|
|
Pre
1216 | Please click here to look back at events in and prior to 1216. | | 1216 | After the traumatic events of King John's reign, his son Henry III came to the throne in October at the age of nine. The Civil War which followed John's renunciation of his Magna Carta ended as the barons rallied to Henry. As he was under age his throne was administered by a group of Barons led by William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke and Hubert de Burgh, as well as Archbishop Langton. They enhanced the role of the Great Council and adopted Magna Carta principles, re-issuing it in November 1216 with 42 clauses.
The French, however, were still in the country, and determined to take over under Prince Louis, who had declared himself king.
The year 1216 is sometimes taken to be the end of the Anglo-Norman, or Early Medieval period, and the start of the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages can be reckoned to last until 1348, when the era becomes known as Late Medieval, 1348-1485. The story of Suffolk in the thirteenth century was to be one of growth and prosperity.
| | 1217 | Magna Carta, or The Great Charter was again modified and reissued along with a Charter of the Forest. Roger of Wendover mistakenly attributed this version to King John and 1215.
Orford Castle was surrendered to Prince Louis of France, who had launched an expedition into England, and attacked several towns around the south east. There is no record of him attacking Bury St Edmunds, but it has been suggested that he did come to Bury, and made off with the relics of St Edmund, returning to France with his remains. This is the thesis of Father Houghton's book on St Edmund, but this event has no evidence to support it in records of the abbey.
The Bury Chronicle recorded that many Frenchmen were killed in the battle at Lincoln on 19th June. Also that on 24th August the French fleet arriving in the Thames estuary to help Louis were sunk. Louis returned to France and about 8th September, "the great gift of peace was granted once more after two and a half years war". | | 1219 | A great school of history was established at St Albans when Roger of Wendover began his History of the World. His account of the struggle of the Barons with King John is the only known account of the involvement of Bury St Edmunds in the story. | | 1225 | Henry III issued his final version of Magna Carta and its main principles remain in law today, and were only slightly amended in 1297. This is the final version which has become so important today, with only minor changes in 1297. It still stands in the law books today as Chapter 25, Edward I.
When Henry III came of age he tried to regain control from the Great Council but he was extravagant and somewhat incompetent.
The Bury Chronicle notes that the Order of the Friars minor (Franciscans) and the Order of the Preaching Friars (Dominicans) established themselves for the first time in England. These orders would come to be a challenge to the established monastic orders in future years, both in their spiritual authority and in their claims to the moral leadership of the people. | | 1226 | The Bishop of Ely obtained a charter to set up a market on the major road from Bury to Ipswich in the corner of his manor of Barking. He created Needham Market as a settlement around it. Unlike Lakenheath in 1201, this market was safely outside the Liberty of St Edmund. | | 1229 | Hugh de Northwold, abbot at Bury was consecrated Bishop of Ely. His place as abbot was taken by Richard de Insula, the abbot at Burton. He ruled from 1229 to 1233. | | 1230 | King Henry III crossed into Brittany with an army. | | C. 1230 | At some period in the early thirteenth century, Mabel of Bury St Edmunds became one of the most famous needlewomen in Europe. Little is known about Mabilla or Mabel of Bury St Edmunds except that her work is referred to by name in the Royal Wardrobe accounts of the court of Henry III. We believe that the type of needlework for which she was famous was called Opus Anglicanum or English work. It was used for ecclesiastical vestments, altar frontals and other ceremonial purposes and was thus richly worked and expensive. The work was sent to other ecclesiastical houses here and abroad as well as to foreign royal courts. Mabel was so highly regarded that she became a King's pensioner. Opus Anglicanum was made by both men and women and was highly prized. Today her name is continued by the Mabilla Group who have their headquarters at the Manor House Museum and support the textile collections of the Borough. | | 1232 | The Earl of Kent was imprisoned by the king. His wife fled for sanctuary to St Edmund's, and she remained there in safety until peace was made with the king in 1234. The king had ordered her capture, but in deference to the Liberty of St Edmund, respected the sanctuary which it could offer to fugitives. | | 1233 | Abbot Richard died abroad on his way to visit the pope. Henry the Prior at Bury was elected to replace him. | | 1235 | Roger of Wendover died at St Albans, having continued to write his History of the World up to the end. The task was taken over by Matthew Paris, who re-wrote much of the text with his own embellishments in the years up to 1259, when he himself died. | | 1238 | The Franciscans first came to England in 1224 with their establishment at Canterbury. The Benedictines tried to resist these incursions into their territories.
In 1238, Hawisia, Countess of Oxford, granted the Franciscan Friars a site in the town of Bury St Edmunds. The Manor of Maidwater around today's Maynewater Lane area was part of the Honour of Clare and the House of Clare was a supporter of the Franciscans. Nearby is Friar's Lane and they seemed to have set up an unofficial base there. The Abbot challenged this, saying that St Edmund's had a spiritual monopoly within the banleuca.
Otto, the cardinal deacon of Caecere Tulliano, had been made Papal Legate in 1237, and came to England. After the Council of Oxford, he came to Bury, where the Chronicle records that the Preaching Friars appealed to him for somewhere to live within St Edmund's Liberty. After inspecting the boundaries, the Papal Legate agreed that neither the Friars Minor (the Franciscans) nor the Preaching Friars (the Dominicans) were entitled to settle in Bury St Edmunds.
These events are rather confused in the Chronicle. We are not clear whether there was a dispute about whether the Manor of Maidwater was inside or outside the banleuca, or within the Liberty, or whether it was about the right of the abbey to a spiritual monopoly. Probably, like any legal case, several arguments were advanced at once. | | 1239 | Haverhill's first church was St Marys at Burton End. Before 1200 there was a chapel (also St Marys) in the market place which was officially dedicated by Edmund, Archbishop of York, around 1239. This is part of the present parish church. For the next 300 years there were two churches, less than half a mile apart. Burton End church was called Upper, or Bovetown (ie above town) Church, while the market place church was called Lowerchurch. Eventually in 1551 people decided they could maintain the old church no longer and petitioned King Edward VI to remove it. No trace of it remains. | | 1245 | The monks at Bury were greatly impressed when they heard that Queen Eleanor had given birth to a son, and that he was to be named Edmund after the saint and martyr. On 18th January King Henry III wrote to ask the abbot to announce this to his monks. | | 1247 | Perhaps Haverhill's most famous son was William de Haverhill, who became Treasurer to King Henry III in 1247, also a Canon of St Pauls. He was a great success and played an outstanding part in keeping the country on an even keel. Little else is known about him.
The Bury Chronicle recorded that there was an alteration to the coinage of England and King Henry granted a newly cut die to St Edmund's. The new die was to be used freely with the right of exchange, just as the king himself used his dies. The new mandate was issued in December. It may be that the town had been left out of this change initially, as there is evidence that two monks, Edmund de Walpole and Thomas, went from Bury with charters to see the barons of the exchequer to prove that the abbot of St Edmund had the right to a mint and exchange. | | 1248 | Abbot Henry of Bury died in June. In July Master Edmund de Walpole was elected abbot. He had only been "two years in religion from the day he professed to the day of his election." He must have been an outstanding figure to achieve this, and it had been him who had led the delegation to retain minting rights in the previous year. | | 1250 | The Candlemas Guild built a porch on to the Guildhall in Bury. | | 1252 | At the death of William de Haverhill in 1252, things began to go wrong for King Henry III, ending six years later in civil war.
The famous chronicler Matthew of St Albans wrote, "Nevermore will mourning Haverhill give birth to any like him."
The Bury Chronicle recorded that the summer was so hot that it killed many people. It also noted that Prior Richard died in October, and was succeeded by Simon de Luton. However, what was noteworthy was that he was selected by the new method of scrutiny. This entailed the abbot and two monks taking a vote orally from each monk. Before this date the Abbot had appointed the Prior, but the convent had now secured a prominent part in his appointment. | | 1253 | According to the Chronicle the sea flooded its shore and submerged many coastal districts. | | 1254 | Representative knights of the Shires were formally summoned to the Great Council, probably for the first time, to report on decisions made in Shire Courts. They were running their local areas through the Shire Courts.
King Henry went to France to pacify the inhabitants of Gascony. He then visited Pontigny to visit the Shrine of St Edmund the Confessor. Edmund Rich had been Archbishop of Canterbury, but died in 1240 at Pontigny. He was canonised in 1247, and should not be confused with St Edmund, King and Martyr, whose shrine was, of course, at Bury St Edmunds. | | 1256 | Abbot Edmund de Walpole of Bury died on 31st December. | | 1257 | The king's brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, was elected King of Germay in January. On route to his new kingdom, he stopped at St Edmund's.
On 14th January Simon de Luton, the Prior was elected Abbot of St Edmund's. The Pope refused to confirm him as abbot unless he travelled to Rome in person. Simon was thus the first abbot from any of the exempt abbeys of England to have to go to Rome for confirmation of his election. Not only was this tedious, but also very expensive. This trip cost £2,000, and it now became the norm for new abbots to have to make this journey.
Henry III was persuaded by the Pope to accept the kingdom of Sicily for his son Edmund. The snag was that he would have to raise an army to conquer the island. The Barons refused to provide the money for this venture and the Great Council tried to set up its own Government. It started to think of itself as a Parliament.
Henry the Goldsmith was one of the richest men in Bury and he kept his sheep in his own sheepfold, despite the fact that everybody else had to pay rent to use Abbey folds. Abbey servants raided his farm, beat up the shepherds and scattered the sheep. Henry was sure that he had the legal right to have his own folds, and as many sheep had died following the outrage, he appealed to the King. The king asked Gilbert of Preston, one of his Justices, hear the complaint.
The Bury Chronicle recorded that on 22nd June the Friars Minor entered the town of St Edmund's by stealth. The Franciscans celebrated mass in an audible voice in the presence of all comers, but unknown to the convent. The local Franciscan Friars Minor were saying mass in the home of a local supporter, Sir Roger de Harbridge just by the east side of the Northgate. Meanwhile, when Sir Roger and the Friars sat down to dinner, the Abbey's supporters were demolishing the Friars' Oratory and buildings in an attempt to drive them out.
The friars had considerable support. King Henry III, Gilbert de Clare and many burgesses wanted to help them break the monopoly of the abbey within the banleuca.
Abbey power was again challenged however, when the Franciscan Friars gained permission from Pope Alexander IV to settle within the Liberty of St Edmund. They set themselves up under the abbey's nose in a farm within Northgate. The abbey expelled them despite the Pope's blessing and the Pope had to call in the Bishop of Lincoln to try to enforce his wishes. He would not call on the Bishop of Norwich for help as he was sympathetic to the Abbot's cause. After this, not only were the Friars thrown out of town, but so was the delegation of the Bishop of Lincoln.
Despite Lavenham being within the Liberty of St Edmund, the Earl of Oxford gained a charter to hold a Whitsun Fair and a market every Tuesday in his manor at Lavenham. | | 1258 | This was a year of shortages as there had been extensive floods in July of 1257, and the price of corn had now rocketed out of reach of the poor. The Bury Chronicle said that many died of hunger.
The Chronicle also recorded that the great men of the land were exasperated with the Queen, the King's brother, and their French kinsmen who behaved like tyrants wherever they held sway. The king was forced to send them into exile.
On 25th April, the Chronicle recorded a forced entry into the town by the Friars Minor, with royal authority and armed force, led by Gilbert de Preston, the justice of the King's bench. The Chronicle said, indignantly, "This was a violation of the rights and privileges of the Liberty of St Edmund."
In November the king was at Bury when a gale blew down many houses, trees and towers. | | 1259 | Matthew Paris, the great Chronicler, died at St Albans. Much of the known story of Bury and the Magna Carta was recorded by him and Roger of Wendover, his predecessor. For the thirty years after Paris's death there was no more history written at St Albans. The Bury Chronicle becomes valuable to historians after 1265 because of this.
The king sent two writs to the alderman, over the head of the abbot, asking them to help the Franciscans. The first was in February and called on him to protectand cherish them. The second, in July, ordered him to allow the friars to build a chapel and worship there, despite the opposition of the Sacrist of the Abbey.
Following a nine year law suit, Richard de Clare, the Earl of Gloucester, reached an agreement with the convent over lands in Mildenhall and Icklingham. | | 1260 | A quarrel broke out between the king and the magnates because the Provisions of Oxford had been very little observed. Simon de Montfort emerged as the leader of the Baronage, recorded the Chronicle of Bury. The Great Council of Barons tended to break into feuding sections and the King started a war to wrest back his control. This is known as the Barons' War. Only the barons who stayed with Simon de Montfort were ready to take on the King.
The debts of the abbey amounting to 5,000 marks, were divided equally between the Abbot and the Convent.
At about this time, Papal Commissioners were sent to Bury to try to sort out the Abbey's dispute with the Friars, but the Abbot refused to see them. The King intervened and the Friars were put up by St Peter's Hospital while their future was pondered. | | 1262 | Pope Alexander died in 1261, and his successor Urban, was apparently less sympathetic to the Franciscans. After he received a delegation from the Bury Benedictines, the Franciscan Friars were ordered to pull down their buildings in Bury and leave town. They did this in November 1262. | | 1263 | The King obtained the Pope's permission to renege on the Provisions of Oxford. The Chronicle records that the barons now sent out men to plunder England. The Bishop of Hereford was locked up and to avoid a similar fate, the Bishop of Norwich fled to the security of St Edmund's Liberty. "For at this time the Liberty of St Edmund was exceedingly precious in the eyes of the barons". The king of France was asked to arbitrate between the parties.
According to the Bury Chronicle, the Friars Minor voluntarily gave up their place in the town, despite the king's order. They had lived there for 5 years, 6 months and 24 days. A papal letter had been received ordering them to leave the said place.
King Henry III was on the side of the Franciscan Friars, particularly because his wife Eleanor, was a supporter of the whole mendicant movement. The friars wanted to stay in West Suffolk, and with the King's support they were able to do this. The Abbey finally gave the Franciscans a permanent home at Babwell just outside the Banleuca where today's Priory Hotel stands. There have been remains of a mill found behind the Tollgate Inn, possibly associated with the Friary.
However the Grey Friars could not enter town without the abbot's permission, and thus were excluded from an easy involvement in civic life. It is not surprising that they tended to side with the townspeople in their disputes with the abbey. In turn they won many friends in town.
They were not the only religious dissidents against the abbey. The rectors with livings in the town, and the so-called secular priests, were treated as second class churchmen by the monks and in turn they also sided with town against abbey. This religious backing was to become important to the burgesses in their growing struggles with the great abbey. | | 1264 | The King of France said that Henry III was free of any obligation to observe the Provisions of Oxford. War broke out all over England, said the Bury Chronicle. Simon de Montfort, the Earl of Leicester, defeated the King's army at the Battle of Lewes on May 14th. However, Simon only won with massive support from citizens of London. Gradually he relied more and more on merchants and small landowners, clergy opposed to the papacy and radical students from Oxford. His forces became less aristocratic and more middle class.
De Montfort's rebellion produced a crisis across the country, and old disputes came out into the open again. At Bury some fairly old grievances against the abbey which had dragged on for years finally erupted in the first of a major series of riots. Abbot Samson's charter of 1194 was the basis of this quarrel, as Samson had kept the wardship of the East Gate, and retained the power to veto town appointments to the other four gates. He also retained the right to hear town cases in his own court.
The story of this uprising comes from the document known as the Pinchbeck Register. In the Spring of 1264 a group of younger burgesses confronted Abbot Simon of Luton with a series of demands. They demanded to be recognised as a corporate secular guild, in which would be vested power over the town's affairs. Acting quickly, the Guild of Youth was formed in Bury St Edmunds by 300 people in protest against the Abbey. They elected an alderman, setting aside the offically appointed man. They set up a court in opposition to the Portmansmote and restricted the monks to the abbey. The new court had its own horn to summon people to justice.
street fighting went on for several months, as anyone who ignored their authority was attacked as a public enemy. Eventually they attacked the abbey gate, broke into the cemetery gate, and assaulted the monks. The sacrist and cellarer were thrown out of the town gates, and when the abbot hurried back to Bury, they would not let him in the town. At this time it appears that even some of the older burgesses and even the alderman, supported the Guild of Youth in this. Things carried on uneasily until October when a writ was issued for Gilbert of Preston and William de Boville to hear the abbot's complaints against the Guild. At this royal intervention the older burgesses gradually took fright and withdrew their support. They promised to disband the Guild agreed to accept a fine of £40.The guild or horn was finally disbanded and the Gild of youth's pretender Alderman was also sacked.
The abbot had won yet again, but it had been seen how easy it was to seize power from the monks, and this violent precedent would be remembered again in 1292, when the time was right. | | 1265 | Simon de Montfort summoned a Parliament and invited representatives of the burgesses of the Chartered towns and two knights from every Shire. It contained only five earls and seventeen barons and the balance were from the middle classes.
