Lowestoft Manorial Governance (c. 1580-1730)

Serious crime, or felony (consisting of treason, murder, assault resulting in serious injury, witchcraft, highway robbery, arson, burglary, rape, grand arceny, forgery, counterfeiting and smuggling) was largely dealt with during the Early Modern period at the six-monthly assizes, held usually in the county towns of the realm. Though some of the offences named, if deemed to have been of a lesser level of seriousness (mainly, matters of assault – including rape – and damage to property), were handled at the three-monthly quarter sessions. The venues for these in Suffolk were Beccles, Bury St. Edmunds, Ipswich and Woodbridge, which gave some kind of localised geographical structure to proceedings, aimed at a more speedy and efficient handling of legal affairs.

Below the level of felony itself was a whole mass of what may be termed anti-social behaviour, which was seen as being contrary to the rule of peace and good order in local communities and which was dealt with at manorial level in the annual leet court – held in Lowestoft’s case on the first Saturday in Lent, in one of the town’s premier inns such as The Crown and The Swan. The Steward of the Manor was in charge of proceedings and a tour of inspection on the Friday immediately preceding was carried out around the town to record offences which had not been already been noted and receive complaints which had not already been made. The men carrying out this duty would have been selected Chief Tenants of the manor who held certain pieces of freehold land known as Chieves, which were scattered around the parish and were the vestigial remains of the old Late Medieval villein tenements of twelve-acre size. These belonged to the more substantial members of society, at merchant or master craftsmen level, and carried with them the duty (on a rotational basis) of collecting the annual rents due to the Lord of the Manor.

The earliest surviving source recording manorial procedures in Lowestoft is a volume covering the years 1582-5. There is then a gap until 1616, after which an almost unbroken sequence of documentation continues until well into the 19th century – with a gradual tailing-off into the early decades of the 20th. Therefore, as the Lowestoft leet records are so voluminous (as are those of the court baron, held every four to six weeksto handle matters of complaint and the transfer of real estate), the only realistic way of presenting an over-view of the court’s business was to use five-year blocks of material spaced by intervals of twenty years. It was not possible to adhere rigidly to this principle because of volumes withdrawn for conservation at the time the sampling was carried out during the 1980s and 90s and because of missing years where certain stewards appear not to have written up the minutes. The different time-blocks chosen are as follows: 1582-5, 1618-22, 1649-53, 1669-73, 1689-93 and 1709-14, with a run-on into 1718-22.

Leet Court Cases

The commonest of all offences dealt with by the leet were those relating to the state of roadways and footpaths in town. Each occupant was responsible for keeping the street surface outside his or her house level and consolidated, to the middle of the road, and failure to do so resulted in a 3d fine. If the neglect continued, the offender was presented in the following year’s leet and the fine increased to 6d. There are cases of serious neglect where the sum of 3s 4d was imposed, but it made no difference to those able to afford the penalty. It is very noticeable in the Lowestoft records how the wealthier members of the community (including the court jurors themselves) took no action over the state of the street outside their homes, but just went on paying the fines year after year.

The same holds true of the other main highway offence: the deleterious depositing of rubbish, and of animal manure and human sewage, in the streets, scores and pathways. Again, a fine of 3d was imposed in the first instance, with increases following in subsequent years if no remedial action was taken. As with failure to keep the street surfaces level and passable, the random deposition of excrement was a practice that was widespread throughout the town and knew no social bounds. So was the dumping of domestic rubbish and trade waste of all kinds – such as the “neats’ scalps” (cattle heads) thrown into the street by six local butchers (Thomas Mewse, John Roden, William Whelpdale, Gilbert Wilson, John Foxe and William Meeke) and referred to in the leet records of 1584. The obstruction of roadways and footpaths in the wider parish, however, was usually the fault of particular landowners. Failure to ensure that hedges and fences were properly maintained, that stiles and footbridges were kept in good repair, and that access-points were free from obstruction carried a basic 3d fine.

Allied to specific highway infringements was risk to public safety along the various streets, footpaths and rights of way. Things which were construed as constituting a danger to the public were varied in nature and giving a selection of them is the best way of creating some sense of conditions at the time. Thus, in 1584, John Foxe (butcher) was fined 3d for not carrying out essential repairs to his slaughter-house in Bier Lane(now Compass Street - Dove Street), a building that was considered a potential danger to passers-by. The following year saw William Becke (mariner), William Porter and William French (merchant) each fined 3d for not keeping their chimney-stacks in good repair. At the leet of 1618, Hugh Calver (husbandman) was fined 6d for digging a claypit in the king’s highway (location unspecified), while in 1619 Robert Haltwaye had a penalty of 3d imposed for not making a cover for the entrance to his cellar, next to the street. The following year, Peter Durrant (husbandman and alehouse-keeper) was fined 3d for leaving a ladder standing in the High Street, both day and night (on the site of what is now No. 84).

