The laws of Anglo-Saxon kings do not give much hint of foreign
(or rather 'alien' as called by the English)
merchants frequenting England, though this may be partly because they do not feel
any need to differentiate, as regards legal principles, between English and foreign traders.
It was recognized that some traders would be using ships, for Ethelred (ca.991,
at a time when England was threatened by Danish incursions) guaranteed protection
for any merchant ship reaching an English estuary, and for their crews and cargoes
put ashore at English towns; and at much earlier date, a law of Ine recognized
that some traders would travel into the interior of England. But the Anglo-Saxon
authorities were mainly concerned, as far as commerce was concerned, with ensuring
that bargaining was conducted fairly and did not involve stolen goods, so that
they restricted trading to towns
(except everyday low-cost transactions necessary to sustenance) where there was
a public marketplace and officials or other credible witnesses who could oversee
those transactions and, if necessary, attest to them in court.
More revealing are Ethelred's regulations
for London, already a hub for international commerce; they are mainly concerned
with payment of tolls and the problems surrounding foreign currency, although also
refer to some trading rights of and restrictions on merchants from France, Flanders,
and Germany. Other sources, such as chronicles and
Domesday, throw a little light on
the extent of large-scale commerce. But we rely more on
archaeology – particularly extensive
investigations at some larger towns, like London, York, Winchester, Norwich,
and Southampton – to suggest, through coins, remains of imported goods
and of port facilities, the extent and range of foreign trade, augmented to a degree
by evidence from topography and surnames
to show subsequent growth of local commerce and the industries that fuelled it.
At the risk of over-generalizing, we can say that pre-Conquest English commerce
was oriented towards northern Europe and particularly the Scandinavian world,
but that the continental territorial possessions of Norman and Angevin kings and
their spouses helped expand, and to some extent divert, lines of communication
and commerce southwards throughout more regions of France, while the growth of
the Flemish cloth industry spurred trade with Flanders and expansion of commercial activities
of Mediterranean maritime powers brought modest but growing numbers of Spanish, Portuguese,
and especially Italians to English shores. England's own merchants were less experienced
in foreign trade, perhaps less canny in business strategies, and had less capital
they were willing to venture; so they were at a disadvantage in the face of competition
from outsiders. Yet many had the customary and chartered rights of burgesses,
group support via merchant gilds, a competitive advantage in English courts,
and influence over local authorities that could place regulatory impediments before outsiders.
In the early post-Conquest period the reception of foreign merchants to England
must have been a mixture of welcome and distrust. On the one hand they brought
both necessaries (notably wine, but also high-quality cloths, and dyes desired
by English cloth-makers) and luxury goods not otherwise produced by the English;
and they were buyers of the surplus produce of English farmlands and pastures –
particularly good English wool to supply the continental cloth industry – and
other raw materials, such as hides, grain, tin, and lead. On the other hand,
they presented a serious competitive challenge to native merchants, and were something
of an unknown quantity with their foreign languages, coinages, and behaviours, subject
to parochial and protectionist sentiments. For the foreign traders themselves,
overseas ventures were full of risks; quite apart from the various hazards of
maritime travel, they faced in England the costs of royal customs duties and
of local tolls at each town they visited (some of these exactions possibly extortionate),
regulations restricting their freedom of action and length of stay, possible hostility
and/or obstructionism from locals (particularly at times of war when dislike
of foreigners tended to increase), and uncertain prospects of obtaining justice
in the event they were cheated by English buyers or sellers.
Nonetheless, the desirability of encouraging foreigners to trade in England and
of creating conditions that encouraged them to do so was recognized by the king
and his entourage, who purchased the kinds of luxury goods foreign merchants brought
and for whom taxation of commerce provided a revenue stream, as well as by
at least the greater local merchants who could benefit from trade with foreign
counterparts as consumers and as middlemen distributing foreign goods across England
and collecting local produce to sell to foreign exporters. Most borough authorities
were not overtly hostile to foreign traders, but they had the difficult task of balancing
the economic benefits from attracting long-distance commerce, and the need to assure
the local population an adequate supply of necessaries at reasonable cost, with
the quasi-monopolistic market privileges of tax-paying citizens (among whom
they themselves numbered) and the added challenges the presence of strangers tended
to cause for maintenance of law and order.
