Located near the confluence of the River Lugg and its tributaries (notably the Kenwater), with a number of streams running through the site to supply it with water and power, Leominster began as an Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical centre, probably of royal foundation in mid-seventh century; a short-lived nunnery, founded by Earl Leofric of Mercia, superseded it in the first half of the eleventh century. Roman roads passed the site to east and west, but evidence for any Roman settlement in the vicinity of Leominster is minor. Its name was likely an English translation of a Welsh name referring to the church and the vicinity of the watercourses, known as Leen. The Saxon religious house may have stood on the same site later occupied by a Benedictine priory in the twelfth century.
Having the Lugg running along two sides of the site might have provided some natural defence, but did not prevent repeated attacks by the Welsh and perhaps Vikings, nor in 1207 by William III de Braose during his rebellion against King John. The settlement was protected by an earthworks enclosure, hinted at in local tradition and with parts of the ditch discovered by archaeologists; but its precise route and character is uncertain, nor do we know whether it was created as a response to Welsh attacks prior to the Conquest, or at later date – though by the fourteenth century parts of the ditch were being filled in, the prospering town having outgrown the defensive circuit.
Domesday suggests a village had arisen within what was an exceptionally large and valuable manor, comprising not only Leominster village but a number of outlying hamlets, each with their own officials; but the transition of village to town is hard to date. It may have been around the time (1123) of Henry I's grant, confirmed by Bishop Capella, of the manor to Reading Abbey, which refounded the old minster as a dependent priory. Henry III's confirmation of his predecessor's grant became, in 1292, the basis on which the abbot defended, in quo warranto proceedings, his possession of the manor, its market, and administration of the assize of bread and ale there.
Leominster was treated, and referred to, as a borough at the eyre of 1221, but the absence of a market licence is best explained by a market pre-existing the need for licensing; this gives some credence to the hypothesis that Bishop Capella founded one of his planned towns around a triangular marketplace; yet he would have had little time to do so between his election to the see and the transfer of the manor. Henry I's grant of a late June fair there (known only from a confirmation by Richard I) was to the abbey; this neither evidences nor precludes urbanization at Leominster, nor is it incompatible with Capella as town-founder. However, it is also possible – perhaps more probable – that the abbey, or its local priory, was responsible for adding a burghal component to the village. Whatever the case, the presence of traders within the community is evidenced by a grant of Waleran de Beaumont, count of Meulan (Normandy), to Reading Abbey that the monks and their tenants at Reading and Leominster be exempted from tolls, presumably within his English estates, but particularly at Worcester and Droitwich, to whose officials and residents news of the grant was addressed. The grant probably dates to about 1137, for Waleran had received the city and county of Worcester upon his betrothal (1136) to King Stephen's short-lived daughter, but the title of Earl of Worcester (not used in the grant) was accorded him only in 1138.
This exemption was evidently not consistently respected (probably once Waleran had fallen from favour and his earldom been suppressed in 1155); for in 1235, following a lawsuit brought by Reading Abbey against the city of Worcester, the bailiffs and community of the city were obliged to issue a confirmation of freedom from all tolls for abbey tenants selling or buying any goods in the city, though unworked hides, skins, wool-pells, and woollen thread were excepted. This was simply one episode in a drawn-out trade war (see below).
A market is heard of at Leominster in 1218, when its day was changed from Sunday to Thursday, part of the growing Church opposition to Sunday trading. It is again documented in 1230, when the citizens of Hereford complained that a market raised by the abbot at Leominster was damaging to their own; the complaint shows no signs of being successful and, ironically, it was Hereford's market that was suppressed in 1231, temporarily, in the context of an imminent royal campaign against the Welsh.
Hereford's complaint appears directed not against the original market at Leominster, but the addition of Saturday as a market day, suggesting that Leominster's share of regional trade had grown sufficiently for it to be felt increasingly as a competitive threat. It was in a good geographical position for a marketing centre, the Lugg connecting to the Wye, and its tributaries running into north Herefordshire and south Shropshire. The sheep of the area produced a wool highly prized in England and abroad; trade in that wool, along with power provided to industrial activities by several watercourses running through the town, drew more townspeople into cloth-making. Marketing and processing of agricultural produce was also important to the town's economy, as were the leather-based industries – the various watercourses inviting the settlement of tanners, evidenced in the Bridge Street area but probably also present in other locations. Nor should we forget the economic impact of a religious house that maintained a community of monks and periodically offered hospitality to pilgrims and important visitors; a list of the lay servants and officials in the pay of the priory in 1408 included three bakers, three butlers, two smiths, a miller, maltster, laundress and washer-boy, tailor, porter, and hosteler. A second fair (for September) was granted, to the Prior of Leominster, in 1265, to be held in the town, and a third (for May) in 1281 to the abbey, to be held in the manor.
