We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 September 2018
Property rents in medieval towns were an important source of income for property-owners including the king, local lords and civic authorities, and a significant expense for local residents. This article examines the causes of variation in property rents in fourteenth-century Hull, an important international port with unique records on plot dimensions. It illuminates the topography and growth of the port, identifying locations where rents were highest, and particular streets which attracted premium rents. Civic and mercantile property-owners are examined through reconstruction of their biographies and the impact of the identity of owners on rent levels is assessed.
We would like to thank the referees for their suggestions. Support was also provided by staff at Archaeology Data Services, University of York, staff at the Bodleian Library Map Room, participants in the European Association for Urban History Conference 2016, staff at Hull History Centre, participants in the Port, City and Lives Conference, University of Liverpool, members of Manchester Medieval Society, participants in the Department of History Research Seminar at the University of Manchester, members of the University of Reading Centre for Institutions and Economic History, Michael Charno, Heidi Deneweth, Richard Holt, Rosemary Horrox, Maryanne Kowaleski, Joseph Lampel, Steve Rigby, Elisabeth Salter and Bruce Tether.
1 Baker, N., Brett, J. and Jones, R., Bristol: A Worshipful Town and Famous City: An Archaeological Assessment (Oxford, 2017)Google Scholar; Baker, N., Hughes, P. and Morriss, R.K., The Houses of Hereford 1200–1700 (Oxford, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dyer, C., ‘The archaeology of medieval small towns’, Medieval Archaeology, 47 (2003), 85–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lilley, K.D., ‘Urban planning after the Black Death: townscape transformation in later medieval England (1350–1530)’, Urban History, 42 (2015), 22–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jervis, B., ‘Assessing urban fortunes in six late medieval ports: an archaeological application of assemblage theory’, Urban History, 44 (2017), 2–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Butcher, A.F., ‘Rent, population and economic change in late-medieval Newcastle’, Northern History, 14 (1978), 67–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Demidowicz, G., Medieval Birmingham: The Borough Rentals of 1296 and 1344–5 (Stratford-upon-Avon, 2008)Google Scholar; Harding, V. and Wright, L. (eds.), London Bridge: Selected Accounts and Rentals, 1381–1538 (London, 1995)Google Scholar.
3 Hilton, R.H., ‘Some problems of urban real property in the Middle Ages’, in Feinstein, C.H. (ed.), Socialism, Capitalism and Economic Growth: Essays Presented to Maurice Dobb (Cambridge, 1967), 326–37Google Scholar.
4 Boyle, M.A. and Kiel, K.A., ‘A survey of house price hedonic studies of the impact of environmental externalities’, Journal of Real Estate Literature, 9 (2009), 117–44Google Scholar; Dunse, N. and Jones, C., ‘A hedonic price model of office rents’, Journal of Property Valuation and Investment, 16 (1983), 297–312CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Allen, R.C., ‘The price of freehold land and the interest rate in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 41 (1988), 33–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clark, G., ‘Land rental values and the agrarian economy: England and Wales, 1500–1914’, European Review of Economic History, 6 (2002), 281–308CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Turner, M.E., Beckett, J.V. and Afton, B., Agricultural Rent in England, 1690–1914 (Cambridge, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Van Bavel, B., ‘The organisation and rise of land and lease markets in north-western Europe and Italy, c. 1000–1800’, Continuity and Change, 23 (2008), 1–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Rees Jones, S., York: The Making of a City 1068–1350 (Oxford, 2013), 274–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Salter, H.E., Survey of Oxford, vol. I (Oxford, 1960), viGoogle Scholar.
7 de Wolf Hemmeon, M., Burgage Tenure in Medieval England (Cambridge, MA, 1914), 61–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 Rigby, S.H., Medieval Grimsby: Growth and Decline (Hull, 1993), 119Google Scholar.
9 Beresford, M., New Towns of the Middle Ages (Stroud, 1988), 16–24Google Scholar; Martin, B. and Martin, D., New Winchelsea, Sussex: A Medieval Port Town (King's Lynn, 2004)Google Scholar; The National Archives (TNA), Rentals and Surveys, SC11/674 New Winchelsea, discussed at S. Alsford, Florilegium Urbanum http://users.trytel.com/tristan/towns/florilegium/community/cmfabr28.html, accessed 23 Apr. 2017.
