a list of inquests < Back Death by Misadventure: Coroners' Inquests 1700-1850 - Part 2 John Hartley 1978 NOTES to list of Coroners’ Inquest papers – Stamford Town Hall http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/coroners-inquests.htm provides guidance on the general availability of Coroners’ Inquests papers nationally as well as a (very brief) bibliography. Currently (2012) no Coroners’ Inquest papers appear to be available online.This list gives only the barest outline of details: date, subject, verdict with some indication of cause of death and an indicator (by means of an asterisk - *) if evidence was presented to the jury, was included with individual files, and is now available.These records are not currently available for consultation, but some further details may be available by contacting this website. Please note that this list was compiled in the early 1970s after the discovery of these papers and has not been subsequently altered. The papers were the source for the article in the Stamford Historian vol.2 (1978) pp7-20 to be republished shortly on this website. A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

Browse Stamford Local History Society's library of published historical articles linked with Stamford and the surrounding area. ARTICLES Browse our library of published historical articles linked with Stamford and the surrounding area. The Archaeological Excavation of Exeter Down Located at Stamford West, Lincolnshire Kate McLauchlan 3 August 2026 Read Article Stamford Post Boxes: A History Post Boxes from six different monarchs Trish Auciello 24 May 2026 Read Article Stamford Borough Police Force 1836 to 1889 Reform to the structures of the police forces across England and Wales Chris Hunt 24 April 2026 Read Article The Life and Loves of my Great Great Grandfather A talk for the Stamford Local History Society on 4th Dec 2026 by Trish Auciello Trish Auciello 28 March 2026 Read Article The Battle for 51 High Street, Stamford The story of a Listed Building and the battle to save it in the 1960s Richard Asher 28 February 2026 Read Article Stamford Library Report May 1907 In May 1907 the Public Library Committee produced a report Chris Hunt 17 January 2026 Read Article Stamford Library Catalogue 1907 Printed by Dolby Brothers Chris Hunt 17 January 2026 Read Article Stamford Library Rules and Regulations 1906 Stamford Free Library was formally opened on 25th January 1906 Chris Hunt 9 January 2026 Read Article Stamford Fire Engine 1904 Chris Hunt 29 December 2025 Read Article Edward and Francis Butt Shortages of regal coins in the last five hundred years Martin R Warburton 31 October 2025 Read Article A walk around Stamford town centre post boxes Trish Auciello 30 September 2025 Read Article Searchlight on Land, Labour and Social Problems 1903 Burghley House by Stamford Town John Taylor 12 September 2025 Read Article In The Star & Garter at Stamford and the 1851 Census The Life of a Stamford Publican in 1851 Mike Key 21 August 2025 Read Article The Social Impact of the Church in Victorian Stamford Lecture for Stamford Museum's Winter Lecture Series in 1998 John F H Smith 28 June 2025 Read Article The Saracen's Head Inn, Stamford: Uncovered? Number 1 St Mary's Place John Daffurn 11 May 2025 Read Article List of Known Melbourn’s Tied Houses 1869-1971 Linked to a previous Article - Melbourn's Tied Houses Chris Hunt 28 April 2025 Read Article F Dawson, Grocer, Stamford. Unofficial Farthing Frederick Dawson was in business for only two years, from 1854 to 1856 Martin R Warburton 29 March 2025 Read Article Building on the Stamford Manorial Waste The use of the Stamford Manorial Court Rolls to construct a building’s history. Chris Hunt 3 March 2025 Read Article A brief report into research carried out to establish the location of Bradcroft Hamlet, Stamford Research by Richard Asher Richard Asher 3 February 2025 Read Article Town Bridge, Stamford Town Bridge, Stamford By Nicholas J Sheehan 3 February 2025 Read Article The Early Days of Trade Unionism in Stamford and the Labour Dispute at Messrs Blackstone & Co in 1890 Chris Hunt 13 January 2025 Read Article Eat, Drink and Be Merry – the 1831 Stamford Election Papers relating to the Stamford election of 1831 John S Hartley 6 January 2025 Read Article William Luff - Stamford petty criminal transported to Australia William Luff Karen Smith 16 December 2024 Read Article Melbourn's Tied Houses 1869-1971 Chris Hunt 4 July 2024 Read Article Brazenose College, Stamford A closer look at the building central to the story of Stamford's medieval university Nicholas J Sheehan 10 June 2024 Read Article John Flowers Bentley (1810-1884): Stamford Polymath from the Stamford Institution to Bentley Street John S Daffurn 25 January 2024 Read Article George Longstaff and ClayTobacco Pipe Manufacture in Stamford Nicholas J Sheehan 4 December 2023 Read Article The Etton Causewayed Enclosure: its significance within the Welland Valley and broader landscape Michelle Feasey 3 November 2023 Read Article The Stamford Terracotta Company J M Blashfield's business on Wharf Road Nicholas J Sheehan 8 August 2023 Read Article Uffington's road block defences in World War II Obstacles manned by the Home Guard Nicholas J Sheehan 2 July 2023 Read Article The Bridge Gate of Stamford and John Frammesley The site of a traitor's remains Chris Hunt 1 June 2023 Read Article The formation and first home of the Stamford Institution (1838-1842) When, where and how the Insitution was formed John S Daffurn 14 April 2023 Read Article Murage Tax for repairs to the town wall of Stamford A tax granted to the town by Edward I Chris Hunt 19 February 2023 Read Article Women's Suffrage in Stamford: Fight for the Vote 1913 Votes for women Chris Hunt 1 January 2023 Read Article Sufferings of the Early Quaker Community in Stamford Persecution of local Dissenters Chris Hunt 1 January 2023 Read Article Stamford, Spalding and Boston Banking Company 1832-1911 A Victorian provincial bank Chris Hunt 1 January 2023 Read Article William Shakespeare and Stamford Henry IV, part 2, act 3, scene 2 Chris Hunt 1 January 2022 Read Article Stamford. Elizabeth Pulley. Murder Most Foul Murder in a Lincolnshire town Chris Hunt 1 January 2022 Read Article The State of Stamford's Housing at the end of the Great War Housing fit for heroes Chris Hunt 1 January 2022 Read Article Parliamentary Election 1847 (Hustings and Poll) A contested election in Stamford Chris Hunt 1 January 2022 Read Article Recreation Ground Bandstand A report of the opening of Stamford's bandstand Chris Hunt 1 January 2021 Read Article Men of Stamford in the Hundred Years War Local men fighting France David Large 1 January 2021 Read Article October 31st 1940 - The Luftwaffe comes to Stamford A lucky wartime escape Chris Hunt 1 January 2021 Read Article Nora Blake: Young Stamford Pacifist A prizewinning anti-war essay K Hansell & N J Sheehan 1 January 2021 Read Article Ketton Gas and Coke Company (limited) A Victorian rural gas works Chris Hunt 1 January 2021 Read Article Political Pressures - Eighteenth Century Style A hotly contested parliamentary election in Stamford John Hartley 1 January 2019 Read Article The Stamford Deviation The decision of the Great Northern Railway to bypass the town Mike Sockett 4 May 2018 Read Article The Stamford Institution A permanent home on St Peter's Hill John S Hartley 1 January 2018 Read Article Stamford in 1868 An election and other happenings Chris Hunt 1 January 2018 Read Article Window Tax A replacement for the hearth tax Prof Alan Rogers 1 January 2018 Read Article John Clare and Bull Running A poet, and the pros and cons of bull-running Chris Hunt 1 January 2018 Read Article Stamford in Domesday Book 12C survey of local property Dr David Roffe 1 January 2018 Read Article V Bomber Crash at Barnack Five killed on training flight from Wittering Chris Hunt 1 January 2017 Read Article Stamford: The Home Front 1940 Air Raid Precautions Local provisions in event of WWII air attack Chris Hunt 1 January 2017 Read Article Belgian Refugees in Stamford Flemish exiles in WWI Jean Orpin 1 January 2014 Read Article The Brazenose Site in Stamford Nicholas J Sheehan 1 January 2013 Read Article Muster Roll 1584 A list of available arms for the Hundred of Nesse David Nalson 1 January 2012 Read Article Don't Meddle with my Business! A 16C warning Stamford's relationship with Mary Tudor's government Professor Alan Rogers 1 January 2012 Read Article David Cecil's Will and David Cecil's Wife: Two Notes Early history of the Burghley dynasty Professor Alan Rogers 1 January 2012 Read Article The King in Stamford Baron From the Proceedings and Odinances of the Privy Council Professor Alan Rogers 1 January 2012 Read Article Medieval and Early Modern Stamford Taxation Returns Important local tax returns (1332-1524) Professor Alan Rogers 1 January 2012 Read Article Terricus of Cologne An alien merchant in Stamford in the 13C Prof Alan Rogers 1 January 2012 Read Article Restoration and Rebuilding of Browne's Hospital Repairing one of Stamford's almshouses David Wallington 1 January 2012 Read Article