Magna Carta addressed some of the key concerns foreign merchants had, promising them
safety and security in entering or leaving England and the right to remain
while conducting trade and to travel about internally, without being burdened
with improper tolls; even in time of war the merchants from enemy countries
would have their safety ensured, so long as their country was according
similar treatment to English merchants. But although John's successors would
develop a policy of royal protection of the foreigners who supplied their household,
brought vital supplies of wine to sustain their supporters, and were the source
not only of customs revenues but of loans to finance war efforts, there remained
a fundamental tension between the need to attract foreign merchants and the need
to circumscribe their activities so that they would not completely dominate
wholesale trading and thus retard the development of a native economy benefiting
from long-distance commerce.
A small number of foreign merchants – presumably those who found the English market
a profitable one – settled in England and merged with the native mercantile elite.
Perhaps this acquisition of urban property, and consequent opportunity to be accorded
burgess status, was seen simply as the route to being able to trade in England
throughout the year, without the encumbrances faced by outsiders; though
we should not discount other, more personal, motives which are rarely documented.
Particularly in the thirteenth century, a period when newly-enfranchised boroughs
were prepared to accept all and sundry to boost the local taxpaying population,
we find forenames or surnames indicative of foreign origins (though whether
personally or through family descent is not always evident). But the process
of immigration, driven partly by economic ambition and opportunity, had of course
been going on in England for a long time before that. At Lynn, for example,
names of residents listed in the Pipe Roll of 1165/66 reflect the intermixing
of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Norman cultures, as well as relocation within England;
for instance: Aluard son of Alfware, Steingrim, Wulnoth son of Svartgar,
Turstein son of Rolf, Robert Stuntard, Ralph Heved, Henry son of Alfled,
William of Huntingdon, Wulnoth of Harwich. And in the thirteenth century
Lynn's governing group included Robert fitz Sunolf,
instancing Lynn's Scandinavian connections, Michael de Belvaco and probably
John de Merlowe suggesting French background, while the names of John de Hispania,
and John de Almannia speak for themselves. At Ipswich the
leading family in the same period
had Norman roots; and at thirteenth-century Norwich we can point with
some confidence to Ralph Estrensi, Nicholas de Chaumpanye, Geoffrey de Verly,
and perhaps Nicholas de Costinoble.
This small foreign element accepted into the urban elite, in many cases probably
because of mercantile success, is almost entirely absent (or invisible)
in later centuries. Sylvia Thrupp [The Merchant Class of Medieval London,
University of Michigan Press, 1948, 219-22] has observed something similar at London,
except that, as a great magnet for trade and traders, the city population evidences
a few prominent French immigrants into the fourteenth century, and Italians
both then and in an earlier period, but still only a relatively small group
within the city's ruling class, while Flemish and German immigrants were
found only in the artisan class – although we must allow
Arnold fitz Thedmar as an exception
(though again an early one) to this rule. In the later fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries citizenship was more closely defined and the entrance to it
guarded, and there was greater reluctance by the urban elite to assimilate foreigners
or let them rise to positions of power, as the case of
James Nicholasson illustrates.
Full denization, by royal grant, now became a goal of those foreign immigrants
who could afford it; Lloyd [Alien Merchants
in England , p.14] has suggested the differential rate of customs,
with not only foreigners but resident aliens being obliged to pay more than denizens,
may have been a factor here. Nonetheless, by far the greater number of
foreign merchants that the law and urban authorities had to accommodate were only
temporary visitors.
From the urban perspective, servicing and regulating the local activities of
both English and foreign merchants had a number of dimensions. These included
provision for accommodating the merchants themselves, their merchandize (pending
sale, or return abroad), and the ships that brought merchants and cargo to England.
Also, it was important to ensure that outsiders knew, and complied with,
local laws and customs governing the conduct of commerce and financial transactions;
and that, should they run into legal problems, that they could obtain a fair
judicial hearing and, if applicable, assured compensation, rather than them having
to obtain retribution after returning to their home countries, by means such as
withernam that could damage
international relations and, at its worst, escalate into international crises.