Gilbert de Clare, the Earl of Gloucester had been a supporter of the Earl of Leicester, but now deserted him in a quarrel over the spoils. Simon de Montfort was defeated and killed by Henry's son Edward, who had joined with Gilbert de Clare in the Battle of Evesham in the Severn Valley. The monks were, perhaps, sympathetic to De Montfort's cause. They wrote that his body had worked miracles, and a minor cult began to arise. The king now regained power and proceeded to confiscate lands and property and disinherit the supporters of De Montfort.
The second great chronicle from the abbey of St Edmund was written from the Creation up to 1265 by the Monk John de Taxter. He became a monk in 1244. A second unknown monk continued the work up to 1296, and a third took it up to 1301. These annals are of little historical use up to 1264 as they are brief and written after the events, but from the Battle of Evesham, they suddenly become detailed and vivid. It seems likely then, that they were started in order to record these momentous events in 1265. | | 1266 | After the overthrow of Simon de Montfort fugitives sought sanctuary within the Liberty and also stored their loot there. These are referred to as the "Disinherited" by the Chronicles. According to the Bury Chronicle, "some of them who were lying hidden at St Edmund's, marched from the town in battle order and invaded the Marshland. They even attacked Lynn".
In May, John de Warenne and William de Valence came to Bury to seek out the king's enemies. They sought out the abbot and burgesses and accused them of helping the disinherited.
This led to a scandal and an enquiry and resulted in the abbot paying a fine of £266 13s 4d to re-establish himself in Henry III's favour. Someone had to take the blame, and now the burgesses were accused of being Montfortian sympathisers. There probably had been a strong support for de Montfort, as he had local supporters like Richard, Earl of Clare, and his son Gilbert, who owned parts of Bury. The earl of Suffolk had also supported him. Specific accusations included that they had let the Disinherited in by lax gatekeeping and had supported the rebels in 1264. This score was now settled as well. To avoid more severe reprisals from the King's justice, the burgesses had to deny that the keeping of the gates was really their responsibility, and that they never really wanted to take over the town. So they dissembled to escape royal wrath, and disclaimed many of the hard won advantages they had recently won. They were also fined and the abbot bailed them out by paying 200 marks on their behalf. In return the abbot was promised £100, but more importantly the town became obligated to the Abbot.
The Disinherited continued to attack the countryside and seized Ely. By December they had raided Norwich and taken 140 carts and waggonloads of loot.
The Dictum of Kenilworth had to be issued to prohibit the cult of Simon de Montfort as a miracle worker. At Bury, the chronicle entry of 1265 relating to these miracles had to be scratched out to conform to the new law.
We know that Bury had a cordwainer's or shoemaker's guild at this time, from a deed recording the transfer of a shop in Cordwainers Street from Geoffrey le Porter to Guild for its headquarters. | | 1267 | The king knew he had to put down these rebellions in the Fens, so King Henry III came to Bury St Edmunds on February 6th. Next day the papal legate Ottobuono also arrived. All the prelates and magnates of the land had been summoned by both church and state to attend. On February 22nd the legate held a council in the king's presence to excommunicate the Disinherited who were occupying the Isle of Ely, together with all their supporters unless they gave up within 15 days. This caused such discontent that certain rumours so scared the Legate that he left for London within 24 hours. The town was obviously still in turmoil, and lawlessness was still common. Robert of Bradfield and John of Punchardon were appointed keepers of the town to try to restore order. The king also took his court out of Bury to meet his army at Cambridge, and on to besiege Ely.
Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester now marched on London while the king was at Ely. The King had to leave his siege and hasten back to the capital, and a truce was made on June 18th.
Meanwhile some ruffians came out of Ely and stole horses from the Liberty of St Edmund, according to the Bury Chronicle. A monk seems to have negotiated them back again, and in July the king's son Edward regained the Isle of Ely.
Rabbit warrens become popular in the 13th century and free warrens were granted in Haverhill to Hamo Chevre by Henry III in 1267, and later to Roger Lunedaye by Edward I in 1281. | | 1268 | The Abbey was assessed for taxes under the auspices of the Bishop of Norwich, when the king assessed all ecclesiastical revenues to tax at their "true value". The monks felt this was against the rights of the Liberty, but nevertheless they submitted. The assessments were recorded in great detail in the Bury Chronicle. It was also recorded that the monks paid the episcopal assessor and collector 20 marks to overlook the tax due from the ir holdings within the town of Bury, but this failed.
The Chronicle seems to ignore the happenings outside the abbey walls. In September the king "impleaded" the alderman and 24 burgesses for ignoring the orders of the keeper of the town, Robert of Bradfield. There were some fines levied by the justices in eyre in Cattishall, and the situation seems to have calmed down. | | 1270 | The Chronicle recorded the death of Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk and Suffolk, and marshal of England, at Cowhaugh. He was buried at Thetford, and his inheritance went to another Roger, the son of his brother, Hugh Bigod. | | 1271 | Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester divorced his wife Alice at Norwich. According to the Chronicle he had suspected her of having an affair with the king's son Edward in 1269, and had quarrelled with the prince, but made it up.
Marco Polo began his voyages to the east and continued until 1295. | | 1272 | The Bury Chronicle recorded a great assault upon Norwich abbey by 32,000 men of the town, "armed to the teeth." There was loss of life and massive destruction. A council of the whole diocese was held at Eye to excommunicate everybody involved. The king set out to Norwich to punish the city, and called a council meeting to consider the action necessary.
King Henry III held this Parliament at Bury Abbey, on route to Norwich, arriving in Bury on September 1st and leaving on the 15th. While there, he signed a warrant to transfer the Jewish Synagogue in London over to the Penitentiary Friars, the Brothers of Penitence. Not surprisingly the Chronicle says, "to the utter confusion of the Jews."
At Norwich there were 35 executions and many fines threatened to make recompense for the crimes against the abbey, but the monks of Bury felt the king had "compromised a little, doing only partial justice for the outrage."
King Henry, "of happy memory", died on November 16th, having reigned for 56 years and 29 days. Edward I came to the throne and reigned until 1307. However he was abroad at the time, so the country was put in the hands of Gilbert de Clare and Edmund, Earl of Cornwall.
In the late 13th century the Maison Dieu or God's House was founded, a substantial almshouse near St Petronilla's hospital in Southgate Street in Bury. | | 1273 | In March there was so much rain that there were floods worse than any since 1258. Water rose 5 feet above the bridge at Cambridge, and the damage at Norwich was said to be worse than the ravages of either the disinherited or the king's men last year.
The Bury Chronicler recorded another tax levy to support the needs of the new king. | | 1274 | Prince Edward returned from abroad for his coronation. Edward must have liked Bury as he seems to have visited the town at least 15 times in his reign, and kept a permanent residence in the abbey complex.
To illustrate the involvement of the Sacrist in matters of local justice, we hear him accused of holding an iter or sitting at Bury for a longer period than the King's Justices had sat at Cattishall.The Sacrist was sitting as a Justice in eyre or Justice of Assize, appointed by the Abbot as part of his responsibility for carrying out the King's Justice within the Banleuca. The portman-moot seems to have declined greatly in the administration of local justice by this time. The local laws were being appropriated by the state more and more, and through this mechanism to the abbot and the abbey sacrist and his bailiffs. | | 1275 | The new king, Edward I, came with his wife to Bury, on a pilgrimage, in accordance with a vow made in the Holy Land. He granted the convent the right to hold the view of weights and measures, without any of his officials being present. For this right the abbey paid him 100 marks. According to Lobel, this was not the first such grant, and this liberty may have existed already since the time of Richard I.
The last major addition to the fabric of the abbey was perhaps the new Lady Chapel built by Abbot Simon in 1275. The Chronicle recorded that the chapel of St Edmund was pulled down and the Lady Chapel built on its site. Under the earth were found the walls of an ancient round church, which was much wider than the chapel of St Edmund and so built that the alter of the chapel was, as it were, in the centre. "We believe that this was the chapel first built for the service of St Edmund." It could have been the foundations of Ailwin's stone chapel of 1032, or maybe even stone foundations to the wooden church first built in 903.
Another tax of the 15th penny was recorded in the Chronicle, as well as the 10th penny decided at the Council of Lyons by the Pope. By this time heavy taxes and other financial weaknesses seem to have hit the abbey at Bury very hard, and retrenchment replaced expansion. Only small additions to the building programme would now be possible, if any at all.
The king finally announced the fines and penalties to be paid by the Burgesses at Norwich for the attack on the abbey there in 1272. At Cambridge the King allowed his mother, Eleanor, the right to expel all the Jews. She was allowed to do this in all her dower towns. | | 1276 | At Cambridge a great part of the town, including St Benet's, was burnt down. Even more seriously, the Chronicle recorded that a deadly disease began to afflict sheep in Lindsey. It lasted many years and spread over most of England. | | 1277 | The King sent a large army to Wales. Before joining them he came to Norfolk and Suffolk, keeping Easter at Norwich. This resulted in yet another round of taxes recorded by the abbey chronicle. This time the town's tax was paid by the convent to be collected from their tenants at a later date.
A cloudburst in October caused many men and livestock to be drowned in the floods. The storms were worst in Essex and Cambridgeshire and around Bury itself. | | 1278 | The king and Queen arrived at Bury on 23rd November on route to Norwich to dedicate a church there.
All the jews in England were unexpectedly seized and imprisoned. Their houses were ransacked looking for evidence of clipping the king's coinage. Soon afterwards in November all the goldsmiths and officials of the country's Mints were also put into custody and their premises searched. At Bury, despite the privilege of the Liberty, five goldsmiths and three others were marched off to London by the town bailiff. The king then allowed them to be sent back to Bury for trial, as a special favour to St Edmund. | | 1279 | All the Jews and some Christians convicted of clipping or falsifying the coinage, were condemned to hanging. Some 267 Jews were condemned to death in London. John de Cobham and Walter de Heliun, were the justices appointed to determine pleas over money, and they were sent by the king, Edward I, to Bury to hold a court at the Guildhall. The monks regarded this as flouting in an unheard of way, the liberties of St Edmund's church. Even worse, any fines levied went to the royal Treasury, and not to the abbey convent. Because the Sacrist was in charge of the Mint at Bury, he was also fined 100 Marks, for the transgressions of the moneyers.
Simon, the abbot at Bury, died at his manor of Long Melford. The king, as was normal, took over the revenues due to the abbot until a successor was in place. However, going against precedent, he also took over the income due to the convent of monks at the abbey. The monks were allowed only enough for their sustenance by John de Berwick, the king's agent. Meanwhile, John de Northwold, a Bury monk, and the interior guest master, was elected Abbot. He had to travel to Rome to be confirmed in his position and had to be empowered to pledge the credit of the convent up to £500, to pay for the trip. When he got back, the king ordered Berwick to restore the barony to the abbot and the rest to the convent on Novenber 5th 1279. The trip cost the abbey 1,675 marks,10 shillings and 9 pence.
The coinage was altered this year. The triangular farthing, made by cutting a penny into four quarters, was replaced by a round one. Half pennies were abolished and a new four pence coin was invented. | | 1280 | Robert the Prior, resigned due to his paralysis, to be succeeded by Stephen de Ixworth, the sub-prior. Simon of Kingston, the Sacrist, also resigned, to be replaced by William de Hoo, the Chamberlain. William of Hoo is noteworthy as he left us his letterbooks, published by the Suffolk Records Society in 1963, edited by Antonia Gransden.
In June the Bury Chronicle recorded that the new coinage began to be produced at Bury. The old coinage could no longer be used after August 15th, Assumption Day. Apparently new round halfpennies were minted. | | 1281 | To avoid any repeat of the loss of the convent's income to the king, Edward I was asked for a new charter to separate the property of the abbot and the convent. This was agreed, but it cost the convent 1,000 marks, plus a considerable sum in other expenses. This was simply the final and most complete separation of the Abbot's incomes from those of the Sacrist for the convent of monks. The monks knew this well enough, but it was needed to protect themselves from the crown in times when the post of abbot was vacant.
In 1281, the manor of Haberdon was granted to the Sacrist of the abbey by Henry, son of Nicholas of St Edmund. This would add to the sacrist's income, and included a mill, and at least 51 acres. As the abbey gained more and more of the local pasture land, any common rights hitherto exercised by local people were gradually extinguished by the new owner. | | 1282 | Prince Llewelyn of Wales rose in revolt and destroyed some of the king's castles. Edward I levied a subsidy in the form of loans from all his cities and boroughs and from the clergy to pay for his campaigns in Wales. Bury was assessed without the wealth of the Abbey, and was shown to be of only middling prosperity at this time. According to Gottfried, the assessment was £666 for Great Yarmouth, £333 for Norwich and £266 for Bury. Lesser towns were Kings Lynn at £200, Ipswich at only £100, (the same as Orford), and Dunwich by now was at £66. For comparison, London's value was £4,000.
The Bury Chronicle recorded the subsidy as 8,000 marks for London, 1,000 marks from Yarmouth, £500 from Norwich, and 500 marks from the burgesses at Bury. But the monks' servants had to pay 26 marks, and the prior assessed the Guild of the Twelve at 12 marks. The monks recorded that 100 marks were extorted from the abbot and convent.
By the time of the 1327 subsidy rolls, Ipswich would overtake Bury. | | 1284 | By this time the Manor of Erbury was established in Clare and a manorial complex with associated fishponds has been identified within the walls of Clare Camp.
Clare Priory was built in 1284 when Friars of the newly formed Augustinian Order came to England at the invitation of Richard, Lord of Clare. It was the first British base of the followers of St Augustine of Hippo.
English rule over Wales was established. | | 1285 | Giotto was active in Florence, representing the first major flowering of Renaissance art.
On 20th February, the king, Edward I, arrived at Bury with the Queen and his three daughters, to fulfill a vow he had made on his Welsh campaign. Next day he set out for Norfolk. He upset the monks by having all the weights, measures and ell-measures of the town inspected by his marshall of measures. They believed that this was the job of the Sacrist and his bailiffs, because it had been the subject of a specific grant by the king in 1275. But it seems that on this occasion the burgesses had prevented this from happening until a royal visit was due. After a local hearing, the king granted all the profits from the inspection to the shrine of St Edmund. But he warned the abbey to ensure that weights were checked or "viewed" twice a year between his own visits in future. The king's Clerk of the Market, Ralph of Midlington, continued to exercise royal power over local trade, in a strict manner, until after the death of Edward I. | | 1286 | News came of a terrific storm at sea, which battered the land so badly that the great city of Dunwich was severely damaged. It was the home of an ancient bishopric, possibly dating back to the time of St Felix, who came from Burgundy to assist King Sigbert in setting up Christianity among the heathen Anglo-Saxons in about 630. After 1066, Dunwich became part of the Honour of Eye, under Robert Malet and his descendants. Even in 1086 the town had suffered from coastal erosion, but despite this it rose to become a great town, getting a charter from King John in 1199. By 1298 it would get the right to send two MP's to parliament, and was agreat seaport, with trade, fishing and shipbuilding industries. Over the next century its economy would be largely destroyed by coastal erosion, reducing it to a small and declining fishing town. | | 1287 | In January the justices in eyre sat at Cattishall as usual, just outside Bury. John de Creyk, Godfrey de Beaumont and Ralph de Berners sued the abbey over the manors of Semer and Groton. Fearing that they would lose the case, the monks chose to defend their rights by judicial combat. The abbot hired a champion called Roger Clerk to fight for him, paying him 20 marks in advance, and 30 more to be paid afterwards. This seems to us a very strange way to settle a legal case, and even at the time it must have been an almost obsolete idea, as such duels were from an earlier age. The fight took place on 14th October in London, and Roger Clerk was killed. The manors of Semer and Groton were thus lost to the abbey, but were regained in 1290.
William of Hoo, the abbey's Sacrist installed Richard de Lothbury, a goldsmith of London, as moneyer for the abbey, and thus a new die was cut in his name. | | 1289 | King Edward I and Queen Eleanor visited Bury St Edmunds, having returned from three years abroad. They landed at Dover on 12th August, proceeding through Kent and Essex, reaching Bury on 12th September. Next day they went to Norfolk, then through the Isle of Ely by boat to be in London by mid November.
The king's chief justice, Thomas Wayland was indicted for harbouring some of his own men who had killed another man. He feared the King and so fled to Bury to take sanctuary with the Friars Minor. On the king's orders he was besieged by men of the neighborhood for several days. He even assumed the habit, but this just caused the king to send reinforcements to his blockade. After two months Wayland admitted defeat and gave himself up, and was taken to the Tower of London. | | 1290 | The king held a Parliament in Westminster to discuss the wrongdoings of some Justices. Among them was Thomas Wayland, who had all his property confiscated, and was sent into exile. He had held the manor of Onehouse from St Edmund's abbey, and had been an important East Anglian landowner.