< Back A List of Stamford Aldermen, 1398-1457 Chris Hunt 2022 Francis Howgrave in his 1726 book: An Essay of The Ancient and Present State of Stamford , listed ‘Aldermen of the Gild’ from 1398 to 1457. He states that Stamford was governed by prescriptive Magistrates long before King Edward IV’s Charter, but due to rebellious times, ill kept records and the town consumed by fire, many of Stamford’s records were lost. But, George Hill, Steward of the Town, and Alderman in 1662, had preserved a Roll listing sixty Aldermen prior to George Chapman who is mentioned as Alderman in the Edward IV Charter, sealed in 1462. 1398 George Wyches 1399 Stephen Maxey 1400 Robert Locksmith 1401 John Stanby 1402 Thomas Storine 1403 Thomas Spicer 1404 Ralph Harwood 1405 John Palfreeman 1406 Ralph Browne 1407 John Stacy 1408 Alexander Haine 1409 Robert Locksmith (2) 1410 Thomas Basset 1411 John Browne 1412 William Locksmith 1413 John Stanby (2) 1414 John Palfreeman (2) 1415 Alexander Mercer 1416 John Allock 1417 Andrew Draper 1418 Thomas Basset (2) 1419 John Browne 1420 Thomas Ralph 1421 Thomas Spicer (2) 1422 John Palfreeman (3) 1423 John Whitsade 1424 John Browne 1425 Robert Bendboar 1426 Thomas Basset (3) 1427 Thomas Spicer (3) 1428 John Longe 1429 John Page 1430 Richard Lee 1431 Laurence Melton 1432 William Marwood 1433 Richard Lee (2) 1434 Laurence Melton (2) 1435 William Browne 1436 William Marwood (2) 1437 Richard Lee (3) 1438 Robert Browne 1439 William Sturton 1440 Thomas Balksay 1441 William Browne (2) 1442 John Page (2) 1443 Richard Lee (4) 1444 Laurence Melton (3) 1445 John Browne 1446 William Browne (3) 1447 William Sturton (2) 1448 Richard Blagwin 1449 Thomas Gregory 1450 John Browne 1451 Laurence Melton (4) 1452 John Gregory 1453 John Page (2) 1454 William Hickham 1455 William Sturton (3) 1456 Thomas Gregory (2) 1457 William Browne (4) Notes The ( ) next to an aldeman indicates the number of times he held that office. There is no such number against John Browne as not all the persons listed above in the name are the same Alderman. For instance a John Browne died in July 1442, and a John Browne was again Alderman in 1462. Some genealogists list four generations of John Browne in Stamford. However, the William Browne who was Alderman in 1435, 1441, 1446 and 1457, did go on to be an Alderman in 1466 and 1470. Francis Howgrave does not list Aldermen for the years 1458, 1459, and 1460. The late Professor Alan Rogers published an article in Lincolnshire History & Archaeology Vol 41 (2006) which lists earlier Aldermen, variants, and analysis on the above list using deeds and leases. A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back The Saracen’s Head Inn, Stamford: Uncovered? John Daffurn 2025 A recently posted snippet on this site (see here ) identified an unknown medieval inn included in Prof Alan Rogers’ People & Property in Medieval Stamford (838. MB 4/58). It refers to ‘le Sarsynneshed in the parish of St Mary at the Bridge Stamford’ which was being repaired in 1435. The post resonated with me as other information I had accumulated when researching for Stamford Assets had also identified a Saracen’s Head Inn. Now, with documentary evidence, it is possible to formulate a proposition regarding both the exact location of the inn and the likely date it was built. 1. The Location of the Saracen's Head 1.1 Introduction Whilst researching for Newcomb owned properties in St Mary’s parish, I came across a group of documents held by the Lincolnshire Archives (LA). Curiously the entry heading in the archive catalogue mentioned that the documents related to a building which was formerly known as the Saracen’s Head. At the time I was unable, before the publication deadline for Stamford Assets , to decipher and unravel the complex group of documents from 1663 to 1850, involving multiple buildings and parcels of land. Having revisited them, I believe it is now possible to identify the location of the inn and its owners and tenants, from 1663. 1.2 1721 Indenture – Gift from Joshua Blackwell to his son, John (LA, MISC DON 1064/6) The most detailed document in the group is a 1721 indenture setting out the terms of a gift of property in the Monday Market [now St Mary’s Place] from Joshua Blackwell to his son John, in consideration of John’s marriage to Mary Winder. The gifted property included three separate messuages or tenements ‘and all manner of Outhouses Edifices Buildings Dovehouses Barns Stables Coachhouses Yards Orchards Gardens Backsides Ways Waters Watercourses Walls Fences Easements Privileges Profits Commons Emoluments Hereditaments and Appurtenances’. This indenture also details the families (Fairchild, Kettleborough and Wright) from whom Joshua Blackwell purchased these properties, and this aids the research into the location of the old inn. One of the properties is described as having a ‘malting office’ which links to a property advertised to let in 1723 (see 1.4) and which in 1721 was tenanted by John South and Dr Charles Wilson. South had, in 1719, been the landlord of the Swan Inn [located at 15 St Mary’s Street and later called the Swan and Talbot, and then the Talbot] and was mayor of Stamford in 1722/3. The link between the Swan Inn and the malting house property is replicated in 1795 (see Sarah Broughton in 1.5). 1.3 Additional documents 1663-1721 Although the 1721 indenture does not mention the Saracen’s Head, the five earlier documents below all confirm the inn by name and relate to property acquired by Blackwell from the Fairchild family, and, by inference, the Kettleborough family. These documents all relate to ‘three lower ground rooms’ being ‘part of and belonging to a messuage or tenement called or known by or name of or sign of the Sarisons Head [also Sarizons Head]’. 1.3.1 1663 Indenture, Robert Cammock to Henry Fairchild (LA, MISC DON 1064/1) The Cammock family were well known in Stamford and had resided in St Mary’s parish since the middle of the 16th century. Robert’s father and his uncle, Edward, had both been aldermen of the Corporation of Stamford and, in 1643, Edward had carried the town mace in front of Charles I when he processed through the town. Additional information within the indenture states that a tallow chandler, Willian Algar, had occupied the property north of the Saracen’s Head and Robert Cammock also owned the building south of the inn. In 1661, Robert’s daughter, Sarah, was born and the St Mary’s parish register gives Robert’s occupation as innkeeper. A year later, Robert’s father died and, as a wealthy and important inhabitant of St Mary’s parish, it is likely that he owned both the Saracen’s Head, occupied by his son, and the property next door which was his home. Robert, his eldest son, would have inherited these buildings from his father and one scenario would be that Robert moved into his father’s house and sold or let parts such as the ‘the three lower ground rooms’ of what had become a failing inn. The indenture also describes the rooms above the lower rooms as being in the possession of William Algar and Robert Cammock. However, by 1672 these upper rooms were owned by Thomas Kettleborough (see 1.3.2) 1.3.2 1672 Indenture, Anne Fairchild to Richard, her son (LA, MISC DON 1064/2) Anne, the widow of Henry Fairchild who died in 1671, gifted the three lower rooms to her son Richard on his marriage to Susan Nelsy. At that time the lower rooms were being let to Joseph Parnham, who in 1672 married into the Fairchild family, and the upper rooms were owned by Thomas Kettleborough. 1.3.3 1674 Indenture, Richard Fairchild to Major Fairchild (LA, MISC DON 1064/3) In 1674, Richard Fairchild leased the three rooms for ‘four score and nyneteene years’ to Major Fairchild, a butcher, who one might assume was a relative. 1.3.4 1698 Quadrupartite Indenture (LA, MISC DON 1064/4) This document appears to be a tidying up of Joshua Blackwell’s property portfolio in St Mary’s parish, by acquiring the three lower ground rooms, having probably already bought the upper rooms from Thomas Kettleborough, as well as a larger property and land from Robert Wright. However, over seventy years remained on the lease in 1.3.3 above, and as Major Fairchild had died in 1690 his widow Elizabeth and daughter, also Elizabeth, inherited the lease. The four parties to the indenture were the widow and daughter of Major Fairchild, Richard Fairchild and Susan his wife, who owned the freehold, John Rogers [father-in-law of Joshua], who held the property in trust for Joshua Blackwell, and finally Joshua Blackwell himself, who was to purchase the freehold. 