioned the loading of wool by merchants of the Society of the Bardi in certain English ports (London, Great Yarmouth and Boston) for sale on the Flanders staple [possibly, Antwerp]. The duty payable was to be the standard 6s 8d per sack and the merchandise included thirty and a half sacks of Scottish wool confiscated, in June 1341, in Kirkley Roads. This act had been carried out against “the King’s enemies” by Thomas de Drayton, the Yarmouth customer, the merchandise having been taken from the wreck of a Calais vessel and then passed on by him (for safekeeping) to John Toteler [Tuteler] and William, Robert and Thomas de Ryveshale of Lowestoft. These four men were then to hold the goods on behalf of The King. 

The reference to the Society of the Bardi is a particularly interesting one, for the Bardi family (along with their associates, the Peruzzis and Frescobaldis) were Florentine bankers. All of them had been major lenders of funds to Edward I, Edward II and Edward III – basically, to help finance their wars – and it was the last-named of these monarchs, through his failure to repay loans taken out in the earliest phase of the Hundred Years War (beginning in 1337), who caused the Bardis and Peruzzis to go bankrupt. The authorisation for the Bardis to purchase and ship wool abroad, at a preferential rate of duty – to foreigners, at least – may therefore have been some small act of  compensation to them (an inadequate one!) for the money they had lost.

Throughout the whole of this section, it will not have gone unnoticed that nearly all of the references to wool and woollen cloth have related to areas of production other than local ones. This is because Suffolk sheep produced fleeces that were lighter in weight and quality than those deriving from other breeds and were therefore not as highly rated for export abroad. The main use of the material, therefore, to produce lighter textiles within the home county was undoubtedly a major factor in establishing cloth-making as an industry (especially in South Suffolk) by as early as the end of the 13th century.  

Exports (linen cloth)

Among the textiles shipped out of England during the 15th century was a fabric known in Venice (the main point of reception for it) as loesti. At least two specialist economic historians – Kate Fleet and Eliyahu Astor – have noted its existence, one referring to it in the glossary of her book as a coarse cloth of the time and the other detecting it in commodity lists for Damascus (1413) and Alexandria (1424) and in judicial material relating to its importation into Beirut (1417). It also features in the Venetian state papers on two or three occasions, most notably in November 1456, when Lowesto cloth is referred to among the commodities handled at the state’s London factory. 

This centre of its English trading operations was heavily in debt as a result of bad administration (and probably corruption also) and the authorities were trying to raise money to clear what was owed by imposing surcharges on cargoes carried by its vessels returning from London. A levy of eight grossi (the grosso being a coin worth 3d) was therefore to be paid on every piece of the cloth landed. The linen has been identified as a product of the Waveney Valley, in Lowestoft’s hinterland, and as being exported from the town. In the light of the number of linen weavers living there during the Early Modern period, it is also likely that some of the material was produced in Lowestoft itself before being taken to London for shipment to Venice.  

Exports (hides)

Periodic orders made to local officials, in all parts of the realm, to search ships for various kinds of proscribed goods often included hides among the items to be either temporarily or permanently seized. Two examples are to be found (in the previous section but one), in relation to the orders given to William Spenser and his successors (February 1392, August 1394 and July 1395) and John Drax (March 1408). Leather was a commodity of great importance and value in the pre-industrial world – not just for footwear, gloves and other items of clothing, but for all kinds of tools, equipment and utensils – and governments of the time were obviously concerned about the raw material being sent to destinations overseas. 

This would not only have been because of the loss of revenue caused by cargoes being uncustomed, but because the hides were needed at home for the manufacture of all kinds of necessary goods. Some idea of the scale of operation may be perhaps seen in just one example relating to the community of Lowestoft, where it might perhaps be felt that a sufficiency of hides would have been available locally from surrounding agricultural communities. In November 1380, Geoffrey Richer, barker [tanner] of the town, was granted a licence to convey sixty dickers of hides (a dicker being a unit of ten) from Newcastle-on-Tyne to Kirkley Road. A cargo of 600 cattle skins would have produced a lot of leather (as well as £2 in duty for the Crown)! It would also have required a considerable quantity of ash or oak bark to create the tanning agent.

Exports (fish)

Prominent among the foodstuffs sent abroad (not surprisingly, perhaps) were cured herrings. The case is recorded of a French ship loaded with red herrings, which was wrecked in a storm off Lowestoft in January 1362. The vessel (called the Grace de Dieu, commanded by Saundes Demay) was making for Bayonne, its home-port, and most of the cargo had been washed ashore, together with items of gear, and been removed by local men. It was one of the many cases recorded where the distinction between legitimate salvaging and theft of property was somewhat blurred. Both sets of merchants involved in the transhipment (four men from Bayonne and the vendor from Great Yarmouth) had lodged an official complaint regarding the incident, and a royal mandate was issued to the Sheriffs of Norfolk and Suffolk to investigate the matter and retrieve and return the goods to the rightful owners if they did not constitute legal wreck.

Two further, connected references to cured herrings are to be found almost three years later, in November and December 1364. The fish could have been either red herrings or white (pickled) herrings, or both varieties – there is no way of telling – but the directive given to the Yarmouth bailiffs was clear. No quantity of fish sent out of the town was to exceed the amount permitted by royal licence and any failure to comply would result in forfeiture of the cargo. The bailiffs were further advised that that the owners and masters of vessels were answerable for the movement of herrings within the realm, so as to limit export abroad and prevent shortages at home. Within a fortnight, authorisation was given to “all sheriffs, mayors, bailiffs, masters and mariners” in Yarmouth and Kirkley Road to search all ships loaded with cured herrings in order to ascertain whether the cargoes exceeded the amount allowed by royal mandate and whether such mandate was now being used by parties to whom no grant had been made.

The restriction on the export of herrings continued for quite some time, without it ever becoming clear as to which cured form is being referred to in the records. The only reference to red herrings is the one cited above, in the first paragraph of this section, all other ones using the word cured. As a broad indication of type, it is probably true to say that reds were generally sent to France and Mediterranean countries, while the pickled variety were more favoured in northern Europe. Therefore, it was likely to have been red herrings which were the object of a grant made in March 1382 to three Flemish merchants from Sluys, allowing them to sell anywhere in England a certain quantity of herrings destined for France and captured in Kirkley Road. This revoked an earlier order, authorising Thomas de Holland, Earl of Kent [Richard II’s brother], and his bailiffs to sell them in either London or Sandwich.

Even as late as December 1403 attempted illegal shipping abroad was continuing, as shown in an order given to the Great Yarmouth bailiffs and customs officials to release seven vessels (five Yarmouth, one Lynn, one Lowestoft), arrested on suspicion of preparing to take herrings and wheat overseas). The Lowestoft vessel was called the Katerine (see eleven paragraphs above) commanded by Henry Shyngle – and its origins may have been one reason why a townsman, William Pye, was one of four people (two others were from Little Yarmouth, or Southtown, and one from Great Yarmouth itself) who undertook to guarantee passage of the craft to English ports after the cargoes had been customed. They must have been serious in their undertaking, because they paid a 500 mark surety [£333 6s 8d] as a pledge of good intent – evidence perhaps of the wealth generated locally by maritime trade.

It is interesting to note the close co-operation between rivals of the head-port in this matter for, like Lowestoft, the inhabitants of Southtown had no great liking for their large and (as they saw it) overbearing neighbour. However, in spite of the commercial rivalry between Great Yarmouth and its neighbours, there were times when compromise proved possible – such as the agreement of February 1401 between the bailiffs and burgesses of the head-port and the townsmen of Lowestoft. This enabled the latter to buy and sell herrings and other foodstuffs and merchandise, within the hours of daylight, and to engage with any merchants and fishermen except those from Holland and Zeeland hosted to Yarmouth itself. Hosting was the term used in English fishing stations for the process of allowing vessels from other parts of the country (and from the European mainland) access to fish stocks for the duration of a season. It often included finding the visitors onshore accommodation, if needed, for their length of stay and attending to their needs. The sum of half a mark [6s 8d] was to be paid to the port authorities for each last of fresh herrings traded [12,000 fish].