At the same time, local customs, and in some respects national statutes, sought
to limit the scope of, or disadvantage (such as through the imposition of tolls),
the trading activities of foreign merchants, as well as outsiders from elsewhere
in England, in order to protect the interests of local traders – not just
merchant wholesalers but also retailers.
Some of the oldest locally-issued regulations we have on English treatment
of foreign merchants come, unsurprisingly, from London. The so-called
Law of the Lorrainers (of Lower Lotharingia, during the Middle Ages a duchy
within the Holy Roman Empire), reflects a prominent role of Germans, and other
Easterlings, in the overseas trade of England
around the eleventh century, and later as the Hanseatic merchants; the Rhineland was
a major source of wine imports until French wine
overtook it in importance from the thirteenth century.
These rules were written out in the early twelfth century,
but seem in certain respects to heark back to the eleventh. They authorized
the German ships to pass up the Thames under London Bridge – or, more strictly,
through the gap when the drawbridge there was raised – and dock at Queenhithe,
a harbour centrally located along the riverfront; there they had to abstain from trading
(except for broaching one tun of wine to sell by retail) or unloading cargo
for a period lasting three tides, in order to give the king's officers time
to see if they wanted to requisition any of the merchandize for royal use,
for which purchases a fair price was to be set by London merchants, although
a limited amount of wine could be requisitioned below market price. Thereafter
they might allow other customers
to board the ship, and later sell any remainder by
displaying it for sale within the city
for at least one day, and after that further afield if they wished. But wine
or cloth could now only be sold wholesale; similarly they were permitted
to buy most goods only by wholesale, with the exception of food for crew consumption.
Their total stay was to be limited to forty days, unless bad weather, misfortune,
or suing for a debt necessitated a longer stay. If selling exclusively from their ship,
they might sleep aboard too, or perhaps take rooms in the lodgings built
onto the cookshops along the Thames bank,
but had the option of finding lodgings deeper within the city, so long as
the sheriff was kept informed where.
This limited stay and right of lodging anywhere within the city were applied
to most subjects of the Holy Roman emperor, although for some reason
the men of Tiel, Bremen, and Antwerp were singled out for a prohibition
of passing London Bridge unless they were prepared to comply with civic laws.
By contrast with the Germans, a Scandinavian merchant was allowed to stay for
up to a year, and even set up a booth from which to conduct business, but was
not to go out of the city (such as to fairs) to trade. At an uncertain
but probably slightly later date even greater restrictions were placed on merchants
who specialized in importing woad
into England, who were mainly from northern France, Flanders, and the Rhineland.
Once their ships – or indeed those of any foreign merchants –
had passed the New Weir, the point in the Thames where the city boundary
was considered to lie, they were not permitted (it was claimed) to dock
anywhere else but at London. Cargoes of woad had to be unloaded, but could not
be moved into any warehouse facility; rather the merchants had to trade from
the quayside and only with citizens of London, plus pay a royal toll of
a halfpenny per official measure sold or exchanged. Nor could they buy anything
for export except from citizens, and could not go out of the city to trade – if
caught sneaking out, their merchandize was to be forfeit. They were subject to
the stay limit of forty days and could not take away any unsold cargo, nor store it
locally until their return, which would have forced them to reduce their prices
as they approached the end of their stay, or risk forfeiting what remained unsold,
although they were allowed to sell to non-citizen Londoners before departing.
However, such restrictions could be tempered or waived in cases where specific,
and mutually beneficial, agreements were made between London and continental cities.
For example, an agreement of 1237 with several towns in Picardy, whose merchants
brought woad, garlic, and onions, in return for an up-front payment and an annual fee,
exempted their merchants from the warehousing ban and allowed them to take
their merchandize outside of the city to sell (although inside it they still
had to trade with citizens); furthermore it was permitted that any of their countrymen
might operate a hostel in London for their accommodation – hostel-keeping
being normally reserved to citizens. An agreement with Douai moderated some
of the restrictions on woad-merchants: they were allowed to store rather than
forfeit the unsold portion of cargoes, and to venture up to three miles outside
the city to attend markets or fairs; but they were subject to a new restriction
of being allowed to sell only on three days of the week. Another agreement had
earlier granted privileges to the merchants of Cologne, who were allowed to have
their own guildhall in London as a base of operations, and to travel outside
the city to fairs or other places to trade, again in return for an annual fee.