1.3.5 1698 Indenture, Richard Fairchild to Joshua Blackwell (LA, MISC DON 1064/5) This document conveyed the freehold to Joshua Blackwell, having concluded the lease arrangements in 1.3.4 above. The five documents above, plus the 1721 indenture, do not identify the exact location of the Saracen's Head but provide information which, when taken together wirh 1.4 (the Blackwell family) and 1.5 (documentary evidence from 1772 to 1850) below, clarifies the situation. 1.4 The Blackwell family Between 1698 and 1721 there is a paucity of documentation to assist in the location quest, but genealogical information can help. In 1686, Joshua Blackwell married Mary Rogers, the daughter of John Rogers, a doctor, who is mentioned in 1.3.4, and they would have needed a marital home. A few years before, probably in 1680, Robert Cammock died and in 1682 his daughter, Sarah, married Robert Wright. Both lived and remained in the parish of All Saints, so it is possible that Sarah inherited her father’s property in St Mary’s and sold it following her marriage, as Robert Wright and Sarah are named in 1721 as being one of the parties from whom Joshua Blackwell acquired property. The assumption is that Blackwell acquired Robert Cammock’s house and made it his home before buying the upper rooms of the Saracen’s Head from Thomas Kettleborough and the lower rooms from Richard Fairchild. He lived in the house with his wife, Mary, but in 1699, at the age of thirty-two, she died having born him five children, including his son John. In 1702, Joshua, then a widower, married Lettice Winder, a widow, and they continued to live in the same house until his death in 1727 and Lettice’s death in 1730, even though it had been gifted to his son John in 1721. When John married Mary Winder, the daughter of Lettice from her first marriage, Lettice became both his stepmother and mother-in-law. Stamford Mercury , 20 February 1724 In 1723, John Blackwell, following the death of Dr Wilson his tenant, advertised the house with the malting office to let (Stamford Mercury [SM], 6 June 1723) and a 1724 advertisement for the same property mentions it having a coach house and stable for seven horses. After the death of his father and stepmother, John Blackwell demolished his large house and built in its place what is now 2 St Mary's Place. A few years later he extended the house which became 3 St Mary’s Place. One is now able to realise that the location for the Saracen’s Head is the property north of Blackwell's home – 1 St. Mary's Place. When John Blackwell died in 1770, he left a detailed will bequeathing a house tenanted by Dr Jackson, to Miss Eleanor Peart, and his main residence to his son Thomas Blackwell, the rector of St Clement Danes, London. However, in a subsequent codicil, his will was amended to leave both properties to Peart. Thereafter, the trail of 1 St Mary's Place, and therefore the site of the Saracen's Head, is well documented. 1.5 Documents and other information for 1 St Mary’s Place, 1770 to 1919. 1 St Mary's Place The death of John Blackwell triggered the sale of the building that was previously the Saracen’s Head and from that date documentary evidence exists for the ownership of the property until 1919, when it appeared in an auction catalogue as 1 St Mary’s Place. Eleanor Peart, the grandniece of John Blackwell, inherited his two houses and proceeded to sell them both. No. 1 St Mary’s Place was sold in 1771 to John Hays (LA, MISC DON 1064/9) for £220, and in 1773 the large house was sold to Edward Nott. In 1790, Abel Walford Bellairs bought the large property (2/3 St Mary’s Place) and in 1793 bought No. 1 from John Hays for £336. This latter deal appears to be a mechanism to enhance the Bellairs’ larger property next door, as in 1795 he sold it on to Sarah Broughton for £315, after carving out some of the land at the rear. The indenture stated that Bellairs was selling the house ‘except such part of the premises as have been lately taken into the yard and premises of the said Abel Walford Bellairs and then divided therefrom by the fence wall and buildings of and belonging to him the said Abel Walford Bellairs’ (LA, MISC DON 1064/10b). When Sarah Broughton bought 1 St Mary’s Place, she was still the landlady of the Swan and Talbot Inn (previously the Swan Inn run by John South in 1719). Sarah Broughton retired in 1795 and moved permanently into 1 St Mary’s Place (SM, 17 April 1795). Over the years 1 St Mary’s Place passed through the heirs of Sarah Broughton until it was bought by Richard Newcomb for £400, in 1850 (LA, MISC DON 1064/12). The complete list of owners and tenants of the building from 1663 until its auction sale in October 1919 can be seen in Appendix A. 2. The Origin of the Saracen’s Head Inn, Stamford Example of image for Saracen's Head inn sign The Oxford Dictionary provides the meaning of Saracen as i. An Arab or Muslim at the time of the Crusades and ii. A nomad of the Syrian or Arabic descent. The ‘Saracen’s Head‘ is described as a heraldic charge or an inn sign, and although many inns named the Saracen’s Head remain in England the word Saracen can now cause offence. Its use as a name for an inn is almost certainly linked to the Crusades which were a series of wars in the Holy Land from 1096 to 1297. The English did not participate until the 2nd Crusade in 1147 when a few knights ‘took the cross’ [taking vows and joining a crusade] and travelled to Palestine. In 1187, Richard, as the Duke of Pitou, took the cross and later, as Richard I, he led the 3rd Crusade in 1190, with the support of an army of 6,000 Englishmen. It is known that there was support in Stamford for pilgrims and knights travelling to Jerusalem before 1189, in the form of the house of the Holy Sepulchre, a hospital of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, sometimes called Knights Hospitallers. This was situated on the south side of the River Welland on the site of the George Hotel. Elsewhere in England there is evidence of a Saracen’s Head inn existing prior to 1194 as Richard I on his return from the Crusades visited one and renamed it the Royal Saracen’s Head. It is suggested in the location information above that the Saracen’s Head in Stamford may have been operating until 1663 and from Prof Alan Rogers it is known that the Saracen’s Head was being repaired in 1435 and therefore must have been built prior to that date. The knights and soldiers from the north of England would have retraced their steps when returning from the Crusade in 1194 and passed through Stamford on their way home. The success of Richard the Lionheart’s campaign in the Holy Land and its subsequent mythologising spread throughout the country, and this may have led to the naming of the Saracen’s Head in St Marys Place, an important area of Stamford adjacent to St Mary’s church. Finally, the southwest corner of the cellar of 1 St Mary’s Place ‘incorporates part of a 13th-century undercroft’ (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, The Town of Stamford ). Could this be part of the cellar of the Saracen’s Head or even part of the three lower ground rooms sold to Henry Fairchild in 1663? The Saracen’s Head was built between 1190 and 1435, but with the existence of the undercroft one might err towards the beginning of the 13th century shortly after the return of the Crusaders. Appendix A Note… Text in italics indicates an assumption A print copy can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

Contact The Stamford Local History Society - we share a keen interest in all things historical in and around Stamford, Lincolnshire. CONTACT This page provides a contact form for messages and enquiries. Below it are directions to the location of our talks and meetings. Send us a message and we’ll get back to you shortly. Email Your location Your message Send Thanks for submitting! How to find us Our meetings are held at: Barn Hill Methodist Church, Barn Hill, Stamford, PE9 2AE. From September to June members or guest speakers give a range of talks, usually on the first Thursday of each month. Access is via the front door of the Methodist Church on Barn Hill and the covered walkway from Barn Hill or from North Street, which is also a wheelchair friendly entrance. Talks start at 7.30pm with complimentary refreshments served from 7pm. Entry is £2 for members and £5 for non-members , payable at the door.

