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Durham E-Theses Social Mobility and the Worsted Weavers of Norwich, c.1450-1530 DURKEE, DANA,ANN How to cite: DURKEE, DANA,ANN (2017) Social Mobility and the Worsted Weavers of Norwich, c.1450-1530, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12208/ Use policy This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA) Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk Social Mobility and the Worsted Weavers of Norwich, c.1450-1530 A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Dana A. Durkee Department of History Durham University St Chad's College January 2017 1 Abstract Dana Durkee, ‘Social Mobility and the Worsted Weavers of Norwich, c.1450–1530’ This thesis explores the question of occupational social mobility in late medieval English towns, using the worsted weavers of Norwich as a case study. Social stratification is a key topic in medieval urban history, and the question of rising oligarchy and class conflict have influenced the way historians understand the institutional and constitutional development of late medieval English towns. This study employs a dual approach to the question of whether commercial success created an urban environment conducive to social and occupational mobility for craftsmen. It first considers the development of Norfolk’s native worsted cloth industry in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It then uses a prosopographical analysis of the worsted weavers to consider whether the commercial success of worsted cloth was creating the opportunity for social mobility among urban artisans. This study finds that opportunities for social mobility were indeed increasing in the late fifteenth century. The thesis has been divided into two parts. The first part examines the economic and institutional context for the fifteenth-century commercial revival of worsted cloths in overseas trade. It also considers the way that the regional production of worsteds became regulated by the guild of worsted weavers in Norwich. It then considers the constitutional development of craft guilds in Norwich in the fifteenth century, and their integration as public institutions. The second part of the thesis examines the lives of Norwich’s worsted weavers between c.1450 and 1530. It uses the framework of an artisanal cursus honorum to consider the various ways in which the worsted weavers, both as individuals and as a group, advanced professionally, socially, and economically. 2 Table of Contents Abstract............................................................................................................................ 1 List of Tables ................................................................................................................... 4 List of Illustrations ......................................................................................................... 6 List of Maps..................................................................................................................... 8 Abbreviations.................................................................................................................. 9 Statement of Copyright ............................................................................................... 10 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... 11 Part I: Medieval Worsteds 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 14 1.1 Historiographical context.................................................................................... 16 1.2 Problematising late medieval social mobility...................................................... 32 1.3 Methodology and sources.................................................................................... 38 1.4 Outline of the thesis ............................................................................................ 43 1.5 A note on Norwich geography ............................................................................ 45 2 Worsteds.................................................................................................................... 48 2.1 Cloth production: woollen or worsted?............................................................... 50 2.2 Worsteds and the cloth trade............................................................................... 66 2.3 Factors for change ............................................................................................... 89 3 Norfolk and Norwich ............................................................................................ 115 3.1 The importance of place..................................................................................... 116 3.2 The geographical context of worsted production .............................................. 124 3.3 The long struggle over standards...................................................................... 139 3.4 Legislating a hinterland .................................................................................... 148 4 The crafts in Norwich ............................................................................................ 168 4.1 Norwich’s reputation as a ‘disorderly’ city....................................................... 170 4.2 The genesis of the crafts as public institutions ................................................. 176 4.3 The integration of the crafts after 1450............................................................. 181 Part II: The Worsted Weavers of Norwich 5 Craftsmen and the cursus honorum.................................................................... 202 6 The profession of worsted weaving .................................................................... 209 6.1 Apprenticeship and training............................................................................. 210 3 6.2 Journeymen ....................................................................................................... 222 6.3 Independent masters ......................................................................................... 225 7 The Guild of Worsted Weavers............................................................................ 237 7.1 Joining the freedom ........................................................................................... 238 7.2 Guild masters .................................................................................................... 247 7.3 The search juries................................................................................................ 250 8 Civic office-holding................................................................................................ 261 8.1 Craftsmen and civic office ................................................................................. 262 8.2 The constabulary and the common council....................................................... 265 8.3 The co-opted financial offices ............................................................................ 280 8.4 Higher office ...................................................................................................... 286 9 End of life................................................................................................................. 296 9.1 Wills and probate .............................................................................................. 296 9.2 Using wills to estimate affluence ...................................................................... 304 9.3 Intergenerational mobility ................................................................................ 319 9.4 Alms .................................................................................................................. 327 10 Conclusion......................................................................................................... 333 Appendix A: Wills referenced.................................................................................. 338 Appendix B: Common council seats by craft affiliation and by decade ............ 342 Bibliography................................................................................................................ 345 4 List of Tables Table 1.1 – Types of Assets, Resources, and Valued Goods Underlying Stratification Systems..........................................................................................35 Table 2.1 – Physical characteristics of some modern wool breeds.........................56 Table 2.2 – The Petty Customs on cloth after 1347 ...................................................69 Table 2.3 – Higher rates were charged on double worsteds shipped from Yarmouth, 1509-1514...........................................................................................89 Table 3.1 – Worsted Assizes.......................................................................................163 Table 4.1 – Norwich freedoms without occupational attributions, 1317-1524...184 Table 4.2 – Frequency of shared surnames among the Norwich aldermen, 1450-1530.............................................................................................................186 Table 5.1 – Phythian-Adams’s conceptualisation of Coventry’s early sixteenth-