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Inns, innkeepers and the society of later medieval England, 1350–1600

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 39; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03044181.2013.833132

1873-1279

J. N. Hare,

Historical Economic and Social Studies

AbstractThe inns and innkeepers of medieval England form a poorly documented and neglected group of institutions and individuals. Yet at a time of growing specialism, they were a crucial part of the economic infrastructure of the country. This study is focused on the documentation for central southern England but seeks to place this in a wider perspective. There was now a regular provision of inns in accordance with the size and importance of the towns. Inns generated substantial rent and were evidently felt to be worth considerable investment. Innkeepers were among the rich and influential members of the town. Inns played a vital role in the evolving and prospering economic, social and political life of the nation in this period.Keywords: Englandinnsinnkeepersinland tradetransport networksurban prosperity AcknowledgementsMy thanks go to those who have read and commented on earlier versions of this paper: James Davis, Christopher Dyer and Edward Roberts, and the referees. The first of these also kindly allowed me to read parts of his recent book before publication. I am also grateful to members of the medieval social and economic seminar at Oxford for their comments, and to those who have supplied information: Winifred Harwood, John Isherwood, Jean Morrin, Karen Parker, Robert Peberdy and Janet Pennington.Notes1 The following abbreviations are used in this paper: BL: London, British Library; HRO: Winchester, Hampshire Record Office; PHFC: Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society; RCHM: Royal Commission on Historical Monuments; TNA: Kew, The National Archives; VCH: Victoria History of the Counties of England; WCM: Winchester College, muniments; WSRO: Chippenham, Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office.J. Hare, 'The Economy of a Fifteenth-Century Provincial Capital', Southern History 31 (2009): 18, 22.2 C.M. Barron, 'London 1300–1540', in The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. 1, 600–1540, ed. D.M. Palliser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 412–40.3 G.H. Martin, 'Road Travel in the Middle Ages: Some Journeys by the Warden and Fellows of Merton College, Oxford, 1315–1470', Journal of Transport History 3 (1976): 172.4 E.A. Lewis, ed., The Southampton Port and Brokage Books, 1448–9. Southampton Records Series 36 (Southampton: The University Press, 1993), xliv.5 K.B. McFarlane, England in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford: Hambledon Press, 1981), 242.6 On the European context see P. Spufford, 'Trade in Fourteenth-Century Europe', in The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 6, c.1300–c.1415, ed. M. Jones (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 188; W. Childs, 'Commerce', in The New Cambridge Medieval History. VII, c.1415–c.1500, ed. C. Allmand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 148.7 On bridge-building, see D. Harrison, The Bridges of Medieval England: Transport and Society, 400–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). On lesser bridges, causeways and roads, see A. Betterton and D. Dymond, Lavenham: Industrial Town (Lavenham: Terence Dalton, 1989), 16, 113–15; J. Hare, A Prospering Society: Wiltshire in the Later Middle Ages (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2011), 173; W.G. Hoskins, The Making of the English Landscape (London: Penguin, 1970), 132–5.8 A. Everitt, 'The English Urban Inn, 1560–1760', in Perspectives on English Urban History, ed. A. Everitt (London: Macmillan, 1973), 91.9 W.A. Pantin, 'Medieval Inns', in Studies in Building History: Essays in Recognition of the Work of B.H. St J. O'Neil, ed. E.M. Jope (London: Odhams, 1961), 166–9; for subsequent studies of individual buildings see footnotes below.10 See, for example, C. Dyer, Everyday Life in Medieval England (London: Hambledon Press, 1994), 297–8; and subsequent footnotes.11 See Hare, Prospering Society; idem, 'Regional Prosperity in Fifteenth-Century England: Some Evidence from Wessex', in Revolution and