During the two centuries which followed the Norman Conquest, Northampton had been a town of national as well as local importance, owing its early development and status largely to its close association with the Crown. The borough was situated at the centre of the kingdom, was easily defensible and provided with roads which facilitated not only trade but also military communication.
The parliamentary representation of Northamptonshire during our period is comparatively well documented, since only three of the returns made by the electors have been lost. We are thus able to tell who sat in 29 of the 32 Parliaments here under review, during which time a minimum of 28 different individuals were chosen to serve as shire knights.
Norwich was perhaps the fifth largest city in the kingdom, with a population of about 6,000. It had grown in importance as a commercial centre where the wool staple for the area was sometimes sited, as the seat of a bishop whose diocese included Suffolk, and as a base from which the sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk exercised his jurisdiction. Even before being granted the charter of 1404, which made Norwich a shire-incorporate, the inhabitants had countenanced no interference from outside in the day-to-day administration of the city.
In the earlier part of the 14th century Yarmouth had been one of the wealthiest English towns, owing its prosperity to its position as the most important centre for herring fishing in the kingdom, and, indeed, as one of the major fishing ports of Europe. Several hundred fishing boats visited the local autumn herring fair, held from Michaelmas to Martinmas. Yarmouth was also a shipowning centre of considerable note, the size of its merchant fleet giving it an unusually large role in certain phases of the wars with France and Scotland.
The population of Bishop’s Lynn in 1377 has been estimated as 4,691; about 1,300 less than that of Norwich. A large port by contemporary standards, it was slightly bigger than Boston, nearly twice the size of Great Yarmouth and double that of Southampton and Kingston-upon-Hull. The town had been founded at the end of the 11th century by the bishop of Norwich, at the request of a group of traders already established on the western boundaries of his manor of Gaywood, and situated where road, river and sea transport met on the southern shores of the Wash.
Returns have survived for 29 of the 32 Parliaments of the period under review, and the names of 23 knights of the shire are known. Six of them (about a quarter) were elected for Norfolk to no more than one Parliament, but ten sat three or more times, and a few represented the county quite frequently. Sir Robert Berney and Edmund Wynter did so on six occasions, Sir John White and John Wynter on seven, and Sir Stephen Hales on nine.
Returns for the county of Middlesex to the Parliaments of 1410, 1413 (Feb.) and 1416 (both Mar. and Oct.) have been lost, leaving us with the names of Members in 28 of the 32 Parliaments considered here. Nor can we discover the name of the man elected to replace Sir John Wroth, who fell ill almost immediately after being returned in 1406 and was excused from his duties as a shire knight. On the evidence now available, 31 men are known to have sat for Middlesex over the period 1386 to 1421, of whom 23 had no previous parliamentary experience.
Although the population of London numbered at least 40,000 during the late 14th century, only the freemen, a far smaller group comprising about one quarter of the adult male residents, played any part in civic affairs. They alone were enfranchised, having undertaken in return to pay taxes and bear whatever corporate responsibilities fell upon them as citizens. In our period freedom came most usually through patrimony or apprenticeship, but it could also be bought and, in certain cases, was a perquisite of office.
The strategic importance of Lincoln’s position upon a steep hill commanding the river Witham was early recognized by the Ancient Britons and subsequently by the Romans who established a colony there. The construction of Ermine Street, which stretched from London to York, and of the Fosse Way, which linked Exeter with Leicester, proved a great stimulus to the city’s development, since it lay at the intersection of these two major thoroughfares.
Grimsby was first settled in about 866, when its natural advantages as a harbour were recognized by Scandinavian invaders.For a more detailed account of medieval Grimsby see E. Gillett, Grimsby, chaps. 1-4. The 13th-century Lai d’Haveloc described the town’s mythical and aptly named founder, Grim, as a Dane who lived by fishing and selling salt. Indeed, these two closely connected means of livelihood were crucial to both the development and continued prosperity of the port.