A man called John Harrison tried to set up a new song school to rival that provided by the Dusse Guild. He was backed by the Abbot, John of Northwold, in an attempt to bring this teaching under abbey control. The Guild, however was rich and powerful and protested against it. The Abbot was forced to withdraw his formal support and the new venture then collapsed. The town was proud of this bit of independence from the abbey, and this time was able to come out on top.
The cellarer had dammed up the Tayfen brook, and flooded some lands used by towns people. The leading townsmen were united against this act, and called a meeting in the Gild Hall. They then set out to destroy the dam. In October, a commission was set up to enquire into their actions, but this only made matters worse. This rumbled on into more violence in 1292.
The Bury Chronicle recorded that the king "exiled without hope of return all Jews of both sexes and every age living in England." | | 1291 | The abbot and convent of St Edmunds' paid a fine of 1,000 marks to the king in lieu of paying a fifteenth of their own property and that of the burgesses of the town, lest the royal officials should try to do anything which would prejudice the liberties of St Edmund's Church. The abbey officials then levied the tax themselves on the town.
To emphasise the importance of monastic chronicles in recording history, we can examine the King's claim to the overlordship of Scotland. In July 1291, he sent copies of letters of allegiance to all the main monastic houses instructing them to "have these letters recorded in your chronicles so that these events are remembered forever."
| | 1292 | The pope granted the king a tenth of all the spiritual revenues in the land, and the abbey was included in yet another tax. The Bury Chronicle recorded the assessment in great detail. It came to £1,098:8s:8d for all the holdings in Norfolk and Suffolk. The tax was £109:16s:11.
With his son and daughters, the King came to Bury on 28th April, and celebrated the Feast of the Translation of St Edmund with full rites. For ten days he divided his time between Bury and Culford, the abbot's manor three miles from Bury. He granted a charter saying that the the session of the king's justices should not be taken as a precedent to the prejudice of the abbot and convent.
The events of 1292 recorded above were in the Bury Chronicle. The following events in that year did not get mentioned in it.
Old grievances erupted again in 1292 over the control of the town gates, and who ought to run the town's secular affairs. The violence was not too extreme, but, following some riots, the burgesses of Bury proposed to the Abbot, John of Northwold, that his Port Reeve should be replaced by a town nominee. Their man was called John the Goldsmith. The Port Reeve was the abbot's man who ran the secular government of the town. They proposed that the head of the Town Guild should be given this right and that he should be called the Mayor, as the first citizen was called in the Boroughs like Thetford and London. Abbot John objected as the Guild was a commercial body but the office of Port Reeve had wider governmental powers. The abbot took the case to court, but eventually, before the case was concluded in 1293, he agreed to a compromise. He would allow the new post to be called Alderman, but not Mayor. He would not accept that the town should have a free hand in the appointment, and insisted on selecting one man from the three nominees he would let them propose. But it seems that John Goldsmith still got the job on this occasion.
This arrangement lasted until the Dissolution, with the town gradually increasing its say over who was selected. The Town Guild now became called the Alderman's Guild, and the new office came to have considerable influence in town affairs.
By 1292 the position of the old borough court, the portman-moot, was considerably undermined. The burgesses still claimed that their pleas should be heard in the toll house where the town's judicial affairs had traditionally been held, and not before the king's justices in the abbot's hall of pleas. The abbot insisted they met wherever he said, and his will prevailed, but the argument continued on for years. | | 1293 | The Chronicle recorded two great sea battles between the English, allied with the Irish and men of Bayonne, and the Normans. Thirty captured Norman ships were taken to Yarmouth laden with booty.
On 9th July a great part of Cambridge was burnt down, including the church of St Mary.
There were two lawsuits between the town and the convent during the reign of Edward I, according to Lobel. These were settled in 1293. One case was described above and the other confirmed that all burgesses must be in tithing. For years they had had to pay a yearly tithe of one penny, also called borth-selver, whether or not they were already paying hadgovel or ground rent for their tenements. The town had challenged this, and whether the view of frankpledge was due to the sacrist at all if he was already receiving these other payments. The town lost and this tithe was now to continue as before. | | 1294 | The king came with pious devotion to St Edmund's for the Feast of St Edward on 18th March. He stayed only one night but he entertained the convent with great magnificence and generosity. At this time he sent letters of resignation of his lands in Aquitaine and Gascony to the king of France. He wanted to marry Blanche, the sister of the French king, and thus regain them by marriage. The monk who wrote the Chronicle recorded that all this was thoughtless and ill advised. When he got neither a wife or his lands back, the king raised an army to invade France. Among others, the Abbot of St Edmunds had to pay knights fees of 600 marks in lieu of 6 knights, for whom he was bound to answer to the king. All the ecclesiastical houses were visited by the king's inspectors to make sure he got all the money due to him. At Bury the Chronicler was enraged that this invasion also included St Edmund's.
All of the alien religious houses except the Cistercians, were taken over by the king. They included the Cluniacs, Premonstratensians and the rest and all their property was confiscated, forcing them into poverty, misery and sorrow.
The Welsh rose in rebellion. Yet another tax of the tenth was levied, and royal tax collectors again entered Bury to collect it. Never before had a royal official dared exercise authority in the town, sitting in the toll house. Once again the king said this did not set a precedent.
Edward I had proved a heavy handed monarch as far as the church was concerned, and this had cost the abbot dear in legal expenses on several occasions before and since.
| | 1295 | Edward I was faced with wars in France and Scotland and holding down the recently conquered Welsh. He summoned his "model parliament" to grant him the taxes needed to run these campaigns. This was the first time that boroughs, including Bury, were summoned to send representatives to Parliament, alongside the earls and barons. The sheriff of each county was directed to return two knights of the shire for each county and for such boroughs and cities as he might deem suitable, two burgesses or citizens. Thus the sheriffs were the "Returning Officers", and remain so today, in theory. For the first time this Parliament started to look like a representative assembly. However, after the time of Edward I, Bury was never asked to send burgesses to parliament again until after the charter of 1606. The abbot continued to attend as a Lord Spiritual, but it is likely that he was offended by having to sit with a town burgess in Parliament.
The tax collectors in Suffolk were Peter de Melles and Ralph Bomund, but the king agreed to mend his ways and let the ecclesiastical powers collect it for him where those rights and liberties applied. So the Prior at Bury was allowed to collect this tax in the Liberty of St Edmund.
In 1295 the Royal tax assessment of Bury St Edmunds was drawn up and still survives today. It is called the 1295 Rental and gives a lot of information about property use in the town at this time by tenants of the Abbey.
In 1992 a survey of 48 and 49 Churchgate Street and 1 College Street in Bury revealed that the whole property was originally an aisled hall dated to the second half of the 13th century. It has two jetties and is likely to be amongst the earliest known examples of this feature.
There were two suburbs, or areas outside the town walls, and these were called Eastgate and Risbygate. No Mans Meadows were recorded as 31 acres in the South Field, with the income going to the Cellarer. The Cellarer also held Hardwick heath. Nowton Road had two woods, Eastlee and Southlee which belonged to the Sacrist. The Sacrist also had the manor of the Haberden which now had 51½ acres and a mill.
This assessment clearly shows that the Great Market was in the Cornhill and Buttermarket areas. It is still there today, but in 1327 the townspeople asked for it to be moved back to its original location, so it is unclear exactly when it moved there. It is possible that it had been held for many years on the Angel Hill, maybe ever since Anselm's town improvements in the 1130's.
The reassessed spiritualities and temporalities amounted to £2,071 15s 5d, a heavy burden on the area.
The townspeople continued to riot around this time and obstruct the Abbot's bailiffs in protest against the Abbey's control over civic life and business. | | 1296 | In January King Edward I visited the abbey at Bury and treated the monks to a lavish and copious feast at his own expense. He stayed just four days, and set off for the wars in Scotland, where he obtained a total victory.
Following the Scottish triumph, the king returned south and he held a Parliament in Bury St Edmunds for three weeks in November, to consider further taxes. Although they tried to keep good personal relations the King and Abbey were becoming caught up in a quarrel over the king's demands for money. Edward offended the monks by staying in the house of Henry of Lynn, rather than in the abbey as was the invariable custom to date. This may have been because the archbishop was holding a council in the abbey to tell the clergy of a new papal constitution. This papal bull forbade the clergy from paying any taxes to the secular powers without the pope's permission. The king gave them until January to toe the line.
After three weeks the king left Bury for Clare on 29th November, and then to Ipswich for Christmas.
The Bury Chronicle was taken over by a new monk who changed the method of recording dates. The old system was Marianus Scotus's using the date according to the gospels. The new system records the year according to Dionysius and starts at Easter 1296. | | 1297 | Come January, the church still refused to pay the king his due taxes, because of the Pope's new bull. The king withdrew his protection from certain church property to help persuade the clergy, but meanwhile his armies in France suffered a bad defeat in Gascony. Some clergy now decided to pay up, but St Edmund's did not. The king now started to confiscate church property and called a parliament of the laity only, that is to say, excluding the lords spiritual. Thus it was that in February all the goods of the abbot and convent were confiscated, together with St Edmund's borough.
In July, another Parliament was summoned to Lincoln. The earls and barons were now also resisting royal taxation, and wanted the church property to be returned and Magan Carta adhered to by the king. While the king was in France the earls and barons met at Northampton and sent their views to the king abroad. Finally, in return for continued tax levies the new Parliament managed to obtain in return the confirmation of the Great Charter. No new taxes would be imposed without the consent of Parliament. This was the final version of Magna Carta and some small parts of it remain in force today.
Meanwhile Andrew Murray and William Wallace were in open revolt in Scotland and over-ran the north of England. | | 1298 | Wars continued in France, Belgium and Scotland.
The king visited Bury on 9th May, and entertained the convent next day. He was soon on his way north, held a parliament at York, confirmed Magna Carta, and gathered an army for the fight in Scotland. On 22nd July came the battle of Falkirk.
In August the Bury Chronicle recorded the theft of all the cooking utensils in the refectory, together with two pieces of silver and five silver salt cellars. By a sad piece of ill luck, the chronicle said, they had not been locked in the special safe in the evening. | | 1299 | The king paid a visit to Bury. Between 1296 and 1301 Edward I came here six times. | | 1300 | King Edward I, together with his son, stayed at the Bury abbey from 8th to 11th of May, before proceeding to the war in Scotland. The abbey was again on good terms with the king, who dedicated his life to the blessed martyr with deep devotion according to the Bury Chronicle. At the time there was a royal edict forbidding the use of the foreign coins known as kokedones or cocodonis. The king granted the abbot and convent any fines levied in the liberty in respect of this offence, and forbade his justices from violating the privileges of the church in any way. After he left, the king sent back his standards to be touched by all the relics at Bury, and for a special mass to be said over them.
Young Edward stayed on for another nine days, and said he had never enjoyed himself so much as living like a monk. Mind you, much the same thing was recorded at St Albans, but there it was the Queen who was said to be reluctant to leave!
The Bury Chronicle recorded a detailed account of how John de Eversden, the cellarar, secured the title to a pasture called Boughton in the Manor of Warkton, near Northampton. After 1300, the Chronicle became very terse, with only a short entry for 1301, and a long gap to 1301.
During the 14th Century, from 1300 to 1400 Bury St Edmunds had a flourishing fishing industry. Amazingly to us today, the Rivers Linnet and Lark, with the waters at Tay Fen and Babwell Fen, supported large fish populations. These provided employment for fishermen and food for the town and abbey, as well as a means of transport, source of drinking water and a means of waste disposal. Gradually the pressure of the fulling mills and their waste products, and a rise in population pressure would cause a decline in fish production.
In the century 1300 to 1400 it seems that the climate was much warmer than today. On a global scale the glaciers were melting, resulting in a rise of sea level, to about half a metre higher than it was by about 1987. Coastal erosion accelerated at an alarming rate, destroying some coastal communities, and severely damaging others. In Suffolk, the prosperous port of Dunwich would become the best known casualty, but on the Humber, the port of Ravenspur would suffer the same fate. It is likely that inland the river levels would also tend to rise, as sea level rose.
Dunwich was linked to Bury St Edmunds by an important road known as King John's Highway. | | 1301 | The Chapel of the Charnel was founded in today's Great Churchyard in Bury by the abbot, John de Northwold. There had been so many burials over the years that the cemetery was effectively full up. Abbot John was disturbed by the old bones being "indecently cast forth and left", and so the Charnel House was built to hold the disturbed bones.
Later in 1301 Thomas de Tottington was installed as abbot. |
| |
|
| Until 1301, the Royal Assizes were held at Catteshall, a location in the Great Barton area. The Abbot, with his overriding authority within the town, had always ensured that the King's Courts for the Shire, the Assizes and Quarter Sessions were held outside the banleuca. By 1301 these courts were being held at Thingoe Hill, or Henhowe Heath, as it was called then. This was not far from the church of the Friars at Babwell, and when the weather was bad at the new courts, large crowds had sought refuge in the church. The Friars petitioned the king not to let the Hall of Pleas become a permanent fixture at Henhowe Heath. This does not seem to have worked, as the area became called Shirehouse Heath, indicating that it did, indeed, become the home of the Shire House or Hall of Pleas, for the duration of the monastic period. The name survived on Ordnance Survey maps up to the 1886 edition. After the Dissolution the Shire House moved into town. | | 1302 | M D Lobel states that there is evidence that in 1302, the Mayor and six burgesses of Bury were summoned, along with representatives of 276 other boroughs to attend Parliament. Never again does the Sheriff require Bury to send or 'return' any burgesses to attend Parliament. From this date it no longer seems to have been regarded as one of the true Boroughs. | | 1305 | The townspeople of Bury had continued their resistance to abbey rule. There had been a series of incidents over the last ten years which led the abbot to charge the alderman and burgesses with withholding fines and tolls due to him, and resisting his tax collectors. He also charged some people with stoning the abbey roofs, and harassing workmen carrying out repairs.
The Abbey tried to make the Merchants Guild illegal following a long series of riots through the 35 years of Edward I's reign. Royal officials had to be called in to settle the matter. The court case lasted from August 1304 to January 1305, and the concessions made to the King back in 1266 to avoid punishment were quoted as evidence against many of the town's current claims.
After the judgements in 1305 the town was fined £333 and 50 barrels of wine. The biggest blow was that the Merchant's Guild was judged to be illegal. However, the Royal Commission granted some small alleviation of the Abbey's rigid rule, but it was largely a repeat of the 1292 arrangement. The town was allowed to elect its own Aldermen subject to the Abbot showing no reasonable cause to object to them. The town was also allowed to appoint the Keepers of all the Town Gates except for the East Gate which also controlled the Abbot's Bridge. This small advance did not satisfy either side. Trouble would continue to simmer right up to the great events of 1327.
The Town or Alderman's guild was apparently formally incorporated in Bury in this year. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, it had been founded in the 12th century. It was mainly political and social in its aims, not promoting any one trade or craft. This may have been an attempt to replace the Merchant's Gild which the court case had declared outlawed.
The Holy See was transferred from Rome to Avignon. Popes were to be French from 1305 up to 1378. | | 1306 | The Abbot had his own gallows at Westley, which for a time served the whole hundred. In 1306 William de Beresford and William Howard burned it down.
The gaol in Bury at this time was fairly dilapidated and in this year William Pugg, imprisoned on a charge of trespass on the abbey's fishponds, broke out. Prisoners were not generally held as a punishment, but as an incentive to make recompense for their crimes by paying compensation or fines. Money could usually buy you out, if you had not committed one of the many capital crimes. The prison usually held debtors who had no money to pay their creditors. The gaoler answered to the Sacrist, who answered to the Abbot. The power to appoint the gaoler did not pass into secular hands in Bury until the 16th century. | | 1307 | Edward II became King and ruled until he was deposed in 1327. | | 1310 | By 1300 Suffolk had reached the height of its early importance and prosperity. Ipswich, Norwich and Bury were major towns and many other new market centres had been established. From 1227 to 1310 it has been estimated that 70 new markets appeared in Suffolk. By contrast very few were created after 1350. Suffolk's population had doubled to about 140,000 from about 72,000 in 1066. Farming had become intensive but inheritance laws had divided plots up into many small units of around half an acre. Feudal dues were many and varied, but it is clear that people moved house perhaps further and more often than we have previously thought. The growth was such that a 13th century lawyer, Henry Bracton recommended a rule that markets should not be closer together than six and two thirds miles. In the Liberty of St Edmund, however, they were much more difficult to establish without upsetting the Abbot. Barrow and Ixworth had managed to receive market charters, but were further out than this minimum distance.