Consumption in Late Medieval England, ed. M. Hicks (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001), 111–15.12 P. Clark, The English Alehouse (Harlow: Longman, 1983), 41–3. These sources are full of problems and must only be treated as approximations.13 Pantin, 'Medieval Inns', 166–91; E. Roberts, Hampshire Houses 1200–1700: Their Dating and Development (Winchester: Hampshire County Council, 2003), 179–83; idem, 'A Fifteenth-Century Inn at Andover', PHFC 47 (1992): 153–62.14 W. Harrison, The Description of England, ed. G. Edelen (New York: Cornell University Press, 1968), 397–8; J.N. Hare, 'Bishop's Waltham Palace: William of Wykeham, Henry Beaufort and the Transformation of a Medieval Episcopal Palace', Archaeological Journal 145 (1988): 236–7, 246–57; A. Emery, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500, vol. 3, Southern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 94–7.15 Such multi-bedding was familiar elsewhere in Europe, as at an inn in Arrezo in 1385 which, with four beds and a mattress, managed to put up 180 overnight guests in 19 days: P. Spufford, Power and Profit: the Merchant in Medieval Europe (London: Thames and Hudson, 2006), 204.16 RCHM, Ancient and Historical Monuments in the City of Salisbury, vol. 1 (London: HMSO, 1980), 96–9, 109, 133–4.17 C. Haskins, The Ancient Trade Guilds and Companies of Salisbury (Salisbury: Bennet Bros, 1912), 293. Andover had 91 beds and 15 fireplaces in 1633, D.K. Coldicott, Elizabethan Andover (Andover: Andover History and Archaeological Society, 2004), 185; Roberts, 'A Fifteenth-Century Inn', 165; A. Conyers, ed., Wiltshire Extents for Debts, Edward I – Elizabeth. Wiltshire Record Society 28 (Devizes: Wiltshire Record Society, 1973), 107–10 (1598). Chequers: inventory of Thomas Etheridge, 1567 (HRO 21M65/D3/126), where most but not all the rooms had glass and painted hangings and slightly fewer had evidence of heating. I am grateful to Dr Karen Parker for loan of a typescript.18 S. Himsworth, Winchester College Muniments: a Descriptive List. 3 vols. (Chichester: Phillimore, 1976–84), 2: 803.19 WCM 1821a–1827.20 A point made by Christopher Dyer in relation to meetings about Inquisitions post mortem. C. Dyer, 'The Value of Fifteenth-Century Inquisitions Post Mortem for Economic and Social History', in The Fifteenth-Century Inquisitions Post Mortem: a Companion, ed. M. Hicks (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2012), 111.21 P. Clark, 'Early Modern Gloucester, 1547–1720', in VCH, Gloucestershire, vol. 4, The City of Gloucester, ed. N.M. Herbert (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 79.22 Dyer, Everyday Life, 297–8; J. Davis, Medieval Market Morality: Life, Law and Ethics in the English Marketplace, 1200–1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 337; M. Kowaleski, Local Markets and Regional Trade in Medieval Exeter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 144.23 F.J. Baigent and J.E. Millard, A History of the Ancient Town and Manor of Basingstoke (Basingstoke: C.J. Jacob, 1889), 323, and see also 318 and 324–5.24 D.R. Carr, ed., The First General Entry Book of the City of Salisbury, 1387–1452. Wiltshire Record Society 54 (Trowbridge: Wiltshire Record Society, 2001), 216, 218. For prohibitions elsewhere, see J. Hare, 'Church-Building and Urban Prosperity', PHFC 62 (2007): 190. For the economic role of inns, see also Davis, Medieval Market Morality, 397–402.25 R.H. Britnell, Growth and Decline in Colchester, 1300–1525 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 134; Kowaleski, Local Markets, 143.26 R. Dymond, 'The Old Inns and Taverns of Exeter', Reports and Transactions of the Devonshire Association (1880): 390, 400; A. Everitt, 'The Marketing of Agricultural Produce', in The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. 4, 1500–1640, ed. J. Thirsk (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 560; C.J. Brett, 'The Fairs and Markets of Norton St Philip', Somerset Archaeological and Natural History 144 (2002): 186–9.27 R.H. Britnell, 'Markets, Shops, Inns, Taverns and Private Houses in Medieval English Trade', in Buyers and Sellers, Retail Circuits and Practices in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, eds. B. Blade and others (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 118.28 See the Basingstoke examples below. At Winchester in the aulnage of 1395, although we can only establish the ownership of 45% of cloths recorded, 3% of the total were the responsibility of five innkeepers: D. Keene, Survey of Medieval Winchester (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 310.29 A. Everitt, 'The Marketing of Agricultural Produce', in The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. 