The manor of Thetford belonged to the duchy of Lancaster and was administered by a bailiff, sometimes called a steward, and a deputy steward. In July 1548 Edward VI leased the ‘dominion and manor’ to the Protector Somerset, and not long afterwards the remainder of the duchy property there to Richard Fulmerston. The priory was dissolved in 1540 over the objection of the 3rd Duke of Norfolk, who was founder’s kin.
The constitution of Tudor Norwich was based on two early 15th-century charters, one of 1404 incorporating it as a county under the name of the citizens and community, and another of 1417 setting out the arrangements for civic elections. The mayor and two sheriffs were assisted by 24 aldermen and by a common council of 60, chosen annually by the city’s four wards. There were a town clerk, a recorder and several lesser officials, and a number of lawyers of local birth were retained as counsel. The civic records for the period survive almost intact.Recs. Norwich, ed.
The town of Bishop’s Lynn had been founded in the late 11th century by the bishop of Norwich at the suit of traders settled on the western border of his manor of Gaywood. In 1204 Bishop John de Gray gave the town a charter by which its burgesses were to enjoy the same liberties and privileges as those of residents of Oxford.
Henry III’s charter to Yarmouth of 1272 underwent later revision and the version of 1494 was confirmed in 1518 and 1554. Although not incorporated, the borough was governed by two bailiffs assisted by an inner council (the Twenty-Four), a common council (the Forty-Eight) and several municipal officers. The two councils made up the assembly, of whose proceedings the town clerk kept a minute book which partially survives for the early 16th century, with other borough records.
The castle, manor and chase of Rising had belonged to the duchy of Cornwall until 1544, when Henry VIII exchanged them and two other manors with the 3rd Duke of Norfolk for lands in Suffolk. On the duke’s attainder in 1547 they escheated to the crown but after his restoration in 1553 he recovered them by Act (1 Mary st. 3, no.14). On his death a year later the lordship passed to his widow, who survived until 30 Nov. 1558 when the 4th Duke inherited it.
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.
Situated at the mouth of the Yare on the southern border of Norfolk, Yarmouth had been an important fortified town and a major fishing port since Saxon times. The epithet ‘Great’ was added during Edward I’s reign, probably to distinguish it from Little Yarmouth, in Suffolk. F. Blomefield, Hist. Norf. xi. 255. Built around a large central marketplace, the town’s most unusual feature was that it comprised a single parish. Cott. Augustus I (i), no. 74. In the nineteenth century the huge church of St.
Dominated by its Norman keep and cathedral, and bounded by medieval walls and the meandering River Wensum, Norwich was the second largest city after London, and one of the major provincial capitals of England. It boasted over 30 churches, and supported a growing population, which rose from about 12,000 in the 1580s to approximately 20,000 in 1620.J.T. Evans, Seventeenth Cent. Norwich, 4-5; P. Corfield, ‘Provincial Capital of Norwich’, Crisis and Order in Eng. Towns ed. P. Clark and P.