Almost all other towns had won a measure of self government except those under monastic rule. Obtaining a Charter usually meant freedom from feudal dues, the control of trade in local hands and any tolls going to those who had clubbed together to pay the King for the freedoms enjoyed. Merchants got together in Guilds, regulating their own trade, including prices and entry to the right to trade. | | 1313 | The abbey was in a poor financial state at this time. So much so, that in December 1313, they could only raise cash by mortgaging all the abbey's possessions with the great bankers, the Bardi. | | 1314 | Robert the Bruce defeated the English army and the failure of Edward II's Bannockburn campaign alienated the Barons. He also made grants of land to personal friends which offended the established nobility.
The young Gilbert de Clare, the Earl of Gloucester, was killed at Bannockburn, and the male line of de Clare ended.
The mint at Bury was still operating as Roger Rede, its moneyer, recorded that he had coined £22,480 of bullion. | | 1315 | The harvest failed throughout the Country.
The town of Bury was fined £200 for taking arms against the Abbot's bailiffs, flogging monks and throwing stones at workmen on the roof of the church. | | 1316 | The harvest failed again and cattle died of disease. | | 1320 | William of Hawstead, the keeper of the king's exchange complained that the mint at St Edmunds was producing more coins than was proper. The mint was under the sacrist's control, and depended upon a grant of the privilege by the crown. The first such grant at Bury was by Edward the Confessor. It would be a valuable source of income for the sacrist.
Times were hard in the abbey at this time, and the Burgesses accused the abbey not only of of usurping the royal right to appoint the warden of St Saviour's hospital, but of keeping it short of funds. They went so far as a petition to Parliament, but the case was wrong on a point of law. | | 1320's | Drought was widespread and economic disruption caused civil unrest. Many people abandoned the land as farming seemed to fail them. This trend seems to continue for 30 years right up to the time of the Black Death. | | 1326 | King Edward II was crowned and spent Christmas at Bury Abbey. He produced a charter which redefined the the liberties of the abbot, as these had been eroded in the later years of Edward I. No Steward, Marshal or royal Clerk of the Market could now meddle in the borough.
In September 1326 Edward's Queen, Isabella, together with young Prince Edward , and her paramour Roger Mortimer, landed at Walton near Felixstowe with an army to attack the King. This presented an opportunity for other groups to rise up, and this happened nationally as well as in St Edmunds town. | | 1327 | In January the country was in turmoil, with chaos and disorder over the possible deposition or abdication of Edward II. One particular uprising took place in Abingdon, another monastic town, and news of this soon reached Bury.
On 14th January some Londoners met local people in Bury to talk politics. Inevitably all the old grievances of the town against the abbey were aired. Thetford, Cambridge and Ipswich had held royal charters for over a hundred years, and were being governed by their own corporations. In Bury they could not even appoint Gate keepers or their own alderman without the say-so of the Abbot. The town paid tolls and fees to the abbey, and the fruits of their labour were being lost to the town.
A large crowd gathered at the Guildhall and swore on oath to ruin St Edmund's Abbey. There were many complaints to answer. By this time almost all towns had won a measure of self government except at places like St Edmunds, St Albans and Reading where the great local abbeys retained a control of life far greater than any baron or even the King. This was the source of a whole list of demands which the mob tried to extract from the Abbot in a "charter". They wanted the right to freely elect the Alderman, and the right to appoint and control the Gatekeepers of the town and to receive the tronage levied at the gates. They wanted the right to a Guild Merchant restored to them. One demand was a return of the market place to its former position. The demand that the market should be returned to its old location is curious as it seems to have been on its present site in the Cornhill and Buttermarket areas since at least 1295. It seems even more curious if it really had been here since Abbot Anselm's day in the 1130's as is the traditional view. It may be that this was just a long-held grievance because change was imposed by the abbey, not because of any real desire to revert to an old site. Next day, the 15th January, about 3,000 people stormed the Abbey gates, attacked the inhabitants and ransacked the legal archives. The Vestry and Treasury were raided and robbed. They blocked all roads to London and threw about 21 monks into jail. Amazingly it is reported that 32 out of the establishment of 80 monks were in the country at the time, on holiday.
By late January the villein rabble rousers were more or less replaced as leaders by the senior burgesses of the town, who wanted to retain some semblance of law and order to protect themselves. They named John de Berton as their Alderman, and contrary to the old agreements, did not submit his name for approval to the abbey. De Berton's first act was to authorise another foray into the abbey to pillage the abbot's personal treasury, as yet untouched. He cancelled all debts owed to the Abbey, and took into his own hands all aspects of municipal government. He took over all the collections at the town gates, and to show he meant business, he set up a Block with headsman and axe in the Great Market.
Meanwhile Edward II was deposed after a rising of the Barons. Edward III took the throne and reigned until 1377. When the Abbot, Richard de Draughton returned from attending Parliament on January 28th he was forced to seal the charter of liberties put to him by the people with the block and axe in full view. An interesting point about this charter was that it was written in French, not the latin of most official papers. The Abbot said he needed to take the Charter to London to get it ratified but as soon as he reached there, he repudiated it before Parliament. When the news reached de Berton, he was furious. He raised the mob again and on February 16th fresh rioting broke out and the abbey was pillaged again. Carts were brought to carry off the loot.
From February to May we have no record of what may have happened.
On May 19th, a new force entered the arena in Bury. The Franciscan Friars from Babwell and the secular priests turned on the abbey. The front doors of the parish churches of St James and St Mary, inlaid and jewelled, were ripped off and carried away. The priests took the jewels as they said, unlike the monks of the abbey, they got no generous stipends or income to live on. Everyone had ganged up on the abbey, and de Burton even asked the friars to take over the shrine of St Edmund. When in May the monks and their servants tried to attack some of the mob, the abbey church was burned in retaliation.
Abbot de Draughton tried to appeal to the Pope, but his messengers were too late. The town's secular priests had already reached Pope John XXII and persuaded him to support the town's position. Through the Summer things rumbled on. Monks were attacked and some left town. The burgesses fortified the town walls. In the country, the Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, Sir Robert Morley, was weakened by the new King's minority.
In the Autumn, de Berton again encouraged the mob to attack the abbey. More buildings were burnt including Bradfield Hall, the King's own residence inside the Abbey. The monks planned to retaliate.
On 18th October the townspeople were at prayer when the monks attempted a counter-coup. They attacked the congregation, resulting in retaliation which nearly destroyed the monastery. During this time the old Gate to the Great Court was destroyed in the rioting. The violence moved into the rest of the Banleuca and beyond. The abbey's barns were raided and the grain stolen. Cattle were rustled and most of the abbot's country estates invaded. Even St Saviour's Hospital suffered £800 in damages.
Another old grievance had been the loss of common land rights as the abbey gained land and extinguished these customs. The sacrist claimed exclusive rights to the 67 acres of pasture at Sexten's Meadows, and this was particularly resented. A ditch was dug across it by the local people at this time to try to retake their old rights.
Suddenly, in November things changed, when Pope John reversed his stance and backed Abbot de Draughton. He excommunicated all the looters except for the 30 richest burgesses, who he hoped to fine. A new Royal Council was set up around the king, and a royal writ issued to the Sheriff to restore order.
The town had set up a commune which had lasted for six months before it was now suppressed. The Sheriff of Norfolk (and the geldable parts of Suffolk) was called in to restore order, along with John Howard, a prominent landowner. When armed soldiers arrived at Bury the town surrendered without a fight. Sheriff Robert Morley 30 cartloads of prisoners to trial in Norwich. He also imposed a fine of £14,000 on the burgesses. After the rising, no fewer than thirty-two parish priests were convicted as ringleaders. The town was broke and broken.
The Candlemas Guild had been a religious group until the Great Riot when it became a focus of the anti-monastic faction. It was to develop eventually into the Guildhall Feoffment, but in 1327 it was suppressed, for its abortive part in trying to obtain a charter of incorporation for the town, thus replacing the Abbot's jurisdiction.
The exact position of these guilds is not known, and the Candlemass Guild and the Alderman's Guild or Town Guild have become confused. Lobel believed that the Alderman's Guild had always existed and at this time had to take over the work of the suppressed Candlemass Guild. Gottfried believes that The Alderman's Guild became called the Candlemas Guild after the 1330's and was never a separate body. Margaret Statham believed that the Guild Merchant was suppressed at this time, and that the Guild of the Purification of our Lady in St James Church, also known as the Candlemass Guild, was definitely newly established at this time. This guild was to be the most powerful, exclusive and wealthiest of the Bury fraternities, however it arose.
Some of the monks had sought refuge at Hulme, where they spent their time compiling the Chronica Buriensis, a history of St Edmunds from its foundation up to 1327. It contains quotations from the Bury Chronicle up to 1301.
In 1327 the entire kingdom was levied under a lay subsidy or tax. The subsidy returns for Suffolk show that Ipswich was now richer than Bury, excluding the wealth of the church and Abbey. Ipswich had 210 assessed names to Bury's 154. Dunwich had sunk to 69 names and Orford only 35. | | 1328 | John de Berton and Gilbert Barbour, the ringleaders of the 1327 revolt in Bury, escaped from gaol, and took refuge in a house of the Babwell Franciscan Friars. They stayed there from Winter to Summer. Following their enormous fine of £14,000 in 1327 some of the burgesses still refused to knuckle under. In August the notorious outlaw gang of Thomas Thornham came to Bury to a hero's welcome by townsfolk against the protests of the Abbot, who, naturally, feared the worst. Thornham took over Moyses Hall, and fought off the abbot's attempts to arrest him. De Berton and Barbour came out of hiding and joined Thornham's band along with another burgess, one Richard Friosel. A group of them marched on Chevington where they managed to kidnap the Abbot from his moated country retreat. They then smuggled him out to London in a sack, where they moved him from house to house, and seem to have received plenty of help for this desperate manoevre. Apparently on the advice of Haimo Chigwell, a famous London fishseller, they moved de Draughton to Dover and on to Brabant as a hostage against remission of the fine. By now it was winter.
Back in Bury, Thornham and his gang left town in late 1328, and there were more gaol breaks and demonstrations. One group of "criminous clerks" headed for Cambridge, hoping to hide out with the students, but most were recaptured. By December, things had quietened down. | | 1329 | By 1329 the Archbishop of Canterbury had excommunicated the abductors of the Abbot of St Edmunds and King Edward III set up four Justices to investigate the kidnapping. One man of dubious reputation called John Cokerel was hanged for harbouring the kidnappers in London, but Haimo Chigwell, also unmasked, managed to use his wealth to buy himself out of trouble. A massive fine of £14,000 was imposed on the town. Abbot de Draughton remained in captivity in Brabant until discovered in April 1329.
The abbot got back to Bury late in 1329 and stayed as abbot until his death in 1334. The fate of the kidnappers de Berton and Barbour is unknown, but there has been a suggestion that de Burton was caught and died in Bury gaol. Eventually the abbey regained its feudal position but enormous damage had been done to its fabric. This incident may have led to the Chevington defences being strengthened by a bank as well as the deep moat. | | 1330 | From 1330 to 1350 the new Abbey Gateway was built, some 50 feet out of alignment with Abbeygate Street to replace the gate destroyed in the Great Riot of 1327. That this took twenty years to achieve shows the extent of the damage done to the fabric, power and confidence of the Abbey.
Flemish weavers were supposed to have arrived in England and to have revitalised the cloth industry. However, in East Anglia they were confined to Norwich and Colchester. Suffolk broad cloth production did not increase rapidly until the 15th Century. | | 1331 | The troubles in Bury from 1327 to 1328 were laid to rest by a peace treaty in 1331. The fine of £14,000 already imposed on the town was agreed to be paid by instalments. It was probably so massive that it was never actually meant to be a payment, but was to stand in abeyance as a surety of future good behaviour. After the first 50 Marks were paid, the town would get a letter of Quittance, relieving them of £10,000. The rest could be raised by the burgesses by taxing the town as they liked. Final discharge of the fine does not seem to have occurred until 1349. | | 1334 | The Lay Subsidy rolls of 1334 throws further light on the non-church wealth of Bury. It was ranked 28th in the Kingdom at an assessment of £360. Great Yarmouth was 6th at £1000, Norwich was eighth at £946, Lynn was 11th at £770 and Ipswich 14th at £645. Sudbury was assessed at £281. Bury's townspeople seem to have been in a relative decline in the first half of the 14th century. Strong recovery seems to come from about 1360, despite the impact of disease.
In 1334, Walter of Pinchbeck started work on a register of all the abbey's rights and privileges as seen by a monk of the abbey. This work was probably a result of the recent disturbances, and the need to get the records sorted out. It included lists of tenants and their rents, and is known to us as the Pinchbeck Registers. Walter seems to have died around 1342, bringing his registers to an end. | | 1337 | Edward III claimed the French throne and thus started the 100 years war. The mayors and burgesses of certain towns were ordered to send representatives to parliament. Although this was an extraordinary meeting, we know that Robert of Eriswell, John Osbern, and Lucas fitzEdmund went there to represent Bury. Although the town had lost much of its status following the judgements after 1327, the burgesses had set up the Candlemas Gild or the Gild of the Purification of our Lady. This became a substitute, or cover, for what would have been the corporation in a normal free borough.
Castle building came into fashion again as times became threatening.
In 1336, King Henry III had granted Orford Castle to Sir Robert d'Ufford. By 1337, he had made him the Earl of Suffolk. | | 1342 | Sir John de Norwich was given a licence to build a castle at Mettingham.
The rise in sea levels since about 1300 had severely affected the coastal communities by this time. In particular, by 1342, Dunwich had lost 400 houses, together with the churches of St Leonard's and St Martin's. A century earlier it had been at the height of its power and prosperity as one of the largest ports in eastern England, perhaps about half the size of London. | | 1345 | A special episcopal commission complained of scandalous immorality among the Benedictine Monasteries of England, and cited St Edmunds as one of the worst offenders. The Abbot, William of Bernham, denied the charges before the Bishop of Norwich, but his protests were rejected. The abbey's reputation was severely tarnished. | | 1346 | However, the civil unrest of the area was to be as nothing compared to a natural disaster which was to follow in 1348. Bubonic plague broke out in China and was brought back to the west by merchants and seamen. | | 1348 | The Great Pestilence or Black Death was first noted in England at Melcombe, now Weymouth, in Dorset. Weymouth was a great port at this time, and in this year Edward III's fleet sailed from here to lay siege to Calais. Plague may have come over from France with the returning fleet.
By the end of 1348 the very wet weather helped the disease to spread and it is believed that one-third of the country's population were killed by it. Many monastic houses were virtually wiped out. It was exceptionally severe in St Edmundsbury.
Robert Gottfried has suggested that in 1347 the population of Bury could have been as high as 7150, and that a fall of 40 percent would occur over the next 30 years, due to several epidemics of plague.
This date is sometimes used to mark the end of the Middle Ages and the start of the Late Medieval period. This period runs from 1348 to 1485, the start of the Tudor Dynasty. | | 1349 | In summer 1349 the Black Death was at its height in St Edmunds town. By September 1349, the Black Death had passed but the country was desolated. Farms and stock were left to ruin as there was no skilled labour left to manage them. There was little or no normal production as employers were dead and established markets for produce were decimated. Those able to work were, for a time, able to pick and choose employers.
Monastic houses were in disarray and lacked leadership as the experienced monks were less able to resist the illness than the novices.
In September Abbot John gave a receipt for 50 marks to several important townsmen including Richard Drayton and Ralph Butcher. This receipt seems to have been for the final payment of the massive fine levied on the town for the riots and destruction of 1327 and 1328. | | 1350 | The Statute of Labourers was brought in to force people to work for the same wages as two years earlier. It attempted to stop servants leaving their masters without permission and to fix wages at pre-black death levels. This was probably the first attempt to regulate wages by law, but unlike modern laws on wage rates, it tried to fix the maximum wages that could be paid, rather than the minimum. | | 1351 | The Pope, Clement VI had to grant Abbot William de Bernham at Bury the right to ordain 10 monks as priests who were under 25 years old. This was due to the shortage of monks due to the plague. The prices of abbey crops were falling and the wages for its labourers were under pressure to rise. The abbey's overheads were not restrained in the same way and economic hardship and decline were inevitable until things improved. | | 1357 | The Statute of Labourers was re-enacted showing that the market place for labour could not be governed by laws alone. | | 1360 | The Statute was again re-enacted with more severe penalties. But landowners without labourers were willing to pay a bit more to hire workers, so it was not just the workers who bid up wages. Serfs wanted to buy themselves out in order to sell their labour on the open market.
