SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC 



HISTORY 



THE economic history of Hertfordshire is singularly constant to its 

 original interests, namely, agriculture, the malt trade and the corn 

 trade. It has been made by two factors, the one natural, being the 

 suitability of the soil for tillage, and the other artificial, being the 

 neighbourhood of London. During the 13th and 14th centuries there were 

 found an activity and an ambition in the towns which have not had their 

 due continuation. 



The trade out of the county was small. Corn was already an export in 

 1 247,^ when ships came up the Lea to fetch it from Hertford. Already the 

 influence of the London market was felt. The men of London had begun a 

 capitalist enterprise against the local merchants. They built a granary for 

 Hertfordshire corn at Thele, to which they sent their own ships instead of 

 employing the 'king's ships of Hertford.' ^ This is an early instance of the 

 economic attraction of London, which is a constant feature in Hertfordshire 

 economic history. 



In 1086 burgesses are found at Hertford, St. Albans, Berkhampstead, 

 Ashwell, Stanstead, and at Cheshunt we hear of ten traders {mercatores). 

 Hertford, the county town, had rights of toll at certain passages on the 

 Upper Lea. At Stanstead some trade and industry gathered round the 

 bridge of Thele at the junction of the Stour and the Lea. The modest 

 prominence of Cheshunt may be due to its near neighbourhood to the Lea 

 and London and a favourable situation at the junction of the Ermine Street 

 with an old trackway running east and west. St. Albans was fostered by 

 the abbey and Berkhampstead grew up under the shelter of a powerful lord. 

 Ashwell on Ashwell Street and not far from the main track of the Icknield 

 Way was, before the rise of Baldock, the chief centre of the rich corn lands 

 of northern Hertfordshire. 



With regard to Hertford it may well have outlived its greatest prosperity 

 by 1086 ' ; and in the 12th century it was evidently a poor place.* It could 

 not buy exemption from the jurisdiction of the sheriff,^ its aid was low and 

 in 1 177 one-ninth of the whole aid was remitted altogether." 



The town suffered in the wars of King John,'' but after this time the 

 burgesses began to buy privileges. They farmed the borough, for a time at 

 least, and bought a fair during the minority of Henry III.^ A certain 



^ Assize R. 218, m. 6d. ^ Ibid. ' See under Hertford Borough. 



< Ibid. * Hunter, Great R. of the Pipe i Rie. I (Rec. Com.), 19, 20. 



* Pipe R. 23 Hen. II (Pipe Roll Soc), 154. ' See under Hertford Borough. ^ i^jd^ 



