Part I.—Lowestoft in the 14th Century.
Lowestoft lies hid in oblivion for some 300 years after her appearance in Domesday. During this time great changes had taken place in the country at large as well as in Lowestoft. A new regime had been established, under which Saxon and Angle, Dane and Norman, had been welded into one nation, and laws and institutions were in force, which are familiar features in our present legal and political system. Although still 500 years from the present time, England, in Edward III.’s reign, was much more like the England of to-day than the country described in Domesday. Foreign trade had sprung up. Wheat and wool were grown in large quantities and exported from Yarmouth and other ports. The penny was no longer the only silver coin, and gold coins of several different sizes and values were in circulation. Last, and not least, the herring fishery was being carried on to a very large extent on this coast, and was an object of national and international importance.
It is in the middle of Edward III.’s reign that Lowestoft appears for the second time in our national records. But she is no longer the insignificant agricultural village of Domesday. She is evidently a rising little town, in the modern sense of the word, carrying on a sea trade of some importance in fish and other light merchandise. She had ceased for some years to be “Royal demesne,” and was now the property of the King’s cousin—John, Duke of Brittany and Earl of Richmond—to whom the manor of Gorleston and the rest of the Royal estates in this neighbourhood had been given by the King’s grandfather, Edward I.
It was at this time that she was brought into prominence by a long Parliamentary contest with Yarmouth about the right to buy and land herrings at Lowestoft from foreign and west country fishermen anchored in the roads opposite her shore, then called Kirkley Road.
That you may understand the full import of the circumstances which brought about this contest with Yarmouth we must take a glance at the history of that town up to that period.
Rise of Yarmouth.
The origin of Yarmouth is unique; the bar of a wide Estuary, a sandbank in the sea, seized upon for human habitation before even nature herself had trusted it with any vegetation beyond a few patches of marram grass to bind the sand together.
Who the bold fishermen were—whether Angles or Danes (probably Danes) who first dared to build cottages on such a site we know not, nor when the occupation of this sandbank first began. The name of the “Cerdick Sands” which the Saxons had given it, implies that it was well above water in the earliest part of the Saxon period, whether Cerdick did or not pay his traditionary visit to this spot. It must have been in that condition several years before the time of Edward the Confessor, when, as we have already learnt from Domesday, Yarmouth was a town of some wealth and importance. The following well approved tradition of the origin of Yarmouth is given by an old writer (Jeakes) in his History of the Cinque Ports.
“Beside the staple trade of these towns (the Cinque Ports) consisting much in fishing, not only of fresh fish at home, but of herring every year in the season thereof at Yarmouth, where bringing them ashore in the sale and delivery among the multitude, divers differences and stirs arose for want of a settled order in that town, or as tradition still reports, before there was any town or any show of a town than some huts and cabins set up near the waterside like the booths and huts in a fair; and that during the time of the herring fair there the Ports were forced to agree and join together yearly to elect and send thither their Bailiffs to abide there during the herring season allowing them a certain sum for their expenses.”
The rapid growth of Yarmouth from a few fishermen’s “huts and cabins” to one of the most important and populous sea ports in the country was evidently due to her great natural advantages. She possessed a large and deep harbour, with a long natural quay, the inside face of the sandbank. Her position commanded the entrance to four rivers which were navigable by light craft for many miles into Norfolk and Suffolk. Last but not least the town was most conveniently situated as a rendezvous for fishermen coming from the Cinque ports, and other places in the South of England, as well as from France and Holland to take part in the autumnal herring harvest.
From William the Conqueror downwards our Kings were well aware of the importance of Yarmouth, for the defence of the East Coast, and of the value of the herring fishery. Charters and ordinances were issued to regulate the autumnal Herring Fair, and to insure its being conducted on strictly free-trade principles, while the Yarmouth merchants made good use of their position as the seat of the trade, and produced in a few years a fleet of ships and sailors, which in Edward the III.’s time was able to take a leading part in our naval history.
