Time, Space and Power in Later Medieval Bristol Peter Fleming University of the West of England Bristol December 2013 Contents Pages List of abbreviations 1 List of Tables 3 List of Illustrations 4 Introduction 5 Section One: Time 23 Chapter 1: Foundation Myths 24 Chapter 2: The Uses of History 39 Chapter 3: Memory 61 Section Two: Space 88 Chapter 4: The World Beyond the Sea 89 Chapter 5: Britain and Ireland 114 Chapter 6: The Town and County 155 Section Three: Power 183 Chapter 7: Bristol and the Crown 184 Chapter 8: Bristol and the Berkeleys 224 Chapter 9: The Mayor’s Realm 232 Conclusion 251 Appendix I 255 Appendix II 263 Appendix III 266 Bibliography 283 List of Abbreviations BBHA Bristol Branch of the Historical Association BCL Bristol Central Library BGAS Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, Record Series BIHR Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research BL British Library Bristol Charters, 1155-1373 Bristol Charters, 1155-1373, ed. N.D. Harding, Bristol Record Society, 1 (1930) Bristol Charters, 1378-1499 Bristol Charters, 1378-1499, ed. H.A. Cronne, Bristol Record Society, 11 (1946 for 1945) BRO Bristol Record Office BRS Bristol Record Society Camden Soc The Camden Society CCR Calendar of Close Rolls CFR Calendar of Fine Rolls CIPM Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem CMMBC Catalogue of the Medieval Muniments of Bristol Castle CPR Calendar of Patent Rolls CUHB The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. 1, 600- 1540, ed. D. M. Palliser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) CUP Cambridge University Press EcHR Economic History Review EHR English Historical Review GA Gloucestershire Archives GRBB, Text The Great Red Book of Bristol, ed. E.W.W. Veale, Parts 2-4, Bristol Record Society 4, 8, 16, 18 (1931-53) GWBB The Great White Book of Bristol, ed. E. Ralph, Bristol Record Society, 32 (1979) HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission HPHC History of Parliament House of Commons Lee, ‘Political Communication’ James Lee, “Political Communication in Early Tudor England: The Bristol Elite, the Urban Community and the Crown, c.1471-c.1553” (unpublished University of the West of England, Bristol, Ph.D. thesis, 2006) Leech, Topography The Topography of Medieval and Early Modern Bristol, part 1: Property Holdings in the Early Walled Town and Marsh Suburb North of the Avon, ed. R.H. Leech, Bristol Record Society, 48 (1997) 1 Liddy, War, Politics and Finance C. Liddy, War, Politics and Finance in Late Medieval English Towns: Bristol, York and the Crown, 1350- 1400 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2011) LRBB The Little Red Book of Bristol, ed. F. B. Bickley, 2 vols. (Bristol: W. C. Hemmons, 1900) NY New York ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (on-line version, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004-13) Overseas Trade, ed. Carus-Wilson The Overseas Trade of Bristol in the Later Middle Ages, Bristol Record Society, 7 (1937) OUP Oxford University Press PROME Parliament Rolls of Medieval England REED, Bristol Records of Early English Drama: Bristol, ed. Mark C. Pilkinton (Toronto and London: Toronto University Press, 1997) Ricart, Kalendar The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar, by Robert Ricart, Town Clerk of Bristol 18 Edward IV, ed. L. Toulmin- Smith, Camden Society, New Series, 5 (1872) Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys John Smyth, The Berkeley Manuscripts: The Lives of the Berkeleys, Lords of the Honour, Castle and Manor of Berkeley, in the County of Gloucester, from 1066 to 1618; with a Description of the Hundred of Berkeley and of its Inhabitants, ed. J. Maclean, 3 vols. (Bristol:Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 1883-5) TBGAS Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society TRHS Transactions of the Royal Historical Society TNA The National Archives, Public Records Office Topography William Worcestre: The Topography of Medieval Bristol, ed. F. Neale, Bristol Record Society, 51 2000) UP University Press UWE University of the West of England, Bristol Wadley, Wills Notes or Abstracts of the Wills Contained in the Volume Entitled the Great Orphan Book and Book of Wills, in the Council House at Bristol (1381-1605), ed. T. P. Wadley, Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society (Bristol, 1886) 2 List of Tables I Home Ports of Vessels paying Customs at Bristol, 1390-1480 II Nationalities given in Bristol Alien Subsidy Returns, 1449 & 1453 III Wills referring to Locations outside Bristol, 1400-1500 IV Wills referring to Locations outside Bristol, 1400-1449 V Wills referring to Locations outside Bristol, 1450-1500 VI Bristol Staple Court Cases, 1489 – 1497 & 1509-1513 VII Admissions to the Bristol Staple, 1489-1497 & 1509-1513 VIII Bristol Debts. 