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England's Immigrants, 1330–1550: Aliens in Later Medieval and Early Tudor England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2020

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Abstract

This article, a revised and annotated version of a plenary lecture given at the North American Conference on British Studies meeting in October 2018, considers the place and significance of aliens in England's history between the expulsion of the Jews in 1290 and the arrival of the French and Dutch Protestants from the 1540s onward. It draws extensively on a new database of immigrants to England between 1330 and 1550, which itself relies principally on the remarkable records generated by a tax on aliens resident in England, collected at various points between 1440 and 1487. Aliens emerge as a significant element in English society—sometimes chastised, sometimes subject to violence and other abuse, but also recognized clearly for their contribution to the economy. If immigrants were sometimes seen as a potentially disruptive presence, they were also understood to be a natural and permanent part of the social order.

Type
Original Manuscript
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , April 2020 , pp. 245 - 263
Copyright
Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies, 2020

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References

1 See, for example, Rosamund Oates, “Brexit to Bonfire Night: Why the Reformation Still Matters,” The Conversation (31 October 2017), http://theconversation.com/brexit-to-bonfire-night-why-the-reformation-still-matters-86330. For resistance to these arguments, see, for example, Michelle L. Beer, “Brexit, the English Reformation, and Transnational Queenship” (blog post), Journal of the History of Ideas Blog, February 20, 2019, https://jhiblog.org/2019/02/20/brexit-the-english-reformation-and-transnational-queenship. This article summarizes the outcomes of a large project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2015. Unless otherwise stated, the following relies on the three principal publications arising from the project: Ormrod, W. Mark, McDonald, Nicola, and Taylor, Craig, eds., Resident Aliens in Later Medieval England (Turnhout, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ormrod, W. Mark, Lambert, Bart, and Mackman, Jonathan, Immigrant England, 1300–1550 (Manchester, 2019)Google Scholar; and the online database England's Immigrants, 1330–1550: Resident Aliens in the Later Middle Ages (hereafter EIDB), https://www.englandsimmigrants.com/. Unless otherwise stated, all the themes and specific examples in this article are covered by these publications. References are provided for only direct quotations and at the mention of an author's name; no attempt is made to provide a comprehensive bibliography of immigrant studies for the relevant period.

2 The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, ed. Chris Given-Wilson, 16 vols. (Woodbridge, 2004), 15:71–76, with the resulting statutes in Statutes of the Realm, ed. H. A. Luders et al., 11 vols. (London, 1810–1828), 2:489–96.

3 Clarke, Harold D., Goodwin, Matthew, and Whiteley, Paul, Brexit: Why Britain Voted to Leave the European Union (Cambridge, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially chap. 7, “Voting to Leave,” 147, for the primacy of immigration as a public issue in the referendum debates of 2016.

4 Compare the calculations of Thrupp, Sylvia, “A Survey of the Alien Population of England in 1440,” Speculum 32, no. 2 (1957): 262–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who counted approximately sixteen thousand. Thrupp, however, relied entirely on the nominal rolls among the particulars of account of the collectors of the alien subsidy in The National Archives (hereafter TNA), E 179. In fact, totals of householders and non-householders were also recorded in the enrolled accounts of the subsidy, TNA, E 359, and help to address some significant lacunae in the nominal evidence.

5 W. Mark Ormrod and Jonathan Mackman, “Resident Aliens in Later Medieval England: Sources, Contexts and Debates,” in Ormrod, McDonald, and Taylor, Resident Aliens in Later Medieval England, 3–31, at 27–28; Ormrod, Lambert, and Mackman, Immigrant England, 51–57.

6 The Alien Communities of London in the Fifteenth Century, ed. J. L. Bolton (Stamford, 1998), 8–9; Keene, Derek, “Metropolitan Values: Migration, Mobility and Cultural Norms, London, 1100–1700,” in The Development of Standard English, 1300–1800: Theories, Descriptions, Conflicts, ed. Wright, Laura (Cambridge, 2000), 93–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 109.

7 For the challenges involved in the full interpretation of “national” labels in the alien subsidy rolls, see Bart Lambert and W. Mark Ormrod, “The State and the Immigrant: Negotiating Nationalities in Later Medieval England,” in Migrants in Medieval England, c. 500–c. 1500, ed. W. Mark Ormrod, Joanna Story, and Elizabeth Tyler (forthcoming, Oxford, 2020).

8 French (3,524); Normans (605); Picards (129); Bretons (127); Gascons (65); Liégois (3); Artesians (2); Burgundians (1); and Armagnacs (1). All data in notes 8 to 12 from the EIDB.

