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Sussex in the Late Middle Ages includes the history of Sussex from the accession of Henry III – considered by many to mark the start of the Plantagenet dynasty – until the accession to the throne of the Tudor dynasty in 1485.

Political history

Plantagenets (1216-1399)

Henry III (1216-1272)

Prince Louis of France invaded in 1216. Winchelsea and Rye held briefly. The garrison at Hastings sided with Louis. As a result Henry slighted Hastings later in 1216 when en route from Winchelsea to Winchester.

1264 - King's cook, Thomas killed on 2 May while walking ahead of Henry's archers. At Flimwell, Henry III killed 315 archers that surrendered by beheading. Henry III proceeded to Battle Abbey where abbott presented 100 marks to Henry and 60 marks to his son Edward. Then proceeded to Winchelsea where Henry allowed his men to loot while he drank wine. The men of the Cinque Ports pledged their allegiance to Henry. After de Montfort left London, Henry proceeded to Lewes via Hurst Green. Henry to Lewes Priory and Edward to Lewes Castle. The Bishop of Chichester led a group to bring an offer of terms to the king, which was rejected by Henry. On 14 May the Battle of Lewes took place. De Montfort captured Henry III.

Siege of Pevensey Castle began in 1264, lifted in July 1265.

Edward I (1272-1307)

Jews expelled from Winchelsea in 1273. All Sussex's Jews would have been expelled by 1290.

Conflict in 1297 between portsmen and the mariners of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk resulting in the killing of 165 men. Yarmouth mariners had complained of being attacked by pirates from the Cinque Ports. The mariners from the Cinque Ports were often in conflict with mariners from other parts of Western Europe including those of the English West Country, France, Flanders, Bayonne in Gascony, and Castile.

Edward II (1307–27)

One week after the death of Edward I, Jean de Vienne lands forces at Rye took hold of the town for several days before burning the town and taking away some of its walthiest citizens and a large haul of booty. Repeated at the nearby towns of Winchelsea and Hastings.

Famine of 1315-1317 brings a relatively large increase in mortality in Sussex and across much of northern Europe.

Edward III (1327–77)

Hundred Years' War between the English House of Plantagenet with French House of Valois began in 1337 over the right to rule the Kingdom of France. Hastings burnt down by Franco-Genoese force loyal to the House of Valois in 1339. Seaford burnt down in 1350 and several more times by 1550. Battle of Winchelsea took place in 1350 as Edward I's forces defeat Castilian mercenaries off the coast of Winchelsea. Castles built at Amberley Castle and Bodiam Castle to defend upper reaches of two of Sussex's rivers.

Black death from 1348 kills perhaps half the population of Sussex.

Richard II (1377–99)

Due to the hostile politics of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, the new king, Henry II of Castile joined the French side during the Hundred Years' War and declared war on England. As a result, Fernando Sánchez de Tovar led the Castilian fleet along with the French Jean de Vienne in raids along England's south coast. In 1377 De Vienne and De Tovar's forces raided Rottingdean, probably intending to pillage Lewes Priory. Rottingdean's church tower was set on fire and over 100 people died in the blaze. De Vienne and De Tovar's forces also sacked Rye later that year. John of Gaunt refused to garrison the Pevensey Castle against French and Castilian attacks, claiming that if the castle were to be destroyed he had enough money to rebuild it.

People from Sussex were heavily involved in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 in which people from marched to London and rioted. During the riots a mob attacked John of Gaunt's castle at Pevensey and the court records held there were burnt and destroyed. Lewes Castle was also sacked. The Earl of Arundel had previously left Lewes Castle undefended, perhaps because of the absenteeism of the castle's seigneurs, the Fitzalans, who had replaced John de Warenne who had died in 1347. In 1399 Pevensey Castle was under siege by local levies from nearby counties.

House of Lancaster (1399-1461)

Reign of Henry IV (1399-1413)

1406 James I of Scotland imprisoned in Pevensey Castle. Henry IV provided for his education there.

Henry V (1413–21)

1419 Henry V imprisons Joan of Navarre, dowager Queen of England, in Pevsensey Castle for next three years as he accuses her of planning to destroy him by sorcery.

