Lowestoft in olden times

by Francis Davy Longe

The Merchant.

What foreign trade was in Saxon time appears from the account which the merchant gives of his business—

“I say that I am useful to the king, and to ealdermen, and to the rich, and to the people. I ascend my ship with my merchandise, and sail over the sealike places, and sell my things, and buy dear things which are not produced in this land, and I bring them to you here with the great danger of the sea, and sometimes I suffer shipwreck, with the loss of all my things, scarcely escaping myself. What do you bring to us?—Skins, silks, costly gums and gold, various garments, pigment, wine, oil, ivory, orichalcus, copper, tin, silver, glass, and such like. Will you sell your things here as you brought them there?—I will not, because what would my labour benefit me? I will sell them here dearer than I bought them there that I may have some profit to feed me and my wife and children.”

So you see the Saxon merchant was an enterprising skipper, who owned his ship, and having filled it with a cargo of English produce, took it over to some foreign port and exchanged it for a cargo of foreign goods, of all sorts and kinds, which he brought back and sold at a high price in England.

The Fisherman.

We have a sketch of a fisherman of the Saxon period, drawn by no less a personage than Alfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was living in the 11th century and was the wisest man of his time, according to the Saxon chronicle. He wrote some colloquies for his pupils to turn into Latin. One of them treats of the fisherman:—

“What gettest thou by thy art?—Big loaves, clothing, and money. How do you take fish?—I ascend my ship, and cast my net into the river; I also take a hook, a bait, and a rod. Suppose the fishes are unclean?—I throw the unclean out, and take the clean for food. Where do you sell your fish?—In the city. Who buys them?—The citizens; I cannot take so many as I can sell. What fishes do you take?—Eels, haddocks, minnows, eel-pouts, skate, and lampreys, and whatever swims in the river. (The Archbishop rather mixed his fresh-water and saltwater fish). Why do you not fish in the sea?—Sometimes I do, but rarely because a great ship is necessary there. What do you take in the sea?—Herrings, salmon, porpoises, sturgeons, oysters, crabs, muscles, winkles, cockles, flounder, plaices, lobsters, and such like. Can you take a whale?—No, it is dangerous to take a whale; it is safer for me to go to the river with my ship than to go with many ships to hunt whales. Why?—Because it is more pleasant to me to take fish which I can kill with one blow. Yet many take whales without danger, and then they get a great price, but I dare not for the fearfulness of my mind.”

These whale catchers were Norwegians and Danes, who, when they were not raiding in England, employed themselves in whale fishing off the Norwegian Coast.

Intellectual Condition of our Ancestors.

But these Anglo-Danes of East Anglia were our ancestors. They lived in the same villages, and tilled the same land as the peasantry of the present day, and many of our country parishes must have been in Saxon times very much what they are now, in which the squire and the parson fill the places of the thane and the parish priest and a few farmers holding land under the squire, and agricultural labourers, enough and no more, than are required to cultivate the land, with perhaps a village blacksmith and shoemaker, complete the roll of the resident population. The intellectual condition of our ancestors must have been very low. Mr. Turner describes it as the “twilight of mind,” and he says there is a great similarity in their poetry to that of the natives of New Zealand. Even the thanes and magnates of the land were, with a very few exceptions, entirely uneducated, and if they had learnt to read there would have been few books from which they could have got any knowledge. King Alfred was one of the few who could read in his time. With the upper classes in such a barbarous condition no wonder we are told that gross excess in eating and drinking was their characteristic failing. Even the great and good Alfred is said to have destroyed his constitution by having to take part in banqueting for several days and nights in celebration of his wedding. The prevalence of this low vice may be to a great extent attributed to the want of any means by which the produce of their farms could be made a better use of. It was not until trade sprung up that they could sell their surplus produce and spend the proceeds in the purchase of things which would lead to a higher and more civilised standard of living. But during the whole of the Saxon period the monotonous routine of their agricultural occupations was only varied by war, which was frequent enough; and as war in those days was always accompanied by devastation and slaughter, the slow progress of our Saxon fore-fathers in wealth and civilisation is easily accounted for, and we can well understand how it was that this fertile country was only partially cultivated when the Normans came over, and how it was that the Conqueror found his property in “Lothuwistoft” in such a backward state.