< Back Stamford in the Second World War 1940: Pillboxes By John Millard and Mike Sockett A printed copy can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back Drowning on Broad Street Chris Hunt 2017 CORONERS INQUEST (JUNE 1ST 1839) LANDLADY OF THE BLACK SWAN On Saturday last an inquest was held by John Torkington, Gent., coroner for the borough of Stamford, on the body of Mrs. Sarah Dalton, widow, aged 76, landlady of the Black Swan Inn, who left the bar between 11 and 12 o’clock on the previous night, saying that she was going to bed. One of her daughters shortly after went upstairs, and returned to the bar, stating that her mother was not in bed, which excited surprise. The deceased was afterwards found floating on the water in a large cistern in the cellar, with her face downwards. It was stated that the butter and eggs were kept in a cupboard above the steps leading into the cellar, where the deceased had been in the habit of going for those articles for herself, she having frequently had a poached egg for her supper; there being no evidence, however to show positively for what purpose she went into the cellar on that night, a general verdict was returned of “found drowned”. Article appeared in the The Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury , on Friday June 7th 1839 p3c2 Note. The Stamford Corn Exchange Theatre (Broad Street) stands on the site of the Black Swan Inn and some of the cellars of the Inn are part of its basement area. Part of the Black Swan Inn can be seen in the late 18th century Bull Running painting which hangs in Stamford Town Hall. A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back Murage Tax for Repairs to the Town Wall at Stamford Chris Hunt 2023 (from transcription by Justin Simpson F.S.A.) A murage tax was granted by Edward 1st to the town bailiffs to raise moneys by the taxing of goods brought into the town to repair its walls [P.R. 28 Edward 1, m16]. The King by writ made at Rockingham Castle on the 25th April in his 28th year (1300), by the announcement of William de Langton, Lord Treasurer, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield (1296-1322), authorised the Bailiffs and honest men of Stamford for and towards its enclosure or walling for better security to levy (murage) toll on all goods brought therein for sale for a period of seven years next ensuing from the date hereof, viz., For every load of corn of all kinds for brewing, 1/4d. Of every horse, mare, ox or cow, 1/2d. Of every hide of a horse, mare, ox or cow, fresh, salt or tanned, 1/4d. Of every five bacon (pigs), 1/2d. Of every ten small (pigs), 1/2d. Of every ten sheep, goats, and pigs, 1d. Of every ten fleeces (of wool), 1/2d. For every one hundred skins of (bleeting) sheep, lambs, and goats, 1d. For every hundredweight of skins of lambs, kids, hares, rabbits, foxes, cats, and squirrels, 1/2d. For every hundredweight of grey (cloth) work, 6d. Every quarter of salt, 1/4d. Every load of cloth, 1/2d. Every entire (piece of) cloth of the value of 40 shillings, 1/2d. Every trussell (or roll) of cloth brought by a cart, 3d. Every hundredweight of worsted cloth, 2d. Every cloth of worsted called coverlet and worth 40 shillings, 1d. Every hundredweight of linen woll, 1/2d. Every hundredweight of linen woll of Aylesham, 1d. Every piece of fine Cendallo (silken cloth), 1d, and of other (kind of) silk, 1/4d. Every hundredweight of salt stock fish, or hard fish, 2d. Every cart load of sea fish, 1/4d; and every load of the same, 1/2d. Every salmon, 1/4d. Every dozen of lamphreys, 1d. Every thousand of herrings, 1/4d. Every load of cinders or ashes, 1/2d. Every load of honey, 1d. Every sack of woll, 2d. Every load of tan, to be sold by the week, 1d. Merchandize weighing a hundredweight, 1d. Of every weigh (168 lbs.) of tallow and ointment, 1d. Of every quarter wayde (?), 2d. Of every two thousand of garlic or onions, 1/2d. Every bale Cordwain (Cordovan leather), 3d. Every hundredweight of boards, 1/2d. Every mola (? millstone – see below), 1/2d. Every hundredweight of faggots, 1/4d. Every thousands of turfs, 1/4d. Cart load of wood or timber by the week, 1/2d. Hundredweight of tin, brass, or copper, 2d. Every trussell of whatever merchandize to be sold exceeding the value ten shillings, 1/2d. And for every trussell merchandize not (herein) named exceeding five shillings or more, 1/4d. Transcribed by Justin Simpson F.S.A. Notes Justin Simpson 1833-1896, was very much an antiquarian of his time, he was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and was a prolific writer of articles which appeared in local and regional papers, and in learned journals, many of these articles related to Stamford. Glossary cordwain – leather for shoes etc., lamphreys – a fish of the genus Petromyzon, mola – salt-cake or millstone (salt was needed to tan leather), murage – a toll or tax levied for the building or repairing a town wall(s), tan – oak bark, trussell – a bundle, turf - peat A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back Window Tax Professor Alan Rogers 2018 Window Tax was imposed by Parliament in 1696, replacing the Hearth Tax, to help meet the cost of reminting the damaged coinage. After 1792 houses with between 7 and 9 windows were taxed at 2 shillings, and from 10 to 19 windows at 4 shillings. In 1825 houses with less than 8 windows were exempt. The tax was finaly abolished in 1851. The following extract is taken from a volume in the British Library entitled: 'Cases which have been determined by the JUDGES relative to the DUTIES on Houses and Windows and on Inhabited Houses'. Printed in the year MDCCLXXXII. For ease of reading a modern typeface has been used but the original capitalisation and punctuation have been preserved. CASE concerning a Surcharge made by the Surveyor of Windows Borough of Stamford Mr Howgrave was appointed Surveyor in 1762, and immediately after made a very diligent Survey in the Borough of Stamford, where he found several Houses undercharged, and the Commissioners allowed his several Surcharges; but Mr Howgrave having made a Charge of One Pound Ten Shillings upon the House inhabited by the Gaoler of this Corporation, for Eighteen Windows therein contained, Simon Peter Martin, the Gaoler appeared before the acting Commissioners on the 28th day of August last, and appealed to the Surcharge, which the Commissioners thought ought not to be in Charge, and determined in Favour of the Appellant. Upon which the Surveyor declaring himself dissatisfied, and requiring a Case to be specially stated according to the Direction of the Act of Twenty-first of his late Majesty King George the Second; the same is stated, as it appeared to the Commissioners to be as follows. The Gaol, which is very ancient, belongs to the Corporation of Stamford, by Grant from the Crown. The Appellant has been Gaoler of the Borough of Stamford above Thirty-two Years last past, and never paid Window Tax, Land Tax, Highway Assessment, Church or Poor’s Rates whatsoever, for, or in Respect of the Gaol, or his Dwelling house, The Appellant’s Predecessors never paid any of the Taxes or Rates above mentioned. 21st Sept. 1762 Thomas Taylor, Mayor John Exton, Alderman, Barnaby Turner, Francis Moore, Alderman 6th July 1767 We are of Opinion, That the Determination of the Commissioners is wrong. Mansfield E. Wilmot E. Clive Rich. Adams J. Yates J. Hewitt Middlesex A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back Stamford and Magna Carta Dr Henry Summerson 2015 The text of Dr Henry Summerson's April 2015 lecture on his book, Stamford and Magna Carta , is reproduced here for those members who were unable to attend. Stamford at the time of Magna Carta: the life of the town It is a great pleasure to be here in Stamford this evening, in this most elegant and well-preserved of English country towns. Such is the power of the media that the world at large probably associates Stamford most readily with TV serials like Middlemarch , but of course your town has a real past of its own, one embodied in works of scholarship like the little book you have generously sponsored and which is being formally launched this evening Thank you for your support, and for coming here this evening, and my thanks also to Alan Rogers for help in preparing the book, and not least for the illustrations which will accompany my talk. It is by way of the first of them that I shall take you back to the thirteenth century, but going gently, by way of this engraving of a `prospect’ of the town made in the early eighteenth century, chosen because much in it would have looked familiar to much earlier generations of Stamfordians – the skyline dominated by church towers, the surrounding walls, and not least the ploughed fields