A boat carrying grain arrives at Bishop’s Lynn from the Fenland waterways. Before its cargo can be sold, the merchant must hire an official measuring vessel called a cumbe. The proper charge is half a penny. The men controlling the measure demand two shillings instead.
Elsewhere on Lynn’s waterfront, people bringing cabbages, apples, butter and earthenware pots into the town are being made to pay tolls which, according to local custom, should never have been imposed. Merchants who have already paid the lawful charge find their boats detained. A former mayor stands accused of accepting money to allow grain to be exported in defiance of a royal prohibition.
These allegations appear in Edward I’s Hundred Rolls. They do not provide a complete portrait of medieval Lynn, and they should not be treated as proven convictions. They are formal complaints, gathered from local juries sent to identify abuses of power.
Even so, the complaints reveal a great deal. By the 1270s, Bishop’s Lynn was already a substantial international port. Grain, wool, herring, iron and everyday provisions passed through its harbour. The wealth generated by that trade attracted a confusing collection of bishops, noble families, civic officers and private toll-farmers, each claiming a right to control some part of it.
Edward I asks, “By what right?”
Edward I ordered the best-known of the Hundred Roll inquiries soon after returning to England in 1274. His father, Henry III, had endured rebellion and civil war. During those years of weakened royal authority, many local lords and officials had acquired new powers or enlarged old ones.
Edward wanted to know what the Crown had lost. Royal commissioners travelled through the counties, questioning sworn juries about unlawful tolls, corruption, encroachments upon roads and waterways, and rights that had fallen into private hands.
A hundred was an administrative district within a county, usually containing several villages and manors. Important boroughs such as Lynn could also be investigated separately. The records produced by these inquiries became known collectively as the Hundred Rolls.
The commissioners paid particular attention to franchises. A franchise was a power normally associated with royal government but granted, inherited or simply claimed by somebody else. It might include the right to hold a court, collect a toll, regulate a market or take goods from a wrecked vessel.
Behind the investigation lay the question quo warranto?, Latin for “by what warrant?” Anyone exercising such a power might be required to show a charter or other legal authority for it.
The jurors’ answers were recorded as presentments, meaning formal allegations. A presentment was not a guilty verdict. Jurors might misunderstand an old custom, overlook a lost charter or repeat a local grievance. The Rolls tell us what people said was happening, not necessarily how every case was finally decided.
Their value lies partly in that very quality. Charters describe privileges in dignified language. The Hundred Rolls show how those privileges could operate when grain was waiting to be unloaded and an official was demanding money.
Too many masters on Lynn’s water
Bishop’s Lynn belonged to the bishop of Norwich, but the bishop did not exercise undivided control.
The borough had a mayor, bailiffs and a recognised community of merchants. The powerful Tateshall and Montalt families claimed important rights over trade conducted on Lynn’s water. Thomas de Hauville controlled a port toll. Religious houses and neighbouring landowners possessed property around the roads, bridges and banks.t
Medieval government was assembled from separate rights accumulated over generations. One lord might control a court while another regulated grain measures. Someone else might collect a toll on particular goods. Their jurisdictions could overlap, especially around a busy harbour.
These rights were often leased. A man who rented a toll for a fixed annual sum was said to hold it at farm. He paid the owner an agreed amount, then kept whatever he collected above it. If receipts were poor, he lost money. If he could increase the charges, he made a larger profit.
The system encouraged efficient collection, but it also rewarded overcharging.
The twenty-four penny grain measure
The clearest example involved the official measures used for grain.
Robert de Tateshall and Robert de Montalt claimed the right to supply measuring vessels known as cumbes. A cumbe was a large dry measure, equal in this instance to half a quarter. A quarter was a unit commonly used for grain, although its exact capacity could differ between places.
Merchants could not trade a cargo fairly without an accepted measure. Whoever controlled the cumbe therefore controlled a service that grain traders could scarcely avoid.
The proper charge depended upon the merchant’s route. A vessel arriving by freshwater, through the rivers and Fenland waterways, was to pay half a penny a day. A vessel arriving from overseas paid one penny.
That distinction opens a window onto Lynn’s economy. The town belonged to two trading worlds. It faced the North Sea, but it also stood at the end of an inland water system reaching deep into the Fens. Agricultural produce could travel towards Lynn by river before being sold locally or transferred to seagoing ships.
Tateshall and Montalt had leased the measures to private operators. Geoffrey de Boha, Geoffrey de Damgate and Reginald de Walsingham were accused of demanding as much as twenty-four pence for their use.
There were twelve pence in a shilling. An inland merchant who should have paid half a penny was therefore being charged forty-eight times the proper amount! An overseas trader might pay twelve times the accepted rate.
The merchant could not simply take his grain elsewhere once he had reached the harbour. His crew needed paying, his cargo required unloading and his vessel might have to catch the next tide. Control of the official measure gave its farmers considerable leverage.