After 1360 the perpendicular style of church building came into vogue, just as the wool wealth came available in Suffolk to exploit it. | | 1361 | There was a further outbreak of the Plague, referred to as the "pestis secunda" which hit Bury in 1361-62. | | 1362 | A statute was enacted in 1362 which encouraged the use of English in the law courts. However, the use of French or Anglo - Norman in all forms of written communications would continue throughout the late 14th century and into the early 15th century. | | 1363 | Robert de Eriswell was one of Bury's leading merchants. He became involved in a well known scandal with some royal officials involving the illegal preparation and sale of his wool stocks. There was a tax on the export of wool products, and it was the avoidance of this tax which heightened public interest.
Another Bury man, John Clever, won the right to pay the crown a lump sum, or farm, in return for the right to collect the wool aulnage, the tax levied on exported cloth. Although illegal untaxed exports continued, Clever became rich from his taxation duties. | | 1367 | In 1364 and 1367, the town was petitioning for its rights to be clearly exemplified, and their relationship with the abbey clarified. The settlements of the disputes in 1292 and 1293 were obviously coming into question yet again, with the town no doubt wanting these to be brought into line with modern practices of the time. | | 1368 | In 1368-69 there was a third outbreak of the Plague, called the "pestis tertia". The Black Death was now endemic and would cause problems throughout the 14th and 15th centuries.
The Alderman of Bury in this year was Richard Charman, a draper, but also a great property speculator. He lived in the expensive Churchgate Street, and managed to raise a large family to adulthood. He became the biggest property owner in Bury, excluding church and abbey holdings. His property was let on short leases to the highest bidder. | | 1369 | A strange crime occurred within the abbey when three monks quarrelled between themselves. John de Norton, John de Grafton and William Blundeston were the three, and one night while everyone slept, Grafton stabbed Norton to death. To avoid scandal the monks buried him in a shallow grave, but Abbot John de Brinkley, discovered it himself. He had them imprisoned, but again oddly the king pardoned them without any trial taking place. The judgement seems to have been that the crime took place in "hot blood", and that this could escape punishment for reasons which we cannot today comprehend. | | 1370 | Wycliffe began to preach the confiscation of the wealth of the monasteries, by now generally held to be more interested in money making than in religion. John of Gaunt and other nobles supported him because they feared and envied the wealth and power of the church. Wycliffe's followers, the Lollards, produced an English version of the bible and in general attacked monastic life and church ritual. Lollard preachers were well received by lesser gentry, yeoman farmers and particularly by the weavers of East Anglia. | | 1373 | Walter Haderby of Suffolk was charged with taking wages of 6d or 8d a day for reaping, and also with inciting other labourers to ask for similar pay. The Statute of Labourers would have fixed the rate at 2d or 3d a day. | | 1374 | The plague once again hit Bury with an epidemic, and the pattern would continue every five to ten years up to the 1420's.
Richard Charman, possibly the richest layman in Bury by now, took over a large mansion in Churchgate Street which reached back to Hog Lane. By now, the cash from his property business was being used to lend extensively about the town. By the 1390's money lending was the biggest part of the family business. Richard died in 1390, but the family wealth lived on. | | 1377 | Richard II took the throne and reigned until 1399.
The 1377 Poll Tax attempted to list all the population over 12 years of age in order to collect the sum of 4 pence a head. If everbody in Bury was recorded, and they all paid fourpence, it gives a population total of 2445 people over twelve. Robert Gottfried has suggested that this can be interpreted as a total population for Bury of 4200 at this time.
The data from this Poll Tax seems to indicate that Bury was relatively better off than before the Black Death in the 1334 Lay Subsidy rolls. Norwich still led East Anglia at 6th in the country assessed at £65.17.0, followed by Kings Lynn at 9th on £52.2.0. Bury was 15th at £40.15.0, higher than both Yarmouth and Ipswich. Great Yarmouth was now 20th at £30.13.0 while Ipswich was 27th at £24.9.0. New Market also now appears in the rolls at an assessment of £19.12.0. Bury now seems to have regained its place as the leading town of Suffolk, but as this was aflat rate tax, some caution is needed in interpretation.
A new Statute was passed to try to suppress the continued gatherings and demands of the workers. The serfs and villeins responded by organising themselves into a "Great Society". They drew up lists of demands and collected subscriptions to pay fines levied on members. These men had fought in the French Wars and were accustomed to bear weapons. They asked for the abolition of serfdom, commutation of their feudal services at the rate of 4d per acre and the abolition of the statute of Labourers. The poorer parish priests and friars often supported these movements. Messages passed from village to village and the growing tax burden to finance the French Wars helped convince the villeins that things could not continue. They had managed an increase in living standards since the Black Death, but taxes and the law were trying to push them down again. | | 1378 | In 1378 the church was divided when a second pope was set up in Rome again, the See having moved to Avignon in 1305. The two rival popes caused a split in the church from 1378 to 1417.
The Guildhall at this time was along the Great Market. It was owned by the abbey and the guilds paid rent for its use. For most of the last 50 years the Guild and the Abbey had argued over who should maintain it. In 1378 Richard II's advisers were forced to intervene to stop it falling down. The king ordered the Guild members to undertake the repairs needed. Only in the next century would the town guild willingly maitain its own hall. | | 1379 | Although Bury and Thetford were inland towns, they both acted as ports, particularly Thetford as it had a bigger river. In 1379 the royal council ordered the two towns to build a ship to be incorporated into the royal navy. This was a feudal duty of the town bailiffs in Bury.
The abbey at Bury was still hard up, and in 1379 they split into two factions in the vote for a new abbot.The pope had nominated Edward Bromfeld, but most of the monks wanted John Tymworth. Bromfeld was proctor-general of the Benedictine order in England, and was also connected to some of Bury's leading Burgesses. The alderman, a man called Thomas Halesworth, claimed to be a cousin of Bromfeld and got the Alderman's Guild to support his candidacy. Bromfeld in turn promised major concessions to the town if he got the job of abbot. This idea appealed to the burgesses who bitterly resented the powers exercised by abbot and convent over them. On October 9, the mob turned out when incited to do so by the minority of monks who supported Bromfeld. They entered the Abbey church, read out the Pope's bull appointing Bromfeld, and installed him as abbot. The mob, meanwhile, terrified the rest of the monastery.
On August 4 the bailiffs and alderman of Bury were sent warrants to arrest Bromfeld for being in contempt of the crown and abbey statutes. This had no effect so the Earl of Suffolk and the Earl of March were sent to arrest the lot of them. The court case lasted a year, and they were all bound over to keep the peace for substantial sums of money.
The violence and subsequent court case put pressure on the abbey and forced a delay in appointing Tymworth, which lasted a couple more years. In the meantime, the abbey had to be run by the Prior, John de Cambridge, who was described as a well meaning but inept muddler by Gottfried. | | 1380 | Even the ordinary people were by now willing once again to chance their arm in challenging the power of the abbey. In 1380 Alice of Hillborough set up a stall in her house and refused to pay the usual market toll. She said that she already paid the abbey its hadgovel or ground rent, on her house, and that covered everything. The abbot sued her and won, but the people were becoming less inclined to accept abbey rights.
A new poll tax was imposed of between 4d and 1/- for a labouring family whatever their means. This bore most heavily on the poorest, and it was clearly seen as an attack on the standards of workmen and labourers. Heavy handed methods were used to collect the poll tax. | | 1381 | St Edmunds only had 47 monks following years of plague, compared to 80 monks and 21 chaplains in 1260. It looks as if up to half the monks had died from the disease. The Bury burgesses were in uproar about the size of their punishments over the election for abbot in 1379, which had resulted in a lengthy court case only a few months settled. Not only that, but the new poll tax was hurting everybody. Another prime grievance of the rebels nationally was the hold the manorial lords had over their villein tenants, particularly over their labour services. All over the country there was discontent, so that the poll tax became just the last straw.
Thus did 1381 become the year of the Peasant's Revolt. In May 1381 villages in South Essex rose up and attacked and killed the local tax collectors. In June, a revolt at Dartford was followed by the storming of Rochester Castle and Canterbury. The Home Counties and East Anglia came out in general revolt and two armies, led by Wat Tyler and John Ball, marched on London, taking it unopposed on 13th June. Ball was a vagrant priest of a type who always seemed to crop up in these revolts of the time. The Tower was forced and the Chancellor, Archbishop Sudbury was taken out and executed for introducing the poll tax. Simon of Sudbury was born in that Suffolk town, the son of a wealthy local merchant. He rose to become Archbishop of Canterbury. His preserved head is kept at St Gregory's in Sudbury. The rebels met the King at Smithfield to discuss terms and during the heated exchanges, their spokesman, Wat Tyler, was struck down. His assailant was said to be the son of John of Lakenheath, who was tax collector in the west suffolk area. The King hastily agreed to their demands to avoid retaliation.
All England, south east of a line from York to Bristol, was in revolt. Local attacks took place where individual Lords were most hated. Monasteries who had refused to commute the services of villeins, and insisted on ancient rights suffered particularly badly. St Albans Abbey was sacked.
In East Anglia the leader of the revolt was said to be Jack Wrawe, a chaplain from Sudbury in Suffolk. John, or Jack, Wrawe was the Suffolk equivalent of Jack Straw, terrorising the Bury area. St Edmund's Abbey was rich and widely resented throughout West Suffolk, which included Sudbury, and since 1332 had been weakened by hard times, plague, scandal and poor rule. On 14 June Jack Wrawe entered Bury and issued a proclamation for the inhabitants to join him or face decapitation. Many needed no such threats, and some would claim this was their reason for joining, but Wrawe was able to lead a band of peasants and townsmen down Cooks Row to the Great Gates of the Abbey. The Prior and several other monks had fled by the time the gates were stormed, as had Sir John Cavendish the king's chief justice. At Bury the Abbacy had been in dispute for 3 years, largely due to the town supporting the minority candidate, Edward Bromfeld, so there was no Abbot, and with no strong leadership, there was no attempt at armed resistance. The abbey was looted and Cavendish's town house pillaged and burnt. Not content with this, Wrawe sent out groups of armed men to search for the Prior and Chief Justice.
Cavendish was caught that day at Icklingham, on the way to Mildenhall, probably making for the London Road, and killed on the spot. At his trial, Wrawe claimed that this death was not due to him, but to Ralph Somerton, a dyer of Bury, and five other townsmen who had set out to catch Cavendish. His head was hacked off and placed on a pike to be taken back in triumph to Bury, and displayed in the Market place.
The abbey Prior, John de Cambridge, eluded his pursuers for several days until his guide betrayed him. He was taken in woods outside New Market on the road to Cambridge. A kangaroo court was held and he was also killed and decapitated. Once again, Wrawe would later say that this deed was done by Robert Westbrom, Thomas Halesworth and Geoffrey Denham, all three Burgesses of Bury. This accusation was also supported by the Almoner of the abbey, John Gosford, writing in his chronicle. The Prior's head was brought back to Bury and exhibited on a pole next to Cavendish's in such a way as to make Cavendish appear to be whispering in the Prior's ear.
The mob also seized the Collector of Dues, John of Lakenheath and executed him. Wrawe attributed this death to another Bury man, Thomas Langham.
For a few weeks Edward Bromfeld was declared abbot and the mob broke in, looted the abbey and beat up any monks not supporting Bromfeld. Bromfield was the man at the heart of the disputed election for abbot which had been going on since 1379. All along he had been the choice of the burgesses because of his promises to give the town back some of its old liberties, should he be made Abbot. The monks all opposed him. By now, of course, the abbot's election was just a proxy for all the old complaints of the town. The 1327 charter was revived with all its demands, which had been revoked in 1331.
On Sunday 16 June , the Burgesses made their own move when they demanded all the charters and muniments held by the abbey which concerned the town. If the monks did not comply and if their old pre 1327 rights were not restored, then the burgesses said they would not be able to restrain the mob. A covenant was drawn up and signed by the Alderman and the Sacrist. Abbey charters and records were carted off to the Guildhall, and the monks did not try to resist with violence as they had in 1327. No doubt the executions had showed that Wrawe meant business.
However on Tuesday June 18, the monks were presented with more demands for documents and they handed over £10,000 in jewels as a surety.
As soon as the king regained his power he repudiated his promises made at Smithfield, and his army proceeded on a bloody progress to regain control of the country. By the Summer the Peasant's Revolt was put down.
On 23 June the royal army arrived at Bury. The Earl of Suffolk arrived with 50 lances. The burgesses turned their backs on Wrawe and handed him over. Following an elaborate trial he was hanged drawn and quartered as a traitor.
The alderman hung on to the abbey's jewels for 16 weeks despite the demands of the Earl of Suffolk. For another 14 weeks they kept the abbey documents. The alderman and burgesses tried to plead that they had not begun the rebellion and that they could not be blamed for the chaos that followed.
Final defeat for the revolt in East Anglia was inflicted at North Walsham by forces led by Henry Despencer, the Bishop of Norwich. The Norfolk rebels were led by Geoffrey Lister, a Norwich dyer. Eventually a national amnesty was declared and Bury alone was excluded from the amnesty. They would all be fined and 18 Suffolk men were to be excluded from the pardon.
The 1327 charter was yet again revoked as the monks said it was exacted under duress. A fine was levied on the town of 2000 Marks, of which 1500 actually seems to have been paid over. The main burgesses were told to appoint a 24 man commission under the alderman to collect the money, but as usual, they tried to squeeze it all out of the less well off and less influential of their fellow townspeople. The poor appealed to the King's Sergeant for relief and he had to send in two bailiffs to enforce some sort of fair play. Even two of the 24 commissioners were so outraged that they supported the lesser folk's demands. | | 1382 | A new Poll Tax was levied, but in view of the poverty of the country, it was imposed solely upon landowners.
So strong was popular support for Lollards that Parliament forced the king to withdraw a law passed to help the arrest of heretics.
John of Lydgate was taken into the almonry school of the abbey at Bury, as a young boy of about 12 years old. He would become a monk by 1389, and then one of the greatest poets of the next century. | | 1383 | King Richard II and his Queen spent 10 days at the Abbey of St Edmunds, costing the Abbey over 800 marks.
The collection of the fine levied on the town of Bury for their part in the Peasants Revolt was still being extracted from the people. The distribution of the burden continued to be a source of complaint.
Things got worse when a new abbot, John Tymworth, was installed as he demanded the customary 100 marks from the town upon his inauguration. The king had to intervene to ensure that the better off also took a share of the load. Collection seems to have taken several years, well into 1385 or 1386. | | 1384 | John Wycliffe died. He had been leader of the Lollards and had demanded religious reform. | | 1385 | Michael de la Pole was created Earl of Suffolk and was given permission to build a castle at Wingfield.
King Richard II sent a command to Abbot John of Timworth, to appear with all his household from the Abbey of St Edmund, to defend the Suffolk coast against French raiders. This feudal obligation arose as lord of the manor of Elmswell. The call was repeated in 1386, and the Abbot either had to attend or could hire merceneries, or could pay a scutage fee to avoid the duty. The abbots never failed to meet these obligations to the king. | | 1386 | In Bury the Burgesses had finally paid off their fine of 2000 marks and a pledge of £10,000 for good behaviour. No further attempts were made to change the established order in the town by violent action after this time. After this time the town gradually got richer from trade and industry, and legal action rather than violence became the instrument of conflict. In other cases privileges or rights could be bought from the abbey as people got better off. | | 1387 | Goeffrey Chaucer began his "Canterbury Tales". Chaucer is today acknowledged as a great writer of the English language, and it is his use of English, as opposed to French or Anglo-Norman, which established the English language as a respectable medium for written communications. Nobody before Chaucer had dared to use English for any form of literary expression.
Around 1382, a young man called John, from the village of Lydgate, joined the abbey at Bury as a schoolboy. He would become ordained in 1389, and during his time as a monk at Bury, up to 1449, he was to continue this use of English, and by his vast output of books on a wide range of topics, from the most mundane domestic advice to high poetry, would consolidate the use of English as the norm for the new generation. | | 1389 | William of Cratfield became the new Abbot at Bury. He would rule the abbey until 1414.
Richard II issued an order that all guilds and fraternities must submit accounts to the crown. Seventeen returns were made for Bury St Edmunds, out of 39 for all Suffolk and 507 for all England. The order seems to have covered those guilds not primarily related to trades and crafts. They had to quote their main duties, and the Alderman's Guild gave theirs as Maintaining the Guildhall. They were dedicated to the Virgin Mary, incorporated in 1305, and also seem to have been known as the Candlemas Guild at this time.
The other guilds gave their duties as providing lights in their church or providing masses or funerals for members, or to honour their patron saint. The other fraternities were two called Corpus Christi, St Ann's, St Christopher's, St Mary's, The Passion of St Edmund, St Edmund's, St George's, St James's, two called St John the Baptist's, St Margaret's, St Mary Magdalene's, St Nicholas's and St Peter's. Most were formally incorporated in the 14th century, although St Mary Magdalene and St Nicholas were first recorded in 1282.