10 Casson, C. and Casson, M., ‘Location, location, location? Analysing property rents in medieval Gloucester’, Economic History Review, 69 (2016), 575–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Langton, J., ‘Late medieval Gloucester: some data from a rental of 1455’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, n.s., 2 (1977), 259–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 Holt, R., ‘The urban transformation in England, 900–1100’, in Lewis, C. (ed.), Anglo-Norman Studies, 32 (Woodbridge, 2010), 57–78Google Scholar; Kowaleski, M., ‘Port towns: England and Wales 1300–1540’, in Palliser, D.M. (ed.), The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. I: 600–1540 (Cambridge, 2000), 467–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; D.M. Palliser, T.R. Slater and E.P. Dennison, ‘The topography of towns 600–1300’, in Palliser (ed.), Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. I, 153–86.
12 Horrox, R. (ed.), Selected Rentals and Accounts of Medieval Hull, 1293–1528 (York, 1983), 61–90Google Scholar.
13 Casson and Casson, ‘Location’; Langton, ‘Gloucester’; Maitland, F.W., Township and Borough (Cambridge, 1898)Google Scholar.
14 Rees Jones, York, 308–9.
15 TNA, SC11/674 New Winchelsea.
16 Casson and Casson, ‘Location’.
17 C. Casson and M. Casson, ‘The economy of medieval English towns: property values and rents in Bristol, 1200–1500’, working paper; Leech, R.H., The Topography of Medieval and Early Modern Bristol, Part I: Property-holdings in the Early Walled Town and the Marsh Suburb North of the Avon (Bristol, 1997)Google Scholar.
18 Casson and Casson, ‘Bristol’; Leech, Topography.
19 Baker, N. and Holt, R., Urban Growth and the Medieval Church: Gloucester and Worcester (Aldershot, 2004)Google Scholar; Keene, D., Survey of Medieval Winchester, vol. II, part I (Oxford, 1985)Google Scholar; Rees Jones, York, 274–9.
20 Salter, E.E., ‘Some differences in the cultural production of household consumption in three North Kent communities, c. 1450–1550’, in Beattie, C., Maslakovic, A. and Rees Jones, S. (eds.), The Medieval Household in Christian Europe c. 850 – c. 1550: Managing Power, Wealth and the Body (Brepols, 2003), 391–408CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
21 Clarke, H., Pearson, S., Mate, M. and Parfitt, K., Sandwich: The ‘Completest Medieval Town in England’: A Study of the Town and Port from its Origins to 1600 (Oxford, 2010), 226–7Google Scholar.
22 Platt, C., Medieval Southampton: The Port and Trading Community, AD 1000–1600 (London and Boston, MA, 1973), 43–5Google Scholar.
23 Clarke, Pearson, Mate and Parfitt, Sandwich, 265–6.
24 Rutledge, E., ‘Landlords and tenants: housing and the rented property market in early fourteenth-century Norwich’, Urban History, 22 (1995), 7–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25 Baker and Holt, Gloucester and Worcester.
26 Rigby, S.H., Boston, 1086–1225: A Medieval Boom Town (Lincoln, 2017), 46–7Google Scholar.
27 English, B., The Lords of Holderness 1086–1260 (Oxford, 1979), 206, 212–21Google Scholar
28 Kermode, J., Medieval Merchants: York, Beverley and Hull in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1998), 276–304Google Scholar.
29 Rees Jones, York, 274–9.
30 Butcher, A.F., ‘Rent and the urban economy: Oxford and Canterbury in the later Middle Ages’, Southern History, 1 (1978), 11–43Google Scholar, at 18.
31 Kermode, Medieval Merchants, 288; Waites, B., Monasteries and the Landscape in North East England: The Medieval Colonisation of the North York Moors (Oakham, 1997)Google Scholar.