Henry VI (1421–71)

On 9 January 1450 bishop of Chichester, Adam Moleyns was murdered by mutinous soldiers at Portsmouth, Hampshire. At least one Sussex rebel, Simon Sture, was described as a soldier. Sture was also found guilty of attacking and stealing from various clerics, including the vicar of Westfield.

Most seriously, in May 1450 Jack Cade raised a rebellion in an attempt to force the king to address economic problems or abdicate his throne. Cade's rebellion was supported not just by the peasant class but the abbot of Battle, the prior of Lewes and many gentlemen, craftspeople and artisans also supported Cade against the corrupt government of Henry VI. Cade was fatally wounded later that year in a skirmish, traditionally at Cade Street, near Heathfield.

The uprising was suppressed, but the situation remained unsettled, with more radical demands coming from John and William Merfold. In July 1450 the Merfold brothers declared in a public market that the king was a natural fool and should be deposed. More radical and more egalitarian than Cade's rebellion, the Merfold brothers showed political awareness and unlike in Cade's rebellion they did not trust the king. The consipirators identified poor governance as the overriding reason for the multitude of problems experienced locally such as judicial corruption, raids from France, attacks from ill-disciplined armies on their way to and from the Sussex ports, increased taxation and the collapse of the wool trade. Initially the conspirators called for a new king, then for twelve of their own men to rule England.

In August William Howell of Sutton, Richard Seynt of Pulborough and others assembled arms in Chichester and encouraged the men of Sussex to to appear before them "on pain of death" and to join him in rebellion on 27 August, after St Bartholomew's Day. In September 40 men 'armed for war' went to Eastbourne and agreed they would ride throughout Sussex to encourage the people to rise up. Throughout the autumn men armed with clubs, bows and arrows congregated across the county, including at Hastings, near Horsham and at Robertsbridge. At Easter 1451 then men gathered at Rotherfield, Mayfield and Burwash demanding to depose the king, kill all lords attending the second chamber of the English parliament (Temporal and Spiritual) and appoint 12 of their own men to rule. Four Sussex men were hanged, and the resistance was broken.

Hundred Years' War ended in 1453.

Religion

See also History of Christianity in Sussex and Religion in Sussex

Pilgrimage

Sussex was crossed by three major pilgramage routes. The shrine of St Richard of Chichester at Chichester Cathedral was a significant shrine in its own right. It was also an important point on the route from the major port of Southampton to Thomas Becket's shrine at Canterbury Cathedral. The Sussex coast was also the departure point on the Camino de Santiago to the shrine of St James in Santiago de Compostela. Pilgrims would sail from Sussex to Dieppe and take the route des anglais via Rouen to Chartres and Tours, where they would continue on the French Way to Santiago.

Anchorites

In the 12th and 13th centuries Sussex had high numbers of anchorites which reduced into the 14th century.

Geography

See also Geography of Sussex

By 1290 Sussex's population is estimated to have been at about 123,000, about double the estimated 66,000 it had been at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086.

Governance

See also History of local government in Sussex

Culture

See also Culture of Sussex

Food and drink

Ale was known to have been brewed by monks at Lewes Priory as the water was too contaminated to drink. The Normans introduced cider to Sussex in the 11th century. Nevertheless in the late 14th and early 15th centuries it is recorded that even in regions with a cider drinking history such as Sussex, ale was a more popular drink than cider.

Various public houses or inns were established in the late medeieval period, some of which remain in use today. e.g. Rose & Crown, Fletching and The Mermaid Inn, Rye (established 12th century), The Olde Bell, Rye and The Seven Stars Inn, Robertsbridge (14th century).