With the establishment of the East Coast cod fishery trade during the early 1400s, and its continuation for the rest of the 15th century, occasional references to the products of this are encountered. In July 1437, a licence was granted to John Steyngate of Lowestoft, owner of two ships (the George and the Peter), to go fishing in the craft – which were not currently under royal requisition [for military purposes] – and to buy and bring back to England 3,000 stockfish (fungarium) for the household of William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk. An express command was given not to sail into any “forbidden regions” (certain Icelandic waters made out of bounds to foreign shipping) The order clearly shows authorisation of a fishing expedition to Iceland, with the additional duty of purchasing (while there) locally produced stockfish (wind-dried and salted fish) – a highly rated commodity all over Europe. De la Pole was lord of the manor of Lowestoft and Lothingland (the family having risen from mercantile origins in Hull to aristocratic levels during the late 14th century) and he was obviously using his influence at court to secure food supplies for his domestic establishment. 

“Northerrnfish”, as it was sometimes termed, also featured in a directive to the Lowestoft constables in January 1454, when they were ordered to arrest and hold a ship from Cley, in North Norfolk, carrying a cargo of 2,872 salted ling and 940 salted cod which had been stolen from a man called Richard Arnold. The vessel’s name is not given, but it was owned by John Auger and commanded by John atte Hoo, and the alleged intended place of sale for the merchandise was Queneburgh [Queenborough, Isle of Sheppey] in Kent. Eighty or more years later, in August 1536, a letter from someone called Richard Tomyow to Thomas Cromwell, Lord Privy Seal, concerning supplies of fish for the latter’s household, advised that 200 ling and 800 cod [salted] would be sufficient, at a total cost of £30 – the merchandise usually being sent from Boston or Lowestoft.

The key ingredient in preparing all of the merchandise referred to in this section was, of course, salt. It never appears in any of the documentation relating to export restriction, but it does feature occasionally as an incoming commodity. Two particularly interesting references are to be found from June and July 1387. Both were general orders, issued to officials in sundry ports on the East and South Coasts, and in Devon, to allow Dutch/Flemish ships to sell cargoes of salt (after payment of customs duty) and then return home. In the first one, the mayor and bailiffs of Kirkley [sic] were so commanded with reference to specific vessels, all from the port of Campe [Kampen, a Hanseatic base on the River Ijssel]: the Godberode (master, Gerarde Wilte), the George (master, Henry van Homme) and the Godberode (master, Walter Clut). 

In a second directive, which followed five weeks later, the original instructions were modified to allow merchants from Seland [Zeeland] to sell cargoes of salt “at retail and not in gross for the advantage and relief of the realm”. There must have shortages of salt at the time, in order to allow the foreign traders to have the retail price for their product and not the usual wholesale value – and there was an additional perquisite for them in not having to pay the normal customs duty. Both of these orders were  obviously aimed at the mayor and bailiffs of Great Yarmouth, using the title of their area of maritime jurisdiction (Kirkley Roads) rather than that of the town itself. And there would have been nothing unusual in any European port of the time having the same name used by different vessels (ref. Godberode).

Exports (wheat)      

Next in number to references concerning the illegal (or restricted) shipment abroad of fish was wheat – and the East Anglian coastline generally would have been an ideal place from which to send outward cargoes of the grain, from one of the leading areas of production anywhere in the country. The first reference encountered is one from February 1311 when the order was given for a proclamation to be made in Kirkele Rode [sic] and adjoining towns, stating the King’s prohibition of the export of victuals. Foreign merchants were said to have been congregating there, discharging their own cargoes and then buying victuals without paying customs duty on them. 

Thus, it would seem that the objection (in this case, at least) was to the evasion of customs, not necessarily to the shipping out of foodstuffs. The word victuals, of course, can cover a wide range of provisions, but there is no doubt that wheat would have been one of the main items as it is specifically referred to as a restricted commodity right into the middle of the 16th century. Barley, on the other hand (and the malt made from it), does not feature in the records relating to the Yarmouth-Lowestoft coastline, so presumably both commodities were mainly utilised for the baking of bread and the brewing of ale – leaving nothing significant in the way of surplus to be sold abroad.

Comment has been made, in the case of Suffolk, that some grain was drawn into international trade, especially when grown in coastal districts – such locations being conducive to the shipment of a product that was otherwise expensive to move overland because of its low value relative to its weight and bulk. It has been further observed that most grain in the county c. 1300 was sold and consumed locally, with rye (a crop suited to the light soils of the coastal belt) comprising most of the grain shipped abroad and with its traffic largely taking place out of Ipswich.

A salvage case of June 1323 gives some idea of the size of cargoes carried at the time on the larger trading vessels. Reference is made to a ship from Hythe, in Kent, which was wrecked in a storm near Kirkley [Roads] and from which ten and a half quarters of wheat and twelve pipes of wine were retrieved. The full cargo was 195 quarters and fourteen pipes, so the bulk of the wine was saved but not the grain. The full complement of the foodstuff would have weighed something in the region of forty tons, while the beverage would have measured out at 1,764 gallons. If this volume of liquid had been racked off into eighteen-gallon rundlets, it would have meant ninety-eight such casks being on board. The corn, if bagged up in four-bushel sacks (each pair of these making up a quarter), would have resulted in 390 of them being stowed away in the hold.

There are occasions when the amount of corn leaving the country might appear to have been small, but as far as the government of the day was concerned there was obviously a perceived problem of some kind regarding its leaving English shores (probably, shortages in London). In January 1356 an order was given to the bailiffs of Lynn [later, Bishop’s Lynn and King’s Lynn], and to all bailiffs of the East Coast and Channel ports (including Kirkley Roads), that no pilgrims be permitted to leave the country before the coming Easter or take any corn with them, except that bound for Calais. Given that the devastating effects of the Black Death (which had occurred less than ten years before) took decades to work through, in terms of the labour shortage resulting and the dearth of cereals caused, any “leakage” of a key food resource would have been noted. It was mainly wealthy people who went on pilgrimage at the time, to the major European shrines and to the Holy Land, and it is entirely likely that members of the merchant class might well have taken the opportunity to carry stores of wheat with them on the ships they had hired for passage (or which they even owned) to sell in whatever port they landed at – either for profit or even to finance the pilgrimage itself.

Some idea of shortages of basic foodstuffs during the second half of the 14th century, especially in large urban centres (London particularly), may be had from a directive sent to the mayor and bailiffs of Dunwich and to the bailiffs of Lowestoft in March 1375. This required that William Neuport, citizen and fishmonger of London, be allowed to load 300 quarters of wheat, beans and peas and convey them to the city for the provisioning of the populace. A similar command was given re William Kelleshull, also citizen and fishmonger of London, regarding 200 quarters of the same items, with both these orders overriding any proclamations made as to the prohibition of grain and pulses being shipped out of areas of production. Eight years later, in May 1383, an order was given to the bailiffs of Lowestoft (following the petition of John de Vautort, of London) to release from arrest a crayer called the George (also of London) and allow it to sail to “northern parts”. The destination is not revealed, but the vessel was carrying wheat and had been attacked by Frenchmen off Dunwich. The crew had left their craft, gone ashore to seek help and managed to regain control of it. They had then sailed to Lowestoft and put into Kirkley Roads, with the Dunwich men claiming salvage rights on the cargo for their part in the rescue. The outcome of this questionable claim is not known.

