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9 The charters recording this process are calendared in Finberg, H.P.R., Early Charters of the West Midlands (Leicester, 1964), 92, 115, 119, 120, 124, 126, 128–9, 130Google Scholar; later sources showing the fragmentation are Domesday Book, ed. Farley, A. (Record Commission, 1783), fo. 173Google Scholar; and Red Book of Worcester, ed. Hollings, M., 4 parts (Worcs. Hist. Soc, 1934–1950), 3, 292–3; 4, 412, 431, 436, 438.Google Scholar

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11 Registrum Prioratus Beatae Mariae Wigorniensis, ed. Hale, W.H. (Camden Soc, 1865), 64b–69b.Google Scholar

12 By 1275 the town's development must explain the presence of thirty-two taxpayers at Shipston compared with eighteen at Blackwell: Lay Subsidy Roll for the County of Worcester circ. 1280 (recte 1275), ed. Bund, J. W. Willis and Amphlett, J. (Worcs. Hist. Soc, 1893), 74–5Google Scholar; the royal charter is in Liber Pensionum Prioratus Wigorn, ed. Price, C. (Worcs. Hist. Soc, 1925), 41–2.Google Scholar

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14 The plan has been drawn and discussed in Aston, M. and Bond, C.J., The Landscape of Towns (London, 1976), 93Google Scholar; Slater, T.R., ‘The analysis of burgages in medieval towns: three case studies from the west midlands’, West Midlands Archaeology, 23 (1980), 57–9.Google Scholar I am indebted to Dr T.R. Slater for discussion of the town plan. On the contrasts between adjacent village and town plans, see Beresford, M.W., New Towns of the Middle Ages (London, 1967), 106–8.Google Scholar

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16 Holt, R. and Rosser, G., ‘Introduction: the English town in the middle ages’, in Holt, and Rosser, (eds), The Medieval Town, 4.Google Scholar

17 W.C.L., B753; E3; E7–13. The E-series of court rolls are the main source of information in the following analysis.

18 Banbury cheese was a sufficiently famous delicacy to be included among provisions sent to France for the Duke of Bedford's household in 1430: Cal. Close Rolls, 1429–35, 74. I am grateful to Prof. P.D.A. Harvey for this reference.

19 W.C.L., E25: William Spycer took Richard Peremon's hood and placed it for a pledge at a tavern.

20 W.C.L., E29.

21 Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust R.O., Stratford-upon-Avon, DR 98/865.

22 The calculation is based on the assumption that each brew of three quarters of malt produced 180 gallons of ale: Dyer, C., Standards of Living in the later Middle Ages. Social Change in England c. 1200–1520 (Cambridge, 1989), 58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the quantities brewed at Hampton Lucy see Dyer, , Lords and Peasants, 348.Google Scholar

23 On the Feldon: Hilton, R.H., Social Structure of Rural Warwickshire in the Middle Ages (Dugdale Soc. Occasional Paper, no. 9, 1950)Google Scholar; Harley, J.B., The settlement geography of early medieval Warwickshire’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 34 (1964), 115–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dyer, C., Warwickshire Farming 1349-c. 1520 (Dugdale Soc. Occasional Paper, no. 27, 1981)Google Scholar; the calculation is based on the 1327 subsidies: Lay Subsidy Roll, Warwickshire, 1327, ed. Bickley, W.B. (Trans. Midland Record Soc, 6, 1902)Google Scholar; Lay Subsidy Roll for the County of Worcester, 1 Edward III, ed. Eld, F.J. (Worcs. Hist. Soc, 1895)Google Scholar; Gloucestershire Subsidy Roll, 1 Edward III, 1327, ed. Phillipps, T. (Middlehill Press, n.d.)Google Scholar, assuming that about half of the households were exempt.

24 On the patronage of small towns by gentry households, Dyer, C., The consumer and the market in the later middle ages’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 42 (1989), 314–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Worcester Cathedral Priory purchased grain from the Stour Valley, e.g. in 1294–95: Early Compotus Rolls of the Priory of Worcester, ed. Wilson, J.M. and Gordon, C. (Worcs. Hist. Soc, 1908), 31.Google Scholar Tenants of Tredington manor obtained wood and timber from Lapworth in north Warwickshire: Red, Book of Worcester, ed. Hollings, , 3, 292Google Scholar; in 1420 the priory gave timber for Shipston mill from their woods at Himbleton, in north Worcestershire: W.C.L., E48.