A more focused agreement was also made
with the Hanseatic League, whose various branches, from 1281, united their headquarters
at the Steelyard: a large complex that included meeting hall/court-house,
accommodations for the twenty to thirty who were usually resident at any given time,
dye house, wine cellar, garden, and row of warehouses running down to a quay
equipped with a crane, most of this surrounded by a sturdy and high wall to protect
their trading secrets and themselves. For the Germans, who played so prominent
a role in supplying the English with goods they badly needed – such as furs,
fish, wine, timber, and metals – that there was a trade imbalance in their favour,
were disliked by the citizens,
having obtained trading concessions from Henry III and from the city,
but without Londoners obtaining reciprocal privileges at Hanse towns.
Similarly, the Gascon merchants who at first had a large share of the
wine trade with France were over time
harassed into abandoning the English market to London merchants.
Restrictions on foreign merchants might have damaged London's economy were it not
for the fact that the city was, for many, the most convenient point of access
to the interior of southern England, and that it housed a large and wealthy
customer base including the royal household and bureaucracy, which reduced
merchants' time and costs in searching out customers. Yet they could not prevent
merchants from entering England elsewhere, and a sizable proportion of foreign trade
was channelled through ports other than London. The cycle of major fairs
offered foreign wholesalers an attractive alternative to the London market,
and were better accessed through east coast ports or, in the case of Winchester's fair,
Southampton.
Although a suspicion of foreigners may have been as great in other towns as at London,
there seems to have been less effort or less rigour applied to controlling them.
Immigrant achievers from abroad seem – at least before the ongoing foreign wars
and associated economic tensions of the fourteenth century inflamed sentiments
of xenophobia – to have been more readily accepted into the society
of provincial towns than that of London. By the close of the thirteenth century,
monopolization of retailing – generally, or in specific goods –
by local burgesses or members of the merchant gild was a common feature of
towns whose customs were confirmed and augmented by royal charter; but
the aim of this, as well as of requiring outsiders to buy wholesale only
from locals (outside of fair-time), and of exempting citizens from borough tolls,
was directed at protecting resident traders' interests against
the commercial competition of all outsiders, not just foreigners.
The forty-day stay limit may have been widespread; it is found also
at Lynn in 1309, when actually portrayed
as an improvement, and at Bristol, in its 1188 charter, which also prohibits
outsiders from operating taverns in the town, although they could retail wine
from ships. But on the whole neither borough charters nor customs or by-laws
show much concern, beyond restrictions on retailing, with foreign merchants.
The notable exception to this is the institution of
hosting of foreign merchants, evidenced
in a few towns, and perhaps more widespread in a less formal way. This practice
required foreign merchants to lodge with local counterparts, who could provide them
with guidance and assistance in marketing their cargoes, see that they were
not cheated, and ensure they complied with local laws and trading regulations
during their stay. It is not clear whether the intent was to control
the behaviour of foreigners (e.g. prevent involvement in
forestalling or making bargains contrary
to communal interests), or to protect them from exploitation or getting
into legal difficulties; probably both.
The practice of hosting is relatively well-documented at Great Yarmouth,
where Cinque Ports participants in the herring fishery were a particular,
but not exclusive, target of the practice. A Yarmouth
ordinance of 1272 provided for special legal procedure
to deal promptly with mercantile debts owed to foreigners, while a second
prescribed retributive measures against any burgess
whose unpaid foreign debt had resulted in any fellow-burgess being punished.
In 1300 hosting, as a practice evidently already in operation, was the subject
of several Yarmouth regulations; except in the case of fish, hosts were
to act as brokers of their guests' cargoes, obtaining
a down-payment from each buyer, in return for which
they would earn the right to buy one-third of the cargo,
which however they could sell only to other residents.
By 1413 herring fishermen were also subject to hosting,
under different terms, though we later see some of the
problems that could arise from this.
In 1491 it was necessary to prohibit foreigners
resident in the town from acting as hosts.