Much earlier in the 14th century, during the famine of 1315-17, the shortage of grain became a national matter, not just one relating to the capital. Exports of corn and other victuals from English ports were forbidden and the customs duty on the import and export of corn, salt and fish was removed so as to facilitate traffic in these basic commodities and encourage their distribution. Finally, brewers in London were prohibited from making malt because of the more pressing need to use barley in the baking of bread. The compulsion to fill empty stomachs was not simply a matter of fulfilling a basic human need; there was also a moral imperative imposed on the ruling authorities to ensure that food was made available equitably across all levels of society.

The case of seven East Anglian vessels (including one from Lowestoft) arrested in December 1403 on suspicion of exporting herrings and wheat was referred to earlier. There had been a similar incident noted two days earlier, as shown in an order given to the Colchester bailiffs and customs officials to release from arrest the Margarete of Lowestoft (master, John Clif) and the Christofre [Christopher] of Yarmouth (master William Sweteman), after customs duties had been paid on the cargoes. In neither matter is the destination of the ships given, but it was to an English port (or ports) and thus perceived evasion of customs payment seems to have been the issue, not prohibited export of foodstuffs abroad. The same three men who pledged themselves as guarantors in the case previously cited also acted in the same capacity here. Keeping track of the illegal shipment of wheat to foreign parts was an ongoing and widespread problem, running well into the 16th century. A record of 1536 [no date given] stated that fines for the illegal export of grain were due to the Crown from Thomas Miller and Thomas Walter of Lynn, Ralph Seymonds of Cley, John Dey of Wiveton, Andrew Stubbes of Bungay and John Botswayne and Richard Willat of Lowestoft. Four years later, in November 1540, John Lissle of Lowestoft reported that a fellow-townsman, Thomas Bocking (along with others), was engaged in the same illicit trade.

Exports (precious metals and currency)

Perhaps the most interesting items being shipped out of the country (as well as being brought in) were not exports at all in the true sense of the word, appertaining to either raw materials or manufactured goods. They were gold and silver bullion and the coinage made from them. As early as January 1311, an order was given to John Aleyn [Allen] and Henry de Dreyton [members of the Great Yarmouth ruling elite] to keep watch for the inward and outward movement of counterfeit money “of less value than the King’s sterling”. Anyone found involved in such traffic was to be arrested, the money confiscated and re-minted and given to the King. At exactly the same time as this directive was made, Aleyn and a man named John Akle [Acle] were also appointed to be wardens and searchers of money in Yarmouth, Cromer, Blakeney and Kirkley, which was as wide an area of scrutiny as that given to Aleyn and de Dreyton three years before when they had been appointed to collect the 2s duty on imported wine.

More than fifty years later, the only other recorded case of counterfeit currency entering the local area was considered at an inquisition held on the seashore in December 1362 before Hugh Fastolfe [of Great Yarmouth], deputy to Sir Robert de Herle, the King’s Admiral. It was said that a man called William atte Wood, from Lukrus [Leuchars] by Saint Andrews, Scotland, had put into Kirkley Road in a ship called the Palmedaghfrom Scluse [Sluys], in Flanders (master, Giles the Beste). Atte Wood was accused of bringing with him “false money called Lucenburghes” [Luxembourgs], to the value of 7s or more, which he had used in the town of Lowestoft to buy cloth and victuals. The sum cited may not appear to have been very large to make purchases of the kind referred to, and nor are the types of cloth or foodstuffs specified, but the attempted deception is interesting in being yet another of the illegal practices carried out in a locality that was very much a frontier with the rest of Europe and the wider world beyond it.

One singular case which certainly seems to have transcended national boundaries was that of 1 August 1356, when grant of a commission to John Mayn, King’s serjeant-at-arms [a personal attendant of the monarch] was recorded. Mayn was given the task of investigating the arrest by Robert de Reveshale (the Lowestoft bailiff) of one “Lumbard de Melan” [i.e. a Lombard, from Milan], who had been taken in possession of 390½ marks of gold stolen from his master [£260 6s 8d]. Reveshale [Ryveshale] and a man named John Bould, who had been present at the arrest, were summoned to appear at Westminster with the offender and the gold. Upon the accused’s arrival in London (recorded on 12 August), John Mayn was ordered to hand him over (as well as a man named John de Hanham) to Henry Pycard, King’s Butler, together with 389 marks of gold found in his possession [£259 6s 8d]. The Lombard was named as Nicholas de Portu, of Milan, and on 21 October his release was authorised – together with that of de Hanham – no wrongdoing having been found. An order was also made for the gold to be restored to him. The discrepancy in the two sums of money cited is a detail to be noted (it must reflect spending of some kind during settlement of the case), as well as the introduction of John de Hanham, who was obviously a business associate of de Portu – perhaps even his employer.

Inward and outward movements of cash and bullion were a matter of concern to governments during the Late Medieval period – especially the latter. The discovery of South and Central America, and the rich deposits of gold and silver to be found there, had not yet occurred and there was a shortage of precious metals over much of Western Europe. Put simply (perhaps even simplistically), the continent could not produce enough from its own resources to meet spending requirements. The ever-increasing demand on the part of the wealthier levels of society for luxury items from the East (particularly India), such as silks, spices, dried fruits and sweetening agents, created a constant flow of cash abroad and the only way to deal with the resulting deflation was to periodically devalue the currency. Hence the complaints in England, during the 14th and 15th centuries, about the shortage of “good money” and the attempts by successive governments to exercise some kind of control on the movement of both cash and bullion in and out of the country.

In February 1333, an order was given to port bailiffs in England and Wales (including Kirkley Roads) to ensure that no silver (money, vessels and bullion) was taken out of the country without royal licence. Anyone found doing so was to be arrested and the silver confiscated. Within six months of this directive being made, Reginald Reynald (constable of Lowestoft) and Henry Tristram of Rokelound [Rockland] (bailiff of Lothingland Half-hundred) were accused of allowing Scotsmen and others to take silver coins and silver and gold objects out of the country in return for payments (i.e. bribes). The outcome of this particular, alleged contravention of national policy (recorded in the month of August) is not known.

Thirty years later, in December 1364, similar orders were being issued to the bailiffs of Hythe and to those of other East Coast, South Coast and West Country ports – including Kirkley Roads. No one was to go abroad, without the King’s special licence, and searches were to be made for money, gold, silver and jewels. Merchants were to be allowed passage, but only with as much money as was necessary for the conduct of business. Less than a year later, in July 1365, a further order was issued to the Constable of Dover Castle, the Warden of the Cinque Ports and the bailiffs of other East Coast, South Coast and West Country ports (Kirkley Roads included) concerning the smuggling abroad of currency: all merchants and seamen would be required to swear an oath that no persons engaged in such activity were on board their vessels.

The problem was an ongoing one. In October 1370, Reginald de Shouldham [North-west Norfolk] was authorised to search all vessels between Lynn and Kirkley for a range of contraband goods, including gold and silver (both coin and plate) and jewels. Any such items detected were to be seized and all sheriffs, mayors, bailiffs, lords [of manors], masters [of ships] and mariners were ordered to help him. In late April 1383, John de Seynesbury and Henry Gryme were given a commission to investigate the export (without licence) not only of gold and jewels but also letters of exchange, in Kirkley Road, Lowestoft and Lothingland The last-named items were what became known later as promissory notes, in which the drawer, or a designated surrogate, promised to hand over a certain sum of money, on a certain date, to a named payee. They were the forerunners of bank cheques and were also the means of currency leaving the country, even if such exchange was legitimate. This right of enquiry granted to Seynesbury and Gryme was re-iterated a week later, in early May, with the addition of uncustomed wool, wool-fells, hides, cloths, papal bulls and letters prejudicial to the King. It also went into more detail concerning the valuables by specifically referring to coin, plate and bar [ingot] in connection with the two precious metals. 