4, ed. Thirsk, 559.30 R.B. Dobson, ed., The Peasants' Revolt of 1381 (London: Macmillan, 1970), 109. Further inns may have been added to this provision in the subsequent century, as occurred at Sherborne and Andover. Both poll tax sources are largely lacking for Hampshire. For the 1379 Wiltshire returns, I have used the originals; for other counties, C.C. Fenwick, ed., The Poll Taxes of 1377, 1379 and 1381. British Academy, Records of Social and Economic History, new series, 27, 29, 37. 3 vols. (London: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1998–2005).31 Thus references to inns may disappear when new rentals are drawn up, since often account rolls provide a rent total rather than a detailed rental. Moreover an estate does not provide a total figure for a town. Bradenstoke Priory had an inn in neighbouring Chippenham, but there were three documented inns in 1379: TNA E 179/239/193/13.32 Baigent and Millard, Basingstoke, 243; Britnell, Growth and Decline, 237.33 M. Carlin, Medieval Southwark (London: Hambledon Press, 1996), 193.34 C.M. Barron, London in the Later Middle Ages: Government and People (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 59.35 Barron, London, 59; N. Davis, Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 91, 94–7, 493, 517, 603, 606, 646. On Southwark, see Carlin, Medieval Southwark.36 Keene, Survey of Medieval Winchester, 167, 276.37 Kowaleski, Local Markets, 125.38 M. Mate, Trade and Economic Developments 1450–1550: the Experience of Kent, Surrey and Sussex (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2006), 130–1; for inns and the urban hierarchy in Sussex, see J. Pennington, 'Inns and Taverns of Western Sussex, England 1550–1700, a Documentary and Architectural Investigation', in The World of the Tavern. Public Houses in Early Modern Europe, eds. W.B. Kumin and B.A. Tlusty (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 120–32.39 C. Dyer and T.R. Slater, 'The Midlands', in Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. 1, ed. Palliser, 631; C. Dyer, Bromsgrove: a Small Town in Worcestershire in the Middle Ages (Worcester: Worcestershire Historical Society, 2000), 32; Clark, English Alehouse, 6; R.B. Peberdy, 'The Economy, Society and Government of a Small Town in Late Medieval England: a Study of Henley-on-Thames from c.1300 to c.1540' (Ph.D. diss., University of Leicester, 1994), with five particular hostels.40 C. Dyer, A Country Merchant 1495–1520: Trading and Farming at the End of the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 83–4.41 TNA SP 12/116, f. 35.42 TNA E 179/239/193/6; E 179/196/52a; E 179/239/193/17; E 179/239/193/18; HRO 11M59/E2/158819/10, m. 64v; 11M59/E1/136/1, m. 126v; TNA SP 12/116, f. 35.43 TNA E 179/239/193/16; on the town's importance, see Hare, Prospering Society, 160–3.44 BL, Add. Rolls 24352–5; TNA SC 6/ Hen. VIII/3986 (Malmesbury Abbey); SC 2/227/103 (I am grateful to John Isherwood for this reference); E 179/194/42a; WCM 22181–2.45 On a Warwickshire example, see A. Watkins, 'William de Kellingworth and the George, an Early Reference to a Warwickshire Rural Inn', Warwickshire History 7, no. 5 (1989): 130–5. See also Dyer, Everyday Life, 297–8.46 TNA SC 6/Hen. VIII/3969; SC 6/Hen. VIII/3986; Pantin, 'Medieval Inns', 169–73; J. Fowler, Mediaeval Sherborne (Dorchester: Longmans, 1951), 266–7.47 TNA E 179/239/193/7; W.H. Godfrey, 'St Mary's and Priory Cottage, Bramber', Sussex Archaeological Collections 86 (1947): 103–12.48 M.J. Becker, Rochester Bridge 1387–1856. A History of its Early Years (London: Constable and Co. Ltd., 1930), 46–7, 89–92.49 Carr, ed., General Entry Book, 56; WSRO B23/144/5; Fowler, Medieval Sherborne, 268; R.H. Britnell, 'Rochester Bridge', in Traffic and Politics: the Construction and Management of Rochester Bridge, AD 43–1993, eds. N. Yates and J.M. Gibson (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1994), 79.50 J. Hare, 'Winchester College and the Angel Inn, Andover: a Fifteenth-Century Landlord and its Investments', PHFC 60 (2005): 190; J.M.W. Bean, 'Landlords', in The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. 