We first hear of Yarmouth’s naval exploits in her quarrels with the Cinque Ports. After Yarmouth had obtained “Home Rule” under the charter of King John, she resented being any longer nursed by the Barons of the Cinque Ports, in the management of the autumnal Herring Fair, and she grudged the rights given to the western fishermen to use her harbour and her denes during the season for their own advantage.
In times when it was a common practice for Parliament and the Crown to give special privileges to towns or other bodies, without providing any adequate means for securing their enjoyment, the practice of taking the law into your own hands, which is proverbially a mistake in these days, was the only means by which the possessors of privileges could maintain them, and accordingly we find Yarmouth and the Cinque ports repeatedly engaged in what can only be described as naval wars, arising from some conflict in the provisions of their respective charters.
In 1281 Yarmouth was fined £1,000 for doing divers trespasses and damages to the Cinque Ports upon the south coast as far as Shoreham, Portsmouth and other places.
In 1303 we find Yarmouth sending ships to join the Royal fleet which was to escort Edward I. to Flanders. Having put the King ashore the Yarmouth and the Cinque Ports men, being well equipped for fight take the opportunity of paying off old scores by engaging in a furious battle in which 25 Yarmouth ships were burnt. According to another account 37 Yarmouth ships were greatly damaged and £15,000 worth of loss inflicted.
We have other evidence of Yarmouth’s naval power in the reign of Edward III. In 1337 Yarmouth supplies Edward III. with 20 “men of war” (as they were called) to carry the King’s ambassadors to Hainault. On their return they did a little privateering business on their own account and took two Flemish ships laden with provisions for Scotland, and killed the Bishop of Glasgow who was unfortunately on board one of them.
In 1340 Yarmouth contributed 52 ships to the Fleet with which Edward won the battle of the Swin against France off Sluys in Holland. The admiral of this fleet was John Perebrown, a Yarmouth man, whose name appears some 15 times in the lists of Bailiffs. Edward was particularly proud of this victory. He had a new gold coinage issued to commemorate it, the first nobles struck, bearing an effigy of himself sitting in the middle of a ship, with a shield on his left arm bearing the arms of England and France.
In 1342 Edward came himself to Yarmouth and sailed with a fleet of 20 Yarmouth ships to the coast of Brittany, where he was engaged in laying siege to the town of Vannes. Having landed the king the Yarmouth ships are attacked by the French fleet, and being worsted (doubtless by a superior force) they take to flight leaving the king in the lurch. The king having managed, with the assistance of the Pope, to make a truce with France, comes home and at once summons all the owners as well as the captains and the crews of the Yarmouth ships to “answer for their contemptibly deserting him, leaving other our faithful subjects there with us in danger of our lives.”
The names of the ships and of all their owners and captains, are entered in the Kings’ writ of summons [31] and they are required to attend with all the sailors at Westminster. We do not hear of their being punished. They probably were able to satisfy the King that on this occasion discretion was the better part of valour, and we find them fighting for the King again 5 years afterwards. This was in 1347 when he was engaged in the celebrated siege of Calais.
On this occasion Yarmouth contributed no less than 43 ships to the Royal fleet and 1075 mariners, a larger number of ships and men than even London supplied.
The importance of Yarmouth at this time and the magnitude of it’s fleet relative to that of other towns is shown by the fact that the total number of ships which the Cinque Ports themselves were required to supply was 57.
According to a statement in the petition of the town to Henry VII., Yarmouth had at this time 80 ships with forestages and 170 ships without. The larger ships were apparently about the size of a 100 ton ship of the present day.
These records are interesting in themselves, and are important episodes in our national history. I have quoted them for the purpose of showing the magnitude and importance of Yarmouth at this time. A town which could fit out 43 ships for the King’s Navy and man them with 1075 sailors at their own cost, (for the King only paid for the maintenance of the sailors while in his service), must have been both wealthy and populous. She had acquired her wealth and naval power almost entirely from the herring fishery, and from the large extent to which her own population was engaged in it. But the trade carried on by her merchants during the autumn season with the fish catchers and fish buyers from other towns at home and abroad contributed largely to the wealth of the town. It appears from a return which has been preserved of the amount taken for the murage tax, (a small charge on ships and merchandise added to the harbour dues towards the expense of building the town wall) that the amount received in the year 1343 during the weeks comprising the herring season was £54 6s. out of a total sum of £66 7s. 11d. collected during the twelve months. The entries show the large number of foreign vessels coming to the Autumn Fair. In five days in September in this year, 60 foreign ships entered the harbour, of which 10 were from Lombardy. [32]
The Black Plague at Yarmouth.
