Life in late medieval Norfolk, as with the whole of England, continued against a background of almost constant warfare. The Hundred Years’ War against France lasted until 1453. Famous battles of that war include Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415). The period also embraced the Wars of the Roses; the civil war between the Houses of York and Lancaster that culminated in the Battle of Bosworth Field (1485) and the defeat of the Plantagenet claim to the English throne.
Political instability and social unrest had been growing right across England through the fourteenth century. By the end, this had led to significant social change. The legal rights of peasants had grown and serfs were able to purchase their freedom.
We have a unique historical source for Norfolk, providing a lens through which we may observe aspects of English society and family life at this turbulent and lawless time. The Paston Letters, which were written between 1420 and 1503, provide a collection of over 1,000 papers and documents, unequalled in their importance, coverage and interest in relation to the life of an English family in the days before books were printed. The letters begin in 1420 through William Paston (b. 1378) and end with the death of his grandson Sir John Paston in 1503.
The Pastons were a prominent Norfolk landowning family, with properties including Gresham Castle in north Norfolk. The Paston Letters were not intentionally written as an historical record or diary but served the family’s business purposes. Most relate to the period from 1460 to 1480 and were written by John Paston (son of William), his wife Margaret (c.1422–84) and their employees. The letters continued through other members of the family after John’s death. Although much of the subject matter relates to the running of John’s estates, they also reflect the lawless nature of the period and describe violent episodes when the Paston estates were subject to attack and seizure.
Norfolk in the fourteenth century was the most densely populated county in England. By the start of the fifteenth century Norwich had become England’s second city and was reaching the pinnacle of its historic importance. Its walled centre was bigger than that of London. Wealth flowed from wool production and the making of cloth, and in 1404 the city received a charter from King Henry IV (r. 1399–1413). Its status is reflected in the grand Guildhall, with its flintwork façade, which was built from 1407 to 1413 for use by the city council and as a law court. Today, its extensive fifteenth-century features still survive, including an original doorway and stained glass windows.
Norwich’s economic wealth was reflected in the many substantial mechants’ houses, constructed above stone-built, brick-vaulted undercrofts, of which over sixty have survived. The most impressive is beneath the Bridewell (now home to the Museum of Norwich), which was built as a private house in c.1370, and became the Bridewell in 1585. Its stunning vaulted undercroft is accompanied by an exceptional knapped flint outer wall. Other undercrofts survive at Dragon Hall in King Street and Strangers Hall, which was a house owned by important mayors and merchants. The Strangers Hall undercroft is beneath the hall, which was built in the mid-fifteenth century for the merchant William Barley.
The city’s continuing trading links served to add to its already multicultural population. Immigrants resided in enclaves close to the River Wensum. The wide variety of languages spoken in the city as a result was mirrored at the trading port of Great Yarmouth.
Yarmouth’s prosperity was derived from the town’s prominence as a trading centre. The most distinctive feature of medieval Yarmouth was its Rows; the narrow passageways connecting the quays with the main streets and Market Place. Some Rows were less than 6ft wide. They developed through the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries and expanded in number with the booming herring industry through the fifteenth century. Most remained largely intact until as recently as the Second World War.
King’s Lynn’s trading had become more diversified by the late fourteenth century. The role of Dutch merchants enhanced its contacts with the Low Countries as well as the Baltic and North Sea. It traded with the cloth manufacturing centres at Bruges and Ghent and exported Norfolk’s wool to them.
Lynn also enjoyed coastal trade with Newcastle and Scotland, importing coal, fish and hides. Exports included stone from Rutland and lead from Derbyshire. The town was eventually to compete with London, whose status continued to grow. As with Norwich, Lynn’s prosperity is reflected in the construction of its Guildhall of the Holy Trinity, built between 1422 and 1428. It has a grand façade of flint and stone squares in a distinctive checkerboard pattern. This building houses what is considered to be the oldest theatre in Europe, with records telling of a young William Shakespeare appearing on the stage there in the 1580s.
A new form of defensive dwelling developed at this time in the form of fortified manor houses, which reflect the unstable social situation and climate of violence, as revealed in the Paston Letters. They were also built as statements of power and prestige and some magnificent examples have survived to the present day.