Similar commissions to the ones cited here are also to be found recorded in February 1392, August 1394 and July 1395. The first one was issued to William Spenser of Lowestoft followed by others to Richard Reynkyn [Rankin] and to William Denys [Dennis] and Robert Spexhale [Spexhall], all three of them being men from the same town. The length of coastline to be inspected, however, was much more extensive, stretching from Blakeney to Ipswich, and this might perhaps be taken as an indication of the size of the problem. The reason for such a course of action in the formal granting of the duty of coastal scrutiny and inspection lay in the shortage of silver to produce lower-value coinage particularly, and the men charged with implementing the royal command must have employed helpers in order to carry out the task effectively. The lack of readily available bullion in Western Europe generally was sufficiently serious to cause a trading depression during the mid-1390s, which lasted for a period of about twenty years. 

Anti-government feeling

It is evident from the references to papal bulls and prejudicial letters found in government pronouncements of the time that there was sensitivity on the part of the Crown concerning possible disloyalty on the part of its subjects during the reigns of Edward III and his grandson and successor, Richard II. Lowestoft, in being a coastal station facing out to the continent of Europe (even though theoretically under the jurisdiction of Great Yarmouth), therefore became part of the wider world of politics, as well as that of trade. There were two main areas of concern for the monarchs: in generalised terms, problems caused by difficult relationships with the Papacy and by discontent of varying kinds (and degree) among their subjects.

Edward III had contested Papal right to appoint clergy to English benefices with the enactment (in 1351) of the first Statute of Provisors – a law reinforced two years later by the first Statute of Praemunire, which declared that jurisdiction over appointments belonged to the King’s Court and provided for the punishment of anyone who sought from the Papal Curia any legal advice or instruction contrary to the royal prerogative. This put English clerics in a difficult position, with a possible conflict of interests between loyalty to their secular and spiritual leaders, and it was a dilemma which was perhaps felt more keenly by the regular clergy living in communities (monasteries and the like) than by those engaged in parish ministry. This was because the majority of English abbeys and priories were, ultimately, under the direction of a mother house located somewhere on the continent (particularly in France) which, in its own turn, was likely to incline to Papal rule rather than that of a foreign country. Between 1378 and 1417, the matter was made more complex because of division in The Papacy known as The Great Schism, which resulted in an Italian pope making pronouncements from Rome and a French one doing the same from Avignon.

The first reference to papal documents coming into England (in a local context, at least) is found in December 1364, in the order recorded four paragraphs above, which covered precious metals and currency also. It is interesting to note that such items are listed with other, non-specific, potentially anti-government literature – a generalised classification which says a good deal about the attitude of government towards any kind of material emanating from Rome, no matter what its content. In April 1383 (again, in a reference previously cited twice), the commission granted to John de Seynesbury and Henry Gryme used the expression“trafficking in papal bulls”, which would seem to suggest that a significant quantity of documents was entering the country – although there may well have been a degree of official exaggeration used, in order to have the desired effect of creating some sense of the scale of the problem in the minds of the officials charged with controlling it. A bull was an edict, mandate or grant of some kind, named after the official lead seal (bulla) attached to it. The classical Latin word bulla meant “a bubble”, giving some idea of the shape of papal seals.

Richard II was only sixteen years old at the time, so it is fair to presume that the opinions of his counsellors weighed as heavily as his own in shaping any policies regarding The Papacy. The Rome-Avignon split, with the rival claims made by Urban VI and Clement VII and the resultant conflicting loyalties among clergy all over Europe, created a complex state of affairs. There was pronounced anti-papal feeling in England at the time, reinforced among the educated classes by growing adherence to the teachings of John Wyclif, which encouraged an individual approach to the interpretation of Scripture without reliance on received teaching and authority. There were many people in England not prepared to go as far as Wyclif in his opinions regarding governance of the Church and the validity of its sacraments, but there still remained a general dissatisfaction with papal leadership. The order of 1383 regarding the potentially subversive nature of papal literature was still being repeated a decade later, when the composite directives issued were continuing to show official concern at the entry into the country of such material.

The later years of Edward III’s long reign (1327-77) were troubled ones, with growing dissatisfaction at the way the ageing king was exercising his authority, and much of his successor Richard II’s time on the throne (1377-99) was also fraught with difficulty of one kind or another. References in both 1364 and 65, which have been previously cited with regard to the carriage of money and precious metals out of the country refer also to anti-government literature being taken abroad. The word sedition wasn’t yet current at this time, but this seems very much to have been The Crown’s perception regarding the proscribed material, whatever it was (there are no specific details given). There was conflict with The Papacy, as noted above, regarding its claimed rights in the matter of controlling the English Church; the tide had begun to turn against England in the Hundred Years War; and there were continuing economic and social problems resulting from the Black Death. All of these factors combined, in one way or another, to create discontent among the population as a whole and encourage those who felt sufficiently strongly (and who were able to do so) to express their opinions to contacts overseas – both fellow countrymen and foreigners.

Richard II’s first great challenge was faced by him, at the age of fourteen, in 1381: The Peasants’ Revolt. The courage he showed, in confronting the rebels at Smithfield, played a large part in successful suppression of the uprising, but he then had the best part of a decade to learn the arts of kingship and the harsh realities of political manoeuvring before he was able to govern in the way he wanted. His excessive cultivation of the royal persona was one of innovations which ultimately led to his downfall and, in the shorter term, made him sensitive to criticism of his style of government. Again, as had been the case with his grandfather thirty years before, the searches of ships for literature deemed prejudicial to the monarch (which were authorised during the early 1390s) show a combination of resentment at Papal interference in English affairs (as it was perceived to be) and concern for any show of disloyalty towards The Crown on the part of residents of the country and expatriates alike.

Perhaps the most interesting of all the incidents associated with Richard II’s reign, which had a connection with Lowestoft, concerns his banishment in September 1398 of the Duke of Hereford and Duke of Norfolk. The former, Henry Bolingbroke (Richard’s uncle), was exiled for ten years and the latter, Thomas Mowbray, for life. The two peers’ rivalry and expulsion forms a key moment in the opening act of Shakespeare’s play, Richard II (Scene 3), and it was Mowbray’s departure from English shores which was both witnessed and confirmed by the townspeople of Lowestoft. On 19 October, at two o’ clock in the afternoon, the Duke embarked on a board a ship with a company of thirty people (servants, retainers and the like) to cross to Dordrecht. The taking leave of his native land was attested by Thomas Thornton (king’s searcher), William Menhyr, Geoffrey Richer, John Boof, Geoffrey Palmer, Edmund Billingford, Stephen Wyolf, John Lacy Snr.,Richard Reynkyn [Rankin], Robert Spryg, William Wymer, William Spencer and Thomas Calke [Chalk]. The names underlined are those of known inhabitants of Lowestoft and other of the witnesses may also havebeen townspeople.   It was said that more 1,000 people had assembled to watch. If the authorities had chosen Lowestoft as the embarkation-point in preference to Yarmouth, because it was smaller and less well known, their hopes of keeping the event low-key seem not to have worked. 

Contrasting with this notable example of banishment under a royal order is the attempted restriction of people’s movement abroad at various times. The embargo of January 1356 on pilgrims travelling for Easter devotion at continental shrines and taking grain with them has already been referred to. In April the following year an order was given to the Sheriffs of London and the bailiffs of various ports (including Kirkley Roads) that no religious persons (or any others) be allowed to cross the seas without the King’s special licence and that no Augustinian friars were to leave the land, even though granted licence to do so. Pilgrims featured again in June 1362, along with men-at-arms and archers (plus their horses and weapons) – this latter category being not without interest, as the Treaty of Bretigny had ended the first phase of the Hundred Years War in 1360. Two years later, in December 1364, restrictions on travel abroad were still being imposed, with movement out of the country only possible with royal approval.