It was when Yarmouth was in the height of her prosperity, and the herring trade becoming more and more valuable owing to the superstitious importance attached to the rules as to fasting, that she was destined to suffer a ruinous collapse from which she did not recover for several centuries, and which deprived her for ever of the position of eminence as a naval town which she had held during the first half of the 14th century. The main cause of her fall was the loss within the space of a few months of more than half her population from the terrible epidemic known as the Black Plague. Great as was the destruction of life from this fell disease in other towns and parishes in the country, there could have been no town where the destruction of life was greater and the consequent impoverishment more felt. Probably no town in England was more favourably conditioned for the work of the destroyer. A large population of poor fishermen and sailors were crowded together in small hovels, closely packed within the walls, in double rows, separated by narrow alleys of six feet or less in breadth. This arrangement had evidently been adopted by the first occupants of the storm-swept sandbank for convenience and warmth. But it was an arrangement terribly conducive to the rapid spread of any infectious disease which had once gained a footing in the town.
In that year (1349), according to the account given a hundred and fifty years afterwards by the town’s people themselves in a petition to Henry VII., more than half the population, including many of its leading merchants fell victims to the disease.
“In the 31st (sic) year of the reign of King Edward the 3rd by a great visitation of Almighty God there was so great death of people within the same towne that there was buried in the parish church and church yard of the said towne in one year 7052 men, by reason whereof the most part of the dwelling places and the inhabitations of the said towne stode desolate, and fell into utter ruin and decay, which at this day are gardens and void grounds as evidently appeareth.” [33]
Whatever may have been the exact population of Yarmouth at the time of this terrible visitation (it could not have been more than 10 or 12,000) it must have been a very different town after 1350 to what it was in the first half of the century, and although the merchants might retain their hold upon the herring trade, the loss of so large a part of the fishing population must have made them much more dependant upon their visitors for the supply of fish in the autumn season than before.
Yarmouth Harbour Blocked Up.
But the loss of fishermen was not the only affliction from which Yarmouth was to suffer. The continuance of her trade and even of her very existence was in peril from the blocking up of her harbour. During the whole period during which the town was itself growing, from the time of the Conquest to that of which we are now treating, the sandbank on which it was built was being gradually extended southwards, enclosing the river, and carrying its mouth further and further South, until at the beginning of the 14th century the mouth of the Yarmouth Harbour was opposite the Gunton Denes and within a mile of Lowestoft. In a few more years the mouth of the Yare would have been at Lowestoft, and Lowestoft would have occupied a more favourable position for the trade of the Yare than Yarmouth itself. Lowestoft had already taken advantage of the opportunities which the nearness of the Harbour mouth gave her of getting a share in the herring trade. The sea opposite her shore then called “Kirkley Road” offered the same resting place for wind-bound ships as it does now, and as the mouth of the Haven was always in the condition of being more or less blocked with sand, it only needed a little enterprise on the part of Lowestoft people to get fishing boats bound for Yarmouth to discharge their herrings on the Gunton denes, rather than incur the certain loss of time in waiting for the tide to carry them up to Yarmouth quay, and the danger of being wrecked at the harbour mouth.
In the early part of the century, when Yarmouth was in her most flourishing condition, she had both men and money, and she had undertaken the first of her numerous efforts to remedy this chronic trouble by cutting out a new mouth for her harbour. This mouth, which was on the north side of Corton, was kept open for some 26 years.
