The Merchant Adventurers of Bristol in the Fifteenth Century

E. M. Carus-Wilson

doi:10.2307/3678539

The Merchant Adventurers of Bristol in the Fifteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009

E. M. Carus-Wilson

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Ashrewd Italian visitor, writing of England more than four hundred years ago, remarked:—“There are scarcely any towns of importance in the kingdom excepting these two: Bristol, a seaport to the West, and Boraco, otherwise York, which is on the borders of Scotland; besides London to the South.” Now York was not a port, though it traded far afield through Hull; London was a port, but it was so much else that its story is confusingly complex; moreover it was not by the Thames but by the Severn that Englishmen first found a pathway to the New World at the end of the Middle Ages. Hence Bristol, then the second port in England, is of peculiar interest to the student of the still unwritten history of English commerce in the fifteenth century—a history unchronicled, but not unrecorded, and quite as significant as the wars abroad and the strifes at home which have too often earned for the century a character of futility.

Type: Research Article
Information: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 11 , December 1928 , pp. 61 - 82

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3678539 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1928

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References

^{page 61 note 1} The Italian Relation, Camden Series, 1847, p. 41.

^{page 62 note 1} Great Red Book, f. 18; Rot. Parl. IV, p. 346.

^{page 62 note 2} Ibid., ff. 18, 23, 210. V.C.H. Glouc. II, pp. 219–23.

^{page 62 note 3} Coventry Leet Book, p. 260, 594; cf. Rot. Parl. III, pp. 437, 541, 614, 643.

^{page 62 note 4} E.g., Early Chancery Proceedings, 61/499.

^{page 62 note 5} Exch. K R. Escheators, 238/2; Worcester, , Itinerarium, ed. Dallaway, , p. 111Google Scholar.

^{page 62 note 6} Ibid. Early Chancery Proceedings 18/189.

^{page 63 note 1} Exchequer K.R. Customs.

^{page 64 note 1} Exchequer L.T.R. Enrolled Accts., Customs.

^{page 65 note 1} Exchequer K.R. Accounts, Various, France, 194/3.

^{page 65 note 2} Ibid., 184/12.

^{page 66 note 1} Troplong, , De la Fidélité des Gascons aux Anglais pendant le Moyen Age, p. 487Google Scholar. Cf. Balasque, , Bayonne, III, pp. 499–502Google Scholar. Jullian, , Histoire de Bordeaux, p. 298Google Scholar. Malvezin, , Histoire du Commerce de Bordeaux, II, p. 18Google Scholar.

^{page 66 note 2} Early Chancery Proceedings, 64/345.

^{page 66 note 3} Great Red Book, f. 68.

^{page 66 note 4} E.g., Exchequer K.R. Customs, 19/14.

^{page 67 note 1} Wright, , Political Songs, II, p. 191Google Scholar.

^{page 67 note 2} Islenzkir Annálar, 1847, p. 386.

^{page 67 note 3} Cf. Early Chancery Proceedings, 59/88.

^{page 68 note 1} Calendar of Patent Rolls 1422–29, p. 394; 1436–41, p. 58. Rymer, , Foedera, V, i, pp. 45, 56, 75Google Scholar.

^{page 68 note 2} E.g., Rymer, , Foedera, IV, iv. p. 177Google Scholar; Calendar of Patent Rolls 1446–51, pp. 191, 430.

^{page 68 note 3} E.g. Early Chancery Proceedings, 19/316. The English have been accused of acts of violence in Iceland; these were in many cases committed against oppressive Danish officials whose discomfiture rejoiced the Icelanders. See, for example, Icelandic Sagas, Rolls Series, IV, pp. 436–7.

^{page 69 note 1} Spelt variously Sturmy, Sturmys, Sturmyn, Starmyn, Stormy, Stourmy, etc.

^{page 69 note 2} One historian, for example, from a single reference to Sturmy concludes that he “carried on a considerable trade in the Levant.” Abram, A, Social England in the Fifteenth Century, p. 36Google Scholar.

^{page 69 note 3} Great Red Book, f. 96.

