The loss of local records means that it is difficult to chart events at Hastings and to assess the state of the town’s economy in this period. It may be confidently stated, however, that the town’s long-term decline had continued. Initially one of the foremost of the Cinque Ports, by the late fourteenth century Hastings was the furthest decayed of them, owing to the early silting-up of its harbour.
The ancient town of Dover was one of the five ‘head-ports’ of the confederation of Cinque Ports as well as the base and administrative centre of the warden of the Ports. As the site of an important royal castle and the gateway to Lancastrian France for most of Henry VI’s reign, it enjoyed an important strategic and symbolic position.
At the beginning of the fifteenth century York was the second city in the kingdom. For the fullest account of the history of York in the late Middle Ages: VCH Yorks. (City of York). It was a major administrative, ecclesiastical and economic centre, and in 1377 its tax-paying population of 7,248 was larger than that of any other city apart from London. It was well connected by both road and, more importantly, by river. The river Ouse emptied into the Humber at Ousefleet allowing direct access to the port of Kingston-upon-Hull.
The fourteenth century had been a troubled period in Scarborough’s history. The damaging effects of violent contention between the town’s dominant elite (the potentiores) and lesser townsmen were exacerbated by depopulation, economic recession, a serious raid by the French in 1378 and a heavy fine imposed on the town for its involvement in the Peasants’ Revolt. The Commons 1386-1421, i. 740. By contrast, the fifteenth century was a much less eventful period in the town’s history.
Kingston-upon-Hull was the second largest town north of the river Trent, with a population of some 2,300 in 1377, and remained an important centre for overseas trade and for the distribution of produce and goods throughout the fifteenth century. A town had existed on the site since the late twelfth century when it had been developed as a ‘new town’ by Meaux abbey for the growing local trade in wool, cloth and wine. Wyke-upon-Hull, as it was initially known, was so successful that it was acquired by Edward I in 1293 and later given the name of Kingston-upon-Hull.
At nearly 3, 900,000 acres, Yorkshire is very comfortably the largest of England’s ancient counties. It is twice the size of the next largest, Lincolnshire, and, as a more revealing measure of its massiveness, some four-fifths the size of Wales. Divided into three ridings, the largest of them, the West Riding, is itself larger than Lincolnshire, and the North Riding, if a county on its own, would be exceeded in size only by the rest of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Devon. B. Hobson, W. Riding Yorks. 3-4; W.J. Weston, N. Riding Yorks.
A cathedral city by the Severn, Worcester lay at a junction of several major roads, including those linking south-west England with the north and mid Wales with London. Thanks to this convergence of highways and its bridge across the river, the city was one of the most important distribution centres in the west Midlands.
Geographically a county of two regions, Worcestershire was predominantly forested and pastoral in its north and west and largely arable country in its south and east. Running through it was the river Severn, a major trading artery for the transport of goods between Bristol and the city of Worcester. Worcester, a minor inland port and a centre of exchange for agricultural produce, began in the fifteenth century to specialize in the manufacture of textiles, producing broadcloths of the highest quality which were sent to London for sale and export abroad.
The borough of Wootton Bassett evolved, perhaps by deliberate creation, out of the manor of Wootton, some six miles to the south-west of Swindon. By 1236 there is a mention of burgesses, probably indicating the existence of tenants by burgage, although no explicit references to such tenure are found until 1334. Nevertheless, three years earlier, the settlement at the heart of the manor had been referred to as a ‘burgus’, and had its own court.
Wilton, founded in the sixth century and for a time the capital of the kingdom of Wessex, was a natural centre of communications, linking the settlements of the valleys of the Wylye, Nadder and Avon, and standing on the main highway from Exeter to London.
