The Lay Subsidy of 1524-5 (2)

Comparisons of Lowestoft with other Suffolk communities

Suffolk’s Top 25 Townships (1524-5 Lay Subsidy) (2)  see also (1)

Order by wealth

• The information contained in both tables in this appendix derives from, J. Sheail, ‘The regional distribution of wealth as indicated in the 1524/5 subsidy returns’, vol. 2, p. 473-98 (unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1968), and S.H.A. Hervey, Suffolk in 1524 (Woodbridge, 1910).
• Ipswich, as an ancient Anglo-Saxon borough, stood outside the hundredal structure of Suffolk, but was located within the geographical area of Carlford.
• Bury (St. Edmunds) was sometimes treated as part of Thingoe Hundred; at other times, it was considered an entity in its own right.
• Not all of the communities listed necessarily fulfilled all of the criteria required to be considered as genuinely urban in nature – particularly where a sufficiently complex occupational structure and self-governing mechanisms were concerned. Some of them may well have been large villages rather than small towns. The writer is not sufficiently well informed to differentiate.
• The hierarchy of communities presented above shows a pronounced loading in favour of townships located in the southern part of Suffolk – particularly in the cloth-making area of the south-west. Babergh Hundred has 30% of the places named.
• The county’s coastal strip generally shows less affluence than inland areas, with Dunwich, Lowestoft, Blythburgh, Southwold and Aldeburgh all being in the lower half of the table. Ipswich and Woodbridge (the latter benefiting from proximity to the former), while not truly coastal, were accessible from the sea and able to take part in maritime trade. Ipswich was, in fact, head-port from Orwell Haven to the Thames Estuary, which effectively gave it control of the whole of the Essex shoreline.
• The disparity in the levels of wealth between coastal communities and certain inland ones does not necessarily show that the former were in a state of decline so much as reflect the buoyancy of the Suffolk cloth-making industry at the time.
• The four cases of missing data (Southwold, Stowmarket, Aldeburgh and Mildenhall) have had identical sums to the one recorded added on, in order to produce a notional total for both years. Scrutiny of the table will show the reader a close correlation, in many cases (not all), between the sums of money collected in 1524 and 1525.
• Framlingham shows a degree of complexity in the 1524 data, in that separate numbers of 50 and c. 150 taxpayers are shown has having handed over sums of £18 14s 2d and £37 15s 6d respectively, thus totalling £56 9s 8d. Thus, its number of contributors in 1524 was nearly double that of 1525. Walberswick – not in the table – had a similar disparity (though not quite as large, proportionally), while most of the other communities seem to suggest that the subsidy was collected on what may be described as a “fifty-fifty” basis over the two years.

Order by number of taxpayers

• Three communities featuring in the previous table – Stratford St. Mary (159), Bures (165) and Blythburgh (137) – are not present in this one, their replacements being Hoxne, Stoke-by-Clare and Walberswick.
• Ipswich has incomplete data for both 1524 and 1525, with two of its four civic wards having the number of taxpayers recorded for the former year and three for the latter.
• Mildenhall, Aldeburgh, Southwold and Stoke-by-Clare have had the missing year recording the number of taxpayers given the same number as the one recorded – this, in order to give a notional number of contributors.
• The total number of taxpayers, being largely (but not exclusively) adult males, may be taken as a very loose indicator of the size of the different communities’ populations relative to each other. However, it would not be safe to apply a standard multiplier (such as 4.75) in order to work out a specific number of people living in each place. Such a calculation would probably lead to an over-estimation of the individual populations.
• The top ten communities can be seen, in some ways, as a summary of Suffolk’s history. Ipswich was the ancient county town, with its status as borough and port going well back into Anglo-Saxon times, while Bury St. Edmunds had an equally lengthy pedigree as the major force in the west of the county based on the presence of its Abbey and associated extensive Liberty. Hadleigh, Sudbury, Lavenham and Long Melford were prosperous market-towns and centres of the woollen cloth trade, while Woodbridge benefited from a close association with Ipswich, from serving a rich surrounding agricultural area and from being able to participate in both fishing and maritime trade (it was also next door to Melton, the administrative centre of the Liberty of St. Etheldreda belonging to Ely Abbey). Dunwich had once been the centre of the first East Anglian diocese and the major port of the whole East Coast – though in a state of long and gradual decline from its twelfth century heyday because of coastal erosion – and Beccles and Bungay (up in the northern sector of the county) had histories as local centres of trade going back into the Anglo-Saxon period.

Addendum

It is stated in S.H.A. Hervey, Suffolk in 1524, p. 402, that a preamble to the Subsidy, known as The Anticipation, was published in advance of the main collection process beginning. This was a directive from Thomas Wolsey, Henry VIII’s chief minister, that every man with assets worth £40 or more was to pay his dues before the collection officially began – presumably to ensure that the richest people in the land provided a basic sum of money to serve as a type of “bottom line”. It is further revealed, on p. 418, that John Jettor [Jnr.] of Lowestoft had his wealth assessed at £120, with a £6 payment due thereon. Table 1 in the previous article shows him liable for the same sum, payable on £101 worth of goods, and the third note following speculates as to the reason behind this. It is clear that he was indeed in a higher tax bracket – at the top of the one following the £100 category!

CREDIT: David Butcher