extending right up to those walls. If we imagine a man coming home after a day’s work in the fields eight centuries ago, in Easter week 1215, much would have been as it is in the engraving, though the walls would have been wooden and the towers less prominent. But he might well have been puzzled to find the town unusually busy, with crowds of people in the streets, many of them armed and mounted. The annual fair ended last week, has a tournament been arranged without anyone telling him? Some of those coats of arms he sees on shields and banners look familiar – they are those of local lords who often ride past him in the streets, or who own houses in the town – but there are others he doesn’t recall seeing here before, and all round him are men talking in broad north-country accents, and he doesn’t recognise them either. Altogether it’s a relief when they gather themselves together and move off, having drunk the taverns dry and left piles of horse manure in the streets. With all the advantages of hindsight we know that our hypothetical townsman has been the unknowing witness to what (in capital letters) we may call a Major Historical Event, the beginning of the baronial campaign which led successively to a formal declaration of war against King John, to the occupation of London, and to the peace treaty we know as Magna Carta – promises of good government extracted from the king by his adversaries in return for an end to hostilities and a return to their allegiance. I will come back to those promises at the end, but first we need to look at Stamford itself. An old community, of course, with a history traceable back at least to the late ninth century. Its position on the crossing of the River Welland from which the town is named, giving access both to the Wash and to the east midlands, and its closeness to the north-south-running Roman road known as Ermine Street, gave it commercial advantages and made it a natural centre for the exercise of authority. The dominant power in the town in its early days was the king. There was a mint at Stamford by the mid-tenth century, and the striking of coins was a tightly controlled royal monopoly, while William I built a castle at the west end of the town within a few years of the battle of Hastings. But Henry II granted his lordship at Stamford to his constable, Richard du Hommet, who was also a major landowner in Normandy, while by 1215 the lord of the town was another outsider, William de Warenne, and though neither of these magnates was indifferent to their rights here (the town’s court continued to be that of the lord, for instance), the fact that their principal estates lay elsewhere probably made it easier for the townsmen to pursue their own interests and to develop the lifestyle, and acquire the privileges, appropriate to a prosperous urban community. By the early thirteenth century Stamford was styled a borough, where property was held by the tenure, known as burgage, which was characteristic of towns, it could exclude the sheriff of Lincolnshire, and it was represented by its own jury when royal justices visited the county – this is first recorded in 1202, when the Stamford jury so bungled its responsibilities that it seems legitimate to deduce that this hadn’t happened before. The prosperity of Stamford came from both trade and industry, with both in turn deriving from the resources of the town itself and of the region in which it stood. The fields I referred to at the start – perhaps amounting to 1000 acres at the time of Domesday Book – did not make the inhabitants of Stamford farmers, even though many of them, perhaps even most, will have had holdings in them. Many 12th and 13th century townsmen (and –women) had occupational names, and ones like ploughman or shepherd are conspicuous by their absence. Among all the property deeds and judicial records we don’t find the people who reared animals, but we do find those who slaughtered them – there was a butcher’s street in the town – and who exploited their hides and skins - tanners, fullers (who also gave their name to a street in the town), weavers, dyers and tailors, along with specialist names like glover, coifer (a maker of hoods) and wimpler (who made ladies’ headgear). Smith, inevitably, is common, as are other kinds of metal-worker. For housing people could turn to masons and stone-cutters. Fishers must have exploited the Welland, and for those who did not have their own ovens their catch could have been prepared for them by the cooks who sold takeaway meals; those who were able to prepare their meals at home could go to spicers to enliven what they cooked there, while vintners supplied a superior tipple to those who could afford it – in 1202 there were said to be five vintners in the town, one of many indicators of Stamford’s prosperity by this date. It was a prosperity which helped to draw people in. Low levels of hygiene, and correspondingly high death-rates, meant that all medieval towns found it hard to maintain their populations without constant immigration. Goods and people probably came to Stamford from much the same places. Many townspeople, on the evidence of their names, originated in nearby places, in towns and villages in Lincolnshire, Rutland and Northamptonshire. A number came from Barnack, for instance, little more than three miles away, which manifestly also provided a good deal of the stone with which Stamford was built. But there were also men and women named from parts of England further away, from East Anglia, and from Coventry, Nottingham and places in Derbyshire,. In addition there is record of men and women named Fleming and Franceys; they could have been Flemings or French themselves, or they may have been so called because they had spent time across the Channel, which would explain the otherwise unexpected Reginald le Bretun, the son of Simon of Ketton – named from a village only three miles from Stamford, his father could hardly have been more local, so perhaps Reginald was so called because he had traded to Nantes or Rennes. The town’s trading centre was naturally its market-place, immediately below the castle. Stamford had the right to a weekly market, at first held every Sunday but later moved to Monday, and also a yearly fair, which began in the middle of Lent and eventually extended until Easter. We may assume that the market was primarily attended by local people, coming in from the towns and villages within a few hours’ ride or walk from Stamford to buy and sell there, but the fair was an altogether grander affair, one of the most important in England. The earliest in the year among the major English fairs, it drew in merchants from London – early in 1201 the mayor of London explained how he had been unable to arrest a city goldsmith because he had just left for Stamford fair – and also from abroad. Among the many misdeeds laid to the charge of Gerald de Camville in 1194, after his dismissal as sheriff of Lincolnshire, was that he had been harbouring brigands who stole the goods of merchants going to Stamford fair and received them, and their plunder, afterwards. Since the sheriff’s base was Lincoln Castle, well to the north of Stamford, it looks as if these unfortunates had been on their way inland from the coast when they were attacked. Later references leave no doubt about such commercial links. Early in 1227, for instance, at a time of Anglo-French tension, order was given for the seizure of all the goods of French merchants who had not received formal permission to attend the fair. Some traders, it would seem, observed the bureaucratic niceties, but plenty of others just turned up on spec’, as it were. What did foreign merchants go to Stamford fair for? Partly, no doubt, simply to buy and sell, to exchange their own wares for those available at an accessible and well-attended venue. But medieval Stamford also had distinctive products of its own. The earliest, chronologically, was pottery. Well before the Norman Conquest potters in the town had combined the exploitation of local clays with techniques which were borrowed from Flanders or Northern France (possibly a pointer to commercial links even at this early date) to make Stamford a centre for the production of fine ceramics, notable particularly for their glaze (visible on this locally-found jug, though its colour is a rather untypical green, yellow having been more often favoured). Although allowances have to be made for the accidents of survival, and indeed discovery, the fact that fragments of Stamford ware have been found not only all over Lincolnshire and the east midlands but also in many places in East Anglia, at points west like Hereford, Worcester and Chester, at York, at Aberdeen and Perth, and even in