Hereford's objection, seconded by Worcester, was renewed in 1237 and the abbot obliged to change the Saturday event to a Friday market; this might seem a minor check, yet it was a fact known to Leland, perhaps through local tradition, and unwarrantedly blamed for subsequent economic decline. Reading Abbey had for some time been at odds with the citizens of Worcester over trade matters, and Worcester with Droitwich, and the growing competitiveness of Leominster's markets, combined perhaps with official recognition (often tardy) of it as a borough in 1221, was a component of that. The city's concession in 1235, as amends for some great (though unspecified) offence committed against traders under the abbey's lordship, was for Leominster only one battle won, not the war. Competitive hostilities were not so easily quelled.
In 1266 the Prior complained about a group of Hereford men setting fires and carrying off valuables. Whether this was simply a manifestation of the disturbed state of the realm – the previous year orders had been sent to the sheriffs of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to raise peace-keeping forces – or a consequence of the additional fair recently acquired by Leominster (or perhaps a combination of the two), we cannot be certain; but the timing of that fair (28 September to 3 October) may have been felt uncomfortably close to Hereford's fair of 8-9 October (licensed 1226), and indeed the Prior of Leominster may conceivably have been aiming to pre-empt the Hereford event. In 1282 the Prior found it advisable to turn in his licence for the Michaelmas fair, and it was cancelled in the official record, but in exchange for an event of the same length moved a mere two days earlier. This looks like a sop to Hereford, which did not even notice a difference, and in 1284 it was complained (again?) that the Leominster fair was detrimental to that at Hereford; after a jury found that the complaint had grounds, Leominster's fair was ordered quashed. Whether this was effected is not clear, for in 1290 a grant copied into the Charter Rolls suggests that the Michaelmas fair was still operating, though it was then shifted to dates in early June. This was apparently not considered close enough to Hereford's one-day fair on 20 May to warrant a complaint, nor was the fair in the opening days of May, acquired for Leominster in 1281.
A further market day alteration at Leominster in 1335, from Friday to Tuesday, reflects the difficulty in harmonizing the numerous regional market events that were by now taking place. The impression given is that the reign of Edward I marked a period of intensifying commercial competition in Herefordshire as the number of markets and fairs grew towards saturation point and additional pressure was exerted by the central government's efforts to bring the burgeoning network of commercial events under control, by suppressing those that were unauthorized, or at least imposing fines that might encourage licensing of rogue markets. The formation at Leominster in the Late Middle Ages of craft gilds within the leather, cloth and food processing industries is an indicator both of the number of workers in those trades and of organizing to protect economic interests within a competitive environment. Leominster proved one of the more durable competitors; its growth during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries does not seem to have been severely checked by the consequences of plague. By 1500 it remained one of only nine market towns to have survived in Herefordshire. Though the Dissolution deprived the town of an important client and employer – the priory church being converted to parish church, and its gatehouse to a gaol – Leominster's adaptable cloth and leather industries would bring a revival of prosperity following Leland's time.
The extensive priory precinct lay on the east side of Leominster, probably within the loop formed by the Lugg; the precinct wall on the west side ran along what was later Church Street. At its west end Church Street formed a junction with the north-south route that was the spine of the medieval town and probably the oldest road serving the settlement. This route was the site of the large market, focused around the Buttercross, a medieval cross designating the butter-market and placed opposite the priory gatehouse, from within which the abbot's court administered the town; archaeologists have uncovered evidence of medieval ironworking in the vicinity of the Buttercross site. North of the cross ran Broad Street (whose name speaks for itself), which continued up to bridge the Kenwater and then into marshland where there was a crossing of the Lugg (bridged by Leland's time). This northern suburb (Bridge Street) does not seem to have been occupied until late in the Middle Ages, by which time dumping of industrial and other waste had provided a foundation for building. South of the cross was a triangular marketplace, later infilled with encroachments, leaving along its west side the High Street, and along its east Drapers Lane, suggesting a row of stalls and shops occupied by that trade; continuing south, the road headed to Hereford. Off the south-east corner of this triangle was a rectangular space known (later) as Corn Square, indicative of a market function; but whether this presumed extension to the marketplace existed as early as the Middle Ages is unknown. Other crosses marked the southern and northern extent of the market area.
The property plots around the triangular marketplace – typically long and narrow burgages – likely represent the original planned town, with plots further north up Broad Street possibly original or a slightly later expansion; archaeological evidence indicates this whole area was occupied by the late twelfth century. Westwards off the north end of Broad Street ran New Street, one of several additional streets in existence by 1393, when we have a list of burgage rents that identifies the medieval names of a number of streets (most named for places to which they led outside the town). Tenement plots along some of these expansion streets are smaller than the typical burgage plot and may reflect growing demand for land as Leominster prospered in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, giving rise to suburban neighbourhoods, such as that along Bargates, whose name seems to indicate a continuation of West Street (which ran from the south-west corner of the triangular marketplace) beyond some kind of gateway in the defensive enclosure; archaeology indicates, however, that the Bargates suburb was abandoned after the late fourteenth century, as economy and population declined.