Foreign conflict      

Many of the incidents and cases already cited took place against a backdrop of the country’s wars, notably those with France and Scotland. Ongoing strife with the latter nation is revealed in orders issued to Thomas de Drayton, the Yarmouth collector of customs, in November and December 1340. The first of these required him to bring the Bishop of Man [Sodor and Man – Isle of Man], under safe conduct to London, so that he might be examined in matters concerning The King – his ship having been driven ashore near Lowestoft, while on a voyage to Rome. The other people on board, and the vessel’s goods, were to be kept in safe custody until further notice, and a valuation of the ship and its contents was to be made. John Tuteler and Robert de Ryveshale, of Lowestoft, were the men entrusted with this supervision and, in due course, they were ordered to release the Bishop’s goods and chattels [and, presumably, the crew] since it had been established that he and his men were loyal to The King. 

Six months later, in June 1341, another incident involving a Scottish ship was noted – one that has already been referred to in connection with thirty and a half sacks of confiscated wool taken in Kirkley Roads – though the Close Rolls source cited talks about a Calais vessel. The Patent Rolls contain a great deal more in the way of information and say that the wrecked craft was Scottish. In addition to the wool (worth £61), it was carrying sixty dickers of hides (£20), sixty wool-fells (15s), and sail and cable (10s). These items of salvage had been taken by John Tuteler, William de Ryveshale, Robert de Ryveshale and Thomas de Ryveshale of Lowestoft, with lesser cargo and parts of the vessel in the hands of other men. Reginald de Brundale[Brundall] was in possession of twelve hides (worth 8s), twelve wool-fells (3s) and a yard (3s), while Edmund Ode, Geoffrey Grym, John Grym, William Deckne, James Hulot, Richard Reynald and Adam Hoddon had timber of no great value, and John de Dope 18d worth of wool. In resolution of the matter, Tuteler and the Ryveshales were allowed to keep the hides, but had to surrender the wool and sheepskins to The Crown. The names underlined (in whole or in part) are those either of men listed in the 1327 Lay Subsidy or of families having members referred to there. The Tuteler family had moved into Lowestoft from Kirkley. The yard referred to in connection with Reginald de Brundale was a spar from which a sail hung and which had become separated from the mast.         

Further evidence of conflict with Scotland is to be seen in December 1342, in the authorisation given to James de Artefeld to release a Calais ship (master, John Petreman) loaded with wool, hides and other merchandise at Aberdeen and driven into Kirkley Roads by a storm. The vessel was sailing under the cocket [customs authority] of David de Bruys [Bruce], The King’s enemy, and had therefore been arrested by John Totiller [Tuteler] and others of Lowestoft. The vessel was to be released in exchange for one belonging to John de Eccles, which had been arrested in Bruges at the request of John Petreman – the request for this to be done having been made by Margery de Reveshale [Ryveshale] and John de Eccles himself. De Bruce was King of Scotland and the arrest of the Calais ship, with Scottish goods on board, was legal under the terms of warfare of the time (and those of any other time). The web of international trading connections is made clear in the retaliatory arrest of the local ship in Bruges and shows the way in which communication could be made with the European mainland, using the seaways as the means.

Eventually, in 1369, a truce (lasting fourteen years) was established between England and Scotland and an order of 10 May this year shows the change in official attitude towards the country’s traditional enemy. Robert de Aston (King’s Admiral), or his lieutenant in Great Yarmouth and neighbouring parts, was to enquire into the loss of goods suffered by William de Lyth [Leith], John Wode, John Foldmouth and other merchants of Aberdeen and to make full restitution to them or their attorneys [legal representatives]. The merchants had loaded the Seint Marie of Westcapel [West-Kappell] in Seland [Zeeland] at the port of Lescluses [Sluys] with 100 tuns of wheat-flour, ten lasts of herrings [pickled fish – 12,000 to the last, in ten barrels] and various other goods, to the value of £1,000, and also with gold and silver coins and silver bullion worth £500. The vessel, commanded by William Mone, had been wrecked on the return journey to Aberdeen off the coast of Kyrkeleyrode [sic] – though the master had survived the mishap and the stricken craft could not therefore be termed a wreck [a legal technicality of some kind]. Men from Kirkley, Corton and Lowestoft had taken the goods washed ashore and asked The King to make provision for their recovery. 

A different perspective is given in other accounts of the incident. In June 1369 an assize session of oyer and terminer was granted to William de Wychyngham [Witchingham], Edmund Gourneye [Gurney], John de Bernye [Berney] and Reynold de Eccles concerning “evildoers” who had broken a vessel called the Seint Marie and carried away cargo. The inquisition was eventually held at South Yarmouth [Southtown] on 19 December and it was reported there that everyone on board had died, except William Mone, who was named as both master and owner of the vessel. It was carrying coin, linen cloth, tackle [possibly, ropes and blocks], wax, pepper, ginger, furs, madder, alum and other merchandise, which had been washed ashore in late January. William Lucy [Lacy] Snr. and others had seized £102 worth of the goods. The detail given regarding the cargo shows that it was of high value and gives some idea of mixed carriage of the time.

The matter seems not to have been resolved, because in March 1370 a similar right of trial was granted to William de Wychyngham, Nicholas de Tamworth, Hugh Fastolf and William de Tamworth on the complaint of the following Scottish merchants: William Lyth, James Henrison, Thomas Marcher, John Wode, Thomas Recyvet, John Scot, Adam de Dalgarnok, Walter Gopeld, Simon de Abbeye, Alan Hog and Thomas Clerk. Two vessels, the Seint Marie of Zeeland (master, William Mone) and the Seint Anne of Cagent [sic] in Flanders (owner-master, Florence Johanneson) had loaded with cargo at Lescluses for passage to Scotland and been driven ashore in a tempest at Kirkley Road. Robert Clerk of Lyth [Leith] and Richard de Waldaston of the Seint Marie had laid claim to the cargoes on behalf of the rightful owners, but local men had stolen the goods – this, in contravention of the treaty between England and Scotland. Three months later, in June 1370, a commission was given to Edmund de Thorpe, Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, and to John de Berneye, Reynold de Eccles and John de Lakynghethe [Lakenheath], keepers of the peace [J.Ps.], to investigate the case, see that the goods were returned to the rightful owners and arrest anyone who refused to hand over stolen property.

The long-term enmity between England and both Scotland and France (these latter two countries often being in alliance) is seen more in terms of Scottish vessels being apprehended rather than French ones, which may have had something to do with the traditional trading-routes taken by the ships. Sometimes, as in the case cited in the previous paragraph, the demarcation between what was legitimate and what was not tended to become blurred, but there were also occasions where government directives left no doubt as to which course of action should be taken. In October 1415, for instance, Stephen Wyoll [Wyolf] and John Wryght of Lowestoft were among twenty-one Norfolk and Suffolk men appointed to “keep the sea” for the protection of fishermen and other subjects. The other ports and havens represented were Dersingham, Wiveton, Cley, Salthouse, Cromer, Winterton, Yarmouth, Covehithe, Easton, Southwold and Aldeburgh, and specific orders were given that no goods were to be taken from any vessel, except French and Scottish ones. A relative of John Wryght, named William, had been chosen in January the same year by Thomas Chaucer, the Chief Butler [head collector of customs], to serve as customer in Kirkley and Yarmouth – and this was followed in December by Stephen Wyolf being similarly authorised. What the burgesses and bailiffs of Great Yarmouth thought of such appointments can only be guessed at. 