Scandinavia, suggests strongly that its pottery made a significant contribution to the town’s prosperity. By the late twelfth century, however, the fires were going out in the kilns, partly because other places had developed pottery industries of their own, but still more because Stamford had become a centre for another and even more important industry, that of making cloth. The wool of Lincolnshire was of excellent quality, and in itself constituted a major attraction to foreign merchants. The fullers, weavers and dyers of Stamford also learnt to make the most of it, to such effect that `Stamford’ became a brand-name. In the years around 1200 cloths called `Stamfords’ were being bought and sold in the Low Countries, France, Germany and Italy, some of them the genuine article and others imitations, a tribute of sorts to the quality of the originals – Arras in northern France became a notable centre for the production of imitation `Stamfords’. The name probably covered several different sorts of cloth, but the best-known product of the townspeople’s looms, and one which came to be particularly associated with Stamford, was one called haberget – a mid-13th-century list of English towns, associating each one with a particular activity or product, gives `Haberget of Stamford’, before going on to things like Eels of Cambridge, Herring of Yarmouth and Soap of Coventry. Mentioned by name in Magna Carta, as one of three sorts of cloth whose size was regulated by clause 35, haberget ( hauberge in French) almost certainly took its name from its pattern, which was made to resemble the interlocking links of a chain-mail shirt, or `hauberk’. It was a kind of diamond twill, in fact, and clearly a high-quality product, in demand at the topmost social levels – in 1211 haberget was bought for King John himself, while four years earlier he had ordered twelve ells (between 15 and 16 yards) of it for his wife, Queen Isabella, commanding that it should have been dyed in grain, i.e. scarlet. Medieval people liked bright colours, something we are apt to forget when we enter churches and castles and see only their bare stone walls. Grain-dyed cloth may have been a Stamford speciality, judging by an anecdote found in a French chronicler, telling how an army campaigning in northern France in 1214 came to a little village now called Steenvorde but then `Estanfort’. It was in enemy territory, and the French set fire to it, prompting one of their leaders to quip, as the red flames lit up the sky, that they wouldn’t ever have seen a Stamford better dyed in grain than that – at which, said the chronicler, there was much laughter, though he thought the joke tasteless himself. Green was another possibility – in May 1226 Henry III ordered no less than 150 ells, over 550 yards, of `the best green’ of Stamford, perhaps intending to put his court into it at Whitsun. Such an order brings out the scale on which cloth was made in Stamford, as well as the high reputation of the finished product; the three Italian merchants licensed in 1208 to buy haberget worth nearly £550 and take it abroad must have placed a similar bulk order. John Speed’s map of Stamford was made long after the period I am talking about, but the lay-out of the town in 1600 probably did not differ much from that of 1200, and there was certainly one important similarity. Written records make it clear that the medieval town was full of open spaces, which were in fact an essential component of life in it, they were needed for stabling, or vegetable gardens, or latrines, or workshops. This is an age before factories - if you owned a loom, or a vat for dying, you probably kept it in a shed, or a yard in the case of a vat, at the back of the house. Property deeds are full of information about houses. One of the privileges associated with burgage tenure was the freedom to dispose of landed property, during an owner’s lifetime or in a testament made before death. It was a privilege extended to women as well as men, helping to explain why wives and widows are so often named in title-deeds; marriage to an heiress, or to a wealthy widow, was a way for men to rise in the world, but the women who made such marriages did not thereafter lose their rights, or their interest, in the lands and houses transmitted with them, and it is striking how often a man buying or selling a house or plot of land found it necessary to record that he was acting with the consent of his wife. Many of the dwellings disposed of will have been made of wood, but helped by the easy availability of good building stone, in the quarries at Barnack and also in and around Stamford itself, by the beginning of the thirteenth century stone houses were starting to be built there. Remains of some of them can still be seen today. Probably the most striking is 13 St Mary’s Hill, which appears to have been laid out on three floors, all stone-built, with an undercroft (seen here) supporting a shop at street level and living quarters above. We can imagine the customer entering from the street to tell the shop-owner what he needs, and then either being taken down into the undercroft to inspect the stock and make his choice from it, or perhaps being asked to take a seat while a servant or apprentice is sent down to bring goods up for him to look at. In the evening, the lower floors are locked up and the family – a word which in medieval parlance means the whole establishment, servants as well as parents and children – retires upstairs to sleep. A passing reference in an early-13th century deed to Ivo the watchman suggests that there was some sort of external security to supplement bolts and bars. The owner of a house like 13 St Mary’s Hill was certainly a wealthy man. Property by itself was no guarantee of prosperity, however, and there were numerous occasions on which men and women sold it in order to pay their debts, to finance an important undertaking (notably a pilgrimage or crusade), or simply out of want. One Richard Hallof, who in the early 13th century sold all his property, shops and houses to Walkelin the butcher for eight marks (no trivial sum), because he was `impelled by great poverty’, is typical of such reluctant vendors, though he may have fallen further than most. There were poor people in medieval Stamford, and some of them were reduced to dishonest shifts to make a living, judging by their appearances in judicial records. It is there that in 1203, for instance, we meet people with such names as Robert the blind, Hudde the forger and Emma Brunfustian (her name perhaps a reference to the cheap clothes which were doubtless all she could afford to wear), all accused of stealing goods among which clothes, some of them made of the expensive haberget, featured prominently. The morality which shaped the lives of people like Hudde the forger was probably little more than fear of punishment, whether administered in a court run from the castle or before royal justices. For the more-or-less law-abiding, as for most medieval people, it will have taken its conventional forms under the influence of the Christian religion, as proclaimed in the town’s many churches. Ecclesiastically, Stamford was well provided-for, with its fourteen parish churches and six ancillary chapels, not to mention the religious houses in and near the town, and the many such monasteries which owned property within it. Some of these last were far away, Durham Cathedral priory, for instance, whose daughter-house of St Leonard’s, just outside the eastern end of the town, has left us, in what remains of its church, a noble example of late Romanesque architecture which also demonstrates the high quality of the mason’s craft available to the people of Stamford in the late 12th century. But others were much closer, above all the great Benedictine abbey of Peterborough, which was not only a major urban landowner, lord of Stamford Baron south of the Welland, which constituted one of the six wards into which the town was divided, and proprietor of fourteen messuages on the other side of the river, and also the controller of another religious house, the nunnery of St Michael’s, also south of the river. The fortunes of the nunnery are worth a moment’s attention, since this is one of the few points at which it is possible to get even a glimpse, however imperfectly, of the women of the medieval town. To become a nun was rather like getting married, except that the bridegroom was Christ, and a dowry still had to be found, to help support the community in which a girl was placed. So it was that in around 1200 one Waleran son of Ralph of Helpston (a village a few miles east of Stamford), supported by his wife Helen, gave land to the nuns in the town fields `on the day on which