Journal of the Southampton Local History Forum
No. 23 Autumn 2014
Contents
The French Raid on Southampton 1338, Part One
by A D Morton Page 3
Clement Hoare and the Shirley Vineyard, 1838-44
by Richard Preston Page 57
The Southampton Tramways
by Jeff Pain Page 65
Five Transient Southampton Newspapers, 1822-32
by Richard Preston Page 75
Southampton Local History Forum
Southampton Local History Forum is sponsored by Southampton Library Service. Membership is free and is open to everyone interested in the history of the city and its neighbourhood. A programme of evening meetings is arranged for the third Thursday of each month (August and December excepted) between 7.00pm and 9.00pm. Anyone interested in joining the forum should contact -
David Hollingworth Southampton Central Library Civic Centre Southampton SO14 7LW Tel: 023 80 832205 Email: [email protected]
The articles in the Journal are written by members of the Forum, to whom thanks are due. Contributions from members to future editions are always welcome.
Cover illustration: Tram car 22 outside the Shirley Temperance Hotel, c.1897
A D Morton
The French Raid on Southampton 1338, Part One
Historians of the French Raid stress Southampton’s fatal vulnerability on its waterside, the stealth of its attackers, the panic-stricken flight of its inhabitants, the ferocity of the English counter-attack, and a lesson finally learned that the town had to be wholly walled in. We must take none of that for granted; repetition only broadens the myth. Stories have continued to be told, for no good reason except that older historians told them, at a time when few sources were easily available. In consequence, as other and more significant texts have later been edited and published, the tendency has been to read them in the context of an already established story, sometimes to ignore them.
Dating and Timing
For instance, the customary dating of the raid largely derives from two sources available to the Victorians, Froissart’s Chroniques and Stow’s Annals. Froissart says that it began on a Sunday, in the morning, when the townspeople were at mass, and Stow provides the actual date and time, October 4, around nine of the clock. The two sources complement each other, for October 4 1338 was a Sunday in the Julian calendar. Nonetheless, they are wrong: the raiders landed on the Monday at mid-afternoon. A difference of only 30 hours seems not worth the arguing about, except that it carries large consequences for our understanding of what really happened.
The earliest sources―an inquisition into the loss of the king’s wool,1 six months after the event―a royal council,2 eight months after the event―and Murimuth,3 the first of the chroniclers to write about the raid (d 1347)―all date the beginning of the raid to the Monday after Michaelmas, which was October 5 in 1338, again in the Julian calendar. Baker, the next chronicler to write about the raid (d c 1360), dates the event in a significantly different way but still makes it October 5: in his version it began on the sixth day after Michaelmas,4 September 29 (feria sexta proxima post festum sancti Michaelis). Baker’s text is the basis of the entry in Stow’s Annals, but Stow blunders the date. His Latinity was said to have been poor,5 or perhaps he counted 31 days in September.
Murimuth and Baker agree in saying that the raiders appeared off Southampton about three or four in the afternoon, not nine in the morning, as Stow translates it. To demonstrate this, we have to begin with a comparison of time and tide, for the course of the raid was determined by Southampton’s double tide, which is notable for having several hours of extended high water (‘stand’ or ‘slack’) and which has been celebrated since the early 8th century, when Bede described the two waters tha