32 Bonney, M., Lordship and the Urban Community: Durham and its Overlords, 1250–1540 (Cambridge, 1990), 27–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
33 Coss, P.R. (ed.), The Early Records of Medieval Coventry (London, 1986), xv–xxiGoogle Scholar.
34 Goddard, R., Lordship and Medieval Urbanisation: Coventry, 1043–1355 (Woodbridge, 2004), 66–7Google Scholar.
35 Beresford, New Towns; Hadley, G., New and Complete History of the Town and County of Kingston-upon-Hull (Hull, 1788)Google Scholar; Tickell, J., History of the Town and County of Kingston upon Hull (n.s., 1798)Google Scholar; Frost, C., Notices of the Early History of the Town and Port of Hull (London, 1827)Google Scholar; Sheahan, J.J., General and Concise History and Description of the Town and Port of Kingston-upon-Hull (London, 1864)Google Scholar; Gent, T., Gent's History of Hull [1735] (Hull, 1869)Google Scholar; Gillett, E. and MacMahon, K.A., A History of Hull (Oxford, 1980)Google Scholar.
36 Sheppard, J.A., The Draining of the Hull Valley (Hull, 1958)Google Scholar; Lister, J. (ed.), The Early Yorkshire Woollen Industry: Extracts from the Hull Customs Rolls (Cambridge, 1924; repr. 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Topping, T., Historic Facts relative to the Sea Port and Market Town of Ravenspurne in Holderness (Hull, 1822)Google Scholar; Thompson, T., Occellum Promontorium (Hull, 1821)Google Scholar; Poulson, G., History and Antiquities of the Seigniory of Holderness (Hull, 1840)Google Scholar; Waites, B., ‘The medieval ports and trade of north-east Yorkshire’, Mariners Mirror, 63 (1977), 137–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Childs, W.R., The Trade and Shipping of Hull, 1300–1500 (Hull, 1990)Google Scholar.
37 TNA Exchequer T.R. Misc. E36/274, translated in Horrox (ed.), Rentals, 135–9.
38 See also Salter, E., ‘Hull's medieval lives’, in Starkey, D.J., Atkinson, D., McDonagh, B., McKeon, S. and Salter, E. (eds.), Hull: Culture, City, Place (Liverpool, 2017), 41–59Google Scholar.
39 Allison, K.J. (ed.), The City of Kingston upon Hull: Victoria History of the County of York, East Riding, vol. I (London, 1969)Google Scholar; Lambert, C.L., Shipping the Medieval Military: English Maritime Logistics in the Fourteenth Century (Woodbridge, 2011)Google Scholar.
40 Beresford, New Towns, 16–24.
41 E.A. Bond (ed.), Chronica Monasterii de Melsa (3 vols., London, 1868).
42 Fryde, E.B., William de la Pole: Merchant and King's Banker (London, 1988)Google Scholar; Brooks, F.W., ‘A medieval brick-yard at Hull’, Journal of British Archaeological Association, 4 (1939), 151–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
43 Mayhew, N.J., ‘Prices in England, 1170–1750’, Past and Present, 219 (2013), 3–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
44 TNA, SC11/743, translation Horrox (ed.), Rentals, 141.
45 Horrox (ed.), Rentals, 142–3.
46 Boyle, J.R. (ed.), Charters and Letters Patent Granted to Kingston upon Hull (Hull, 1905)Google Scholar.
47 Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Edward III Vols. 1–16 (London, 1891–1916), 1317–54, 30; Carus-Wilson, E.M. and Coleman, O., England's Export Trade, 1275–1547 (Oxford, 1963)Google Scholar.
48 Blashill, T., Evidences relating to the Eastern Part of the City of Kingston-upon-Hull (Hull, 1903)Google Scholar; Ayers, B., Excavations at Chapel Lane Staithe, 1978. Hull Old Town Report Series, 3, East Riding Archaeologist, 5 (Hull, 1979)Google Scholar; Evans, D.H. (ed.), Excavations in Hull, 1975–76. Hull Old Town Report Series, 2, East Riding Archaeologist, 4 (Hull, 1993)Google Scholar; Armstrong, P., Excavations in Sewer Lane, Hull, 1974. Hull Old Town Report Series, 1, East Riding Archaeologist, 3 (Hull, 1977)Google Scholar; Armstrong, P. and Ayers, B., Excavations in High Street and Blackfriargate. Hull Old Town Report Series, 5, East Riding Archaeologist, 8 (Hull, 1987)Google Scholar.