26 W.C.L., E49. John Essex, the dyer, became mayor of Coventry in 1440: The Register of the Guild of Holy Trinity, St Mary…of Coventry, ed. Harris, M.D. (Dugdale Soc, 13, 1935), 48.Google Scholar

27 W.C.L., E27.

28 E.g. Liber Pensionum Prioratus Wigorn, ed. Price, , 56.Google Scholar

29 Or perhaps in Staffordshire or Herefordshire.

30 W.C.L., E7. On turbulent immigrants at the small town of Halesowen, Hilton, ‘Smalltown society’, 82–4.

31 For the planned extension (from topographical analysis), Aston, and Bond, , The Landscape of Towns, 93.Google Scholar A deed of 1319 stated that the tithes from the twenty new houses should go to the rector of Tredington, not the sacrist who had the tithe of demesne land on which they were built: W.C.L., B753. The cottages are recorded in W.C.L., Ella.

32 W.C.L., E7: ‘all the shops in a new building’; a messuage with a solar is mentioned in 1375: W.C.L., E27; a house with a crosschamber in 1389: W.C.L., E34; a stallage and solar in 1465: W.C.L., E69; for the fire W.C.L., E73.

33 The calculation is based on information in the cellarer's account for 1336–37, W.C.L., C57.

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35 W.C.L., C787.

36 In 1435 a messuage in the town held by Walter Bayly, who also held agricultural land, was said to be that ‘in which David, servant of Richard Borowolde, now lives’: W.C.L., E54. In 1482 at least eight tenants had sublet holdings: W.C.L., E75.

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39 W.C.L., E1. Soon afterwards Nicholas Robynes married her and became tenant of her holding. On urban morality, Goldberg, P.J., ‘Women in fifteenth-century town life’, in Thomson, (ed.), Towns and Townspeople, 118–21.Google Scholar

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41 W.C.L., E44. Three tenants were distrained at Stratford for tolls ‘where never in the past any paid toll there’.

42 E.g. at Boston, Rigby, S.H., ‘Boston and Grimsby in the middle ages: an administrative contrast’. Journal of Medieval History, 10 (1984), 51–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 In 1314 Richard Baret and Robert le Taylour were granted a row of shops, ‘with all of the lesser amercements of the market of Shipston which come from the piepowder pleas (a placitis pepoudrous)’ for 40s per annum: W.C.L., E7. The ‘market court’ appears in 1427: W.C.L., E52.

44 St Edmund is likely to have been a pre-1200 dedication. In the early nineteenth century, before the rebuilding of the church, it had ‘round arches’, presumably of romanesque type: Society of Antiquaries Library, Prattinton Collection, 32, 30.

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47 W.C.L., E9, E10.

48 On the general ills of the period, Baker, A.R.H., ‘Evidence in the Nonarum Inquisitiones of contracting arable land in England during the early fourteenth century’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 19 (1966), 518–32Google Scholar; at Shipston in 1341 four buildings were reported to be in decay (W.C.L., E1), and in 1342 a general order was made against those who allowed their stalls to deteriorate (W.C.L., E2).

49 W.C.L., E2; ‘It is ordered under penalty of 40d. that none of the lord's tenants should sell avers or any other cattle before they were shown in the market of Shipston’; W.C.L., E14.

50 ‘The custom of New Shipston’ was last used in July 1341 (W.C.L., E1): immediately after this date no phrase of this type appears, but by October 1352 (W.C.L., E17) the ‘custom of the manor’ had been introduced.

51 W.C.L., E27.

52 Nash, , Collections for a History of Worcestershire, 2, 434–6.Google Scholar

53 W.C.L., E28. In January 1375 the township of Shipston was amerced 20s for not attending the court and John Gurdeler, a burgage tenant, was amerced 20s as a ‘rebel’: E26.

54 Britnell, R.H., ‘Feudal reaction after the Black Death in the palatinate of Durham’, Past and Present, 128 (1990), 28–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on principals see Field, R.K., ‘Worcestershire peasant buildings, household goods and farming equipment in the later middle ages’, Medieval Archaeology, 9 (1965), 121–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A typical case of their misappropriation was Walter Stappe's sale of a lead vessel used in brewing in 1387 (W.C.L., E33).

55 W.C.L., E31 (in January 1385).

56 Phythian-Adams, C., ‘Urban decay in late medieval England’, in Abrams, P. and Wrigley, E.A. (eds), Towns in Societies (Cambridge, 1978), 166–7.Google Scholar

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59 P.R.O., JUST 1/1035, m. 1. The Beauchamp affinity in Worcestershire is discussed in Maskew, H., ‘Fifteenth century Worcestershire gentry’ (unpublished M. Phil, thesis, University of Birmingham, 1990).Google Scholar

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61 W.C.L., E38.