St Nicholas's Guild was also known as the Dusse, Douse or Douze Guild at various times. This name seems to derive from its guild council fixed at twelve members. The Dusse had wide charitable functions but also cared for the needs of the alien merchants who came into Bury. It also maintained a college in Songschool Street, which was located at the east end of St Mary's Church. The Grammar School was located further east, on the site of today's Shire Hall. This part of Raingate Street was then also known as Schoolhall Street.
The first guild of corpus christi had a very large and diverse membership. It had low entry fees, and drew so many members from humbler classes that a second Corpus Christi was founded at St Mary's church. The Alderman's guild and the Dusse guild were more costly to join and membership was a sign of prestige, but the charitable duties were also extensive. Many people would routinely be members of more than one fraternity. | | 1390 | A new Statute of Labourers allowed JP's the power to fix local wages in accordance with prevailing prices. After 1381 the serf was to become a free peasant farmer or a wage labourer in a process extending into the next century.
Richard Charman died, leaving his family one of the richest in Bury. By now the family business had moved from drapery, through property speculation, and they were now the biggest financiers and moneylenders in town. In his last few years he left goods and movables to the town , and left four messuages to the abbey. | | 1393 | The Abbey Church at Bury was flooded. | | 1399 | Richard II was deposed. Henry IV of the House of Lancaster reigned until 1413. | | 1400 | St Mary's church was given a tower, probably under construction from 1395 to about 1403.
Around 1400 the Thetford Warren Lodge was built by Thetford Priory. It may have begun by being a hunting lodge for the Prior and his aristocratic guests, but the story is that it was later used by the Warrener to protect the valuable rabbit warrens built nearby.
From about 1400 to 1600 the Stour Valley and its surrounding villages would become one of the major industrial areas of Britain. Its wealth was based upon the production of woollen cloth. Much of its output would be passed through the great market at Bury St Edmunds.
Raw wool was still a valuable commodity in Bury's trade, but raw wool was available throughout England in its market towns. However, high quality finished woollen cloth was available in only a few places, and Bury was one of them. By 1400 cloth was the most valuable commodity traded in the Risbygate Market.
This thriving cloth industry was not typical across the country and it has been written that towns in general suffered an urban decline from 1270 right up to 1530. This decline was most noticeable between 1420 and 1530. This has been called the Urban Crisis of Medieval Britain, but in the wool towns of Bury, Lavenham, Long Melford and the other local cloth villages, this was a time of growth and prosperity. The setbacks of disease and war were just as bad as elsewhere, but in these areas immigration and money helped to soften these blows. | | 1401 | Despite widespread support for the Lollards, a law was passed ordering the burning of obstinate heretics. A number of executions were carried out. | | 1406 | John Nottingham was first made Alderman in 1406, and again in 1407. He was Alderman again from 1425 to 1427. In his will he was described as a grocer, but moved into property, and then high finance.
It seems likely that from 1406 to 1408, John Lydgate, a monk from Bury, was attending university at Gloucester College, Oxford. The black monks kept Gloucester College as their own college for the study of divinity and theology. Bury had close links with this college, and regularly had two or three students attending there. It is also likely that while at Oxford, John Lydgate translated Aesop's Fables, which was to be published and circulated by the great literary distributor of his age, John Shirley.
John Shirley ran a private scriptorium in London, where teams of clerks would copy out books for sale to the general public. He was like a modern publisher, but in the days before printing, all books were copied out by hand. Originally literacy had been confined to the abbeys, but by this time, there was a great demand for written knowledge from a well to do and educated secular public. John Shirley was born in 1366, and lived to the great age of 90, dieing in 1456. He published most of John Lydgates works, adding valuable notes and introductions to each work, as was his custom on all his publications. His large enterprise consisted of producing books, acting as a bookseller, and even operating a lending library. You could have a book written to be well read and used, or you could order a sumptiously illustrated presentation copy, meant to be shown off and admired. What we would call a coffee table edition. | | 1412 | In 1412, the Prince of Wales, soon to become Henry V, commissioned John Lydgate, a monk of Bury, to translate the Tale of Troy into English. This work probably took until 1420. The Prince attended Oxford University in 1398, and either met Lydgate there, or heard of him through Edmund Lacey, who was Master of University College in 1396 to 1399. Lydgate had definitely been at Oxford in 1406-8, and J Norton Smith believed he was there as early as 1397. | | 1413 | Henry V came to the throne. | | 1414 | At Bury, the abbot William of Cratfield died. He was succeeded by William of Exeter, who would rule until 1429.
An attempted uprising of Lollards failed and its leader Sir John Oldcastle was burnt. The sect's following amongst the weavers was to survive for many years driven underground. |
|
St Edmund's Abbey in 1415
|
| 1415 | Henry V defeated the French at the Battle of Agincourt, famous for the use of archery to overcome heavily armoured cavalry. | | 1417 | Deeds to the Angel Hotel show that at this time it was occupied by the Castle Inn with a property called Le Cookery next door. | | 1420 | Having just finished his Book of Troy, John Lydgate wrote the Siege of Thebes. In it he describes himself as "Lydgate, Monk of Bury, nye 50 year of age." This meant he was born about 1370, and like all monks, took the name of his village when he entered the priesthood. "Born in a village which called is Lydgate, Be old time a famous castle town, In Danish time it was beat down, Time when St Edmund, martyr, maid and king, Was slain at oxne, by record of writing."
By this time, Lydgate's reputation was well established, and he moved into a wider world. For the next ten years his work would become involved with the great occasions of the time. He became almost the official poet of the establishment, praising coronations, and producing a poem or homily to dignify any event or undertaking. Much of the time from 1420 to about 1432, John Lydgate travelled around the country, and even went on foreign trips, sponsored by rich patrons of the arts. | | 1422 | Henry VI became King until he was deposed in 1461. John Lydgate, by now the most well known monk at Bury, wrote a poem to celbrate the occasion, " Ballade to King Henry VI on his Coronation." | | 1423 | John Smith or Jankyn Smyth was first appointed Alderman of Bury St Edmunds, a post nominated by the men of Bury, but subject to the approval of the Abbot. Between 1423 and 1461, Smyth was elected Alderman at least seven times, but there are many gaps in the record. In the 58 years from 1423 to Smyth's death in 1481 there are twenty years missing records of Aldermen. The post was the official interface between town and abbey, and in representing the townspeople, the Alderman could run the risk of offending the Abbot.
He would become well known even to future generations of Bury people because he was the first, if not the greatest, of benefactors of the town. | | 1427 | Unlike many monasteries in the 15th century, Bury was revitalised at this time. In about 1427 St Mary's Church rebuilding was finished with its celebrated carved wooden angel roof. The new nave was longer than its predecessor. | | 1428 | Population decline over the last 70 years in the Countryside left 74 Suffolk Parishes with fewer than 50 people. Farmers who remained were able to take over bigger land-holdings, often enclosing their land with hedges and ditches. This trend continued throughout the century and beyond.
John Lydgate finished a major poem, written in France during a long period away from the Abbey at Bury, called "Pilgrimage of the Life of Man." | | 1429 | When William of Cratfield died, William Curteys became Abbot of St Edmundsbury. He was very pious but also worldly wise and business like. He would keep matters to do with the town on an even keel throughout his reign up to 1457.
Having completed his Life of Man, John Lydgate was asked by French clerics to translate into English a French text of the Danse Macabre written on the cloister walls of the Church of Holy Innocents in Paris. The French text was inscribed in 1424. His translation is very close to the original and the theme is that whatever a man's station on his earth, everybody dies and comes to the same end. The word Macabre is thought to be the name of one of the French writers on this theme, as Lydgate called it "the daunce of Machabre". The word has now taken on its own meaning in English, derived from the theme of the poem. Lydgate's translation was to be largely responsible for the Dance Macabre becoming a part of English religious life for many years to come. | | 1430 | Samson's central tower over the West Front of the great abbey of St Edmund collapsed in 1430. It came down over a period of days as firstly only the south side fell. Then came the east side, but great jagged parts of the north and west side would stand for the next year or so before rebuilding could begin. Abbot Curteys blamed the negligence of previous sacrists and the excessive ringing of the bells.
In 1430 Abbot Curteys made an agreement with John Arnold and Herman Redmond to burn bricks for him at Chevington. It is difficult to know whether brick was widely used yet in Bury, but this is an early record of its use.
Abbot Curteys also began to build a new library for the abbey's book collection, which by this time included about 2,000 volumes, one of the biggest collections in the country.
John Lydgate was now back in England, and was commissioned to have the verses of the Dance Macabre inscribed on the cloister walls of Pardon churchyard near St Paul's. This was to be the start of an an English fashion for such murals and a morbid concentration on death. | | 1431 | Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake.
In Suffolk, Lollards were persecuted for opposing many Catholic religious practices. From 1428 to 1431 there were many prosecutions and two executions, particularly around Beccles and Bungay.
A hundred years later Martin Luther would repeat many of the Lollard teachings.
As Lord Protector of England during King Henry VI's minority, it was Humphrey, the Duke of Gloucester who was largely responsible for the suppression of the Lollards. John Lydgate had written an anti-Lollard poem called "Defence of Holy Church", possibly as early as 1414. The Duke was a supporter of arts and interested in scholarship as well as politics. Thus it was Humphrey, the Duke of Gloucester, who asked John Lydgate to translate Boccacio's De Casibus Illustrium Virorum into English. The commission set the seal on Lydgate's full time return to Bury, and he needed to have a secure base if he was to attempt such a major work. This work took eight years and was completed as "The Fall of Princes" by 1438.
By this time, John Lydgate had returned from an extensive foreign tour including Paris where he saw the mural cloister paintings of the Danse Macabre or Dance of Death. Not only did he translate a poem describing this, he was responsible for spreading the Danse Macabre concept in this country.
Lydgate had entered Bury Abbey at age 15 and studied at Oxford and Cambridge before his foreign tour. On his return to Bury he ran the School for the sons of noblemen and under his patron, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, was effectively to become Court Poet to Henry VI. | | 1432 | The remains of the collapsed Tower were taken down and work began to rebuild the Abbey Church following the collapse. The library would also be rebuilt, and this work may have dragged on for the next 50 years, particularly as a great fire would be caused by a workman's brazier in 1465. | | 1433 | It is not known where or when Jankyn Smyth, a wealthy merchant of Bury, was born. However, a rental of 1433 shows him occupying property on the north side of Churchgate Street, between Hatter Street and Angel Lane.
At the same time we see that today's Abbeygate Street was divided into areas called Cook Row, Barber Row, Spicer Row and Fish Market. Later the whole street was called Cook Row.
In 1433 King Henry VI toured Eastern England. At this time, no king had visited Bury St Edmunds for 100 years. He arrived on Christmas eve with a vast retinue along the Holeway from Cambridge, and was met at Newmarket Heath by the major figures of the abbey and town, all dressed in scarlet or red in honour of the king. The entry to the town was made through the South Gate and up Southgate Street, the main processional way at the time. They went straight into the Abbey Church for a service of thanksgiving. |
| |
|
Henry VI was to become friends with Abbot Curteys of Bury following this stay, which became extended, and the abbey was aware of the great status which this long stay was to give them. During this visit, Abbot Curteys asked John Lydgate to write The Life of St Edmund, as a present for the king. It is likely that one reason for the visit was for the king to meet Lydgate, who was not only well known, but had already written a poem praising the king's coronation, and another on his return from France. In 1433 the King arrived on Christmas Eve and stayed with the abbot until Epiphany. The king then moved into the Prior's lodging and then to the Abbot's manor of Elmswell. He returned at Easter.
By 1433 St Mary's Church was enlarged westwards beyond the Abbey wall giving it a town doorway. | | 1435 | Agents of Henry VI commissioned the Jervys brothers of Bury to outfit two fleets for the French Wars. John Jervys was linked by marriage to John Nottingham, and with his brother Thomas had business interests all over eastern England. The bulk of his property was in West Suffolk, which he ran from his house on the Great Market. Most of the major land deals in mid 15th century Bury seem to have involved him, but he was often in trouble with creditors, sometimes being arrested and ending up in court. | | 1436 | King Henry VI visited Bury Abbey again.
The abbot was having to defend his local privileges after several prisoners escaped from the gaol in Bury. Nominally the abbot's goal for the whole of the liberty, it was kept in repair by the sacrist, who also paid the gaolers wages. When the keeper of the gaol failed to keep his prisoners safely, it reflected badly on the abbot, and there was a seven year attempt by the crown to take back the administration of justice in the Liberty. | | 1437 | John Nottingham left money in his will to build porches on St Mary's West and South doors. In the event the money was used to provide a grand porch on the North door. In his will, Nottingham was recorded as a grocer, and his name has been spelled variously as Notyngham or Nottyngham and so on. However, whether starting in groceries or in the draperies, he moved into property owning, where his real wealth was made.
By this time he owned more tenements and messuages in Bury than any other individual. He also owned property throughout West Suffolk and in London. He had been Alderman at least five times. | | 1438 | In 1438 John Lydgate, a monk now residing full time at Bury, completed his longest work, "The Fall of Princes". It was a translation into English of Boccaccio's "De Casibus illustrium virorum," originally written in 1358. The end product contained over 36,000 lines, and itself was based on a French translation of Boccaccio dated around 1409.
Being so long it could not easily be published in full, but extracts from "The Fall" would be best sellers throughout the 15th century, and even in the 16th century, "The Proverbs of Lydgate", would continue to be a popular publication. | | 1440 | From about 1440, the rearing of sheep became more profitable around Bury than the rearing of cattle. Cattle had been kept for years in and around the town, supporting the leather industry as well as for food. The wool from sheep was now becoming much more valuable for weaving into cloth. This led to an extension to the number of sheep folds around the area.
With the increased cloth production around Bury, it would appear that the fulling and dying of cloth were polluting the waterways of the town. At any rate the number of people in the town calling themselves fishers seems to have fallen dramatically at this time. The river and fen fishing industry became moribund. | | 1441 | John Edward died in Bury. He was another wealthy man who made his money from the wool and cloth trade. He had been Alderman at least three times, and also used his money to buy land. His children were to abandon commerce altogether to become landed gentry. | | 1445 | Between 1425 and about 1445, most of St Mary's was rebuilt except for the tower and chancel. | | 1446 | Abbot Curteys died. He had been a very good ruler of the relationships between abbey and town since 1429. Without his influence over the king it is possible that the events shortly to involve the Duke of Gloucester may never have got out of hand. He was succeeded by William Babington, who ruled until 1453.
King Henry VI held a Parliament in Bury St Edmunds. Parliament met in the Great Refectory of the Abbey and was presided over by the king in person. | | 1447 | King Henry VI summoned his Parliament to sit in Bury St Edmunds in the Great Refectory.
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, was lodged in St Saviours, on the Fornham Road, outside the North Gate. Apparently out of the blue the Duke was summoned to appear before the House for high treason. Aged 56 his doctor said that the shock gave him a stroke from which he died 5 days later. This incident led to rumours of murder and these persisted so that William Shakespeare was to refer to the incident in one of his plays, Henry VI, Part II.
In the play, the action moves between London, the abbey at St Albans, and the abbey at Bury. The references start in Act two scene 4 when a herald addresses Gloucester "I summon your grace to His Majesty's parliament, holden at Bury, the first of this next month." Act Three is at the abbey at Bury St Edmunds, in parliament, where the Duke of Suffolk arrests Gloucester on charges of treason. The king does not believe it, and expects him to be found innocent. Cardinal Beaufort, the Bishop of Winchester then suggests that if the rest will support him, he will provide an executioner. The Queen, the Duke of Suffolk and Richard Plantagenet, the Duke of York, all agree. In act three, scene 2, in a room of state at Bury St Edmunds, 'enter two or three murderers, running over the stage, from the murder of Duke Humphrey.' "Run to my Lord of Suffolk, let him know We have despatched the Duke, as he commanded."
Duke Richard of York owned land in the area to the north of Bury, around Babwell. He endowed some of this land to the friars at Babwell who had their priory on the site of today's Priory Hotel. | | 1448 | The King again summoned Parliament to Bury St Edmunds. | | 1449 | It is believed that the monk John Lydgate died near the end of 1449. He had been a prolific author, producing twice as much as Shakespeare, and three times as much as Chaucer.