Baconsthorpe Castle, situated near Holt, is a fine example of a fortified manor house. Constructed in the early years of the fifteenth century on the site of an earlier hall, it was associated with the prominent Heydon family. The almost square curtain wall sits within a moat, with towers projecting outwards. Later additions to the buildings include a long hall used for wool manufacture.
Caister Castle, situated just north of Great Yarmouth, was built between 1432 and 1445 by Sir John Fastolf. Grand in appearance, it comprised an inner and outer court, surrounded by a water-filled moat. Its ostentatious construction was financed through Fastolf’s involvement in the wars with France under Kings Henry V and Henry VI. On Fastolf’s death, the ownership was passed on to the Paston family. The castle was damaged when besieged by Sir William Yelverton, Duke of Norfolk, during a subsequent dispute over its ownership with John Paston.
The Paston Letters provide an account of how three of the family’s manors were attacked and taken by force during these years. Caister Castle was taken, following the full-scale siege in 1469, and Hellesdon was also lost in 1465. The Paston manor at Gresham was attacked and taken in 1448 but was later recovered.
Another fortified house is at Oxborough Hall, in Breckland, south of Swaffham, which remains one of the best surviving manors of the period. It was constructed in 1482 by Sir Edmund Bedingfield. The Hall sits within a square moat. It retains a magnificent brick gatehouse, flanked by stair towers, which is an original feature. Oxborough has experienced a turbulent history, with partial destruction during the later Civil War, but has survived as the family home. Both Caister and Oxborough are characterised by their early brick construction. This reflects a continental influence, as well as the lack of good local building stone.
Other fortified buildings constructed during the fifteenth century survive at Dilham Hall, Elsing Hall and Middleton Gatehouse. As a group, the fortified houses perhaps have more in common with Norfolk’s later grand country houses than with earlier medieval fortifications and in many ways they were precursors of the elaborate mansions of the mid-sixteenth century and beyond.
Another form of fortified building was constructed at North Elmham, which had been the location of the Anglo-Saxon timber cathedral. Although that role was moved to Thetford and subsequently to Norwich, North Elmham remained a seat of the bishops. Herbert de Losinga (d. 1119) had built a private chapel there. In response to social unrest and the Peasants’ Revolt, in 1387 Bishop Henry Despencer obtained a licence to fortify the chapel. He added battlements and a half-turret to strengthen the gateway entrance.
At this time, Norfolk was the most intensively farmed region in England. The system of lordship and the role of manor houses were central to the way that farming was organised at a regional level. Within this system, peasants held their own land, while also providing services for the local lord.
Following the devastation of the Black Death, many communities were badly affected and suffered a fall in population. There was a resulting shortage of available labour and peasants were able for the first time to choose where they wanted to work. They experienced a period of improved legal rights and better wages, and this eventually led to workers becoming freemen.
Norfolk’s flat natural landscape and fertile soils had always been well suited to sheep pasture and there was a further shift away from labour-intensive arable farming towards more sheep and wool production. Flocks increased, especially in the Fenland and large quantities of wool from there were exported through the port of Lynn.
Rabbits, which had been introduced to Britain by the Normans, became an important economic resource during the medieval period. Native to the Mediterranean, these creatures were naturally suited to the dry Breckland soils. They were most prolific in that part of East Anglia and rabbit warrens became a lucrative industry. During medieval times, their produce was considered a sign of luxury, both in terms of their fur and their meat. They started to be farmed for profit and many of the warrens were owned by monastic institutions. The rabbits were precious commodities and were held in enclosures for security and guarded by a warrener.
In c.1400 a very unusual building was constructed in Breckland by Thetford Priory, known as Thetford Warren Lodge. Essentially a fortified tower, it was intended as a house for gamekeepers and was also used as a hunting lodge for the Prior of Thetford. The building was subsequently used by warreners who farmed the rabbits.
The warrens remained a lucrative business until as recently as the nineteenth and even into the twentieth century. However, by the later years, rabbit products had lost their status as luxury items. Rabbits also lost their protected status in the 1880s and the use of warrens declined. The impact of myxomatosis in the 1950s eventually caused the rabbit population to decline significantly.
