SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



fairly complete picture of the condition of the town at the beginning of the 

 14th century. At that time the population must at least have numbered 

 1,500, and was probably greater. The subsidy roll of 1282 contains the 

 names of some 280 householders, and in 1377, in spite of the intervening 

 Black Death, the poll tax returns give the number of persons over fourteen 

 years of age as 1,507. Although the life of the place centred round the quay 

 and the markets, the agricultural basis of the community had by no means 

 disappeared from view. Live stock and grain were the largest and most 

 widely distributed components in the wealth of the inhabitants. More than 

 a score of the burgesses owned horses, one having as many as eight, others 

 four, and the rest one or two, whilst most of these had also carts or carriages. 

 Some of the more well-to-do had yokes of oxen, a great number had cows, 

 and many even of the poorest kept a pig or two, poultry being rather less 

 common. Wheat, barley, oats, and malt were naturally the most universal 

 form of property. In most cases no doubt they constituted merely a house- 

 hold provision, but the large quantities held in store by the leading burgesses 

 must have been for the purposes of trade, and it is to be noted that several 

 of them possessed a large stock of millstones. But the relations of the town 

 to the agriculture of the district were far closer than is indicated by any list 

 of its inhabitants. The lords of the neighbouring manors had, as we have 

 already seen, received from the first a certain share in its privileges as foreign 

 burgesses. Within a radius often miles more than a score of villages sent in 

 their produce free of extra toll to be sold in the town's market. The leading 

 inhabitant, Philip Harneys, supplied a kind of link between the town and this 

 outlying part of its economy, being lord of the manor of Ashe in Bosmere. 

 The inventory of his town movables admirably illustrates the transitional 

 character of urban economic activity at this time.*" Of the total of £1^7 

 about jTzo were represented by his furniture, plate, and linen, the contents of 

 his wardrobe, larder, and cellar ; ^(^30 were invested in white and grey mill- 

 stones and other stones and in handmills ; the rest of his capital was pretty 

 equally divided into three portions, one consisting of farm produce and live 

 stock, another of ships and boats and of the materials for their repair, and the 

 third of merchandise imported for the purpose of trade, such as iron and steel, 

 Scotch hides, timber, and wine. This mingling of interests was common to 

 most of the wealthier burgesses. Less than half a dozen of them had movables 

 to the value of over ^^^50, and these together with about a score of others 

 whose goods were valued at ^C^o and upwards constituted no doubt the ruling 

 class in the borough." 



Nearly thirty burgesses had capital invested in ships and boats, the 

 largest amount being £2 5 ^"^ the smallest 5J. The boats were valued at 



*" He possessed in corn and malt 20 marks ; in timber and building materials I 5 marks ; in oxen and 

 swine 5 marks ; in horses 3^ marks ; in white and grey millstones and other stones 40 marks ; in salt 8/. ; 

 in iron 50/. ; in steel 20/. ; in pitch zos. ; in boards 40/. ; in cups and plate (jocalibus) 10 marks ; in 

 woollen and linen cloth 10 marks; in earthenware 20/. ; in fish and herring lO(. ; in ships and boats 20 

 marks ; in household utensils 40/. ; in soap and candles zos. ; in cowhides from Scotland 50/. ; in wool zos. ; 

 in hand mills 4 marks ; in wine 20 marks ; in canvas 40/. ; in wine 22/. ; in fleahmeat i mark ; total £llj. 

 The Ta.x. of Ipswich, II. 



" A fairly exact idea of the relative wealth of Suffolk towns about this time can be obtained from the 

 Subsidy Roll for 1327, which has recently been published by Mr. Hervey in one of his Suffolk Green Books. 

 The taxation of the whole county {^) amounts to ^^1,082 Ijs. ; that of Ipswich to £29 5/. ^J. ; that of 

 Bury to j^23 i<)s. zd. ; that of Sudbury to ^^15 os. %d. ; that of Beccles to [^\z y. ^d. ; that of Mildenhall 

 to 2 8 5'- S-J". ; that of Gorleston to [^-j 6s. lod. ; that of Hadleigh to £6 p. 8d. 



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