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Irish merchants and seamen in late medieval England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Wendy R. Childs
Wendy R. Childs*
Affiliation:
School of History, University of Leeds
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Most studies of Anglo-Irish relations in the middle ages understandably concentrate on the activity of the English in Ireland, and unintentionally but inevitably this can leave the impression that the movement of people was all one way. But this was not so, and one group who travelled in the opposite direction were some of the merchants and seamen involved in the Anglo-Irish trade of the period. Irish merchants and seamen travelled widely and could be found in Iceland, Lisbon, Bordeaux, Brittany and Flanders, but probably their most regular trade remained with their closest neighbour and political overlord: England. They visited most western and southern English ports, but inevitably were found most frequently in the west, especially at Chester and Bristol. The majority of them stayed for a few days or weeks, as long as their business demanded. Others settled permanently in England, or, perhaps more accurately, re-settled in England, for those who came to England both as settlers and visitors were mainly the Anglo-Irish of the English towns in Ireland and not the Gaelic Irish. This makes it difficult to estimate accurately the numbers of both visitors and settlers, because the status of the Anglo-Irish was legally that of denizen, and record-keepers normally had no reason to identify them separately. They may, therefore, be hard to distinguish from native Englishmen of similar name outside the short periods when governments (central or urban) temporarily sought to restrict their activities. However, the general context within which they worked is quite clear, and this article considers three main aspects of that context: first, the pattern of the trade which attracted Irish merchants to England; second, the role of the Irish merchants and seamen in the trade; and third, examples of individual careers of merchants and seamen who settled in England.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 32 , Issue 125 , May 2000 , pp. 22 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2000

References

1 The libelle of Englyshe poly eye, ed. SirWarner, George (Oxford, 1924), ll 656–783Google Scholar. This political treatise was written to encourage England to protect its trade and therefore keep safe its shipping and dominions.

2 B.L., Cott. MS Vesp. E IX, ff 94rv, 101–2, now printed in Jenks, Stuart, ‘Werkzeug des spätmittelalterlichen Kaufmanns: Hansen und Engländer im Wandel von memoria zur Akte (mit einer Edition von The Noumbre of Weyghtys)’ in Jahrbuch für fränkische Landesforschung, Bd lii (1992), pp 304, 308Google Scholar. This was a merchant manual and does not concern itself with politics. Both tracts listed minerals as exports. The Libelle included gold and silver (following classical sources, and possibly to make Ireland seem more valuable); The noumbre of weyghtys mentioned iron, which was more often an import.

3 Customs accounts are tax returns and have a number of shortcomings as records of trade, but they are sufficient to trace trends and patterns.

4 P.R.O., E 122/17/10; Table 3 below. For a survey of Anglo-Irish trade see Childs, W. R., ‘Ireland’s trade with England in the later middle ages’ in Ir. Econ. & Soc. Hist., ix (1982), pp 5–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Childs, Wendy and O’Neill, Timothy, Overseas trade’ in Cosgrove, Art (ed.), A new history of Ireland, ii: Medieval Ireland, 1169–1534 (Oxford, 1987), pp 492–524Google Scholar.

5 Chester fell outside the national customs system, but duties were collected locally, and some accounts survive for the fifteenth century: see Wilson, K. P. (ed.), Chester customs accounts, 1301–1566 (Record Society for Lancashire and Cheshire, CXI, Liverpool, 1969), pp. 8–14Google Scholar, 101–12, 149–52; Chester Record Office (henceforth C.R.O.), Sheriffs Books 1–5.

6 C.R.O., Sheriff’s Books 1–4; see Childs, ‘Ireland’s trade with England’, Table 7 (p. 29). Numbers are as follows:

7 Childs, ‘Ireland’s trade with England’, Table 5 (p. 26).

8 P.R.O., E 122/16/2.

9 Cal. pat. rolls, 1391–6, p. 594; Bush, Henry, Bristol town duties (Bristol, 1828), pp 17–25Google Scholar; P.R.O., E 122/19/13, 14, 20/1, 5, 7.

10 Cal. pat. rolls, 1399–1401, p. 451; Wadley, T.P., Notes and abstracts of wills contained in the volume entitled the Great Orphan Book and Book of Wills in the Council House at Bristol (Bristol, 1886)Google Scholar, p.70; P.R.O., E 122/20/5.