3, 1348–1500, ed. E. Miller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 527; Hare, Prospering Society, 200; Becker, Rochester Bridge, 46.51 TNA SC 6/Hen. VIII/3986 (Amesbury); WCM 16574–9; TNA SC 6/Hen VIII/3341 (Hyde).52 Dyer, Everyday Life, 298.53 TNA SC 6/Hen. VIII/3969, 3986.54 Pantin, 'Medieval Inns', 169, 175, 181; J. Hutchins, The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset, eds. W. Shipp and J.W. Hodson. 3rd edn. 4 vols. (Westminster: J.B. Nichols, 1861–74), 4: 282; Fowler, Medieval Sherborne, 266–7; Dymond, 'Old Inns and Taverns of Exeter', 407; A.J. Scrase, Wells, the Anatomy of a Medieval and Early Modern Property Market (Bristol: University of the West of England, 1993), 51.55 Public Record Office, List of the Lands of Dissolved Religious Houses, vol. 3. List and Index Society, Supplementary Series 3 (New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation, 1964), 198.56 W. Harwood, 'The Pattern of Consumption of Winchester College, 1390–1560' (Ph.D. diss., University of Southampton, 2003), 47–8; R. Warmington, 'The Rebuilding of "La Belle" Inn, Andover 1534', Post-Medieval Archaeology 19 (1976): 131–41; Godfrey, 'Bramber', 103–8; Pantin, 'Medieval Inns', 173–4.57 L.F. Salzman, Building in England Down to 1540 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), 516–17; BL, Egerton Roll 2101.58 Le Fayre built a major new inn, the George in 1417: Keene, Survey of Medieval Winchester, 482.59 Now lost, but illustrated in Roberts, Hampshire Houses, 89.60 Hare, 'Bishop's Waltham Palace, Hampshire', 230; idem, 'Winchester College and the Angel Inn', 189.61 Warmington, 'Rebuilding of the "La Belle" Inn, Andover', 139; Magdalen College, Oxford, Muniments, Index for Estate Lease Book 1, f. 78v, and Estate Lease Book 3, p. 160.62 Hare, 'Winchester College and the Angel Inn', 190.63 Haskins, Ancient Trade Guilds and Companies of Salisbury, 291–3; Keene, Survey of Medieval Winchester, 482.64 WCM 1853–6.65 Hare, 'Winchester College and Angel Inn', 187.66 Hare, 'Regional Prosperity in Fifteenth-Century England', 105–26; Roberts, Hampshire Houses; T.B. James and E. Roberts, 'Winchester and Later Medieval Development: From Palace to Pentice', Medieval Archaeology 44 (2000): 195–9; Keene, Survey of Medieval Winchester, 482.67 RCHM, City of Salisbury, 1: lxi–lxii.68 Everitt, 'English Urban Inn', 91–137.69 A. Dyer, 'Ranking Lists of English Medieval Towns', in Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. 1, ed. Palliser, 762, 766.70 Hare, 'Church-Building and Urban Prosperity', 185–91.71 Providing a bailiff of the town, Baigent and Millard, Basingstoke, 434.72 HRO 148M71/2/7/7.73 HRO 148M71/3/4/1; Baigent and Millard, Basingstoke, 380–1, 615–16.74 Baigent and Millard, Basingstoke, 298, 381, 395, 435–6; Hare, 'Winchester College and the Angel Inn', 192; J.C. Wedgwood, History of Parliament: Biographies of Members of the Commons House 1439–1509 (London: H.M.S.O., 1936), 516–17; R.H. Fritze, 'Kingsmill Family (per. c.1480–1698)', in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, eds. H.C.G. Matthew and B. Harrison, at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/71875?docPos=2 (Accessed January 2007); TNA E 101/344/17, m. 18; Corpus Christi College, Oxford, muniments C 6 cap. 13 (1), 2 (I am grateful to Dr Jean Morrin for this reference).75 HRO M61/HMC/202.76 Hare, 'Church-Building and Urban Prosperity', 190; Fritze, 'Kingsmill Family'.77 HRO 148/31/12: the 1523 subsidy returns, rather than the 1524–5 returns used in Table 5.78 In 1478, he was a brewer and possibly a mercer, he paid in the subsidy of 1481, was bailiff in 1485, a tenant in the 1480s, and his will was made in 1513: HRO Wills and Inventories 1513 B/7.79 He was assessed at the high figure of £2 5s. in 1523, and left £20 to his son: HRO Wills and Inventories 1536 B/13.80 HRO Wills and Inventories 1532 B/9. I am grateful to Dr Karen Parker for her transcript of this document.81 Hare, 'Winchester College and Angel Inn', 186–90.82 WCM 2680–2763.83 Warmington, 'Rebuilding of "La Belle" Inn', 133.84 TNA PROB 11/10/212.85 HRO 37M85 3/GI/18–21; 37M85 