he assigned his daughter Maxiena to God and to religion’. But the fact that she had taken vows devoting herself to a life of poverty, chastity and obedience did not necessarily lead to a nun’s severing all relations with her former life, or with her family. St Michael’s was not a rich house, and life there was probably rather spartan, which helps explain a number of grants which were specifically aimed at making it more comfortable – they might be, in modern parlance, hypothecated to the refectory or to the infirmary, for the nuns’ veils or even to buy them bedclothes. One of these benefactors was another woman, Lucy du Hommet, the wife of the lord of the town, who when a man called Salvagius gave his daughter to the nunnery, herself gave rents totalling 6 s. 8 d. to the sisters, partly to finance prayers for her own and her family’s souls, and partly to fund a pittance, an extra allowance of food, on the anniversary of her death, whenever that should occur. Lucy was an important lady – she may even have been the owner of the fine gold ring, datable to the years around 1200, which was discovered on the site of the castle – but she was not too grand to take a kindly interest in the nuns on the other side of the river. Stamford’s male ecclesiastics were not necessarily much better off than the nuns of St Michael’s. Most of the parish churches were controlled by – the technical term is appropriated to – religious houses, which took most of the revenues and used the rest to pay a vicar to conduct services (no fewer than five of them were appropriated to St Michael’s). In the 13th century bishops tried to enforce a minimum wage for vicars of around £3. 6 s. 8 d. per annum (quite a decent rate when the average ploughman probably earned about 35 s. per annum), but often could not achieve this. The yearly revenues of All Saints in the Market, for instance, amounted to roughly £3. 10 s. , but £1. 6 s. 8 d. of that went in a yearly pension to the Norman abbey of St Fromond, leaving only £2. 3 s. 4 d. for the vicar. Some ecclesiastics doubtless did better than others, but it seems unlikely that it was only the nuns of Stamford who were sometimes strapped for cash. Some of the church buildings surviving from early 13th-century Stamford are undeniably impressive. The splendid west tower of St Mary’s at the Bridge, dating from around 1230, is the outstanding example, but it should be noted that this probably represents more than an offering to the glory of God. No doubt it was that, but it surely also gave visual expression to the civic pride of the leading townsmen who made up the gild of St Mary, and who drew up ordinances for it in 1212, giving as its principal function the celebration of mass every day at 6 a.m., that is, at the beginning of the working day, which was thus initiated by an act of worship. It was characteristic of the age that urban solidarity should take a religious shape, and that the charitable impulses of a woman like Lucy du Hommet should take the form of a donation to poor nuns. It was likewise religious feeling, we may assume, that led to the foundation of a hospital dedicated to St John and St Thomas on the bridge over the Welland for the benefit of passing pilgrims and paupers – the St Thomas in question was Becket, not the apostle, and the hospital was founded within a decade of his violent death. And the transfer of the town’s weekly market from Sunday to Monday, recorded in 1202, can certainly be attributed to the impact of a famous preacher, the Cistercian abbot Eustace of Flaye, who only a year earlier had toured eastern and northern England calling for precisely this form of Sabbath observance. But our own age, sadly, needs no reminding that the energies unleashed by religion are not always benevolent, and this was so in medieval Stamford as well. It is a sign of the town’s prosperity that by the late 12th century it was maintaining a well-to-do Jewish community. Barred by law from commerce, its members lived principally by money-lending, an activity which was very necessary in an under-capitalised society but which can have done little to endear them to their Christian neighbours, who in any case looked on them with eyes made unfriendly by religious antagonism. English Jews stood in a particular relationship to the king, who gave them protection but retained the right to exploit their resources. The protection, though necessary, was not always very effective. Crusades were dangerous occasions for Jews, since the enmities felt for one group of spiritual antagonists, Muslims living a long way away, were easily redirected towards other non-Christian men and women who were much closer to home. In 1190 the proclamation of Richard I’s crusade triggered off a series of riots and massacres, one of them in Stamford. According to the chronicler William of Newburgh it was predominantly the work of young men who had gathered at the fair, to buy what they needed before they left for the east. Indignant, in William’s words, that `the enemies of the cross of Christ living there should possess so much’ (words suggestive of the resources the town’s Jewish community had come to enjoy), when they were themselves being put to great expense in the cause of their religion, they proceeded to set upon the Jews, pillaging their houses and killing those they could lay hands on. Many were said to have perished, and the slaughter would have been greater had not the castle given shelter to those able to escape to it. The Jewish community eventually recovered, but the process was a slow one, and it is probably not coincidence that the next time Jews were recorded it was at a humble economic level. In 1203 an unnamed Jew was said to have been a receiver of stolen goods – perhaps he was a pawnbroker. Several more years passed before Stamford Jews had the resources to act as money-lenders again. The 1190 anti-Jewish riots at Stamford may have been the most violent episode in the entire history of the town. It was an age in which violence was commonplace, of course, encouraged by the primacy given to military accomplishment, something given visual form, for instance, on the seal of the lord of Stamford, William de Warenne, representing him as a mounted knight engaged in combat. We may assume that he wasn’t often seen like this in the town itself, where, indeed, his presence in the castle, along with his retinue, was probably welcomed, whenever he moved in, for the business and employment it could create. Other barons had property in or near Stamford, and no doubt sold the produce of their estates and did their shopping there, men like William d’Aubigné of Belvoir, the lord of Newstead just north of the town, where he founded a hospital, or David, earl of Huntingdon, the king of Scots’ brother, recorded in an inquest conducted in 1212 as owning a house in Stamford. The earl’s principal residence at Fotheringhay, a few miles to the south, was close enough to the town to enable him, or members of his household, to ride there and back in a day whenever either business or pleasure invited them to do so, and it is noteworthy that the lay lords in the inquest are all recorded as having leased out their holdings. Even so, it is likely enough that such great men as these retained the right to occupy their town houses should they wish, and that their visits benefited the town’s economy when they made them. As it happens, the only magnate whose presence in Stamford can be assessed in this sort of way is the greatest of them all, the king himself. One cannot truly say that John knew the town well, but he passed through it several times, on the last occasion shortly before his death. It is his comings and goings in the weeks on either side of January 1213 which give some idea of the effect a great lord’s presence could have. John travelled with a whole cortège of carts, each one probably drawn by four horses, which in their turn all required hay and oats for their feed and the attentions of a smith when they needed re-shoeing. Each department of the royal household had its own carts – there were two each for the dispensery, otherwise known as the pantry, carrying bread, and for the buttery, transporting drink, and also a cart for the king’s own armour and weapons. In addition there were the riding horses, no fewer than twenty-seven of them, with attendant grooms to look after them. Nor was that all, for along with all these horses and carts there went the dogs, specifically foxhounds, and hawks, with which John, an enthusiastic huntsman, amused himself as he travelled. No doubt the court stocked up with food and drink in places like Stamford as it moved around, and it also made more incidental purchases – his accounts show John