11 Lewis, E. A., ‘A contribution to the commercial history of medieval Wales’ in Y Cymmrodor, xxiv (1913), pp 104-63Google Scholar.

12 J. L. Bolton, ‘Irish migration to England in the late middle ages: the evidence of 1394 and 1440’, Table 1 (above, pp 5–7); see also Thrupp, S. L., ‘A survey of the alien population in England in 1440’ in Speculum, xxxii (1957), pp 266-7Google Scholar, 270-72.

13 P.R.O., E 159/253, Recorda, Trinity, m. 25.

14 Customs accounts show few Irish merchants trading in the ports of Dorset, Hampshire or Kent, but Irish ships were blown in en route for Flanders. At various times Irish merchants at Southampton, Chichester and Sandwich produced their customs cockets from Youghal, Cork, Dungarvan, Waterford, Wexford, Dublin and Drogheda to prove they had paid customs on their exports of hides for Flanders: see Cal. close rolls, 1339–41, p. 591; ibid., 1349-54, pp 25–6; ibid., 1369-74, p. 213; ibid., 1381-5, p. 72; ibid., 1402-5, p. 221.

15 See below, p. 34.

16 P.R.O., E 122/20/5; for the commodities this year see Tables 2 and 3.

17 The exports were 395 out of a total of 3, 646 cloths, and £232 worth of other goods out of a total of £988; the imports were worth £1, 790 out of a total value of £8, 861. If wine is included in the import values at the occasional customs valuation of £4 per tun, the total import value rises to £13,721, and the Irish trade accounts for 13 per cent.

18 Apart from Stephens, one or two of the other major Bristol figures — John Pynke, John Esterfield and Robert Baron — occasionally traded with Ireland.

19 See, for instance, the voyages of the Trinity of Waterford and the John of Cork, which called both at Bristol and at the Bridgwater creek of Axewater in 1485–6 (P.R.O., E 122/20/5, 26/13); for further details see Childs, ‘Ireland’s trade with England’, pp 21–3.

20 See n. 21.

21 The following examples are taken from the few surviving poundage accounts for the late fourteenth century and the full-year accounts for the late fifteenth (P.R.O., E 122/16/4, 21, 17/10, 18/13; for details see Tables 2 and 3). Cloths are valued at £1 10s. each.

22 For example, Thomas Donachy, Cornelius Donell and Edward Kelly can be found in 1485–6 (P.R.O., E 122/20/5).

23 Ibid.

24 The account recorded home towns for 225 merchants, but many appear more than once, Wilson (ed.), Chester customs accounts, pp 103–16.

25 P.R.O., E 122, Bristol, passim.

26 Ibid., E 159/268, Recorda, Michaelmas, m. 12v; the membrane number is misquoted in James, M.K., Studies in the medieval wine trade (Oxford, 1971), p. 172Google Scholar n.l.

27 C.R.O., Sheriffs Book 4, ff 14v, 16, 17v, 37, 58, 61, 63, 81, 82v (1492-7). Wilson identified part of Sheriff’s Book 5, ff 52–6v, on which Walsh also appears as an account for 1479–80 (Wilson (ed.), Chester customs accounts, p. 150).

28 Reddaway, T. F. and Ruddock, A. A. (eds), ‘The accounts of John Balsall, purser of the Trinity of Bristol, 1480–1’ in Camden Miscellany, xxiii (1969), pp 8, 15–19Google Scholar; Cal. misc. inq, vi, no. 220.

29 P.R.O., E 122/16/26, 28, 30, 34.

30 Bush, Bristol town duties, pp 17–25.

31 P.R.O., E 122/20/1, 5, 7.

32 Also exempt were bona fide graduates, lawyers, the religious and heirs to English lands: see Stat. of realm, ii, 173; Art Cosgrove, ‘England and Ireland, 1399–1447’ in New hist. Ire., ii, 530.

33 Sometimes towns did prohibit Irishmen on town councils: see below, p. 37.

34 Wilson, K.P., ‘The port of Chester in the later middle ages’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Liverpool, 1965), p. 94Google Scholar.

35 Ibid., pp 91–4; P.R.O., C 1/43/33, 44/278.The absence of Bristol merchants in the Dublin guild is not surprising, given their relative lack of interest in Dublin trade, as recorded in the customs accounts.