9 “Dutch” (1,929); Teutonics (1,320); Brabanters (210); Zeelanders (184); Hollanders (163); Germans (Almainers) (99); Easterlings (46); Guelderlanders (23); Utrechters (21); Clevelanders (21); Prussians (11); Hainauters (8); Saxons (6); Frisians (3); and Westphalians (1). Note that this category is significantly skewed by the decision of the assessors in London in 1484 to label a very large proportion of entries, and using the Latin term Teutonicus rather than the more conventional Middle English vernacular form “Duche” or “Doche.”

10 Scots (2,961); and Orcadians (28).

11 Italians (480); Geonese (335); Venetians (218); Florentines (167); Lucchese (61); Lombards (51); Milanese (9); Romans (1); and Ferrarese (1).

12 Channel Islanders (67); Greeks (50); Portuguese (25); Spanish (6); Aragonese (5); Norwegians (4); Manx (4); Danish (4); “Indians” (3); Catalans (2); Navarrese (1); and Swedish (1). Seven Welsh people were also assessed, although the Welsh were specifically exempt from the alien subsidy.

13 Denizens Roll, Westminster Abbey Muniments, WAM 12261.

14 Peter Fleming, “Icelanders in England in the Fifteenth Century,” in Ormrod, McDonald, and Taylor Resident Aliens in Later Medieval England, 77–88, at 86–87.

15 Bennett, Judith M., “Women (and Men) on the Move: Scots in the English North c. 1400,” Journal of British Studies 57, no. 1 (2018): 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the designation “vagabond,” see Sarah Rees Jones, “Scots in the North of England: The First Alien Subsidy, 1440–43,” in Ormrod, McDonald, and Taylor, Resident Aliens in Later Medieval England, 51–75, at 59.

16 Lambert, Bart and Ormrod, W. Mark, “Friendly Foreigners: International Warfare, Resident Aliens and the Early History of Denization in England, c. 1250 to c. 1400,” English Historical Review 130, no. 542 (2015): 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 The phrase “golden age of the English laborer” was first coined by the economic historian J. E. Thorold Rogers. For the historiographical legacy, see Dyer, Christopher, “A Golden Age Rediscovered: Labourers’ Wages in the Fifteenth Century,” in Money, Prices and Wages: Essays in Honour of Professor Nicholas Mayhew, ed. Allen, Martin and Coffman, D'Maris (Basingstoke, 2015), 180–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 “Prostitute” does not occur as an occupational label in the alien subsidies; for contextual evidence to indicate that some women recorded in the alien subsidy rolls (specifically in Boston, Lincolnshire) were sex workers, see Lambert, Bart, “Double Disadvantage or Golden Age? Immigration, Gender and Economic Opportunity in Later Medieval England,” Gender and History 31, no. 3 (2019): 545–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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20 Thomas Littleton's Tenures (ca. 1450–1460) regarded all aliens as being potentially disabled at law: Kim, Keechang, Aliens in Medieval Law: The Origins of Modern Citizenship (Cambridge, 2000), 6–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The yearbook evidence from around this time suggests a general hardening of attitudes toward aliens, but specifically in order to prevent enemy aliens from suing denizens in the courts. David J. Seipp, Medieval English Legal History: An Index and Paraphrase of Printed Year Book Reports, 1268–1535, www.bu.edu/law/phpbin/lawyearbooks/search.php/, Seipp nos. 1451.009abr, 1454.005, 1486.077; see also the implications of Seipp no. 1469.043. Legal historians rely significantly on the distinction between alien friend and alien enemy established by Sir Edward Coke in the seventeenth century, usefully summarized in Irene Scouloudi, ed., Returns of Strangers in the Metropolis, 1593, 1627, 1635, 1639 (London, 1985), 1–16.

21 Ruddock, Alwyn Amy, “John Payne's Persecution of Foreigners in the Town Court of Southampton in the Fifteenth Century: A Study in Municipal Misrule,” Papers and Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society 16 (1944): 23–37Google Scholar; James, Tom Beaumont, “The Town of Southampton and Its Foreign Trade, 1430–1540,” in English Inland Trade, 1430–1540: Southampton and Its Region, ed. Hicks, Michael (Oxford, 2015), 11–24Google Scholar, at 14.

22 Maryanne Kowaleski, “The Assimilation of Foreigners in Late Medieval Exeter: A Prosopographical Analysis,” in Ormrod, McDonald, and Taylor, Resident Aliens in Later Medieval England, 163–79.

23 Luu, Liên, “‘Taking the Bread out of Our Mouths’: Xenophobia in Early Modern London,” Immigrants and Minorities 19, no. 2 (2000): 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goose, Nigel, “‘Xenophobia’ in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England: An Epithet Too Far?,” in Immigrants in Tudor and Early Stuart England, ed. Goose, Nigel and Luu, Liên (Brighton, 2005), 110–35Google Scholar; Birchwood, Matthew and Dimmock, Matthew, “Popular Xenophobia,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Culture in Early Modern England, ed. Hadfield, Andrew, Dimmock, Matthew, and Shin, Abigail (Farnham, 2014), 207–20Google Scholar.

