A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



Villata de Almanbary. Symon Flemyng et Johanna ux. ejus mjd.'* 

 Hunslet. Matilda Brabane injd.'" 

 Ledeston. Johannes Hoet et luc. iiiji." 



„ Johanna Hoet iiij</." 



„ Thomas Hoet m]d.^ 



„ Diota Hoet iiijrf/' 



„ Alicia Hoet iiijif." 

 Ledes. Henricus Brabaner iiij^.*^ 



Villa de SpofiFord. Johannes Brabaner, Textor, et ux. ejus vjd.*' 

 Knaresburgh. Adam Brabaner et uxor ejus v}d.^ 

 Westgate in Rjrpon. Thomas Alman iiij^f.'' 

 Stainbuggate in Rypon. Lamkynus de Braban, Textor vjrf.™ 

 Northstanlay. Nicholaus de Delpe et uxor ejus in]dJ^ 

 Skypton. Petrus Brabaner, Webster, et ux, xijdJ' 



„ Petrus Brabaynner junior Webster et ux, v'jdJ^ 



The argument of the isolation of the district and the opposition of the native element to the 

 presence of the foreigner becomes untenable before the unimpeachable evidence of their actual 

 presence in the district, and since there is a natural tendency on the part of alien settlers to adopt 

 native names, the foreign element in Yorkshire in the reign of Richard 11 was probably greater in 

 extent than is suggested by the nomenclature of the Poll Tax list. In fact, the more the evidence is 

 studied, the more doubtful it becomes as to whether the verdict which dismisses Fuller's description 

 of the settlement of the Flemish weavers in the country districts in the reign of Edward III as the 

 mere rhetorical flourish of an active imagination, ought not to be reconsidered.'* 



Again, as the point of the Edwardian settlement was amalgamation, no effort would be made 

 to emphasize the distinction between native and alien ; nor is it ever claimed that large bodies of 

 aliens were planted down in colonies ; the most reasonable theory seems to be that the movement 

 went on gradually by twos and threes, not in battalions. Edward's intention was to improve 

 manufacture, not in one place, but throughout the county, so no obstacle would be put in the way 

 of alien migration from one centre to another. In the absence of evidence of a negative character, 

 the laws of human nature and of probability must be carefiilly weighed. On the whole the balance 

 of probability inclines towards the alien element not remaining in York, but spreading into the 

 county, especially the West Riding. The mistake of the older historians was not, probably, so 

 much one of fact as of suppression of the circumstantial nature of the evidence on which their 

 deductions were based. It has already been shown that there is a certain amount of persumptive 

 evidence that the woollen industry originated during the century following the Conquest, and that 

 the Flemings played no inconsiderable part in its development, even if they did not actually introduce 

 the trade. It is incontrovertible that the industry fell into decay during the reigns of Henry HI, 

 Edward I and II, and was revived in the reign of Edward III. It is beyond question that Flemish 

 weavers introduced by Edward III encouraged the revival of the trade in York, and that they are 

 found in the West Riding in the following reign. On the comparatively unimportant question as to 

 whether they migrated from York on their own initiative or came direct from the Low Countries 

 to the west part of the county there is at present no evidence. 



No event of the Middle Ages had such a far-reaching eflFect on the economic condition of the 

 country as the Black Death. By the middle of the year 1349 the plague was at its height 

 throughout the whole of Yorkshire. The careful statistics compiled by the late F. Seebohm " from 

 the Torre MSS. prove that more than two-thirds of the parish priests of the West Riding died. 

 The mortality was not much less in the East Riding, only sixty of the ninety-five parish priests 

 escaped. The monastery of Meaux, with its forty-nine monks ruled by Abbot Hugh, lost during 

 the month of August twenty-two clerks and six lay brethren. The abbot and five monks suc- 

 ciunbed in one day, only one-fifth of the total niunber remained." The abbots of four of the 



" Returm oftkt Poll Tax fir the fVtit Riding ofYorks, 1 379, p. 179. " Ibid. 195. 



" Ibid. 202. " Ibid. <" Ibid. 



"Ibid. "Ibid. "Ibid. 215. 



^ Ibid. 223. " Ibid. 239. " Ibid. 250. 



" Ibid. 250. Ibid. 252. " Ibid. 267. " Ibid. 267. 



" Happ7 the yeoman's honse into which one of these Dutchmen did enter, bringing industry and wealth 

 along with them. Such who came in strangers within their doors, soon after went out bridegrooms, and 

 returned son-in-laws, having married the daughters of their landlords who first entertained them ; yea, these 

 yeomen in whose houses they harboured soon proceeded gentlemen, gaining great estates to themselves, arms 

 and worship to their estates. T. Fuller, Church Hist, i, 419. 



" F. Seebohm, 'The Black Death,' Fortnightly Review, Sept. 1865, 



"F. A. Gasquet, Tht Great PestiUnce, 179. 



440 