From around 1450 there was a shrinkage in rural settlement and a number of villages began to be deserted. Some of those affected had been established on marginal land but there were several contributory reasons. One was related to the social changes that had improved the rights of peasants, who were now free to move around and to seek better working opportunities and conditions elsewhere. Many villages had also been affected by the Black Death, with a subsequent decline in population. Soil deterioration, especially in areas such as Breckland, was another factor. The locations of many deserted settlements across the county show today as gentle earthworks, ditches and banks, which can be seen at locations including Pudding Norton, Roudham, Godwick and Houghton Park.
It was during the fourteenth century that the first Strangers settled in Norfolk. This name has been applied to groups of cloth workers from the Low Countries, who came to live in the county, arriving in two main waves. The first arrived during the fourteenth century and the second was to come later, in the sixteenth. These immigrants were highly skilled in the production of quality cloth and became associated with the village of Worstead. The wealth they generated can be seen reflected there in the scale of St Mary’s church. The early Strangers also settled in Norwich, where they were initially greeted with an air of suspicion and some hostility, although they invigorated the city’s cloth industry. A workers’ hall was constructed at Norwich’s Pottergate and dye for the cloth trade was sold at Maddermarket. Norfolk’s wool and cloth trade was supported by an efficient system of water transport and network of coastal ports and harbours that provided access to the Continent.
A new merchant class emerged through the Guilds, who controlled trade in the larger towns, where they constructed their elaborate Guild Halls. This period saw Norfolk’s position in relation to international trade bloom. A magnificent medieval merchant’s house has survived at Dragon Hall in Norwich, which was built by Richard Toppes in the 1430s. A quay ran behind the hall, where trading ships would tie up to load and discharge cargoes. The riverside properties in Norwich were involved in the wool trade, which reached its peak in the fifteenth century, and the import and distribution of herrings. The city’s prosperity was linked with the role of Great Yarmouth, to which it was linked by river transport.
Great Yarmouth was the site of one of the great medieval fairs. The Free Herring Fair lasted for forty days every year. It attracted merchants from all over Europe and the Middle East. They came to buy herring and trade in other goods. The fair grew as the fishing industry developed and in some years more than 350 ships paid the toll to trade there, providing great wealth to the town. Opening on the feast of Michaelmas, on 29 September, it began with a procession through the town.
Around the coast, villages and smaller ports derived a good living from the riches of the sea. North Norfolk’s Glaven ports remained important, primarily as bases for longshore fishermen. Their catches grew in size and fish were salted and exported. Although principally engaged with fishing, some other products also passed through Blakeney Haven’s ports, including salt, wine and local agricultural produce.
Communications by land in the later medieval period were also vital for the maintenance of trade. Local people were increasingly encouraged to use their profits from farming and commerce towards the upkeep of their roads and bridges.
The church continued to be the focus of medieval daily life. Norfolk’s prosperity, derived from the wool trade, is reflected not only in the number of new churches but also in their size and sophistication. Their construction was financed by donations from farmers and merchants who had benefitted from the wool trade and who hoped to secure a place in Heaven through their visible philanthropy. Norfolk’s ‘wool churches’ were massive structures, with tall towers. Prominent examples include those at Cawston, Salle, Ludham and Worstead.
This was the greatest period of church building, which marked East Anglia as distinctive, with the densest concentration of medieval churches anywhere in the Christian world. In terms of their architecture, there was a change to the Late Gothic, or Perpendicular, style in the later fourteenth century. Norfolk’s churches of this period are characterised by their light, spacious interiors, as well as by the use of stone, which was imported through the port of Great Yarmouth. The Perpendicular style also combined the prominent use of wood for hammer beam roofs, rood screens, pulpits and benches. The construction of these churches embraced the wedding of faith, wealth and prosperity, together with artistic achievement.