Parts of the Rose & Crown public house at Fletching date from around 1150

From the late 14th century hopped beer was being imported into Winchelsea. The first recorded hopped beer in Sussex and one of the first in England arrived at Winchelsea from the Low Countries in 1400. At this time ale produced in the countryside was typically weak and flat and quickly deteriorated. Adding hops instead of spices produced a drink that would last longer and which was favoured by some drinkers. It is recorded that in 1426-27 beer was being bought for Sir Thomas Etchingham and workers that he employed. Hops were being imported into Sussex and since no manufactured beer was being imported, beer must have been manufactured locally in Sussex, usually by foreign residents. In 1460 hopped beer was being bought in Rye. By the 1490s records from the leet and rape courts show hopped beer was being sold at Brede (at the time near the coast), Alfriston (on the South Downs) and at Laughton and Waldron in the Weald. By 1500 "beer was being sold almost everywhere" in the county. This was due to Sussex's ties with the Low Countries; in many English villages outside Sussex no hopped beer was sold well into the 16th century and later. Henry Stanton was accused in Crawley in 1602 of stealing nutmeg and cinnamon, the spices are likely to have been to flavour hopped beer rather than unhopped ale.

It is likely vineyards in England produced significant amounts of wine in the 12th and early 13th centuries. However this came to an end in the 13th and 14th centuries as the Medieval Warm Period began to end, the Black Death reduced the workforce and wine was increasingly imported from Gascony. By 1275 the vineyard at Battle Abbey had ceased grape production.

Language

• use of Anglo-Norman language by ruling class; Norman French was almost exclusively used as a spoken language
• use of Latin as the language of all official written documents
• use of Old English which evolved into Middle English by common people.

At the start of the High Middle Ages Sussex had its own dialect of Old English which was in effect part of a continuum of southern English dialect from Kent in the east to Wessex in the west. As the influence of the Norman language increased, the Anglo-Norman language developed and the Sussex dialect of Old English evolved into a dialect of Middle English.

Sport

A mural at Cocking church (c1350) showing shepherds playing a bat and ball game is sometimes held to show that cricket existed earlier than the 16th and 17th centuries, but no stumps are shown in the mural and although the mural may show a sport it is not recognisably cricket.

There is a long tradition of football matches taking place in Sussex although the game was different from the modern codes of association football and rugby football. Two references to medieval football matches come from Sussex in 1403 and 1404 at Selmeston and Chidham that took place as part of baptisms. On each occasion one of the players broke his leg.

See also

• History of Sussex
• Kingdom of Sussex
• History of Christianity in Sussex
• History of local government in Sussex
• Sussex in the High Middle Ages

Bibliography

• Armstrong, Jack Roy (1974). A History of Sussex. Phillimore & Co Ltd. ISBN 9780850331851.
• Bennett, Judith M. (1996). Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World, 1300-1600. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195126501.
• Brandon, Peter (2006). Sussex. Robert Hale. ISBN 9780709069980.
• Crouch, David (2000). The reign of King Stephen, 1135-1154. Longman. ISBN 9780582226586.
• Hamilton, J.S. (2010). The Plantagenets: History of a Dynasty. A&C Black. ISBN 9781441157126.
• Hornsey, Ian S (2007). A History of Beer and Brewing. Royal Society of Chemistry. ISBN 9781847550026.
• Keevill, Graham; Hall, Teresa (2017). Monastic Archaeology: Papers on the Study of Medieval Monasteries. Oxbow Books. ISBN 9781785705670.
• Marples, Morris (1954). A History of Football. Secker and Warburg.
• Mate, Mavis (1992). "The economic and social roots of medieval popular rebellion: Sussex in 1450-1451". Economic History Review. 45 (4): 661–676. doi:10.2307/2597413. JSTOR 2597413.
• Mate, Mavis E. (1998). Daughters, Wives, and Widows After the Black Death: Women in Sussex, 1350-1535. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. ISBN 978-0851155340.
• Mate, Mavis (2006). Trade and Economic Developments 1450–1550: The Experience of Kent, Surrey and Sussex. Boydell Press. ISBN 1-84383-189-9.
• Weir, Alison (1995). Lancaster & York – The Wars of the Roses. Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-6674-5.
• Wynne-Thomas, Peter (1997). The History of Cricket: From the Weald to the World. Stationery Office. ISBN 9780117020481.

References

Category:History of Sussex