Even relatively inaccessible places came under scrutiny. Richard Mason was fined 3d in 1653 for hanging up a brewing copper, without a chain, in his stable – something which was considered hazardous. More immediately obvious as a possible risk were the three pits which Robert Mighells (mariner), Henry Ward (merchant) and William Barber had failed to fill in adjacent to their respective barns. They were fined 3d each at the leet of 1670 for neglecting to carry out the work. Two years later, Titus Calfe (mariner) was fined 3d for putting a shed on the Denes – a building which not only caused an obstruction, it was claimed, but also represented a fire-risk (he may have erected it as a store for fishing gear or items of wreck retrieved). Finally, in 1690, the brothers James and John Wilde (merchants) were each fined 6d for not maintaining a railed fence round their well at the bottom of the cliff, close to the Denes, thus causing risk to passers-by. The site of this

today is to the rear of Nos. 312-314 Whapload Road. 

Damage to fences features from time to time in the records, especially in the late sixteenth century, with 3d fines imposed on people of various stations in life (including women) for being “common breakers of their neighbours’ fences”. There is no hint given as to whether the damage was accidental or deliberate, however. The term “fences” encompassed both railed constructions and hedges, and there are many references in the leet’s proceedings to fines being imposed on property-owners for not maintaining them in the proper fashion. Failure to do so, of course, not only caused inconvenience to passers-by, but possible physical risk as well.

The obstruction of water-courses, both within town and in the parish at large, was another common offence. A lot of the problems were caused by rubbish and manure of different kinds being dumped in ditches and culverts. In the days before large-scale piped drainage works of the modern kind, arrangements for dealing with surface-water were of great importance. Any blocking of ditches and gulley-ways was soon likely to cause flooding and the local authorities clearly faced a problem in seeing that people kept them clear. Again, the standard 3d fine was applied for the first offence, with increases thereafter. Just as with road maintenance, however, the wealthier inhabitants seemed quite happy to take little action and go on paying the fines. 

The scores particularly were an important means of taking flood-water from the High Street to a lower level and some had gulleys on either side of the footway, down which the excess ran. During the course of excavations to the rear of Nos. 72-80, High Street, in 2001-2, an old drain running across the gardens was uncovered. It was rectangular in shape and built of high-quality seventeenth century bricks, butted up to each other without mortar joints. It followed a south-west/north-east alignment and had obviously once taken water away from the top of the rather narrow Wilde’s Score by diverting it to the much broader Rant Score, which had deep gulleys on either side of it.

Another matter to occupy the attention of the leet was the use, and misuse, of common greens in the parish, with the three closest to town (Denes, Goose Green/Fair Green and Church Green) concerning the authorities most of all because of their easy accessibility. All the greens were “common” in the sense that people had access to them, but the services provided had to be paid for. The main offence related to the grazing of livestock and it was a facility that was strictly controlled. Thus, in 1582, Roger Rant (baker) and Robert Wrote (gentleman) were each fined 3d for pasturing more sheep and cattle on the Denes than they were entitled to. Also, at the same court, an ordinance was passed preventing any of the townspeople turning geese out onto any of the commons other than Goose Green, which was situated on the western edge of the built-up part of town – being the southern half of an area shared with a northern sector which served as the Fairstead and was sometimes referred to as Fair Green (loosely, overall, the St. Margaret’s Plain-Dove Street-Thurston Road-Factory Street area of today). Anyone disobeying the order (which was presumably made because of the adverse, fouling effect which geese had on pasture) was to be fined 2d for each offending bird.

Apart from specific infringement of grazing regulations, the other main offences relating to commons were the depositing of manure and rubbish of different kinds and the digging of pits to extract sand and gravel. Once again, a fine of 3d was the usual penalty exacted for first offence. The illegal taking of rabbits was regarded much more seriously (these being the property of the lord of the manor), as may be seen in the case of Charles Boyce, a substantial yeoman, who lived in the adjoining parish of Gunton. He was fined 5s in 1712 for this act of lesser poaching, somewhere out on the Denes.

Apart from regulating use of the greens, the leet court was also the instrument whereby people were punished for damage or nuisance caused by straying animals. Pigs seem to have been the biggest cause of trouble, with their wandering nature and habit of rooting up the ground wherever they went. In 1584, an ordinance was passed, forbidding anyone to allow pigs to roam either in the streets or out onto the common greens. The animals were to be confined to their owners’ yards and failure to comply with the regulation was to result in a fine of 3s 4d. The following year, access to the greens was allowed once more, but not free passage around the streets. Problems obviously continued for the next three decades or more, because in 1620 the order was given for all pigs in the parish to have their snouts ringed. Two swine-reeves were appointed annually to make sure that the practice was adopted and a 3d fine was imposed for every animal which did not comply. Stray sheep and cattle do not seem to have caused too much of a problem in the parish, but there are a number of references to horses being on the loose. Most frowned upon were those infected with mange or scab. Fines of up to 10s, such as those imposed in 1618 and 1620 respectively on Thomas Bleasbye (husbandman) and William Rising (yeoman), show how seriously the misdemeanour was regarded.