giving a horse, bought at Stamford for 20 s. , to a groom of the earl of Chester who had brought him a hawk, and it was probably there, too, that the lampreys which the king sent from Stamford to the earl of Salisbury were bought. Among those attracted to the scene when the king passed by were crowds of poor people, hoping for a hand-out. The king’s almoner, Brother Thomas, was in attendance, and was given two marks for distribution on 7 January 1213 – two marks were 26 s. 8 d. , so if each pauper got a penny, which seems to have been the usual rate, then at least 320 men and women would have benefited from the royal alms-giving. They probably weren’t all townspeople, and the way a royal visit could attract down-and-outs may have been one of its less welcome spin-offs. But on the whole anything which attracted crowds and brought people with money to spend into the town must have been viewed with satisfaction in Stamford. This was true of the fair, of course, and also of tournaments. The early 13th-century tournament was not like the ceremonious jousting in lists of the later middle ages, but a rehearsal for battle often barely distinguishable from it, a violent free-for-all involving hundreds of armed men extending over many acres. Henry II had forbidden them because of the disorder they provoked, but Richard I had lifted his father’s ban, to enable Englishmen to train for war, albeit only in carefully specified conditions, and places. One of those places was Stamford – or to be precise, the eight miles between the town and Wansford to the south of it (a detail which gives you some idea of the wide area over which a tournament could extend). Tournaments drew in large crowds of spectators, and also victuallers, horse-traders, armourers, anyone who could see a way to exploit the needs of the participants and onlookers. Commercially they were much like fairs, and indeed, fair and tournament became pretty well synonymous. It was probably because it was a venue for tournaments as well as fairs that Stamford seems to have become a well-known place to buy horses – in 1206 and again in 1215 King John himself ordered his agents to buy him horses there. No chronicler suggests this, but it is very possible that when the rebellious barons prepared to meet at Stamford in the latter year, they gave out that they were going to hold a tournament there. Which brings us back to Magna Carta. I should like to conclude by suggesting some of the ways in which the Charter – here seen in Lincoln Cathedral’s copy of the 1215 issue - could have affected a town like Stamford. The baronial rebellion was directed by King John’s leading subjects against a style of government which they had come to find increasingly autocratic, brutal and extortionate. It is often said that in taking up arms they were speaking and acting for nobody but themselves. This is probably true as far as it goes, but it needs to be qualified by a reminder that in the thirteenth century, and long afterwards, political activity in England was essentially what may be called a one-class affair, in which the upper echelons of society – the men (and they pretty well all were men) – who under the king effectively owned the country represented and acted on behalf of all the rest. The idea that all men (not even all women) were entitled to a role in the government of the realm only began to be advanced in the 17th century, and to be implemented in the 19th. In the 13th century it was inconceivable. But although the barons in 1215 may have thought primarily in terms of their own interests, they were not therefore always unresponsive to those of others, and what they demanded, and obtained, had repercussions extending well beyond what were probably their essential purposes. Thus many barons became indebted to Jews, and the regulations in clauses 10 and 11 to regulate the treatment of their debts after their deaths, so that the interests of wives and children were protected, were doubtless principally drawn up on their own behalf, but they clearly also had the potential to benefit any member of a community which, like Stamford, contained a Jewish component and borrowed money from its members. The support of London was vital to the barons, and clause 13, which guaranteed the capital’s liberties, reflected this fact, but its extension to all other towns naturally benefited places like Stamford as well, as did clause 20, which in laying down that monetary fines should be in proportion to the offence, specified that fines imposed upon merchants were not to be such as to deprive them of the wares from which they made their living. Many of the clauses in the Charter deal with matters on the face of it far removed from the fundamental liberties with which it is usually associated. What on earth, we wonder, was at issue in clause 23, forbidding the commandeering of labour to build bridges? The answer is both simple and revealing. I mentioned King John’s fondness for hunting, and his travelling round with dogs and hawks. Hawking was a sport engaged in pre-eminently by river-sides, and those taking part in it often needed to cross from one bank to the other as they followed their birds. The king traditionally had the right to have makeshift bridges made to enable him to enjoy his sport in certain limited places. John extended this right to cover the whole country. The hearts of Stamfordians probably sank when he turned up with his hawks, knowing that he might well decide to ride out along the Welland for some sport and force men to leave their ploughs and lay down bridges for his benefit. The barons were doubtless thinking of their own fields and workforces, but Clause 23 protected many others as well. Clause 33, prohibiting fishtraps, gave primacy to the Thames and was clearly another concession to London. The traps in question were substantial timber structures which hindered the movement of goods by water and constituted a threat to shipping. It mattered to a place like Stamford, which could be reached by boat as well as by road, that the Welland should be kept clear of such hazards. Clause 35, ordering the standardisation of weights and measures throughout the kingdom, was likely to benefit any trading community, and must also have flattered Stamford hearts by making specific mention of haberget as one of the cloths whose size it prescribed. Clause 41, licensing free movement for merchants except in wartime, will have been welcomed in a town whose fair was attaining an international dimension. Clauses 47 and 48, dealing with the royal forests and the malpractices of the officials who administered them, probably also had repercussions for the inhabitants of a town with many forests nearby – in 1234 the office of royal forester in the midlands was said to constitute a bailiwick extending `from the bridge of Stamford to the bridge of Oxford’. None of these clauses was drawn up with the interests of Stamford in mind, but all had the potential to benefit the town. The campaign launched here in 1215 had effects undreamt of by its participants. But we all have to start somewhere, and I hope it is a source of satisfaction to you to reflect that the place where all this started was Stamford. Print version available HERE Previous Next

< Back Carmen Nuptiale On the Marriage of Lord and Lady Burghley, September 7th 1875 Submitted By Chris Hunt Our Church bells loud are ringing, Our Streets with garlands gay, For Burghley’s Heir to Burghley His Bride’s brings home to-day; One more bright link is added To that ancestral chain, Which binds the heart of Stamford To Cecil’s old domain. Chorus. Then let this prayer of welcome Resound on every side: “God bless the Heir of Burghley,” “And bless his youthful Bride.” The Whichcote’s witching glances Have charmed her Soldier’s heart, And Mars, as erst, to Venus, Hath played the Captive’s part; But now, in turn, the Captives His Captor holds in thrall, And thrones her as his consort In Burghley’s lordly Hall. Chorus. May Heaven send brightest sunshine To gild their onward way, And smile upon their future, As it has smiled today; Should clouds o’ercast that sunshine With shadows from above, May they sustain each sorrow Strong in each other’s love. Chorus. In Bride and noble Bridegroom, May all delight to trace His Father’s kindly virtues, His Mother’s winning grace; So shall the House of Burghley Support its ancient fame, And pass to future ages Its old and honour’d name. Chorus. Then let the prayer of welcome Re-echo far and wide, “God bless the Heir of Burghley.” “And bless his youthful Bride.” A.R.W. (author unknown) Source An Undated Newspaper Cutting inserted in a book owned by Justin Simpson. A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next