At Ipswich too hosting was restricted to burgesses,
who could buy a quarter share of their guests' merchandize; they provided advice,
accommodations, and storage for merchandize (with some exceptions), but did not
act as brokers, and such also appears the case at Lynn,
where the host's share of one-sixth was reduced
a few years later. How widespread hosting was, as a commercial institution
rather than just provision of accommodations, is unclear. But one chapter
of the royal statute of 1382 was evidently the result of a complaint about
forestalling and other abuses of their privileged position by hosts in London
and in coastal towns (singling out Yarmouth, Scarborough, Winchelsea, and Rye);
despite this kind of problem with the institution, it was obviously a useful one,
for the statute of 1403 insisted that:
"In every English city, town, or sea-port where alien or foreign merchants are
or will be coming, they are to be assigned by the mayors, sheriffs, or bailiffs
of those cities, towns, or sea-ports sufficient hosts, and those alien
or foreign merchants are not to lodge in any other place than with the hosts
assigned them; the assigned hosts are to take for their trouble what
they have been accustomed to take in the past."
[Owen Ruffhead, ed. The Statutes at Large, London, 1758, vol.1, p.459, my translation]
Creating within towns an environment that would lure outsider merchants,
whether English or foreign, involved more than just a regulatory framework,
official supervision of market activities (which offered some protection for
a merchant who feared he was being cheated), and courts before which merchants
could bring any formal complaints or from which they might, in the Late Middle Ages,
obtain registration of debts. Paving marketplaces
and making sure streets could comfortably
accommodate the movement of people and goods, as well as
combatting pollution in its many forms,
was done not just for the benefit of residents, but to give the town a good reputation
that would help attract merchants. Ensuring roads and rivers leading
into the town were navigable and safe for traffic was likewise a concern
both for the benefit of locals and visitors; building
town walls and bridges,
then keeping them in good repair, contributed to encouraging commerce,
and a few cities even went to far as to build facilities within which
visiting merchants could display their wares. An ample supply of well-run hostelries
and hospices was another element of the same.
Since not a few towns depended on water-borne transport for bulk supplies of
victuals or other raw materials not produced locally, an important part of
their commercial infrastructure was harbour facilities, which included
quays and wharfs, cranes (by the Late Middle Ages) for helping load and unload cargoes,
skilled labour services to assist with handling cargoes, warehouses and/or storage cellars,
and visitor services amenities such as the London cookshops already mentioned.
Provincial towns had at least one such waterside facility, and some more than
one at different points on rivers running through them, sometimes with specializations,
as at London, where London Bridge was flanked by the combination wharves/markets
of Billingsgate and Queenhithe, with several other landing places elsewhere
along the Thames. Coastal ports had quaysides that could be fairly extensive,
or outlying port facilities – such as Colchester's wharves at
Hythe,
situated on the Colne estuary about a half-hour's walk from the town proper,
and the like-named facility at Maldon,
a modest distance outside the town itself, on the Blackwater. Colchester's
New Hythe was in existence by the 1150s, superseding Old Hythe which was even
further away. Warehouses and a few residences were gradually erected there
but it was a relatively modest facility compared to coastal ports directly
on the sea, its channel not deep enough for larger merchant vessels, which anchored
further out in the estuary and transferred their cargoes to the wharves by smaller
boats. A few coastal towns, such as Yarmouth and Hull, were predominantly dependent
on water transport. Municipal authorities were aware of the importance of
keeping quaysides uncluttered, to allow the room necessary for handling cargoes,
and ensuring their towns were well-served by facilities for water transport.
Many of the personnel of local government themselves relied on such transport
for their own commercial ventures, whether being
ship-owners or entering into
freighting contracts with others.
Rivers played a determining role not only in the foundation of many settlements
or their growth into towns – such as Henley or Maidenhead, in the case of
the Thames – but also in sustaining the economic well-being of those towns.
This was not only because of their role in international and intra-national transportation,
but because rivers themselves were sources of food and drink as well as
of raw materials useful for industry, while riverbanks were suitable places
for the location of industrial activities that relied on water for one reason
or another – such as milling, the fulling and dyeing of cloth, tanning of hides,
and shipbuilding. Some of the wealthier urban merchants owned private quays.
