1827.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



643 



generality of their fellows, we think it 

 might serve very amusingly to fill up va- 

 cant or weary minutes while, to the 

 quite young even, it is a perfectly safe, 

 and might be a very beneficial present. 



Notices relative to the Early History 

 of the Town and Port of Hull, by Chartes 

 Frost ; 1827. These local histories, 

 though in themselves of no general in- 

 terest a truth established by the well- 

 known fact of their circulation being 

 limited to the immediate neighbourhood 

 of the places described yet, when well 

 got up, by individuals of real industry, 

 and real love for antiquities, are well cal- 

 culated to minister to the stock of useful 

 information, by contributing to more cor- 

 rect conceptions of more general and more 

 important matters. The facts that illus- 

 trate one spot, or one memorable event, 

 may illustrate others especially where 

 all are of the same country, or of the same 

 age among a people of similar manners, 

 and under similar institutions. The topo- 

 grapher, while extending his researches 

 on every side to elucidate the obscurities 

 of his particular subject, lights upon docu- 

 ments, of the existence of which (he world 

 was wholly ignorant, and which, though 

 nearly inapplicable, or altogether so, to 

 his immediate object, are applicable to 

 others, and fitted perhaps for more gene- 

 ral purposes not to say, that the bring- 

 ing to light the early state of one town 

 may shew, in some respects, the cotempo- 

 rary condition of the whole country may 

 elicit the sentiments of the times, and 

 clear away the clouds that envelope the 

 mysteries of ages. If Hull, for instance, 

 were a place of great traffic of consider- 

 able export and import, some centuries be- 

 fore it is supposed to have been, that fact 

 will and must modify the impressions we 

 have of the general commerce and activity 

 of those earlier times. 



Of this character is the History of Hull 

 before us edited evidently by a man 

 capable of great exertions in the way of 

 research, which he has pursued in the 

 midst of professional occupations not 

 usually leading to such pursuits. He is 

 an attorney of the town ; and had, the 

 preface tells ns, for some years the sole 

 management of the defence of a suit insti- 

 tuted for the recovery of tithe throughout 

 the township of Melsa, or Meaux, in the 

 neighbourhood of Hull, which had former- 

 ly belonged to an abbey of the order of Cis- 

 tercians, \\hose possessions included the 

 entire soil on which the town of Hull now 

 stands. The facts which came under his con- 

 sideration, in the course of investigations 

 necessary for conducting the said defence, 

 confirmed an opinion started by Macpher- 

 son in his Annals of Commerce, that Hull 

 was a place of opulence and note to the 



date assigned to its existence by histo- 

 rians. 



The town takes its name Kingston as 

 every body knows, from Edward I., or, as 

 every body guesses, from some king or 

 other. He was not, however, as has been 

 precipitately supposed, the founder of the 

 town. Uuder the name of Wyke, or Hull, 

 it existed long before, and belonged to 

 the monks of Melsa j but in the year 1293, 

 it, together with the manor of My ton, was 

 surrendered to Edward, at his especial de- 

 sire, in exchange for other lands. The 

 place was, in consequence of this transfer, 

 elevated to the rank of a royal borough, 

 and the citizens invested with numerous 

 privileges. It thus grew rapidly into 

 higher importance; but it owed the sun- 

 shine of the king's favour to its previous 

 significance ; and that it was a place of 

 such significance, Mr. Frost by his re- 

 searches has indisputably proved. 



The language of the citizens and the 

 king has misled the fathers of English 

 topography j iu a petition presented to 

 the king, within a few years of the trans- 

 fer, the citizens, in the phraseology of 

 adulation, or perhaps of gratitude, speak 

 of their town as that laquele notro so- 

 veignr. le roi ad foundee et faite ; and the 

 king naturally accommodates his reply to 

 the same tone, and talks of novam villam 

 uostram de Kingston sup. Hull. This 

 may exonerate Leland, and Camden, and 

 Speed, but will not annihilate facts. 



Wyke is not mentioned in Domesday- 

 book, though certainly within a century 

 of that record it was a considerable port. 

 It was however no borough, but parcel of 

 the manor of Myton; and Myton is de- 

 scribed in the record. This omission in 

 Domesday is common to many other parts 

 as that of Wimbledon in Surry, in con- 

 sequence of its being included in Mort- 

 lakej and Chedingford and Haslemere, as 

 being in Godalming; and again of Roy- 

 ston, as lying in the lands of neighbouring 

 manors. 



Among the documents relating to Wyke, 

 the earliest is a grant of lands del Wyke 

 dc Mitune made to the monks of Melsa, 

 about 1160, by Matilda, daughter of Hugh 

 de Camin. That monastery was founded 

 a few years before by Wm. le Gros, Earl 

 of Arlebemarle, the proprietor of the Isle 

 of Holderness, in commutation of a vow to 

 go to the Holy Land, and was liberally 

 endowed by him, and other neighbouring 

 barons. In Matilda Cumin's grant, the 

 town of Myton is spoken of. This, how- 

 ever, is no longer traceable, and was pro- 

 bably, says the author, absorbed by the 

 growing town of Wyke. There is still 

 some confusion not cleared up about My- 

 ton, Wyke, and Hull ; the same town has 

 been successively thus described, or two 



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