49 Boyle (ed.), Charters.
50 It is very probable that many of these properties were sublet at higher rents on short- or medium-term leases. These rents could fluctuate in response to short-run changes as distinct from the rents analysed here, which basically reflect rents paid to the king set in c. 1299, as explained above. Some of these rents may have remained unchanged over the period 1299–1347, but others may have altered as the properties of tenants who defaulted on their rents may have reverted to the king, who had the option to re-let the property at a different rent.
51 A further 18 properties are recorded but the information on them is insufficient for the purposes of this article.
52 Horrox (ed.), Rentals, 74.
53 Horrox, R., The Changing Plan of Hull, 1290–1650 (Hull, 1978)Google Scholar.
54 Estimates of depth have been derived by analysing the configurations of blocks of abutting properties. The ‘grid’ layout of the town means that a typical block of properties is approximately rectangular, and is bounded by four streets, usually two main streets and two side streets that intersect them. This facilitates an algebraic method of depth estimation. The length of a main street along one side of a block can be calculated by summing the recorded widths of the frontages of adjacent properties along the street between one corner and the next. Comparing the lengths of the opposite sides of the block provides an indication of whether the block is truly rectangular or not; it is truly rectangular only if the two are equal. If a block is truly rectangular then the sum of the depths of a pair of rear-abutting properties along the main streets will equal the lengths of the side streets to either side. Furthermore, if there is a common boundary line for all rear-abutting properties in a block then the rear-abutting properties along each main street will be of equal depth. If the properties along each of two parallel streets are of equal depth then this depth will be equal to half the length of an intersecting side street. Corner properties need to be treated somewhat differently. Side streets often included the blank side walls of corner properties. Since the length of side walls is not recorded, it must be inferred from another source. For example, if the other side of the side street contained a row of frontages of properties belonging to an adjacent block, then its length could be estimated by summing frontage widths for these properties. In most cases, however, an independent source is required. Archaeological evidence from rescue digs carried out in the 1970s suggested that the configuration of streets in the Old Town had remained basically unchanged from the medieval period, and it has not changed significantly in the 40 years since then. The most reliable source for the Old Town today is Ordnance Survey MasterMap, available online through Digimap, and this can be complemented by visual images and plans from Google Maps. Both MasterMap and Google Maps have straight-line distance measurement tools. Using information on the recorded widths of frontages, it can readily be confirmed that for Hull Old Town, the lengths of the sides of blocks along the main streets that are estimated from the medieval rental agree with the corresponding measurements from MasterMap to within a margin of 5%. The same result is obtained using Google Maps, although MasterMap and Google Maps do not always agree exactly. This information can also be verified directly using a walking tour of the Old Town. Using MasterMap and first-hand investigation, it is therefore possible to derive estimates of the lengths of medieval side streets. The archaeological evidence referred to above suggests that some rear-abuttals are irregular. Such irregularity complicates algebraic calculations, but it does not make them impossible. By combining rental information from historical deeds, archaeological evidence and contemporary mappings, academic experts, assisted by the city planning office, were able to reconstruct a map of property boundaries in medieval Hull, which was reproduced by Horrox and is reproduced again with permission here. This mapping reflects the best estimates of expert opinion. By using the map as a basis for calculation it is possible, in many cases, to generate estimates of unknown property depths from other known measurements conditional on the configuration of abuttals being correct. The use of algebraic methods also ensures that different depth estimates are consistent with each other, in the sense that they match each other and the street-level data referred to above. Where the algebraic method cannot be applied, depth estimates have not been provided and the corresponding plots have been omitted from the statistical analysis. Discussion of plots can also be found in Slater, T.R., ‘Planning English medieval “street towns”: the Hertfordshire evidence’, Landscape History, 26 (2004), 19–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Bilson, John, ‘Wyke-upon-Hull in 1293’, Transactions of the East Riding Antiquarian Society, 26 (1920), 37–105Google Scholar, was consulted but unfortunately does not give sufficient detail for our purposes.