Archaeological and topographical evidence has demonstrated a process of reclamation
of waterfront space in quite a few port towns, such as London, Bristol, York,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Ipswich, and Lynn, typically in a progressive series of stages
between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, with the thirteenth seeming to see
a peak of activity. The effort invested in this, although spread over
a long period of time, could be considerable; at London the entire area between
the Thames Bank and Thames Street is man-made, while it has been estimated
that at Newcastle 11‰ of the intramural area was the result of reclamation
from the river [C. O'Brien, "Newcastle upon Tyne and its North Sea trade",
Proceedings of the third international conference on waterfront archaeology,
CBA Research Report No 74 (1991), p.38]. The construction of, first, private wharves
and jetties and later public quaysides, initially in wood with later rebuilding
in stone, was one contributor to this process, while another was the installation
of revetments or sea defences and, in some places, deep-water berths or slipways.
These same factors also represent motivations for reclamation: to win new space
for building, to stabilize river frontage, or to deepen berths for harbourage.
Up into the twelfth century ships were predominantly of the Viking type,
which could navigate shallow waters and did not need formal harbour structures
to load and unload cargo. As the draught of ships used to transport large cargoes
gradually increased thereafter, with the Frisian hulk in due course becoming
the dominant ship design, beaching on the foreshore was no longer practicable.
Raised wharfs became economic necessities for coastal and river-based ports
alike (notwithstanding the availability of barge-like vessels for some
transport purposes), for mooring at quayside avoided the added time and expense
of transshipment. Around the close of the Middle Ages there was more of
a preference for modest-sized ships, probably on the realization that impressively
large vessels were neither necessary or economic (requiring larger crews
and moving more slowly) for the relatively short voyages made by most
English merchants, and exposed too high an investment to risk; the problems
with maintaining depth of harbourage in English ports may also have worked
in favour of smaller vessels.
For simply building structures where boats or ships could dock was not
the only challenge for local merchants and civic authorities.
It was also necessary to keep the harbour and, if applicable, a channel
leading to it, clear and deep enough for sea-going vessels, making allowance
for tidal fluctuations in water level. Particularly where subject to storm damage
or tidal silting, this could be an ongoing challenge entailing much expense,
Winchelsea and
Yarmouth presenting good examples of this.
But human activities, such as reclamation itself – often the outcome
of dumping building rubble or household and industrial refuse – also
contributed to such problems.
London was far enough down the Thames that the maintenance problem was not so severe,
though periodically investment was needed to dredge, repair or enlarge the harbours.
By the thirteenth century its stretch of riverfront between London Bridge and
the western terminus of the city wall was lined with wharves, most privately-owned,
with the main public quayside at Queenhithe. Not far away, at Dowgate, was the Steelyard,
the fortified enclave of the Hanseatic League merchants, who preferred to be close
to the river; the similar and like-named base of Hanse merchants at Lynn was also
in a lane with direct river access, and their warehouse on the quayside had to be
built in stone because at high tide the waters lapped around it.
Whereas London's Italian merchants generally congregated within the city centre
and seem to have aroused less hostility from Londoners, at least until London merchants
came to desire a share of the trade in luxury goods; the Italians were
the target of mob violence in 1319, but this was a period when Edward II's enemies
had the upper hand, royal protection of foreign merchants was at a low ebb,
and Italian residents were resisting contributing to taxes imposed on the city.
A second quayside was at Billingsgate, near where there had existed a wharf since
the tenth century; but this quay was not as heavily used, though it became
increasingly more important during the fifteenth century as the growing
size of ships made it difficult for some to get past the bridge, and then
the decommissioning of the drawbridge section relegated Queenhithe to inland
shipping and prompted more development of the riverbank between the bridge and the Tower.
The water off those two harbours was deep enough for some ships to dock,
although larger ones anchored mid-river and transshipped their cargoes in
more manoeuvrable boats. Markets for bulky products, such as grain and fish,
developed beside these public facilities, and there were granaries on one side
of Queenhithe, while as Thames Street itself emerged into being many of
the buildings erected on either side incorporated stone cellars or other
storage rooms on the river side of the street, and shops on the north side.
