7. Becoming the King's Town

On the 31st January 1293 King Edward I bought the town of Wyke upon Hull from Meaux Abbey.  He had been shopping around for a new port in the north of the country and Hull seemed a good buy.  The monks were quite eager to sell as despite their success in exporting wool, they had not managed their profits well and the monastery was in debt.  Edward proudly proclaimed that he was the town’s new owner by changing its name to Kingston upon Hull.

The town the king bought was still admittedly rather on the small side, centred around just a few streets on the west bank of the river Hull.  It was home to about 60 households, so possibly just 300 permanent inhabitants.  Alongside them though were inns full of visiting merchants from Beverley, York and further afield.  Hull also had great potential.  Its location was perfect: easily accessible from the coast, yet sheltered from the full force of the sea, and offering access to inland towns via nearby rivers.

In 1299 the citizens of Hull, the burgesses, were granted a Royal Charter by King Edward I.  The warden running the town gained new powers including being able to catch and try thieves, who could now be held in the town’s own prison and punished using the town’s gallows.  The charter gave Hull permission to run a market twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays.  For the payment of a small fee, people could bring crops to sell whether they were a steward of a large estate or a peasant with small surplus.  Across England the number of markets doubled during the 13th century, allowing greater numbers of people to acquire food that they had not grown themselves.  40% of the grain grown was sold in markets rather then being eaten by those that had produced it.

Hull also held a fair once a year.  After the awarding of the Royal Charter, this ran for 30 days starting on St Augustine’s day, 26th May.  Sellers came from outside the local area and offered a wide range of wares for sale including household goods and livestock. When the feast day for St Augustine was abolished during the Reformation, Hull’s fair moved to the autumn.  Over the years its focus shifted from business to pleasure and it became established in early October. Today at Hull Fair the only ducks on offer are those that can be hooked with a wooden stick.

Picture: Beginning of the Royal Charter granted to Hull in 1299.  From: Boyle, J R (ed.) Charters and Letters Patent Granted to Kingston upon Hull.

6. A Town Built on Wool

A port grew up at the mouth of the River Humber largely down to the exporting of one simple product: wool.  English wool was in great demand on the continent especially in Flanders, now northern Belgium, where it was made into cloth.  To begin with the port was just a simple haven for mooring ships but as the 13th century wore on it grew into a town with warehouses, jetties, and inns offering accommodation and refreshment.  This town become known as Wyke upon Hull and wool was send there from places situated all along nearby rivers including York, Beverley and Lincoln. 

One of the major users of the port was the monastery at Meaux Abbey.  The monks had whole-heartedly embraced the business opportunities offered by the flourishing wool trade.  Their grange at Myton alone had enough pasture to graze 800 sheep and they had 13 granges in total.  Even during a temporary ban on the export of wool in the 1270s, the Abbot of Meaux managed to sneakily send 129 sacks abroad, showing admirable ingenuity if not the honesty you’d hope for in a man of God.  The monks were canny businessmen, using their position as a major producer to pioneer a system to sort and grade their wool and get the best prices from merchants by selling up to ten years in advance.

Even medieval merchants couldn’t escape regulations and red tape. The king controlled how much could be exported each year through a system of licensing and from 1275 custom duties were regularly collected.  To begin with most merchants trading in wool were Italian with a few from Flanders, so early Hull was probably quite a cosmopolitan place.  One trader, working for a company based in Florence, wrote a manual for his colleagues giving details of the company’s regular wool suppliers.  For wool from Meaux Abbey, he recommended paying between 7 and 15 marks a sack depending on quality.

By 1300 the monks of Meaux Abbey had around 11,000 sheep.  England as a whole was home to an awful lot of ewes, rams and lambs.  There were around 10 million of the woolly creatures frisking and gambling around, which was twice the number of people at the time.  Each year England exported around 35,000 sacks of wool, with each sack containing around 200 to 250 fleeces.  Hull exported at least 3000 sacks of wool a year and often twice that amount.  Only the ports of Boston and London exported more and while London was, unsurprisingly, way out in front, Hull was in touching distance of its regional rival Boston.

Photo:  Looking upstream on the west bank of the river Hull at the site of the medieval quays. 

5. Hull's Monastic Founders

The monastery of Meaux Abbey was located in a quiet countryside spot, around eight miles north of the river Humber to the east of Beverley.  Despite this isolated, rural home, the monks of Meaux were the founders of the town of Hull.  The monastery itself had been established in 1150 thanks to the kind generosity of William le Gros, Earl of York and grandson of Ralph de Mortimer. 

A group of monks from Fountains Abbey, near Ripon, were looking to expand and found a new house.  They visited William le Gros and helpfully reminded him that several years previously he had promised to go on crusade to the Holy Land.  Of course it would be marvellous if he still wished to spend a couple of years making the dangerous trip across Europe before battling to defend Jerusalem.  Alternatively both God and the Pope would probably be happy enough if William demonstrated his religious devotion by helping to found a monastery instead.

William saw the benefits of the plan and suggested possible locations for the new monastery on his estate.  The monks though already knew the site they wanted.  It was a piece of land that William had recently acquired to create a deer park.  It offered abundant pasture for grazing, access to woodland, and excellent transport links via nearby rivers.  Plus the slightly marshy ground and risk of flooding served as an ideal reminder that God tests even the most holy.  William, thinking of treasures in heaven rather then hunting pleasures on earth, agreed to gift it to the monks.

The monasteries at both Fountains and Meaux belonged to the Cistercian order.  Cistercian monks aimed to live a life of austerity, simplicity and solitude.  Other monastic orders were based in towns: places of sinful temptations and unscrupulous business.  Cistercians lived surrounded by nature to encourage contemplation and wore distinctive white habits to demonstrate their purity.  Whatever their unworldly aims though, Cistercians still needed food to eat and money to create monastic buildings worthy of their godly purpose. 

The Cistercian’s solution was to create outlying farms, called granges, which were staffed not by monks but by lay members of the community.  By 1182 Meaux had acquired the estate of Myton to establish such a grange.  Granges grew a variety of food but their isolated locations made them ideal places to farm sheep.  These sheep provided milk and meat but most importantly wool.  Cistercian monasteries across England ended up producing huge amounts of wool, much of which was exported to the continent.  By 1210 Meaux Abbey was exporting wool from at port at the mouth of the river Hull.

Picture: Section from map by John Speede, circa 1610, showing the location of Hull and Meaux/Moux