What was described as the Peasants’ Revolt started in London and Kent in 1381, led by Wat Tyler, but there were many similar outbreaks across the country and violence subsequently occurred in Norfolk. The period of social unrest following the Black Death led to attempts by the wealthy landowners to undermine the improved conditions that had been won by peasants and to control their wages, through the introduction of the Statute of Labourers in 1351. Together with the introduction of the unpopular poll tax in 1377, the simmering civil unrest escalated.
Anger spread across society, involving not just the peasantry but also craftsmen, tenants, townspeople and even clergy. Violence ultimately erupted against those considered to be restricting wages and holding onto unfair feudal privileges. Rebellion broke out in Norfolk in June 1381, spreading initially through Thetford, south Norfolk and into the Fens. A group of rebels led by Geoffrey Litster moved north. Soon King’s Lynn, Great Yarmouth and towns in between were involved. On 17 June a rebel force assembled at Mousehold Heath, to the north of Norwich, from where they entered the city.
In response, an army was assembled under Bishop Henry le Despenser. The opposing sides met on the 25th or 26th of June and fought a battle just to the south of North Walsham, in north-east Norfolk. The rebels were defeated and Litster captured. He was taken into the town, where he was hung, drawn and quartered.
The fourteenth century was a bloody one not only at home but also abroad. Sir John Fastolf (c.1378–1459) of Caister-on-Sea was an English knight who fought in many of the battles of the Hundred Years’ War against France, through to 1440. He was initially a squire to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, before serving in northern France under Henry V. Injured in the siege of Harfleur, he missed the Battle of Agincourt, but later returned to France. Despite a distinguished and colourful military career, Fastolf is now better known to us through Shakespeare’s timelessly popular character Falstaff, who was based on the Norfolk knight, and whose grand home was Caister Castle.
Sir Thomas Erpingham (c.1355–1428) was another English knight who gained national attention, both through his role as commander of King Henry V’s archers at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 and for his support of Kings Henry IV and Henry V. His name also lives on as a character immortalised in a Shakespearean play; this time Henry V. Erpingham’s family held land at the village of the same name, north of Aylsham. He was a benefactor to the city of Norwich and one of the cathedral gates, which he funded in 1420, still bears his name.
The county’s general economic prosperity, expressed through the wealth of a number of individuals, gave rise to a strong patronage of the arts and a thriving artistic environment. The production of manuscripts and book illumination continued to flourish. Late medieval art was still predominantly religious in nature; a reflection of both the influence of the Church on society and also the large number of Norfolk churches. In Norwich alone, over thirty churches were built between c.1300 and 1500.
In terms of local craftsmanship, we can point to the media of stained glass and painting on rood screen panels as exceptional. High-quality stained glass of the period survives in the east window of the church of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich. Rood screens were wooden interventions in medieval churches that separated the chancel from the nave. Many were ornately decorated, with the use of fine tracery and carvings, although it is the application of paintings that distinguishes many outstanding examples in Norfolk. A large number exhibit painted decoration, depicting saints, prophets, other religious figures and biblical scenes. Most were produced during the fifteenth and early sixteenth century. Particularly wonderful polychrome figurative paintings survive on screens of the fifteenth century at Ranworth, together with other nearby Broadland churches at Ludham, Catfield, Barton Turf and Irstead.
Norfolk’s strong tradition of writing goes back to the fourteenth century to the life of Julian of Norwich (1342–c.1429), who was the author of the first surviving book by a woman in the English language. Following a series of visions, Julian emerged from a serious illness and recorded her visions in Revelations of Divine Love (1395). She also wrote an exploration of their meaning in The Long Text (1410s–1420s). St Julian’s church stands adjacent to King Street, Norwich and, although gutted in an air raid in 1942, her cell and simple shrine can still be visited.
An important medieval manuscript in the form of a service book used by monks and priests is known as the Helmingham Breviary, which was made for use in the Diocese of Norwich and contains outstanding and rare forms of illustration. A record of 1422 tells of Brother Robert of Lakenham giving this ‘new and great breviary’ to the Priory of St Leonard’s (which belonged to Norwich Cathedral Priory). Following the closure of St Leonard’s Priory during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it was held by the Tollemarche family, of Helmingham Hall, Suffolk, and has since been acquired by Norwich Castle Museum.