London Bridge itself – rebuilt in stone
in the late twelfth century and maintained with revenues from real estate endowments
by the citizens whose businesses benefited from it, from tolls, and from rents
from certain market stalls and shops – must be viewed as an investment
in commercial infrastructure, giving merchants access from London to southern England.
Post-medieval plans and panoramas of the Thames bank augment documentary
and archaeological evidence for London's waterfront. Those of other English cities
are as yet less well documented or investigated. Norwich, whose developing
pattern of settlement was dictated partly
by the course of the River Wensum snaking through it, shows signs of small wharves
at various points. The oldest, heard of in the early thirteenth century
but probably older, were along the northern stretch of the river, between
Fye Bridge and Whitefriars Bridge; some served fishermen, while nearest
Fye Bridge were public landing-points. Earlier, in the Late Saxon period,
the gravel shore there had been improved for beaching boats by the laying
of brushwood mats and insertion of mooring posts. By the 1280s we are hearing
of both private and public wharves along the south-eastern stretch of the river,
which lay close and parallel to Conesford (now King) Street, the principal
north-south route through the city. The well-known Dragon Hall complex, consuming
a site between that street and the river, represents an early fifteenth century
merchant's home and business (though ahead of its time in design) with an impressive
trading hall facing onto the street, behind which was warehousing and a storage yard,
connected to a private wharf at the riverfront, which had been there when previous
(monastic) owners occupied part of the site; a passageway under the hall connected
to a path down to the wharf, thus linking water and road transportation of merchandize.
By the late 1370s the civic authorities already had in that same vicinity
a public wharf – the Old Common Staithe – and shortly after established
the New Common Staithe further south, both equipped with cranes and public warehouses;
in 1379, to facilitate collection of tolls, they issued a regulation requiring
all merchants to load and unload goods at public wharves and use the warehouses there,
with the exception that merchants based in Conesford could use their own facilities.
The Old Common Staithe was thoroughly renovated
in 1432. Certainly by this time, and probably well before, the river was too shallow
for most sea-going vessels, so Norwich-bound goods were unloaded at Yarmouth (where
Norwich citizens were exempt from toll) and transshipped in barge-like vessels
known as keels, which could be quite capacious, but were slow-moving.
In fact, by the early thirteenth century much of the maritime trade that had
made Norwich's market so important at an earlier period was not getting any further than
Yarmouth; repeated complaints from Norwich merchants alleged that Yarmouth was being
pro-active in preventing merchant vessels from proceeding into the river system.
On the other hand, Norwich was an important source of the rural produce and manufactured goods
that Yarmouth could not generate itself, while Yarmouth supplied Norwich not only with fish
but with imported building materials and coal for its industries. One consequence
of the limitations of river access and Yarmouth's control of the estuary was that
Norwich merchants were rarely ship-owners (at least before the late fifteenth century,
when Yarmouth shipping was in decline), but typically reduced their transportation costs
by joining with one or two colleagues to freight ships owned by outsiders – mostly
foreigners, rather than their long-time Yarmouth rivals.
Long-distance transport of bulky goods by water was cheaper by water, and
almost essential for heavy items (such as mill-stones) or expensive perishables
(such as wine) but the road network was nonetheless still an important means
of distributing regionally-produced grain, and other goods capable of being carried
by pack-horses or wagons (usually pulled by oxen), notwithstanding the dangers and
the expense of animals, drivers, and vehicles. The Statute of Winchester's provision in 1285
that the verges of roads running from towns should be kept clear of brush was a reflection
of the expansion of commerce, which in its turn encouraged banditry. Although we hear mostly
complaints about the state of the roads, this is partly because of the type of records
that survive from the Middle Ages, and it is in the nature of travellers to complain
about transportation infrastructure. But the roads were generally serviceable enough
to support regular traffic of carts, some even carrying heavy goods such
as construction materials, and to facilitate long-distance journeys to
the various fairs spread across England – outings that might sometimes
combine road and river travel. The Gough Map, thought to have been produced
ca.1360 (with some information added later), is the oldest surviving road map of Britain,
though its compiler, purpose, and users are unknown; it shows many of the towns,
major roads, and rivers, with a calculation of distances (not always accurate)
along each route, which suggests that the map was intended to have a practical use.