24 For a recent initiative to highlight his experience, see The John Blanke Project: Imagine the Black Tudor Trumpeter, https://www.johnblanke.com.

25 EIDB, record nos. 31179 and 31180.

26 EIDB, record no. 49749.

27 Cordelia Beattie, “‘Your Said Oratrice . . . Cannot Speak nor Understand English:’ Working for a Venetian Merchant in Fifteenth-Century England,” in England's Immigrants, 1330–1550, https://www.englandsimmigrants.com/page/individual-studies/working-for-a-venetian-merchant-in-fifteenth-century-england/.

28 The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye: A Poem on the Use of Sea-Power, 1436, ed. Sir George Warner (Oxford, 1926), ll. 282–88. (I owe this reference to Christopher Linsley.) The poet juxtaposes l. 288 (“Undre the borde they pissen as they sitte”) with the metaphor of the Flemings “shitting their pants” at their failure to take Calais during the siege of 1436, at l. 290 (“Wythoute Calise in ther buttere the cakked”). For comment, see Wallace, David, Premodern Places: Calais to Surinam, Chaucer to Aphra Benn (Oxford, 2008), 118Google Scholar.

29 This event is currently the subject of a major project led by Shannon McSheffrey titled McSheffrey on Evil May Day of 1517.

30 Lambert, Bart and Pajic, Milan, “Immigration and the Common Profit: Native Cloth Workers, Flemish Exiles, and Royal Policy in Fourteenth-Century London,” Journal of British Studies 55, no. 4 (2016): 633–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Sarah Rees Jones, “English Towns in the Later Middle Ages: The Rules and Realities of Population Mobility,” in Ormrod, Story, and Tyler, Migrants in Medieval England.

32 Two Italian Accounts of Tudor England, trans. C. V. Malfatti (Barcelona, 1953), 37.

33 Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts Relating to English Affairs, Existing in the Archives and Collection of Venice, 1202–1675, ed. R. L. Brown, H. R. F. Brown, and A. B. Hinds, 38 vols. (London, 1864–1947), vol. 6, part 3, appendix 171. Litolfi went on to contradict himself by saying that the English “are very friendly to the Italians.”

34 EIDB, record nos. 29766, 29768, 29829–29832, 29835, 29837–29842. The remaining three servants were designated as French; see EIDB, record nos. 29833, 29834, 29836. The clerk responsible for this assessment roll used the Latin term Teutonicus rather than the series of vernacular labels normally used in such records (TNA, E 179/242/25). Bolton, in Alien Communities of London, passim, translates Teutonicus as “German.” “Dutch” (consistently in quotation marks in the EIDB) is preferred here because the clerk appears to have been using the term in a very inclusive manner that had both linguistic and political connotations. For further discussion, see Lambert and Ormrod, “The State and the Immigrant.”

35 Kowaleski, Maryanne, “French Immigrants and the French Language in Late-Medieval England,” in The French of Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, ed. Fenster, Thelma and Collette, Carolyn P. (Cambridge, 2017), 206–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 W. Mark Ormrod, “French Residents in England at the Start of the Hundred Years War: Learning English, Speaking English and Becoming English in 1346,” in Fenster and Collette, French of Medieval England, 190–205.

37 Colson, Justin, “Alien Communities and Alien Fraternities in Later Medieval London,” London Journal 35, no. 2 (2010): 111–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the role of “Dutch” immigrants as vectors of early Protestant ideas, see the classic study by Dickens, A. G., Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, 1509–1558 (Oxford, 1959)Google Scholar, 11, 16–28, 34.

38 For John Asger's nationality, see Ormrod, Lambert, and Mackman, Immigrant England, 251n35. In 1431, he secured denization for Catherine (born in Flanders) and their son John (born in Zeeland). EIDB, record nos. 24349 and 24351.

39 Vine, Emily, “‘Those Enemies of Christ, If They Are Suffered to Live among Us’: Locating Religious Minority Homes and Private Space in Early Modern London,” London Journal 43, no. 3 (2018): 197–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 EIDB, record nos. 6960, 26352, 53045, 63603. For Reynald, see also Davis, Virginia, “Material Relating to Irish Clergy in England in the Late Middle Ages,” Archivium Hibernicum, no. 56 (2002): 7–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 32.

41 EIDB, record nos. 18204 and 18205. For the well-documented work at Long Melford, including the Clopton Chapel, see Williamson, Paul, “The Parish Church,” in Gothic: Art for England, 1400–1547, ed. Marks, Richard and Williamson, Paul (London, 2003), 375–423Google Scholar, at 375–77.