The year 1415 was one which saw Henry V invade France (in a major renewal of engagement in the Hundred Years War) and win his great victory at Agincourt. Another thirty-eight years was to pass before the conflict finally ended, but even in the final, sporadic years aspects of its conduct manifested themselves in local maritime activity. In June 1442, Miles Stapleton (lord of a manor in Kessingland, which bore his family’s name) was authorised to requisition local vessels in Kirkley Roads and take them to Caumbre [Cambrai] by 1 August. This particular city was an independent bishopric, at the time, and more part of the Netherlands than of France itself, but it was obviously seen to have some strategic significance from an English point of view. Even after the long, drawn-out conflict had formally ceased, in 1453, England then found itself increasingly preoccupied with the onset of the Wars of the Roses and the increasing mental fragility of its monarch, Henry VI.

As early as August 1457, the French saw an opportunity to cross The Channel and launch raids on both Sandwich and Fowey, burning much of the former town to the ground. This was probably the background to an order given in November the same year to Roger Treweman of Lowestoft, master of a kervyll [carvel] called the Michael, to arrest men to act as members of his crew in service against The King’s enemies – a carvel being a vessel with a hull built of planks butted up flush to each, not overlapping in clinker fashion. This authorisation shows that the pressing of men for naval service had antecedents going back long before the 17th and 18th centuries. 

Sometimes, the requisitioning of craft in the national cause overstepped the mark. There was a case in November 1406, when the Yarmouth bailiffs ordered the release of a ship called the Laurence, from Westcaple [West-Kappell] in Holland, under the command of Martin Maklore. This was at the request of Richard Frenssh [French], citizen of London, who had had the vessel loaded in Newcastle-upon-Tyne with a cargo of seventy chaldrons of coal – the chaldron being a measure of volume weighing about a ton-and-a-half – and fifty-four grindstones [millstones]. It had been driven ashore in Kirkley Roads, while on its way to London, and arrested for the King’s service. It was probably a case of the ship being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but there was always the chance that foreign vessels were seen as fair game simply because they were from another country (even if it wasn’t an enemy of England).

Scottish craft were the most vulnerable as has been noted, even during times of truce with England, and yet another wrongful detention occurred in July 1405 when William Spenser, John Boofe and John Palmere of Lowestoft, along with Nicholas Lomynour [Lumnor] and William Forthe of Norwich, were ordered to release six Scottish merchants and their goods. These men had been driven ashore in Norfolk, arrested by Sir William Calthorpe, released by him because of the truce between England and Scotland, then re-arrested by Spenser and the others and detained in Lowestoft. Spenser, of course, has been previously encountered in official capacity, so he may have been exercising what he saw as a legal duty – even though it was a mistaken one.

Something of the internal procedures inherent in the arrest of vessels may be seen in the commission granted, in September 1377, to John Botild, William Lacy Jnr., Richard Perelees, John Lacy Jnr., Stephen Lacy and Robert Raveshale [Ryveshale]. These Lowestoft men were charged with valuing the goods of Scottish merchants arrested on board a Flemish crayer in Kirkley Roads, with holding the merchandise and selling some for the payment of duty and the settling of the mariners’ wages, and with retaining the residue of the property and the merchants themselves until further notice. Everything was to be done with due legality. The appraisal of the merchandise was to be carried out with the aid of “good and lawful men of the district” and an indenture drawn up with the full knowledge of the merchants. The names of these men and the value of their goods were to be declared and money from authorised sale of the latter was also to be used for the expense involved in maintaining the arrest and distraint. 

Foreign conflict and dispute were not always limited to the political sphere; trading rivalries which lay outside of national aspirations and intentions sometimes caused problems. This was particularly true where The Hanseatic League was concerned – that federation of German Baltic ports which, because of its great commercial reach and efficiency, transcended Western European boundaries and formed a federation that achieved a supra-national status of its own during the later Middle Ages. Sometimes capable of high-handed behaviour in defence of its interests, it aroused resentment from those not included in its circle and this may have been what lay behind an incident recorded in February 1382. 

It was in this month that an order was given to Thomas de Holland [second Earl of 

Kent], or to his bailiffs or ministers of the town of Lowestoft and in the port of Kirkelerode [sic], that certain goods be returned to Conrad Fynk and John de Meudon, merchants of The Hanse, who had complained concerning their confiscation. The merchandise in question consisted of nine lasts, seven and a half barrels and one ferendell [farendell = small amount] of herring and 220 ells of linen cloth – forty-five inches to the ell – which had been loaded at Scone [Skåne, southern Sweden] in a ship from Sluys (master, Baldwin van Seint Thomers) for conveyance to Flanders. Both the vessel and its cargo had been arrested on the pretext of belonging to France. From the information given, and taking into consideration the time of year, it has to be presumed that the ship had been blown off course by a north-easterly gale on its return journey, eventually finishing up off Lowestoft.

A more straightforward example of commercial tit-for-tat manifested itself four years later in February 1386. The steward of Lothingland and bailiff of Lowestoft were ordered to release a ship from Conyngesbergh [Königsberg] in Sprucia [Prussia], which had fetched up off the town and been arrested in retaliation for local goods seized in its home area of Germany. The vessel was called the Bethleem [Bethlehem] and it was the master, Henry Pousyne, who had made the request for its release. This was agreed, providing that he could find guarantors to stand surety for him. The significance of this requirement lay in its being the means of securing the merchandise distrained somewhere along the Baltic coast and ensuring that it, or its monetary value, was returned to the legal owners. Relationships with the Hanse were often strained, in spite of the economic advantages attaching to contact with it and its trading partners, and open war with it (1468-74) eventually led to a serious dislocation of Baltic commerce.

There has been more than a hint up till now of unlawful behaviour, on the part of those involved, in a number of the incidents previously cited. Such illegality was sometimes due to misunderstanding of the state of national relationships with traditional enemies (primarily, Scotland and France) – it not always being clear as to whether war or peace prevailed – and sometimes to what may be termed the “grey area” between legal salvage claims and the theft of another’s property. On other occasions, it was simply a matter of breaking the law (in both moral and legal terms) in the cause of self-aggrandizement and taking a chance on whether or not apprehension followed the act. The government’s action in its encouragement of mariners and fishermen to undertake privateering activity in the national cause during the Hundred Years War would have encouraged all kinds of illicit activity at sea and schooled English seafarers in the unsubtle arts of maritime plunder. 

Personal gain seems to have been very much the motivation in the earliest of the recorded, unequivocal criminal cases, dating from July 1311 and noting the detention in Ipswich Gaol of local men involved in robbery both in Great Yarmouth and out at sea. Richard Tuteler of Kirkley, Peter de Beketon [Beckton], John de Wymdale [Wymundhale] and Robert le Ray of Lowestoft, in company with thirty-three accomplices, had stolen goods from two local merchants (Stephen de Drayton and John de Belton) and nine Flemish ones and were awaiting trial at an oyer and terminer sessions to be held before John de Mutford and Edmund de Hemgrave. Peter de Beketon would have been from Pakefield, the Domesday vill of Beckton having been subsumed into that parish. Similarly, John de Wymdale would have had his roots in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Wimundhall, which had been absorbed by Kirkley. John de Mutford was an eminent royal justice and Edmund de Hemgrave, his son-in-law, was manorial lord of both Mutford parish and half-hundred. The outcome is not known, but the assemblage of persons engaged in the felonious activity was drawn from all over the local area (Covehithe and Dunwich are mentioned) and even included Roger le Man, the incumbent of Flixton Church!