36 For Richard May’s career see below, pp 37–8.

37 P.R.O., PRO 31/8/153, ff 648–51.

38 Wadley, Notes & abstracts of wills reproduces 289 of those wills recorded municipally before 1530; of these, only three have reference to Ireland. Nicolson, G. H., ‘The medieval wills of Bristol, with special reference to those of merchants’ (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Birmingham, 1970)Google Scholar, app. 3, calendars those recorded centrally, and similarly few have reference to Ireland.

39 Cal. close rolls, 1381–5, p. 47.

40 Nicolson, ‘Medieval wills of Bristol’, app. 3.

41 P.R.O., E 122/19/10, 13, 14, 161/31.

42 Ibid., E 122/19/13, 14, 20/5, 7.

43 Ibid., E 179/113/103, 104. See Bolton, ‘Irish migration to England’, Table 1 (above, pp 5–7). The roll for 1440 is badly worn and incomplete. On the roll as it survives now about 218 names are legible. I have been more positive than Dr Bolton in my identification of Irish immigrants to Bristol: 22 were certainly Irish and a further 28 almost certainly so (i.e. a total of 23 per cent); at least a further 11 were possibly Irish. The roll for 1441 is well preserved but contains only 381 names; on this some 24 are reasonably identifiable as Irish (6 per cent).

44 Bickley, F.B. (ed.), The Little Red Book of Bristol (2 vols, Bristol & London, 1900-1), i, 86-8Google Scholar; ii, 163–7.

45 P.R.O., E 159/210, Recorda, Michaelmas, m. 34; ibid., E 122/77/4, 203/4; ibid., C 1/9/488-91 (printed in Carus-Wilson, E. M., The overseas trade of Bristol in the later middle ages (Bristol, 1937), no. 87)Google Scholar; P.R.O., PRO 31/8/153, f. 642.

46 Alford was possibly also an Irish immigrant and associated with Richard Alford: see above, p. 34. James was born in Lisbon of an English father (Cal. pat. rolls, 1441–6, p. 435).

47 P.R.O., E 122/19/1, 3, 4, 6.

48 Ibid., E 101/194/3; ibid., C 1/17/30, 24/211-17 (printed in Carus-Wilson, Overseas trade of Bristol, no. 120), 32/289, 44/151; Cal. pat. rolls, 1467–77, p.168; Carus-Wilson, op. cit., nos 113, 118.

49 P.R.O., E 179/113/103, 104.

50 Ibid., E 159/210, Recorda, Michaelmas, m. 34; ibid., E 101/194/3; ibid., C 1/9/488-491 (Veilho case; printed in Carus-Wilson, Overseas trade of Bristol, no. 120), 19/409 (Motrico ships), 27/383, 471 (loss of voyage to Bordeaux; printed in Carus-Wilson, op. cit., nos 142, 143); Carus-Wilson, op. cit., nos 87, 90, 113, 138.

51 P.R.O. C 1/29/542; Veale, E. W. W. (ed.), The Great Red Book of Bristol (Bristol Record Society, IV, Bristol, 1933), pp. 136-8Google Scholar.

52 Nicolson, ‘Medieval wills of Bristol’, app. 3.

53 For Shipward’s political leanings see Bickley (ed.), Little Red Book, pp 130–31.

54 No original petition survives, but Hatter’s reply, May’s replication and Hatter’s rejoinder make the problem quite clear (P.R.O., C 1/17/213).

55 It appears that there had been a change of policy sometime before 1445, by which time the charge for foreign apprentices, including the Welsh, was £5 unless they had completed a full seven-year apprenticeship (Nicolson, ‘Medieval wills of Bristol’, p. 32).

56 Veale, (ed.), Great Red Book (Bristol Record Society, VIII, Bristol, 1938) p. 54Google Scholar.

57 P.R.O., C 1/17/213a; ibid., C 1/17/214 is similar, but omits Roche and adds occupations for others.

58 Ibid, C 1/17/215, 26/102-5; Ricart, Robert, The maire of Bristowe is kalendar, ed. Smith, Lucy Toulmin (Camden Society, new ser., vol. 5, London, 1872), p. 41Google Scholar.