2/HC/16; Magdalen College, Oxford, Estate Lease Book 2, p. 1 (index).86 HRO 37M85 3GI/21; Magdalen College, Oxford, Estate Lease Book 1, f. 78v (index); TNA E 179/173/182.87 J.N. Hare, 'Salisbury: the Economy of a Fifteenth-Century Provincial Capital', Southern History 31 (2009): 1–26.88 W.H.B. Bird, ed., The Black Book of Winchester (Winchester: Warren and Son, 1925), 157. On similar restrictions at Ipswich, see Davis, Medieval Market Morality, 168; P.A. Fox, 'Striving to Succeed in Late Medieval Canterbury: the Life of Thomas Fokys, Publican, Mayor and Alderman 1460–1535', Archaeologia Cantiana 129 (2009): 213–14.89 W.A. Harwood, ed., Southampton Brokage Book 1447–8 (Winchester: Wessex Historical Databases, 2006); Lewis, ed., Southampton Port and Brokage Books 1448–9; Carr, ed., General Entry Book.90 Carr, ed., General Entry Book, 146, 149; Harwood, ed., Southampton Brokage Book 1447–48; Lewis, ed., Southampton Port and Brokage Books 1448–49.91 Carr, ed., General Entry Book, 185; O. Coleman, ed., The Brokage Book of Southampton, 1443–1444. Southampton Records Series 4 and 6. 2 vols. (Southampton: University of Southampton, 1960–1), 1: 100; WSRO 1446/66 catalogue.92 Haskins, Ancient Trade Guilds and Companies of Salisbury, 307; WSRO G23/1/44/4.93 TNA E 179/194/42a; J.S. Roskell, L. Clarke and C. Rawcliffe, eds., The History of Parliament: the House of Commons, 1386–1421 (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1992), 4: 775–6; Conyers, ed., Wiltshire Extents for Debts, 36. Another inn-keeping MP was Henry Bailly, Chaucer's Host: M. Bowden, A Commentary on the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. 2nd edn. (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 295–6.94 Based on the database of the Overland Trade Project, at the University of Winchester, produced by Dr Winifred Harwood from the brokage books of Southampton (www.overlandtrade.org).95 Overland Trade Project database.96 At Rye, John Sutton was the son of a fishmonger and mayor and was himself a Member of Parliament and keeper of Rye, while Thomas Oxenbridge came from a gentry family, owned an inn and several butchers shops, and engaged in international trade: Mate, Trade and Economic Developments, 104–5. On Exeter, see Kowaleski, Local Markets, 143–7, although as at Salisbury they were not among the richest. Here their wider role is reflected in the debt cases where 7% involved those running inns (or 14% if we include those who had innkeeping as a secondary occupation). On Ipswich, see Davis, Medieval Market Morality, 401–2.97 M.K. McIntosh, Working Women in English Society 1300–1620 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 202–9. See also Davis, Medieval Market Morality, 398–400.98 As also at Exeter, where many widows were involved, Kowaleski, Local Markets, 144.99 Keene, Survey of Medieval Winchester, 276; M.E. Mate, Women in Medieval English Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 45.100 Keene, Survey of Medieval Winchester, 277.101 'By the late Middle Ages, a dense network of inns and taverns had come into existence which continued to operate under parameters not fundamentally altered until the revolutions of the late eighteenth century': B. Kumin and B.A. Tlusty, 'Introduction', in The World of the Tavern, eds. Kumin and Tlusty, 7.102 Carlin, Medieval Southwark, 192.103 Barron, London, 59; Carlin, Medieval Southwark, 193.104 Keene, Survey of Medieval Winchester, 167–8, 274.105 Munby, 'Zacharias's', 303.106 Pegolotti, 'The Practice of Commerce', in Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World: Illustrative Documents, eds. and trans. R.S. Lopez and I.W. Raymond (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 253–4.107 H. Heiss, 'The Pre-Modern Hospitality Trade in the Central Alpine Region: the Example of Tyrol', in The World of the Tavern, eds. Kumin and Tlusty, 162.108 Spufford, Power and Profit, 206.109 Spufford, Power and Profit, 207.110 Spufford, Power and Profit, 206.Additional informationJohn Hare has written extensively on aspects of medieval economic, social and architectural history, including a recent book on later medieval Wiltshire and a study of the rebuilding of Winchester cathedral nave. He spent a career teaching history at a major sixth-form college and is a research fellow at the University of Winchester.