The scale of the theft, in terms of the number of people involved, was not untypical. In May 1343, an assize of oyer and terminer was granted to John de Shardelow, John de Berneye, Robert de Clere and Thomas de Drayton concerning a complaint received from Simon Chaudry, a merchant of Berwick-on-Tweed. It was the plaintiff’s claim that the following people had forced entry to his ship: John Totelere [Tuteler], Robert de Rifshale [Ryveshale], John Gryme Snr., John Gryme Jnr., William Gryme, Richard Lacy, John Wartleyne [Watling?], Thomas de Yelverton, John Wyart [Wyatt] Jnr., John German, Richard Seneman, Henry Lacy, Henry de Eston, William de Rifshale [Ryveshale], Richard Vykerbrother, Robert Brid [Bird], John Fayrewedre [Fairweather] of Pakefield, Edmund Bone, William le Bowere, Richard Hed [Head], Richard le Bailiff, Alice Sad, Henry Alman, Nicholas Dekne [Deacon], John de Rothenhale, Warin Benetesbrother, Adam Hodelow, Geoffrey Gryme, Adam de Blundeston, John Sewhat, William Clifhous, Henry de Blundale [Brundale?], Thomas of the Toune [Town], John Wyart Snr. and others. The cargo had been removed, together with £20 in cash and 100 florins “with the shield”, and his servants assaulted and injured. The florins referred to were probably not Italian gold coins from the city-state of Florence, but French ecus bearing the fleur-de-lis on the obverse. Both coins were widely used as trading currency in medieval Europe. John de Rothenhale was lord of the manor of that name (Rothenhall) in Pakefield.

The head-count of thirty-four named persons (including one woman), along with others not named, probably exceeds the total involved in the earlier incident. A number of the surnames are recognisable as those of Lowestoft people, with those underlined appearing in the 1327 Lay Subsidy. Four months later, in September, a much larger concourse of people – this time from Yarmouth and its surrounding area – came to Lowestoft, raided ships belonging to Sir Robert de Morle [Morley] and carried off the cargoes. No names are given, but the number engaged in the act of robbery was put at 137 or more. Not so much a felonious visit, as an invasion! The task of investigating this act of rapine was given to John de Shardelowe, John de Berneye (both previously referred to), Peter de Ty and John de la Rokele. The outcome is not known, but it would appear that the Yarmouth contingent (if it may be so termed) had de Morley as its target rather than Lowestoft itself. He was a Norfolk knight, whose family took its name from Morley St. Botolph, near Wymondham, and he served as Admiral of the King’s Fleet in the North Sea. His commanding role at the great sea battle of Sluys, in 1340, was a key factor in the crushing victory achieved over the French.

It is known that Great Yarmouth contributed perhaps as much as one-third of the ships in action at Sluys. De Morley would have requisitioned vessels to serve and it may well have been the case that some were still in service three years later. It is possible, therefore, that the incursion from Yarmouth was the result of people trying to reclaim their craft. During the Hundred Years War period, the owners of ships impressed into the King’s battle-fleet were paid 3s 4d per ton carrying capacity per three-month period of requisition, with the masters receiving 6d a day and crew members 3d – plus any bonuses which might accrue from prize-money. Even at these rates of remuneration, extended periods of use must have been frustrating to both owners and crew in the way that normal trading operations were disrupted.

Other than acts of robbery from vessels which were either moored up in harbour or lying at anchor inshore, there were also examples of piracy out at sea. In December 1404, a commission was granted to John Arnold, serjeant-at-law, to investigate the claims of two German ship-masters and two merchants from Dansk [Danzig, a Hanseatic port] that their vessels had been captured between England and Zeeland by a fleet of about twelve craft. Men from Cromer and Blakeney were mentioned as being involved, as was a crayer from Kirkley owned by William Pye and Thomas Chalk. Three months later, in March 1405, a further reference to the incident named Pye as one of the persons involved, but mentioned only one German vessel as being victim of the outrage – a Prussian hulk called the Holycrist [Holy Christ]. Nine English boats, not twelve, were said to have been involved: six from London, one from Kirkley, one from Cley and one from Blakeney. A hulk being a large vessel used for the transporting of goods. 

The risks involved in maritime trade are also well illustrated in an incident February 1441, when three Dutch craft (loaded with fish and other merchandise belonging to four London merchants) had brought up in Kirkley Roads through fear of “enemies on the seas”. They were persuaded by a Plymouth balinger, with thirty-six armed men on board, that it would be safe for them to sail under its protection. Once under way, one of them, the Buysse (this being a variant of buss(e) – a craft used for general carriage and fishing) was attacked and its cargo stolen. A balinger was a stoutly built craft of the Late Medieval period, variously used for fishing, trading and military activity.The captured vessel was taken to Beaulieu, near Southampton, and the mayor of that port was ordered to arrest John Cornyssh and his craft [the balinger] and restore the Dutch ship and its cargo to Clays Claysson, the master. 

A similar act of aggression in April 1472 saw a Lowestoft vessel, the Margaret (probably named after the town’s patron saint), captured and robbed in Kirkley Roads by the Trynyte [Trinity] of Hull. William Hardingham, a merchant, had reported the theft as it was his cargo on board, and a commission of enquiry was granted to Sir Thomas Walgrave (mayor and sheriff of Kingston-upon-Hull), Richard Doughty and Dominic Bukton. An order was made for the master (Robert Laverok) and crew of the offending vessel to be arrested and brought before the Court of Chancery.    

There were times, it would seem, when collusion between vessels belonging to different countries took place in the committing of acts of piracy. Then, there were the examples of similar activity by English craft. Collaboration of the latter kind may have caused the granting of a commission in March 1476 to Sir John Howard [made Duke of Norfolk, in June 1483, by Richard III], Thomas Howard Esq. [his son], James Hobard [later to become Henry VII’s Attorney General], Thomas Sampson Esq., Thomas Appylton, William Smyth of Colchester and the Sheriffs of Essex and Suffolk, whereby they were charged to investigate a complaint made by Henry Hoveman and Barnard Grefyngk, two merchants from Lübeck [a Hanseatic port]. The men claimed that goods belonging to them (consisting of wheat, other merchandise and jewels, to the value of £267) had been stolen from the Marie [Mary] of Leith in Kirkley Road, while it was en route to Flanders. The offending vessels were named as the Jenet Peryn (master, Nicholas Schellem) and the Marie of Sandwich (master, Richard Lokwode). It was said that the booty had been taken to Harwich and a plea was made for its safe return. Jenet Peryn was probably the Jenet of Penrhyn [North Wales], referred to in naval lists of September 1513. The presence of it and the vessel from Hythe (as with the Plymouth balinger mentioned two paragraphs above) may serve to give some idea of the wide-ranging nature of ships involved in acts of piracy around the national coastlines. 

This grant of enquiry is repeated almost word for word in another source, dated the same day (13 March) – though with slight variation in the spelling of the names of those involved in the case and with additional information given. The incident is said to have taken place on the Feast of the Assumption and specific instructions were given to ascertain who had carried out the robbery and to make restitution of the goods, if possible, and to make financial reparation if not. The religious holiday identified establishes that the robbery had taken place the previous year (1475), on either of two possible dates. If the festival named was that celebrating the Virgin Mary’s ascension into Heaven, then 15 August was the one; if it referred to Christ’s own ascension, then 4 May was the day for that particular year (Ascension Day being the Thursday following the fifth Sunday after Easter).