1400-1500 from TNA C241 Certificates of Statute Merchant and Staple & TNA C131 Extents for Debts IX Debts from CP40 Pleas laid in Bristol: Combined Totals for 1450–1510 X Bristol Apprentices registered 1532-1542 XI 1524 Lay Subsidy Returns, Bristol 3 List of Illustrations Please refer to the Facebook Site for these illustrations: ‘Time, Space and Power in Fifteenth-Century Bristol’ 1. Brennius and Belinus, St John the Baptist Church and Gate, Broad Street. 2. The Coronation of Henry III: Robert Ricart, The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar (by permission of the Bristol Record Office) 3. William II (Rufus): Robert Ricart, The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar (by permission of the Bristol Record Office) 4. William the Conqueror: Robert Ricart, The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar, (by permission of the Bristol Record Office) 5. View of Bristol: Robert Ricart, The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar, (by permission of the Bristol Record Office) 6. Queen Elizabeth entering the City of Bristol (by permission of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery) 7. Bristol Castle, from James Millerd’s Map of Bristol, 1673 (by permission of Bristol Central Library) 8. The Mayor-Making: Robert Ricart, The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar (by permission of the Bristol Record Office) 9. The Bakers’ Charter, 1347 (by permission of the Bristol Record Office) 10. North Outer Porch of St Mary Redcliffe 11. The portals of the Capellas Imperfeitas in the Mosteiro da Batalha, Portugal 4 Introduction Medieval Bristol With a population of almost 10,000, Bristol was later medieval England’s second or third biggest urban place, and the realm’s second port after London. While not particularly large or wealthy in comparison with the great cities of northern Italy, Flanders or the Rhineland, it was a metropolis in the context of the British Isles. As a port, it was the hub of a trading network that began with England, Wales and Ireland and extended as far as the Iberian Peninsula and Iceland, and for medieval Europeans, it sat on the edge of the known world; as a strategic strongpoint it commanded routes from Ireland, Wales and the West Midlands to London and the South; as an industrial centre, it was a major participant in English textile production. By the eve of the fifteenth century Bristol had already enjoyed a position among England’s leading towns and cities for several centuries. In fact, it had probably achieved this position within two centuries of its foundation. Bristol appears to have originated as a late-Saxon (probably ninth to tenth century) burgh built on a promontory at the lowest secure bridging-point of the Avon: its site is reflected in its name, which means “the place by the bridge”.1 Bristol’s situation, on the borders of the late-Saxon kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia, would have a significant influence on the town’s later history. Before 1542 Bristol stood between two dioceses, Worcester north of the Avon and Bath and Wells to its south, the diocesan borders respecting those of the two kingdoms: its liminal position meant that it did not become a cathedral city until the creation of the Diocese of Bristol in 1542. The somewhat anomalous circumstance of one of England’s largest and wealthiest urban places lacking a cathedral, and therefore also the status of a city, had a number of consequences, among them, probably, being the possession of a rather more secular political and cultural ambience. Whether or not later medieval Bristol was made more susceptible to the influence of heresy by the problems of control and communication it presented to episcopal administrations based many miles away, it does seem to be the case that the absence of a dean and chapter and the other attributes of a diocesan administrative headquarters, meant that neither was Bristol home to a concentration of clerical intellectuals who might have set the tone of its literary, artistic and performative cultures, as well, perhaps, as playing a major role in its local politics. As will be demonstrated, fifteenth-century Bristol was a considerable centre of cultural production and consumption, but this was overwhelmingly secular, and mainly vernacular. Of course, this is not to say that medieval Bristolians were necessarily any more impious, let alone ‘anticlerical‘ than their contemporaries anywhere else in the kingdom, but their cultural milieu was different from that of the inhabitants of most other large towns or cities in later medieval England. By the mid-eleventh century Bristol had a mint, indicating that it was a place of some consequence, and it was engaged in a regular trade with Ireland. By 1088 the Normans had built a castle, blocking the landward approach, and it was probably 1 The following summary of Bristol’s history to the end of the 15th century is based on Fleming, “Crown and Town in Later Medieval England: Bristol and National Politics, 1399 to 1486”, in Negotiating the Political in Northern European Urban Society, c.1400-c.1600, ed. Sheila Sweetinburgh (Tempe, Arizona/Turnhout, Belgium: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies/Brepols, 2013), 141- 162, at 143-9, and Mary D.