62 W.C.L., E38.

63 W.C.L., E38.

64 W.C.L., Reg. AIV, the Liber Albus (henceforth L.A.) fos. ccccxxvii^r–ccccxxviii^v.

65 P.R.O., SC2/210/26.

66 P.R.O., KB27/576 Rex m.x.

67 The claim that the road was narrowed can be checked objectively. The modern Sheep Street, which must correspond to the Campden-Banbury road is 40 feet 6 inches wide at the western end of the market-place, and 44 feet wide at the eastern end. The modern shoprow reduces the width to 19 feet in places. A map of 1793 shows a distinct narrowing at the east end of the shoprow which may well have made the road as little as 14 feet wide: J.A.S. Tolson, A Directory of the Manor of Shipston-on-Stour; 1793 (Shipston-on-Stour and District Local History Society, Occasional Papers, no. 2, 1985). Evidently the obstruction of which the tenants complained resulted from the building of a new stall (see note 84 below).

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71 W.C.L., E38.

72 L.A., fos. ccccxxvii^r–ccccxxviii^v (the rules on toll were for 4d to be paid for multure of malt and 4d for each brew. No brew was to exceed three quarters of malt). On rebel tactics, Hilton, R.H., Bondmen Made Free (London, 1973), 63–95.Google Scholar

73 L.A., fos ccccxxvi^r–ccccxxvii^r: ‘a certain charter of those liberties granted by Richard once prior of Worcester and the convent to certain men, tenants and residents of the vill of Shipston’.

74 W.C.L., E40.

75 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1399–1401, 197; L.A., fo. ccccxxiii^r; W.C.L., C78; Cal. Close Rolls, 1402–5, 310. The priory took the precaution of obtaining an inspeximus of the 1268 charter: Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1399–1401, 384.

76 Cal. Close Rolls, 1402–5. 484–5, 488; L.A., fos. ccccxxvi^r–ccccxxvii^r. The priory paid Wych 40s at Christmas 1407, presumably to make him even more friendly: W.C.L., C79. In 1409 Wych was accused of an attack on the bishop of Worcester's manor and mill of Tredington, of which he had once been farmer: Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1408–13, 177. He returned to Salisbury by 1411: The Register of John Chandler, Dean of Salisbury, 1404–17, ed. Timmins, T.C.B. (Wilts. Rec. Soc. 39, 1983), 34.Google Scholar

77 P.R.O., KB 27/576 Rex m. x.

78 W.C.L., C78.

79 W.C.L., E49: the accident occurred in January 1421.

80 W.C.L., E2; P.R.O., KB27/331, m. liii. A few years later Thomas Jones and others from Shipston and nearby villages were accused of attacks on John de Beauchamp, son of the earl of Warwick: Cal Pat. Rolls, 1345–8, 314–15.Google Scholar

81 W.C.L., E5.

82 W.C.L., E27, E30; in 1396–97 Brailes' tolls were 14s 4d: British Library, Egerton Roll, 8769; the market continued into the early fifteenth century: Birmingham Reference Lib., 168115; W.CL., E51.

83 They are listed in L.A., fos ccccxxiii^r, ccccxxvii^r–ccccxxviii^v.

84 W.C.L., E45. It is just possible that the cottage was the building obstructing the road, of which the tenants complained in 1398 (see note 67 above).

85 P.R.O., JUST 1/1034; V.C.H. Warwicks., 5, 26, 216; W.C.L., C81.

86 W.C.L., E34.

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89 Hist. MSS. Comm., 5th report, part 1, appendix, 303.

90 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1408–13, 378; P.R.O., E164/21, fos. 227–30. Perhaps the recording of rents and services in 1411 stirred up some trouble. We may speculate that Compton, whose rent of 66s 8d made him the largest tenant in Honington, sympathized with the monks both at Coventry and at Worcester.

91 Carpenter, ‘Political society’, 97; Stratford-upon-Avon Corporation Records. The Guild Accounts (n.d.), 7, 15, 16, 19, 22; R. Horrox, ‘Urban gentry in the fifteenth century’, in Thomson (ed.), Towns and Townspeople, 22–44; the wills of Suffolk townsmen sometimes refer to gentry patrons; e.g. Suffolk Record Office (Bury St Edmunds branch), IC500/2/7, fos. 236^r–236^v, a Sudbury weaver in 1459 named an esquire (‘my master’) as his overseer. P. McNiven, Heresy and Politics in the Reign of Henry IV, the Burning of John Badby (Woodbridge, 1987), 191–4.

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