More detailed information is available from the enquiry eventually held at Ipswich (in October 1476) before the men charged with conducting it – particularly with regard to the stolen cargo. There were 200 quarters of grain on board (worth £200), 100 yards of musterdele woollen cloth (worth 3s 4d a yard), eight pieces of kersey (worth £5 6s 8d), thirty-seven gold ryals, an old noble, two French crowns, a Scottish crown, half a ryal, a Flemish rydere, a gold signet (worth 25s), a diamond ring (worth 41s 8d), a coral rosary (worth 16s 9d), 300 ells of woollen cloth (worth £3 10s 0d) and a locked chest of goods (worth £9 10s 0d). The blame for the theft was laid squarely at the door of Richard Lokwode, together with “other evildoers and felons unknown”, and the criminal act was said to have taken place on the Friday before the Feast of the Assumption (11 August 1375, if the Virgin Mary’s festival; 28 April, if Ascension Day). And far from Harwich being the point of reception for the stolen goods, Lowestoft was named. A man called John Hunton, lately of Mutford, had taken the grain, but the other recipients of the goods were not known – and neither were the whereabouts of the goods themselves. Furthermore, John Hunton and other suspected persons did not have possessions able to be distrained and sold to provide compensation. 

Musterdele was produced at Muster-de-Villiers in Normandy; kersey was a woollen serge named after a village in the cloth-producing area of south-west Suffolk; the ryal was an English gold coin worth 6s 8d, minted during the 1460s to replace the earlier noble; the French crown or coronne was a gold coin, named after the design on the obverse; the Scottish crown or demy was gold coin worth 9-10s; and the Flemish rydere or chevalier was yet another European gold coin. The value given for the 300 ells of woollen cloth looks very low (even for a commodity of poor quality) and there may be an error in the length cited.

Postscript

The final word in this chapter turns, once again, to Lowestoft’s struggle with Great Yarmouth, which has manifested itself from time to time in the preceding material. Reference has been made elsewhere in the LO&N History pages to the sequence of repeals and re-grants of Yarmouth’s trading privileges during the final quarter of the 14th century (see The Lothingland-Lowestoft-Great Yarmouth Disputes, Part  2) and there were periodic statements of the latter made in the rival town by duly commissioned officers of The Crown. Neither the proclamations nor the proclaimers were well received and there were occasions when feelings ran high and breaches of the peace occurred. Some of these were sufficiently serious to draw the attention of the ruling authorities in London, with ensuing commissions of enquiry set up to investigate the unrest and bring the perpetrators to justice. Three such examples will be sufficient to illustrate the tension which existed between the two towns (at official level, especially) and serve to show that civil disorder is nothing new – whether planned in advance or simply the result of people reacting to what they saw as provocation.

There is no way of knowing for certain whether or not the people of Lowestoft had prior notice of when Yarmouth’s mercantile supremacy was to be declared publicly within their civic bounds (though there must be at least the possibility that they did) or whether they simply responded to something they saw as unacceptable. On 1 May 1378, John de Foxley, Under-sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, with the authorisation of his senior, Sir John Harsyk (himself under orders from The Crown), arrived in Lowestoft to proclaim Great Yarmouth’s liberties and privileges in the matter of local trade and to show his audience the letters patentgranting the same. He was met by a hostile crowd, which prevented him from carrying out his task, threatened him with violence and chased him out of town in shower of missiles and abuse (Gillingwater,Lowestoft, p. 129.)  Sir John Harsyk duly carried out an enquiry into the matter, which was held at Southtown on 12 September 1378. He was assisted by Roger de Hakenham, Walter Read, William Barker and other jurors, and the original wording of the proceedings is able to convey the atmosphere of what occurred on 1 May far more eloquently than any modern paraphrase. 

“They [i.e. jurors/witnesses] say upon their oath, that whereas the aforesaid sheriff had sent certain liberties, granted by the aforesaid lord the king, to the bailiffs and commonalty of the town of Great Yarmouth, by John de Foxley, his under sheriff, by virtue of a certain order of the lord the king, to him directed on that account, to cause them to be proclaimed, viz. on the feast of the Apostles Philip and James, last past; on which day the aforesaid under sheriff, at Lowestoft, intended to proclaim the aforesaid liberties according to the form thereof, and there openly showed the letters patent of the lord the king; on that account came Martin Terry, Stephen Shelford, Andrew de Lound, Robert Shincale [Shingle], J. Coote, Roger Caley, Richard Gall, Thomas Smyth, John Smyth, Thomas Murring, Thomas Soneman and William his brother, Henry Freberne and Emma his wife, J. Keene, Henry Boocher [Butcher], of Lowestoft; also John de Rookesburgh, John Spencer and Alice his wife, with a greater company of the men and women of the town aforesaid, of whose names they are ignorant, who, by the abetment and procurement of William Hammell, John Blower, Thomas de Wade, Richard Skinner, William Lacye, etc., they violently resisted and hindered him; some saying to the same sheriff, they would not suffer him to depart; others forcing his letters from him, and so with dangerous and reproachful words, etc., saying, that if he dared any more to come there for any execution of the lord the king, he should not escape. That for fear of death he durst not execute the writ aforesaid. And they drove him there and then with a multitude of rioters, with hue and cry, out of the town, casting stones at the heads of his men and servants, to the pernicious example and contempt of the lord the king, and against his peace.”  Again, Gillingwater, Lowestoft, p. 129.  

Edmund Gillingwater, Lowestoft’s late 18th century historian, does not reveal the source of this incident in his book and the writer has been unable to trace it. However, there are two similar episodes which are accessible – the first of which occurred six years after the one cited above and the second a further seven years on. The disorder may not have been entirely the result of Lowestoft’s resentment of Great Yarmouth’s commercial privileges. John Ridgard, the Suffolk medievalist, noted that the Island of Lothingland was a centre of disturbance during the period of the Peasants’ Revolt (1381), so it is possible that the Lowestoft-Yarmouth dispute(s) became enmeshed with the wider feeling of discontent present among the lower orders of society at the time. This would have ensured that any visible sign of government authority provoked a reaction among people already far from happy with current social and economic trends and more than ready to vent their anger on anyone seen as representing the established order.

In September 1384, a commission was granted to Robert de Ufford, Richard Waldegrave, William Wyngefelde [Wingfield], Richard Hembrugge [Hamburg?] and the Sheriff of Suffolk to enquire concerning “divers rebellions and injuries to the king’s ministers in the execution of his mandates at Lowestoft, co. Suffolk, so that they fled for their lives leaving the same unexecuted, and to seize and bring before the king in Chancery all persons indicted thereof.” The outcome of this order is not known, but it has a familiar ring about it and is mirrored in a record of October 1401, whereby the Duke of Hereford [sic] gave the following report to the Royal Council. On 29 September, the Yarmouth bailiffs were granted the right, by letters patent, to proclaim their privileges in Kirkley Road. One bailiff and three burgesses had gone to Lowestoft and presented the king’s writ to William Spenser, Richard Langelee [Langley] and Geoffrey Palmer, the local constables. These three men had refused to receive the Yarmouth deputation and assembled “a great crowd”, which was armed and which threatened to kill the Yarmouth officials. The Chancellor [Edmund Stafford, Bishop of Exeter] was authorised to summon representatives from Yarmouth to Westminster and to send serjeants-at-arms to bring before him the three Lowestoft constables, plus John Boef [Boof] Snr., John Boef Jnr., Stephen Lacy, Thomas Somer [Summer], Simon Clerc [Clark], Thomas Calk [Chalk], John Pye, John Richer, Richard Stayngate and John Cof [Coffe] Baxter [baker], as well as others involved – all of whom were to be punished accordingly, if found guilty, punished accordingly. 

Again, no outcome has been traced – but, a clear picture is presented of civic volatility at the time and of people’s willingness to use violence as a means of expressing their feelings and achieving what they wanted. On which note, this lengthy account of trading irregularities along the local coastline during the 14th and 15th centuries must come to an end.

• The whole of this article is a re-writing and corrective update of Chapter 5 in this writer’s book Medieval Lowestoft (2016).

CREDIT: David Butcher