Wool merchants, butter sellers and cabbage growers
Lynn is frequently described as a medieval wool port, but the Hundred Rolls reveal a broader economy.
Thomas de Hauville claimed lestage, a toll on certain goods passing through a port or market. He had leased the right to John Werdekyn for thirteen and a half marks a year.
A mark was not a coin but a unit of account worth thirteen shillings and four pence. Werdekyn’s annual payment amounted to £9, so the toll had to produce at least that sum before he made a profit.
The jurors accepted that lestage could be charged upon major merchandise such as hides, herring, iron and millstones. They accused Werdekyn’s collectors of extending it to goods that should have been exempt.
They demanded four pence on a wey of cheese, butter or animal fat. A wey was a large unit of weight whose exact size varied according to the commodity. Four pence was also charged on a cartload of lead, while a hundred skins attracted a payment of six pence.
Another group of officers was accused of taxing even smaller consignments. William Conqueror, Adam de Kenelingworth, Robert de Reymston and Simon Bullock served as bailiffs for the bishop, Tateshall and Montalt. A bailiff was an officer who collected revenues, administered property or enforced a lord’s authority.
The bailiffs allegedly imposed tolls on cabbages, apples, cheese, butter and earthenware pots. According to the jurors, Lynn’s privileges allowed charges on valuable merchandise such as wool, not on ordinary provisions.
The cabbages and pots are among the most revealing details in the record. They bring into view the smaller traders who supplied Lynn every day. Country people entered the town with garden produce, dairy goods and household pottery, hoping to sell them in the market.
A few pence might mean little to a wealthy wool exporter. To someone with a modest load of vegetables or pots, it could consume much of the profit. Such charges might also increase food prices inside a growing town.
The Hundred Rolls therefore show both ends of Lynn’s commercial life. Large cargoes crossed the North Sea, while small producers arrived from the surrounding countryside.
Ale, arrests and boats held to ransom
Tateshall and Montalt also possessed the assize of ale on Lynn’s water. An assize was a set of regulations governing matters such as price, quantity and quality.
Ale was consumed daily and spoiled quickly. Its brewers and sellers were therefore supervised by local authorities. Those who supplied weak measures or ignored agreed prices could be fined.
The complaint against Tateshall and Montalt was that they failed to enforce the assize, allowing sellers to charge as they pleased. The allegation suggests that enough ale was sold within the waterfront jurisdiction to require separate regulation.
Elsewhere the officers were accused not of neglect but of direct intimidation.
William Conqueror and other bailiffs allegedly arrested merchants even after the correct toll had been paid. Their victims included Lynn townspeople and extranei, or outsiders. In medieval usage, a “foreigner” did not necessarily come from another country. The word could refer to anyone who was not a recognised Lynn burgess.
The bailiffs were also said to have detained merchants’ boats. This could be more effective than arresting the owner. A vessel might contain perishable cargo, while its crew continued to incur costs. Missing a tide could delay an entire voyage.
An officer who controlled the boat could press the merchant to pay quickly, whether or not the additional demand was lawful. The tollbooth was consequently more than a place for recording payments. It stood at a commercial choke point where administrative power could be turned into private profit.
A mayor accused of selling export licences
Lynn’s own civic government did not escape criticism.
Alexander Kellock, a former mayor, was accused of receiving £20 for allowing grain to be exported during a royal prohibition.
Kings sometimes restricted grain exports when harvests were poor, prices were high or domestic supplies appeared insecure. Enforcing such an order depended upon officials in ports such as Lynn. Ships had to be cleared and merchants needed permission to depart.
An overseas market might offer a better price than an English buyer. Once exports had been forbidden, a licence became exceptionally valuable. The jurors alleged that Kellock had turned his official authority into personal income.
The charge is evidence of the reach of Lynn’s mayoral office, whether or not Kellock was later convicted. The mayor was not merely a ceremonial figure. His decisions could affect food supplies and international commerce.
When Lynn’s liberties burdened its neighbours
The town was not always the victim.
Lynn’s bailiffs were accused of forcing people from neighbouring villages to answer in the borough court for offences committed outside its boundaries. Several villagers might be summoned because of one person’s alleged wrongdoing, although they possessed no status as Lynn burgesses.
A journey to the borough court cost time and money. Those summoned might face fees or amercements, financial penalties assessed by the court. What Lynn’s officers regarded as the defence of borough privileges could appear to the surrounding villages as an aggressive expansion of urban power.
The complaint exposes the town’s dependence upon its hinterland. Lynn required food, fuel, labour and raw materials from the countryside. Rural traders needed access to its market and port. Their relationship produced cooperation, but it also generated arguments over courts and tolls.
Lynn’s liberty was therefore double-edged. It could protect townspeople against the bishop’s demands while allowing the borough to exert pressure upon its weaker neighbours.
The guild and the value of being a Lynn merchant
The borough community was also accused of extending its commercial privileges through the guild.