In his day he was considered the pre-eminent poet of the English language, and was probably even more highly regarded than Geoffrey Chaucer. This acclaim continued through the next century, until critics of poetry turned on him by about 1600, accusing him of using difficult and obtuse language, and his reputation faded, never to rise again. Today, it is best to see Lydgate as completely typical of the medieval period, both in his use of language, and his thought patterns. He reflected nothing of the new ways of the Renaissance. Today we praise a poem for its conciseness, or brevity, getting its point over with economy of phrases. By 1802, Ritson referred to Lydgate as 'this voluminous, prosaick, and drivelling monk'. In the early Middle Ages, nobody wanted economy in an author. In a society where few people could read, and books were only for the rich, the written word was there to be read out loud. Dramatic writing was based on the theory of "amplification", the very opposite of brevity. People wanted a point to be spelled out, so that even the dullest could follow the moral of the tale. They wanted to enjoy the flow of words; they had plenty of time to fill, once the daylight had gone. Books replaced the oral tradition of the bards, but a good reader was still prized for his skill in holding an audience. John Lydgate, a monk of Bury, wrote for his age. |
| |
|
| 1450 | From 1450 to 1530 the cloth industry would reach a peak of prosperity.
This was particularly marked in the broad cloth area of Suffolk, between Clare, Bury St Edmunds and East Bergholt. Bury St Edmunds was the principal market outlet for the woollen cloth of the Stour Valley, as well as being a major producer in its own right. Merchants came to Bury's wool markets from London, Norwich, Kings Lynn, Great Yarmouth, the Low Countries, Germany and Italy. They were seeking the cloth from the finest fleeces in Western Europe.
As well as the better known textile villages, places within ten miles of Bury like Woolpit, Rattlesden, Thorpe Morieux, Boxstead, Icklingham, Stanstead and Mildenhall were centres of the weaving trade, sending cloth to Bury. Today, Lavenham and Long Melford are well remembered as wool towns, but it is important to understand how widespread the trade was in this area.
Some clothiers would become extremely rich on this trade, particularly in Babergh and Cosford hundreds. Lavenham became the greatest centre for cloth with the most clothiers. Hadleigh, Lavenham and Bury St Edmunds had the greatest output of cloth followed by Ipswich, Nayland, Waldingfield, Long Melford and Sudbury.
By 1450 it is reckoned that about half of Bury's export trade was through Kings Lynn, by way of the rivers Lark and Ouse.
During the later Middle Ages, Haverhill prospered and was featured prominently on 15th and 16th century maps of England, much more so than some of its neighbours like Linton, Clare and Sudbury. Records of the market in the reigns of Henry V and Henry VI (1431 - 1461) give evidence of a significant trading centre, with shops and stalls selling meat, fish, cloth, small goods, lace etc and traders coming in from places like Hundon and Steeple Bumpstead. Haverhill was also a minor centre of the woollen industry and became a weaving town, a characteristic it maintained for several centuries.
The Queens Head is one of the oldest buildings in Haverhill; its mediaeval roof remains. It probably dates from the 15th century, when the Saturday market was very active and "many Inns abut upon the Highway leading from the market to Cambridge and other Townes". The lands belonging to these inns were know as "ye Market Meadowes". In addition to the Queens Head, the Bull, the Bell, the Crown (in Crown Lane) and the White Lyon were prominent. | | 1451 | A fish seller called Cranford, from Steeple Bumpstead, and a peddler called Fisher from Hundon were fined 12d (5p) for selling fish and sprats at an excessive price in the Haverhill market. | | 1453 | The 100 Years War ended with France. The Wars of the Roses began. | | 1455 | By the mid 1400's the Breckland area to the north-west of Bury, began to change in character. The light soils had been ideal farmland from the earliest years because of its good drainage and easy ploughing and cultivating. By this time the soil was exhausted, and tillage gave way to the keeping of sheep and rabbits. Climate change may also have resulted in lower rainfall resulting in crop failures. Sheep farming was also becoming more profitable, but the resulting over grazing would lead to the great erosion problems of later centuries. | | 1461 | The Candlemas Guild elected the Alderman and by 1461 Jankyn Smyth had been elected to this post seven times. The job tended to be seen by townspeople as defending their position against the Abbey. Jankyn was certainly not a favourite of the Abbot as his appointment was vetoed at least once under the provisions of the 1305 arrangement.
Henry VI was deposed and Edward IV of the House of York took the crown. | | 1462 | Hugh Babyngton and Edmund Lorymer and others were arrested for rioting in the town of Bury. It is possible that this riot was about national issues rather than local ones, as the crown had just changed hands. | | 1463 | Smallpox was mainly a childhood disease, and it tended to appear in early spring. Bubonic Plague was an autumn disease and and the winter belonged to influenza. In 1463 there was a bad outbreak of the smallpox in Bury.
John Baret was a wealthy cloth merchant, who lived in his house on Chequer Square in Bury. During 1463 he wrote his will, copies of which survive in records today. He recorded that he had a spinning house at his home, which was unusual for the time, as most spinning and weaving took place in the cottages of the workers themselves. Fabrics known as dornix or darnick were produced by many weavers, while Bury coverletts were well known as well.
| | 1465 | On 20th January 1465, during restoration of the lead roof of the great St Edmunds abbey church, the plumbers left a brazier burning at their 10 o'clock break. It was blown over and the roof caught fire. By noon the whole chancel was a furnace and the main central spire collapsed into the choir beneath. The canopy over the saints relics crashed onto the shrine and the church was completely gutted.
There is no subsequent reference to any inspection of the saint's body, and in 1931 Goodwin wrote that "it seems probable that the saint's body was more or less cremated on that occasion".
St James church was also severely damaged by fire. The abbey had to raise funds as best it could for the repairs. We can see from wills made after this time by the wealthy townspeople, that the abbey was not mentione as an important beneficiary as much as it might have been two centuries earlier. | | 1467 | John Baret died and in his will left money to repair the Risbygate, which he called "the most ruinous of the town". He had made his money from draperies, as had the Drury family, and they were the most influential families in town at the time. It seems that much of the town's old infrastructure was in a state of decay at this time. For the next 50 years many rich citizens left money to repair the other gates as well. All the roads also benefitted from bequests. In contrast, the abbey was left little or no money, and did not itself carry out any major repairs to its own fabric or to the fabric of the tenements it owned throughout the town. Abbey property seems to have decayed considerably over this period.
John Baret's will was written in 1463, and contains some interesting points. After the usual "In the name of Almyghty God,Amen," he begins, "I John Baret, of Seynt Edmudys Bury, of good mynde and ......". Later he refers to John Smyth, "Itm to Jankyn Smyth my grene bedys with ...". Perhaps the town was as often referred to at this time as St Edmunds Bury as Bury St Edmunds, and Although John Smyth was his given name, he was widely known as Jankyn.
This John Baret was John Baret II, and was married to Elizabeth Drury. Their son, John Baret III entered the abbey and rose to become Treasurer of the Abbey hoarde, one of its most powerful positions. Because John III could not marry and carry on the Baret line, the Baret fortune was spread among the various nephews and nieces, who mainly lived other than in Bury. | | 1469 | King Edward IV visited the Abbey at Bury St Edmunds.
A new Abbot was appointed at Bury and the town was, as usual, asked to pay the customary feudal dues of 100 marks. | | 1470 | Margaret Odeham of Bury set up her charity for the relief of prisoners in the town gaol although she did not die until 1492. As a woman, she could not be a Guildhall Feoffee, but could join a religious guild. She was married to John Odeham, an important Draper and Burgess, who also moved into property. However, his wife was well connected, widely travelled and educated in her own right.
The town gaol at this time was on the Cornhill roughly where the Electricity showrooms were for many years, until sold to a compact disc and video shop, MVC.
John Smyth, or Jankyn Smythe, conveyed to Robert Gardiner, and 23 others, some of his lands in Bury, Barton and Fornham. They were to hold it for the benefit of the whole town.
Robert Gardiner was the Alderman and in 1470 he had drawn up a list of the customs and rights enjoyed by the town. It was not meant to be a declaration of independence, but merely rehearsed a list of protections from excessive rents or dues which the convent may try to levy, and the old rights to a market and fair court, to its freedom from tolls for town burgesses and so on. | | 1472 | William of Worcester surveyed St Mary's church and included the Sanctuary and the crypt beneath in his measurements, which remain the same today.
Both the sanctuary and crypt were provided by Jankyn Smyth although the exact date is not known, only to say that it obviously preceded 1479 and was probably during the 1470s.
In 1472 the Candlemas Guild revised its statutes to prepare it for the administration of the wills of Jankyn Smyth and Margaret Odeham. This guild, properly called the Guild of the Purification of our Lady in St James' Church, had come about after the Guild Merchant had been suppressed in 1327. Ostensibly a religious group, in practice it represented the local secular Establishment, and within what they could get away with under the Abbot's rule, they ran the town. Jankyn Smyth's will had named feoffees who were to administer his bequest on behalf of the Alderman and Burgesses of Bury St Edmunds, and they were probably all members of the Guild. The Guild met for its religious pursuits in the north aisle of St James' Church but it held its social and business meetings in the Guildhall. This could be said to be the founding of the Guildhall Feoffees but this name does not seem to have been used until 1637. |
| |
|
| 1473 | Jankyn Smyth made his will in August, leaving his house and more land in Bury to the alderman and 21 others. This property, and his 1470 conveyance, was for "relief and aid of the alderman, co-burgesses and the whole community and poor inhabitants of the said town of Bury Saint Edmunds in support of the burthens daily falling upon them." He was not to die until 1481, but this gesture would undoubtedly have been known to the Guild members. The people to whom the administration of the will would fall were known as Feoffees. | | 1475 | Another new Abbot, Richard Hengham, was appointed at Bury and a further 100 marks was demanded from the townspeople. | | 1476 | William Caxton set up a printing press in Westminster. Books were already being published for the general public, but they were produced in large scriptoria by teams of clerks who copied out texts by hand. Most such production had originated within religious houses, but for the last century, private businesses had published the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, John Lydgate, and a host of other classical texts in translation. Printing would now increasingly replace this hand copying. | | 1477 | On 18th November, Caxton published the first book to be printed in English. It was a translation from the French work entitled "The Sayings of Philosophers."
In 1477 the Weavers' and Linendrapers' Guilds of Bury were allowed by the king to enact bye-laws to protect their prerogatives and privileges. Their formal incorporation in this way demonstrates their economic power at the time. Bury never quite had the amount of cloth producers as did Lavenham, but it was not far behind. In the same year the burgesses restricted the sale of cloth to specific days, and only then in the town's official Woolhall.
Such was their strength by now that although they continued to pay tolls to the Abbot, he could no longer enforce the total control over weaving and fulling rights that his predecessors had done up to the twelfth century. In theory the abbot held the rights to all mills and perhaps all looms, but the weavers treated the looms as their own property by this time.
These wool and linen weavers rules and regulations included a reference to the Corpus Christi procession of Mystery Plays, performed in Bury at this feast time. Half of any fines levied for the breaching of the Guild Rules would be applied to finance the Pageant of the Ascension, which was well established by this time. "yt hath be customed of olde tyme owte of minde yeerly to be had to the wurschepe of God." It is quite likely that the version currently in use at Bury had been written or adapted by John Lydgate, the poet monk of Bury, who had died in 1449. But the custom of Passion Plays had been going on since 'time out of mind', as we have seen. | | 1478 | The abbot, Richard Hengham, had several burgesses hauled into court for usurping his privileges. The alderman, Walter Thurston, had appointed Keepers of the Market, constables and watchmen, saying that he had ancient rights to do so. He did not seem to take any notice of the List drawn up in 1470 by Alderman Gardiner, and the abbot was able to prove that he was right by quoting the 1327 decisions of the court. Once again the town had done itself no favours as this produced yet another legal judgement against them in 1479, when the Star Chamber settled the case. | | 1479 | In 1479-80 there was the worst outbreak of plague in Bury since 1361 to 62. Perhaps 15 percent of the population was killed.
Abbot Thomas Rattlesden was appointed, following Hengham. This was the third new Abbot within the last 10 years at Bury, making due three payments of 100 marks each from the town. It is possible that Jankyn Smyth personally met the whole 300 marks, as there is a reference to this sum in a bidding prayer in praise of him. |
| |
|
| 1481 | Jankyn Smyth died and he left several important bequests. One was to the College of Sweet Man Jesus, his chantry in College Street. A chantry was an institution where prayers could be said for the dead for a period of years upon payment of the appropriate fee or donation. A priest called Henry Herdeman was granted a royal license to set up this chantry in 1481, together with a new Guild of Sweet Man Jesus whose sole purpose was to say prayers, a daily mass for the king, the queen and royal family and for the soul of the great benefactor, John Smith.
Another bequest was to the Franciscan Friars at Babwell, but the bulk of his will went to 24 Guildhall Feoffees drawn from the Candlemas Guild. This fund was to pay for 2 masses on 28 June and 2 February to remember Jankyn and then to pay the 100 marks or £67 feudal dues paid by the town to every new Abbot on his election. The money would come from rents on 238 acres of land in Eastfield, Southfield and Vinefield in the town as well as in Great Barton, Rougham, Fornham St Martin and Nowton.
He made substantial contributions to many religious houses, and also to the town's other key guild, The Dusse of St Nicholas. Most of the other guilds also got something, as did the poor and the prisoners.
John Smith, or Jankyn Smythe, as some would say, was the greatest single benefactor of the Bury town burgesses and ordinary people in late medieval Bury St Edmunds. He had probably owned more property even than Richard Charman, a century earlier, and having very few, if any, heirs, gave it all away on his death.
His will is interesting in itself. It was written in English, and published by the Camden Society in 1850. It begins "I John Smyth, of Bury Seynt Edmude, esquyer ......". | | 1483 | Edward V reigned briefly from April to June when Richard III took the throne. | | 1485 | From about 1485 another disease appeared on the scene to harry the people of Bury. It was called the Sweating Sickness, but although unpleasant it did not cause a significant number of deaths in the way that the plague could do. As if this was not enough, the disease Syphilis seems to have first reached England about this time.
Henry VII the first Tudor King came to the throne.
Henry Tudor had defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field to take the crown. Sir John Howard commanded much of Richard's force. He was Duke of Norfolk from Stoke by Nayland. On Henry's side was the Earl of Oxford from Lavenham. Both died in the battle. | | 1486 | King Henry VII visited the Abbey at Bury St Edmunds. He confirmed the immunities of the abbey, and its control over the town remained unshaken.
Around this time the tower of Lavenham's great church was begun. The mark of Thomas Spring II, a great wool merchant and clothier at the base indicated his involvement. | | 1492 | Christopher Columbus reached the New World. Columbus was the commander of a Spanish expedition that set out to find a westward route to the Indies. On 12 October he stepped ashore in what was to become called the West Indies.
Margaret Odeham died in 1492, leaving a large number of bequests to church and town charities. She left money to two daughters nad her late husband John had provided for his son. She still had so much property that she left as wide a number of bequests as John Smyth. There were large rural estates left to the Alderman's Guild, and even her large mansion on Skinners Row was left to the town.
In her will she refers to her town as Bury Seynt Edmond and Bury Seynt Edmud's. | | 1495 | The lands of the Honour of Clare had included a small part of Bury, around the Manor of Maidwater since the time of William the Conqueror. In 1495, they were granted in jointure to Queen Elizabeth, the wife of Henry VII. In 1509, they would pass to Katherine of Aragon. | | 1496 | Possibly the first dissolution of a monastic house occurred when the Bishop of Ely acquired the small Benedictine nunnery of St Radegund outside Cambridge. He obtained a papal bull and a licence from the King to take possession of the priory, its lands and properties and displace the two nuns still in residence. He used the site to found Jesus College. | | 1499 | From 1499 to 1500 the plague struck Bury yet again. Many people died from it. | | 1501 | Michelangelo started work on his statue of David, and it would be finished by 1504, and put up in the square at Florence. | | 1503 | Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa.
Work begun on extending St James' Church westwards to give it a street access. Three shops were demolished to provide the space needed. The resulting nave survives today, and was probably the work of John Wastell, the Master Mason of the abbey, who lived in Bury. The work would take many years, probably not being completed until 1551.
John Salter left tenements and land in Bury to the Gild of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which he wanted administered on the same terms as the will of Jankyn Smyth. As far as we know, Smith's will was administered by a separate group of feoffees, but the gilds were always inter related by mixed memberships, and may at this time have been the same people, wearing different hats, as we say. | | 1505 | Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby, mother of Henry VII refounded Christ's College at Cambridge. She bought up several small monasteries to endow Christ's College with their properties, including North Creake in Norfolk. | | 1509 | Henry VIII inherited the crown and would rule until 1547, bringing a period of tremendous social change. The country had rejoiced at the death of Henry VII, because of the very tight rein he had kept on his subjects. The new king married his older brother Arthur's widow, Arthur having died in 1502. Katherine of Aragon now inherited the lands of the Honour of Clare, including those within Bury in the manor of Maidwater. The town of Bury had been fairly quiet under Henry VII, but now there began further unrest against the rule of the abbey.
