HERTFORD HUNDRED 



not by his tenants), 64 and in 1621 it is mentioned 

 again. 66 



Hertford was one of the towns which escaped 

 'waste' at the Conquest, 6ti so that its economic 

 history between 1065 and 1086 is continuous. The 

 town was prosperous, at least in the eyes of King 

 William and his officials, who found that it had paid 

 much less than it could afford. G7 Its 164 burgesses 

 imply that Hertford held a position in the county 

 which it did not keep up. Ware, the rival of 

 later days, had 125 householders, both free and 

 unfree M ; St. Albans had forty-six burgesses and 

 forty-two unfree inhabitants 69 ; Cheshunt had ten 

 merchants, and the remaining fifty- three were villeins. 70 

 The facts point to a pre-Conquest prosperity which 

 steadily declined during the Middle Ages. Saxon 

 Hertford may have been in reality the most important 

 market of the shire. 



From the Conquest to the end of the 1 2 th century 

 the records of Hertford are blank, just at the time 

 when we should like to know something of the condi- 

 tion of the market and whether the tolls of Ware, 

 Hatfield and St. Albans were already charged with the 

 farm. When the men of Hertford were amerced in 

 1191 for breaking the bridge of Ware 71 they were 

 probably asserting their monopoly of the passage of 



Hertford must have suffered both directly and 

 indirectly in the war of 1215—16, for the castle was 

 besieged and taken more than once, and the district 

 around was the seat of war. 72 At the tallage of 

 1217-18 Hertford, whose assessment was two-thirds 

 that of Colchester in 1176, 73 was assessed at one- 

 third the amount demanded from the latter town, 

 and paid about twice as much as the two rural manors 

 of Essendon and Bayford. 74 The borough paid 

 tallage on the same basis in 1219 and in 1223-4. 76 

 It evidently did not stand out much above the 

 neighbouring vills, and was not in the same class as a 

 commercial centre like Colchester. If the assessment 

 of 121 7 was adequate, the town must have prospered 

 in spite of its difficulties, for in 1227 it paid _£io to 

 the tallage, 76 which probably bore an unusually close 

 relation to real values. 77 Indeed, this sum was 

 accepted instead of £16 i8j. zd., the original assess- 

 ment, 'so that the poor and the greatly injured might 

 be relieved.' 78 



In 1226 the provisional grant of a fair further 

 .points to the fact that the burgesses could afford some 

 amount of municipal independence. The secret of 

 this prosperity lay in situation. Hertford was the 

 natural market to which would come the produce of 

 the valleys of the Maran, the Beane and the Rib, 

 country which was especially rich in corn land. The 

 town was situated on the Lea, just above the southern 

 bend which brings the river straight down into the 

 Thames at London. The economic attraction of 

 London must not be overlooked, for it caused a 



BOROUGH OF 

 HERTFORD 



e against the exclusive rights of the borough 



irly in the 13th 1 





This attack t 



; from 



the metropolis as well as from the local competitors 

 —Ware, Chipping Barnet, Hatfield and Cheshunt. 



In the early part of the I 3th century the transport 

 of corn to London had been by boats belonging to 

 Hertford, but about 1247-8 the men of London 

 built a granary further down the Lea at Thele, and 

 shipped the corn in their own bottoms. 79 Unfor- 

 tunately the issue of the quarrel is unknown. 



The neighbouring towns suffered from the monopoly 

 claimed by the burgesses, who held that the Lea must 

 be crossed at their town bridge. But the direct route 

 from Royston to London passed the water at Ware, a 

 rising town. In the 12th century Hertford must 

 have asserted its rights, for until John's reign the 

 bailiff of Hertford held the keys of the bridge and 

 ford of Ware, so that carts could only pass with his 

 licence. 6 " During the war of 1215-16 the men of 

 Ware disregarded the custom, and carts passed freely 

 over the bridge and ford, nor had the burgesses 

 recovered their rights by 124.7. 61 



For a town which owed its existence to a monopoly 

 of trade and traffic rights the matter was vital, 

 especially as Ware had attacked the Hertford market 

 by holding illegal markets on Wednesdays and 

 Fridays. 82 In 1258 the men of Ware sued the 

 burgesses, complaining that they had forcibly broken 

 the bridge and dug a channel in the ford, so that no 

 one, even on foot, could pass it. They had also cut 

 the London road by digging a ditch across it. 83 The 

 cause of these aggressions was clearly the fact that 

 the men of Ware had either made or restored the 

 road between Ware and Hoddesdon, thus leaving 

 Hertford outside the main line of traffic. 64 The 

 burgesses pleaded the orders of their lord, William de 

 Valence, but the jury ascribed the whole affair to 

 their desire to have the passage (of the Lea) through 

 the middle of their town. 



This check damped the enterprise of the men of 

 Hertford. Five years later the aggression was on 

 the side of Ware. 85 By 1274 the 'turning aside of 

 the high road which used to go from Hertford to 

 Ware' had become a fact, much ' to the detriment 

 of the vill of Hertford.' ae The bailiffs of Ware 

 tried also to cut off communication by water by 

 'occupying the weirs, so that no ship might pass.' 87 

 The tolls at Ware due to the bailiff of Hertford were 

 not paid in 1277, 88 but after this time they seem to 

 have been rendered. In 1296 the 'tolls of the 

 passage of Ware ' and of Hertford were separately 

 valued at 4.0/. a year, 89 but the steady increase in the 

 tolls of Ware shows that the main traffic passed 

 through the direct route. 



Hertford had lost to Ware the passage of the Lea 

 and the possession of the main road, and this consti- 

 tuted the best capital of the borough. If it had ever 

 been an industrial centre it had lost its position before 