A medieval merchant guild was more than a social association. It helped define the recognised trading community of the town. Membership might bring legal protection and exemptions from tolls elsewhere.
The Hundred Rolls claimed that outsiders were being admitted into the guild’s avowry, meaning its protection or recognised association. These people could then present themselves at other markets as Lynn merchants and demand the town’s toll exemptions.
Lynn’s privileges thus had value far beyond its walls. They travelled with the merchant. Rival towns, local lords and the Crown could all lose income when somebody claimed an exemption.
The allegation suggests that admission to Lynn’s commercial community was worth buying or obtaining. The guild was part of the borough’s power, deciding who could enjoy the advantages attached to Lynn status.
The profitable countryside
The inquiry extended into Freebridge Hundred, the district surrounding Lynn.
William de Plumstead held the hundred at farm through Robert de Tateshall, who claimed it from the Crown. The jurors said they did not know by what authority the arrangement existed and accused William of extracting large sums from the countryside.
The farmer of a hundred could draw income from its court, fees and penalties. The more money he collected, the more he retained after paying his fixed rent.
The jurors complained that William had extorted almost limitless sums. Their language was probably an expression of anger rather than a precise calculation, but it conveys the resentment produced when judicial authority became a commercial investment.
The affairs of Freebridge cannot be separated from Lynn. Produce moved from its villages towards the borough, while Lynn merchants travelled through the district. Pressure upon the countryside affected the people and goods upon which the port depended.
Wrecks, warrens and the fight for space
Other complaints show how power followed Lynn’s physical geography.
Several lords claimed wreck of the sea, a right under certain conditions to take goods from wrecked vessels. Medieval law did not permit the automatic seizure of every cargo washed ashore, particularly when survivors remained to claim it. Even so, wreck rights could yield timber, equipment and valuable merchandise.
For ships entering or leaving the Wash, wreck was a genuine danger. Shifting channels and sandbanks made the ownership of stranded cargo a practical commercial issue.
At Gaywood, the bishop of Norwich was accused of enclosing woodland as a warren, a protected area for particular kinds of game. A warren restricted other people’s use of land that might otherwise supply grazing, timber or fuel.
The bishop and the abbot of Warden also faced complaints about purprestures. A purpresture was an unauthorised enclosure or building on a highway, riverbank or other public space.
One alleged encroachment stood near a bridge. Another occupied ground beside the king’s highway along Lynn’s “great bank”, probably a major embankment or riverside route.
Land beside the water was scarce. A wall, building or fence might narrow a road, obstruct a landing place or make access to the river more difficult. Arguments over small pieces of ground were part of the wider struggle to control trade.
A great port seen through its complaints
A further entry records that Thomas Sorel of Lynn sent twenty sacks of wool overseas during a period of political disorder.
A medieval wool sack was conventionally reckoned at about 364 pounds, although actual loads varied. Twenty sacks represented several tons of wool. The brief entry does not establish exactly which restriction Sorel had broken, so it should not be turned into a confident tale of smuggling. It does show that Lynn merchants were capable of organising exports on a substantial scale.
The Hundred Rolls describe a town positioned between the North Sea and the waterways of eastern England. They record large wool consignments and overseas grain exports, but also the apples and pots carried into the market by much smaller traders.
They reveal that regulation itself had become a valuable possession. The right to supply measures, collect tolls or hold a court could be rented for profit. An official service might therefore become an opportunity for overcharging.
Authority was divided among the bishop, the borough and several private lords. Their powers met most visibly on the waterfront, where merchants could not easily escape an official measure, a tollbooth or a detained boat.
The inquiry was designed to uncover abuses, so it gives us Lynn at its most argumentative. It does not record the thousands of transactions that passed peacefully. Nor does every accusation amount to proof.
Yet there is a larger truth behind the complaints. People fought so intensely over Lynn’s tolls, courts and grain measures because they were worth fighting over. By the 1270s, Bishop’s Lynn was already one of the most active commercial centres on England’s eastern coast.
The cabbage sellers, corrupt bailiffs and disputed grain measures do more than expose medieval wrongdoing. They show a port whose trade had become valuable enough to attract almost everyone who possessed, rented, or invented a right to take a share.
© James Rye 2026
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References
Cam, Helen M. The Hundred and the Hundred Rolls: An Outline of Local Government in Medieval England. London: Methuen, 1930.
Cam, Helen M. Studies in the Hundred Rolls: Some Aspects of Thirteenth-Century Administration. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921.
Illingworth, William, ed. Rotuli Hundredorum Temp. Hen. III et Edw. I, vol. 1. London: Record Commission, 1812. See especially pp. 461 and 542–43.
Raban, Sandra. A Second Domesday? The Hundred Rolls of 1279–80. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Roffe, David. “The Hundred Rolls.” Historical discussion of the production and survival of the inquiries.
The National Archives. “Special Collections: Hundred Rolls and Eyre Veredicta.” SC 5.