Unfortunately the plague again struck the people of Bury. | | 1511 | John Parfay, a prominent draper of Bury, left enough money in his will to pave the entire road from South Gate to Ipswich. In the same year there were other road improvements. All the bridges over the Linnet were fixed and a Civic Road Repair Fund was set up. Since 1450 the wealthier townspeople gave up leaving money to the abbey, and instead left it to repair and improve the public buildings, roads, bridges and gates of the town, or to improve the parish churches of St James and St Mary. Parfay himself also left money to cause the bells of St James to be rung every evening at Vespers. | | 1514 | A new abbot was appointed, Abbot John Reeve. Like all monks he changed his last name to his place of origin when he entered the priesthood, and so became John de Melford. He would rule until the Dissolution in 1539, and thus would be the last Abbot of the great abbey of St Edmund. | | 1515 | Thomas Wolsey, better known as Cardinal Wolsey, became Lord Chancellor of England. In practice this made him the King's first minister, a position he would hold until 1529. | | 1519 | Cardinal Wolsey first proposed reform of the monasteries when he became Cardinal Legate. Wolsey was born in Ipswich and had a brilliant career at Oxford before becoming Chaplain to Henry VIII and then his Lord Chancellor in 1515.
Meanwhile Cortes was conquering the Aztecs. | | 1520 | In 1520, Cardinal Wolsey visited Abbot John de Melford at Bury, on route to Walsingham. William Adams and John Hawkyns were two Bury burgesses leading the town's attacks upon the abbot's high rents and exactions upon the town. While avoiding appearing in court to contest these charges, the abbot had the two men arrested and brought before Wolsey in the abbey. The abbot demanded to know all the names of the townsmen who were behind the two men. It was shown that many towns people had contributed money to take legal advice, and to fight the case in court. The abbot then had these men arrested as well, and bound them over for £100 not to bring any law suit against him in future.
In 1520, Henry VIII held the event known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold, in order to impress the French King. It was called the eighth wonder of the world, but in order to pay for it, massive taxation was levied on the english people. In Bury, as elsewhere, everybody worth under 40 shillings had to pay a subsidy of five percent. For those worth over 40 shillings, the rate was two and a half percent. | | 1522 | Henry VIII tried to draw up his own version of the Domesday Book called the Military Survey. Lord Walsingham wanted to establish the Country's fiscal base in order to levy a fair rate of taxes. Its official purpose was "for mustering the King's subjects" and establishing "the true extent of rents and revenues". This 1522 Muster Roll is important evidence of the population at the time.
In Bury and surrounds the Muster Roll found 6,476 men of which 2,900 were able bodied for service in the military. Robert Gottfried has assumed that the Borough's population might have been 5,438 based on an analysis of the evidence, and applying certain formulae.
A new disease called Typhus first struck Bury this year. This year the outbreak was not too bad, but it would recur worse in the future. | | 1523 | The abbot of Bury was appointed by the king to extract further taxes from men worth over 40 pounds. The same happened elsewhere. | | 1524 | The Bishop of Rochester used the properties of two poor nunneries to supplement the income of St John's College at Cambridge.
By this time, Cardinal Wolsey had also decided to found a new college at Oxford, to be known as Cardinal College, later as Christchurch College. In 1524 he obtained a papal bull to dissolve 21 religious houses and he persuaded the King to let him use their revenues on his new college. In Suffolk the list of closed houses included Dodnash and Snape with Blackmore, Horkesley, Stansgate, Thoby, Tiptree and Wix in Essex. Wolsey sent as his agents John Allen and Thomas Cromwell in the first concerted moves to reform monasticism in England.
The Lay Subsidy of 1523 and 1524 was a record of taxes which allows us to see that Lavenham was ranked fourteenth in wealth of English towns at this time with an assessment of £402. Thomas Spring III of Lavenham paid more tax in 1523 than any other layman in England. The source of this wealth was the rise of the industrial production of cloth. The water powered fulling machine, cheap local labour, a ready supply of local wool, and the drive and energy of local entrepreneurs had pushed the Stour Valley to the forefront of English Industrial output in these years. Three generations of Thomas Springs were the main Lavenham Wool producers. Much of this cloth was sold through the market at Bury in competition with the ports of Colchester and Ipswich. The road from Lavenham to Bury, called Buryweye, was the most heavily travelled route in West Suffolk.
Bury was ranked just above Lavenham at 13th with a subsidy assessed at £405, barely any different. If Bury and Lavenham are considered together as an economic unit, they would together rank 7th in the land for combined wealth.
At this time London was first at £16,675, but Norwich was 2nd in the land at £1,704. Ipswich was 8th at £657, Kings Lynn 9th at £576, and Colchester was 12th at £426.
By now the burgesses of Bury and its surrounds were wealthy independently of the Abbey of St Edmund. | | 1525 | The great tower of Lavenham's church was finished. Started by Richard Spring II, his son's heraldic shield at the top shows that Richard Spring III, the great clothier largely paid for its completion. At his death in 1524, his widow was worth £1000. In Suffolk her wealth was exceeded only by the Duke of Norfolk. Spring had owned 26 manors and much other property and was probably the richest commoner in England.
Taxation was racked up once again when the king ordered a levy of one sixth of every man's estate. This was the last straw for some people, driven to desperation. Steadily rising prices, higher taxation and a decline in the broad cloth industry led to an uprising of 4000 people around Lavenham and Brent Eleigh, with lesser riots in Bury and Cambridge. The Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk managed to contain the situation.
Such recessions continued in the 16th century as work for spinners, weavers and finishers fluctuated and dried up. |
| |
|
| There were still many extremely wealthy merchants like Thomas Kytson, who would build Hengrave Hall from 1525 to 1538 at a massive cost of £3000. The hall was built of brick and faced with stone. Building materials were brought to Hengrave by barge up the River Lark. Kytson had bought the estate of Hengrave from Edward, Duke of Buckingham, in 1520. The Duke was beheaded in 1521, and for a time the King seized the estate for himself, having backdated the Bill which condemned Buckingham for 4 years. Kytson managed to persuade him to let the estate remain in his hands. Kytson's sister Margaret was married to John Washington, and Kytson would employ their son, Thomas Washington, as his agent in Flanders. George Washington, a direct descendant, became President of the United States of America. | | 1526 | The rebels were brought before the Earls of Suffolk and Norfolk, who dealt fairly with them, and things were quietened down. | | 1527 | We know that the Bury St Edmunds town wall was still in existence at this time, as leases were issued to landowners just inside the walls to make gates through it to the land beyond.
Thomas Turner of Haverhill was very active in the apprehension and examination of non-conformists in the area. Eight Lollards were discovered at Steeple Bumpstead and were tried for heresy. | | 1528 | Cardinal Wolsey continued his reforms by obtaining papal bulls to close all monasteries with less than six religious persons. Other monasteries of the same order with less than 12 religious persons were to be united. Wolsey intended the revenues of these closed houses to be used to finance a new College at Ipswich, at St Peter's Priory, but this foundation never materialised. Only its rather grand gates were built, and surprisingly these survive today in Ipswich. Seven houses were suppressed including in Suffolk, St Peters at Ipswich, Felixstowe, Flixton and Rumburgh. Bromehill was closed in Norfolk. Thomas Cromwell was again his agent in this work.
There was a rising of poor men in Bury, which was put down by Sir Robert Drury. It had taken three years before the effects of the 1525 tax levy, and conditions in general, had got so bad that Bury was driven to action. Their leader was called Davy, and there were two or three hundred others ready to march to London and beg the king and the cardinal to remedy their wretchedness. Sir Robert acted promptly to stop the whole idea. | | 1529 | Cardinal Wolsey lost his post as Lord Chancellor before he could set up the Ipswich College.
At Bury at least one lease was granted to a private individual to take over a house and orchard south of the Norman Tower but inside the abbey walls. | | 1530 | Henry VIII charged Wolsey with high treason. On his way to London to face charges he was taken ill and died in Leicester Abbey.
The last major outbreak of the plague occurred in Bury, following 50 years of outbreaks. However, by this time, the death toll from plague had declined, and inward migration had helped to replace the population levels. Robert Gottfried has suggested that by the time of the Reformation the population of Bury may well have regained its pre-plague levels.
By 1530 the abbey of St Edmund was considerably weakened by years of selling off its lands, and borrowing money to try to meet its running expenses. The standard of living of the abbots and the main officers were those of great Lords, and little attempt was made to cut back. Bad management resulted in sales of assets to make ends meet, but this was bound to store up problems for the future. A. Goodwin believed that the abbey had sorted itself out by the Reformation, but Lobel and Gottfried agree that the opposite was the case, and the abbey was in accelerating decline by this time. By 1539 the landed estates of the abbey were less than half the size of the 1290s, but it was still the biggest landowner in West Suffolk.
Bury itself was full of abbey tenements and holdings, many of which were in decay and even ruinous, giving a tumbledown feel to streets west of the abbey. However, many of the burgesses were wealthy and had moved to better areas of the town, maintaining prosperous lives independent of the abbey's decline. Bury would not collapse just because the abbey was in trouble. | | 1531 | Henry VIII agreed his Bill of Sewers, and appointed a Commission to maintain sewers. In those days a sewer was not meant to take solids. A sewer was understood to be a watercourse, pipe or tunnel to take rainwater from streets and house roofs to prevent flooding and undermining of property, and from fields to drain crops. Disposal of solid waste was considered a private matter, and the privy usually discharged to a midden in most towns. | | 1533 | Mary Tudor also known as Mary Rose, Queen of France was buried in the Abbey Church.
The King married his second wife, Ann Boleyn, and initiated a decisive break with the Church of Rome. They had a daughter who would become Elizabeth I, although the elder daughter Mary had precedence to the throne. | | 1534 | In about 1530 John Leland, the Keeper of the King's Libraries, toured around East Anglia. As the king's Antiquary, he was looking for ancient books and records. The dates are unclear as he made various trips round England over a ten year period. It is said that in 1534 John Leland visited Bury. Most of his comments on provincial towns were far from flattering, but in the case of Bury he wrote that: |
| |
|
"Why need I in this place extol Bury at greater length? This only will I add, that the sun does not shine on a town more prettily situated, so delicately does it hang on a gentle slope, with a little stream flowing on its east side, nor on an abbey more famous, whether we regard its endowments, its size, or its magnificence. You would aver that the Abbey was a town in itself; so many gates has it - and some of them are even of bronze - so many towers, and a church surpassed by none, under whose shadow, in the same churchyard, stand three more of the most excellent design. The streamlet, which I just now mentioned, flows through the midst of the abbey precinct, gaining access thereto by a double bridge vaulted over it."
The gentle stream does not seem to have been named the Lark until about the seventeenth century. In 1699 there was enacted "an Act for making the River Larke, alias Burn, Navigable". In 1534 it was small and shallow and could not take deep draught vessels, so only flat bottomed barges could reach the town. usually poled by men or pulled by oxen or mules.
Henry VIII declared himself head of the English Church, effectively replacing the Pope. Parishes no longer paid a levy to Rome. | | 1535 | Thomas Cromwell was appointed the King's Vicar-General and he suggested to the King that as a quarter of England was in monastic hands this was a great source of wealth waiting to be tapped by the crown. A number of Crown Commissioners were appointed to draw up a report or comperta on the condition of the monasteries.
In November, John ap Rice, one of Cromwell's agents, visited Bury and when they wrote to Cromwell they admitted that they could find little to the discredit of the Abbey. This report did not suit Cromwells purposes, however. So, when the details were published for public consumption, the Comperta, or report, alleged bestiality and corruption but the allegations were almost certainly exaggerated in order to justify the confiscations which Cromwell had already planned.
Church properties were also valued and this was published in Valor Ecclesiasticus. | | 1536 | In 1536, the first complete bible to be published in English was produced, in a translation by Miles Coverdale. It was known as Coverdale's Bible, and although it was revolutionary, it was to be largely displaced in 1539 by the Great Bible. Many churchmen, such as Sir Thomas More , had been against a bible in English, as it would allow the common people to form their own opinions from the original text. But the pressure from the people, and from the new printing presses, was unstoppable. Even the King was sympathetic to the use of English.
Ann Boleyn was executed and the marriage annulled. In the process Elizabeth was declared illegitimate.
Jane Seymour was the King's third wife and gave birth to Prince Edward who became Edward VI in 1547.
The Act of Suppression authorised the closure of monasteries with an annual income of less than 300 marks (about £200). This Act covered 300 houses but about 75 were exempted upon payment of a fine. At Bury the monks thought it expedient to grant Cromwell and his son Gregory an annuity £10 payable from the rents at Harlow.
In addition, the number of Holy days was reduced from 90 to 30 a year, effectively adding two months to the working year.
The loss of the monasteries brought resentment, resistance and serious economic changes as they served their communities with medical aid, alms for the poor, accommodation for poor travellers and the sick as well as their religious needs. There were uprisings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, as well as more peaceful protests such as the Pilgrimage of Grace, based at York.
Sir Robert Drury died, and like many rich men before him, left considerable sums to the town of Bury. He was from Hawstead outside the town, but came from a long line of wealthy landed Drury's around Bury. Perhaps initially from Thurston, the Drury's had land all over East Anglia. This particular Sir Robert was one of the great figures of Medieval Bury, and also served as Speaker of the House of Commons, and Privy Councillor to King Henry VIII. | | 1537 | Rumours abounded that the larger monasteries were also to be suppressed. There now remained about 250 monastic houses, and Cromwell tried to persuade many of them to make a voluntary surrender. Ixworth Priory closed in 1537. | | 1538 | Cromwell wrote to the heads of all religious houses to assure them no compulsory proposals were contemplated, but at the same time he sent Inspectors or Visitors to use threats, coercion, or promise deals in order to get deeds of "voluntary" surrender agreed. It is recorded that the houses at Sudbury, Clare, Babwell and Welnetham all closed in 1538.
In September 1538 the Kings Commissioners arrived in Bury to confiscate its wealth. Their official report to Lord Cromwell reads as follows: "Pleasyth it youre Lordship to be advertised that we have been at Saynt Edmondsbury, where we found a riche shryne, which was very comberous to deface. We have taken in the seyd monastery in golde and sylver 5000 markes and above. Besyds as well a riche crosse with emeredds as also dyvers and sundry stones of grete value; and yet we have left the churche, abbott and convent very well furneshed with plate of sylver necessary for the same. And we assure your Lordship the abbot and convent be very well contented with everything that we have done there, as knoweth God, who preserve your Lordshipp. Your Lordshipe most bounden, John Williams Richard Pollard Phylyp Parys John Smyth"
In November 1538 the King's agent Richard Ingworth arrived at Clare to receive the surrender of Clare Priory from the Austin Friars. The friars were pensioned off like many other houses, and that was that, except that in this case, the Augustine Order would return to the same spot in 1953.
During 1538 royal injunctions began to reflect protestant ideas by forbidding placing candles before images and other superstitious practices. English bibles were now officially encouraged. | | 1539 | Another Act of Suppression sanctioned the transfer of further monastic possessions to the state, but by this time Cromwell had almost completed his confiscations either with, or without, the sanction of the law.
Surrendered monastic properties were leased or sold to supporters of the Crown, but there was considerable pilfering and embezzlement along the way so that only about one-fifth of the proceeds were estimated to reach royal coffers.
The main convent churches and monastic buildings were destroyed in order to preclude any return by the monks. Gold and silver works of art were melted down. Carved wooden screens and stalls were used to make fires to melt down the lead taken from roofs. Books, deeds, manuscripts and documents were burnt or thrown away, if not deemed valuable enough to be sold.
The property of the Abbey of St Edmund was surrendered to the Crown on 4 November 1539 but much of the wealth had already been confiscated in the previous year. The Deed of Surrender was signed by Abbot Reeve, Prior Denysse of Ryngstede and forty-one monks. The Abbot was given a pension and a house in Crown Street, now incorporated into the Greene King Brewery. It seems that 44 of the 60 monks still on the establishment were also pensioned by the crown. Many may have been sick or recently died as the plague had also broken out again in the abbey.
The bailiffs and other officials, seem to have carried on collecting all the old dues and tolls, but paid them over to the Crown.
The body of Mary Tudor was removed from the great Abbey Church and placed in St Mary's Church as the Abbey Church was to be stripped.
Only a few months after the last monastery had been closed down, Thomas Cromwell was beheaded without trial on 28th June 1540, mainly for his part in persuading the King to marry Ann of Cleves.
Approximately 820 religious houses were closed down, and about a third of these have completely disappeared today. One third exist as scanty remains. There were enormous social consequences arising from this massive change in ownership and work patterns, with the poor in particular suffering from the loss of the vital social security and health systems provided by the monasteries. In 1547, Henry VIII would die and be succeeded by Edward VI. | 1539 onwards Follow our history into the dissolution of the monasteries
|
|