55 Allison (ed.), East Riding; Stanewell, L.M. (ed.),Calendar of the Ancient Deeds, Letters, Miscellaneous Old Documents, &c. in the Archives of the Corporation (Hull, 1951)Google Scholar; Fryde, De la Pole; Frost, Notices; Horrox, Changing Plan; Horrox (ed.), Rentals; Lister (ed.), Woollen; Horrox, R., The De La Poles of Hull (Hull, 1983)Google Scholar; Kermode, Medieval Merchants; Lambert, Shipping; Palmer, R.C., English Law in the Age of the Black Death, 1348–1381 (Chapel Hill, 1993)Google Scholar; Topping, Historic Facts; Calendar of the Patent Rolls; TNA C241/134/195 Chancery: Certificates of Statute Merchant and Statute Staple; TNA E358/3 Richard de Perers, sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire, for provisions for the king's horses, during parliament at Westminster; TNA, SC8/228/11392 Ancient Petitions: Inquisition taken before De la Pole and Fitz Dieu; TNA, SC8/341/16051 Ancient Petitions: Petitioner Hugh de Pickworth; Family Tree Maker, ‘Information about Hamo Box’ http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/h/a/r/Robert-R-Harshbarger/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0642.html, accessed 29 Sep. 2014; surname database www.surnamedb.com/Surname, accessed 29 Sep. 2014; Google Maps, map of Hull; Goole www.goole-on-the-web.org.uk/main.php?page=reedness_e, Reedness and Ousefleet, accessed 4 Apr. 2015.
56 H.C. Maxwell Lyte (ed.), Patent Rolls, Vols. 3–9 1317–54 (16 vols., London, 1891–1916).
57 Horrox, Changing Plan; J.I. Kermode, ‘The merchants of York, Beverley and Hull in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries’, University of Sheffield Ph.D. thesis, 1990.
58 Fryde, De la Pole; Horrox, The De La Poles; Casson, M. and Casson, C., ‘The history of entrepreneurship: medieval origins to a modern phenomenon?’, Business History, 56 (2014), 1223–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
59 Casson and Casson, ‘Location’; Langton, ‘Gloucester’; TNA, SC11/674 New Winchelsea.
60 Boyle and Kiel, ‘Hedonic’; Dunse and Jones, ‘Price’; Allen, ‘Freehold’; Clark, ‘Land’; Turner, Beckett and Afton, Agricultural Rent; Van Bavel, ‘Organisation’; Wooldridge, J.M., Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach, 5th edn (Mason, 2013)Google Scholar.
61 Each street is represented in the regression by a dummy variable that takes a value of one if the property fronts onto the street in question, and is zero otherwise. As there are only a small number of properties fronting onto certain streets, these streets are combined with others when constructing dummy variables. Because every property fronts onto one of the listed streets, one of the streets needs to be taken as a control and dropped from the regression analysis; the coefficients on the other dummy variables are then interpreted as measuring impacts relative to the impact of the control. The southern section of Marketgate is taken as the control, together with a small number of properties on side streets nearby. It is chosen because there are a good number of properties on this street and rents there are representative of the town as a whole; this provides an opportunity for other streets to show either positive or negative deviation. Streets are identified throughout by their names as recorded in the rental.
62 For full discussion of the use of regression see Wooldridge, Econometrics, 24–47.
63 Lack of information on precise location means that properties outside the ditch have to be omitted from this analysis.
64 The rental premium is reflected in the value of the estimated coefficient shown in the table opposite the name of the street.
65 Basu, S. and Thibodeau, T.G., ‘Analysis of spatial autocorrelation in house prices’, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, 17 (1998), 61–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
66 Fujita, M., Urban Economic Theory: Land Use and City Size (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
67 A. Saul, ‘Great Yarmouth in the fourteenth century: a study in trade, politics and society’, University of Oxford, Ph.D. thesis, 1975.
68 Baker, N., Shrewsbury: An Archaeological Assessment of an English Border Town (Oxford, 2010), 23, 129Google Scholar.
69 Bonney, Durham; Goddard, Coventry, 290.
70 Rigby, Boston, 46–7.
71 Rigby, Grimsby, 119.
72 Casson and Casson, ‘Location’; Langton, ‘Gloucester’; TNA, SC11/674 New Winchelsea.
73 Rees Jones, York, 308–9; TNA, SC11/674 New Winchelsea.
74 Clarke, Pearson, Mate and Parfitt, Sandwich, 226–7.
75 Platt, Southampton, 43.
Casson and Casson supplementary material 1