^{page 70 note 1} Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1436–41, p. 350.

^{page 70 note 2} Exch. L.T.R. Customs, Roll 19, m. 6 d°.

^{page 70 note 3} French Rolls, No. 129, m. 20.

^{page 70 note 4} Exchequer L.T R. Customs, Roll 19, m. 7 d°.

^{page 71 note 1} Cf. William Wey's Itineraries.

^{page 71 note 2} Worcester, , Itinerarium, ed. Dallaway, , pp. 78, 109Google Scholar.

^{page 71 note 3} Ibid., p. 112, “venerabihs.”

^{page 71 note 4} Great Red Book, f. 17.

^{page 71 note 5} Ibid., f. 18.

^{page 71 note 6} Ibid., f. 186.

^{page 72 note 1} Great Red Book, ff. 78, 93.

^{page 72 note 2} Little Red Book of Bristol, II, p. 151.

^{page 72 note 3} Early Chancery Proceedings, 19/122, 24/221.

^{page 72 note 4} Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1452–61, p. 156.

^{page 72 note 5} Rot. Parl. V, p. 245.

^{page 72 note 6} Paston Letters, ed Gairdner, , 208Google Scholar.

^{page 72 note 7} Dallaway, , ut supra, p, 112Google Scholar.

^{page 73 note 1} Vestry Book of St. Nicholas' Church. Sturmy also appears in St. Ewen's Churchwardens' Accounts 1454–5: “Item, of Robert Sturmy for a lytyl old bell, vs.”

^{page 73 note 2} Rymer, , Foedera, V, ii, 67Google Scholar.

^{page 73 note 3} Wey's, William Itineraries, p. 153Google Scholar.

^{page 74 note 1} Exch. K R. Memoranda Rolls, 37; Treaty Rolls, 35 Henry VI, m. 20.

^{page 74 note 2} Treaty Rolls, 35 Henry VI, No. 139, m. 6.

^{page 74 note 3} Wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Stokton, 14.

^{page 75 note 1} Kingsford, , Chronicles of London, p. 169Google Scholar.

^{page 75 note 2} Kingsford, ut supra; Ricart, , The Maire of Bristowe is Calendar, p. 41Google Scholar; Flenley, , Six Town Chronicles, pp. 112, 161Google Scholar; Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1452–61, p. 517.

^{page 76 note 1} Anderson, R. C., Letters of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries from the Archives of Southampton, pp. 14–16Google Scholar.

^{page 76 note 2} Ricart, pp. 41–42 (under year 1459). In Flenley, , ut supra, p. 161Google Scholar, and Kingsford, , ut supra, p. 169Google Scholar, the sum is 6,000 marcs.

^{page 76 note 3} Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1459, p. 517.

^{page 77 note 1} Pollard, A. F., The Reign of Henry VII, III, p. 169Google Scholar.

^{page 77 note 2} Troplong, , ut supra, p. 521Google Scholar.

^{page 78 note 1} Exchequer K.R. Customs, 19/1, 3, 4.

^{page 78 note 2} Early Chancery Proceedings, 27/383.

^{page 78 note 3} Malvézin, T., Histoire du Commerce de Bordeaux, II, pp. 23, 26Google Scholar.

^{page 78 note 4} E.g., Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1452–61, pp. 347, 608, 614, 649.

^{page 79 note 1} Wadley, T. P., Notes on the Wills in the Great Orphan Book and Book of Wills, pp. 16, 17, 30, 33Google Scholar.

^{page 79 note 2} Worcester, , Itinerarium, ed. Dallaway, , pp. 107, 114–15Google Scholar. The figure for Godeman is missing.

^{page 79 note 3} Exch. K.R. Accounts Various, France, 184/19.

^{page 80 note 1} Great Red Book, ff. 38–161.

^{page 80 note 2} Scofield, , Life and Reign of Edward IV, II, p. 417Google Scholar.

^{page 80 note 3} Cf. Scofield, , ut supra, II, pp. 410–414Google Scholar; Cely Papers, pp. 176–7.

^{page 82 note 1} Worcester, , Itinerarium, p. 153Google Scholar.

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