Although during this time the herring trade carried on by Yarmouth, with its harbour and Free Fair, was out of all proportion to that of the seaside villages in its neighbourhood, it is evident that Lowestoft and Winterton, and perhaps some of the other villages, had taken part in the international trade of the autumn season, besides catching herrings in their own boats.
The rules as to fasting during Lent, as well as on Fridays and Saturdays in every week during the year, which were strictly enforced at this time by a powerful Church, had rendered the east coast herring trade a matter of national importance. The ability to purchase red herrings for lenten fare was a necessity for the salvation, not only of the lives, but of the souls of the people. Even our soldiers when engaged in war had to observe the rules as to fasting. In 1358 we hear of 50 lasts of herring being shipped at Portsmouth for the use of the army in France. In 1429 Sir John Fastolf was serving in the Duke of Bedford’s army at the siege of Orleans. Sir John was himself of an old Yarmouth family. Several members of his family were on the lists of bailiffs for the previous century, and he is said to have had a house in Yarmouth as well as his Castle at Caister near by. His connection with Yarmouth probably enabled him to procure a supply of herrings for the army not altogether without profit to himself. At all events on Ash-Wednesday, 1429, he had charge of a train of 500 wagons of herrings on its way from Paris to Orleans. He was attacked by a large force of French at a village near Orleans. He had recourse to the tactics we have so often heard of lately in our wars in South Africa. He formed his wagons into laager, and from behind these defences the English Archers shot their arrows with such deadly effect, that they drove the enemy off with great slaughter, and Sir John got his herrings safely into camp. This was the Battle of Herrings, one of the most celebrated victories in the French wars.
In order to secure an abundant provision of herrings at a cheap price, the Parliament of 1357 passed the well known Statute of Herrings, which was aimed particularly at securing the conduct of the Free Fair, and of the Yarmouth herring trade, in the interests of the country at large. It is evident from the preamble to this statute that it was aimed directly against the practice of the Yarmouth merchants “forestalling” the Fair by buying their herrings from the ships which anchored in the roads outside the harbour mouth.
In order to prevent the Yarmouth merchants supplying themselves by this means to the disadvantage of the general purchaser at the Fair, the statute enacts that the fishers after having supplied the “London Pykers” (a special exception in favour of London)—
“Shall bring all the remnant of their herring to the said fair to sell there, so that none shall sell herring in any place about the haven of Great Yarmouth by seven “Leues” (Leucæ or Leagues) unless it be herring of their own catching.”
This prohibition against “forestalling” the Fair, although aimed directly against the Yarmouth merchants themselves, evidently applied equally to all persons coming from Lowestoft, or any other place, to buy herrings from ships in Kirkley Road. It was not, however, the intention of Parliament at this time to give any monopoly to Yarmouth; and within two years after the passing of this statute, we find that an ordinance was issued expressly exempting Lowestoft and Winterton from this prohibition.
This ordinance enacted that—
“If the fishers be in free will to sell their herrings in the said road after they be anchored there, it shall be lawful for the merchants of Lowestoft and Winterton to buy herrings of the fishers, as free as the London pycards, to serve their carts and horses that come thither from other countries, and to hang there.”
This would appear to be the earliest record in which Lowestoft appears, since Domesday, which furnishes any evidence of her having risen from the humble status she occupied at that time.
Although this notice of Lowestoft does not imply that Lowestoft in 1359 was a larger place than Winterton then was, it shows very clearly that a trade in herrings, at all events during the Autumnal season, had been established here, and that it was considered of sufficient importance to deserve a special ordinance permitting its continuance, notwithstanding the statute of Herrings. It also tells us what the system of trade at Lowestoft was at this time. Lowestoft men went out to the foreign and other fishing boats when anchored in the roads, and bought and landed herrings on the Denes. Here they were sold to the “peddlers” or travelling fish merchants, who, having loaded their pack horses and their carts, started off homewards, to sell their fish as fresh as possible in distant inland towns.
The last words of the proviso “and to hang there” clearly authorised the Lowestoft merchants not only to buy fish for resale, but to supply themselves with herrings for hanging in their own fish houses.