The pollution of certain of the parish’s ponds did not go unnoticed either, because of their importance as providers of water for livestock. Linen production was a secondary industry in Lowestoft, but the preliminary rotting-down of hemp was not allowed in the most commonly frequented drinking-pools – especially the one known as “the common watering-place”, or “the watering”, a large pond just to the west of the town’s built-up area at the southern extremity of Goose Green (where Thurston Road now meets St. Peter’s Street). Fines of 3d were imposed by the leet court in 1584 on Robert Wilkeson, Thomas Towne (ploughwright), John Warde (tawer and tanner) and Giles Palmer (gentleman) for putting bundles of hemp into it. Among the other offences connected with this particular pond were the depositing of dead animals and of quantities of waste straw. William Arnold (brewer) and Thomas Brissingham were fined 3d each for the first offence in 1652 (pigs being the animals in question), while Robert Mighells (mariner) had the same penalty imposed for the second some twenty years later.

A number of the day-to-day misdemeanours cited so far (especially dumping of rubbish and disposal of waste) would have been carried out by servants and other employees. However, the lower orders hardly feature in the leet court records, as they would have simply done as they were told, and it was their employers who bore the responsibility and therefore paid the fines. With general disregard for a number of manorial regulations being apparent, it is no surprise to find that failure to carry out certain duties was also punished fairly regularly by the court. The fining of jurors (the chief tenants of the manor)for non-attendance at the leet was quite common, and this was not always a matter of simple neglect. The court also had to contend with the wilful refusal of certain chief tenants (also known as chief pledges because of the annual oath of allegiance sworn to the lord of the manor) to undertake their responsibilities and perform service. Such a one was William Rising (merchant), who was fined 2s 6d in 1709 for not only declining to serve as juror, but also for giving false excuses as to his behaviour.

At other times, the elected officers neglected to carry out their duties. Two of them, Joseph Smithson (merchant) and William Mewse (butcher) were fined 10s each at the 1691 leet for having failed to perform the function of ale-taster during the previous year. Nor were they alone in their dereliction of duty. In 1673, John Brissingham, the court bailiff, was fined 5s for not informing wrongdoers of the nature of their offences in sufficient time ahead of the leet court convening, thereby making its corrective function more difficult. He was in good company, because the lord himself, Philip Hayward of Carlton Colville (gentleman), had been indicted three years running, in 1671-73, for not maintaining a steelyard in the market-place. The first occasion resulted in a fine of 3d, the two subsequent ones 20s each. This was not the only example of a lord’s neglect. In 1712 and 1713, Sir Richard Allin of Somerleyton Hall was indicted for allowing the pound to fall into disrepair (located on Goose Green, close to what is now the junction of Factory Street with Thurston Road). No fines are mentioned, but his additional failure in 1712 to provide the ale-tasters with a suitable set of measures for the carrying-out of their duties resulted in his being amerced 3s 4d. 

Two ale-tasters were elected annually to ensure that the ale and beer brewed in the town was of sufficient quality for sale and that it was not sold in the various inns and ale-houses in short measure or watered down to increase profit margins. Significantly, the men chosen were never either brewers themselves or the keepers of licensed premises. The two searchers and sealers of leather were another important annual appointment (as the production of this material was an important part of Lowestoft’s industrial output) and it was usually tanners or leather-workers elected to ensure that the product was up to the required standard, both in its manufacture and in the goods sold in the town’s shops or at the weekly market. The “search” element of the title referred to scrutiny of leather and leather goods; the “seal” part to a mark of some kind impressed on tanned hides to confirm their suitability. Finally, the election of four constables (each of whom served for a period of three months) took care of the basic conduct of law and order in the town.

Of regular appearance in the leet, throughout the whole of the period covered, were the Lowestoft Churchwardens. They had a whole series of 3d penalties imposed for not maintaining the street surface outside the parish almshouses on the north side of Fair Lane/Almshouse Lane (what its now Dove Street), for not repairing steps in certain of the scores, for not keeping the communal Green Well in good repair, and for not cleaning out watercourses on Church Green. The well, so-named, was a communal watering-place close to the northern edge of Goose Green, at the junction of Back Lane, West Lane, Gun Lane and Frary Lane (its position best defined now as being just beyond the western end of Wesleyan Chapel Lane under the southbound carriageway of Jubilee Way. Church Green was a large open area, mainly used to provide grazing for the town’s milk-cattle, bounded today by St. Margaret’s Road to the north, St. Peter’s Street to the south, Boston Road-Oxford Road to the east, and Rotterdam Road to the west. It had had substantial areas of agricultural land developed from it, over the years, on all sides.

Much more seriously regarded was the Churchwardens’ neglect of the parish boundary markers, or butts, during the late sixteenth century and the first three decades of the seventeenth (this particular offence carrying fines of 3s 4d or 6s 8d). The butts were large stones or pieces of masonry (sometimes whitened), set at regular intervals along the boundary-lines and they had to be kept visible, as a means of establishing the town’s rights and authority. Allowing them to become overgrown with vegetation was not favourably regarded. And it was also the practice, each year, for the Churchwardens (accompanied by other leading members of the community) to “beat the bounds” every year, either on Ascension Day (the thirty-ninth day following Easter Sunday) or at Rogationtide (the fifth Sunday after Easter) – which meant walking the parish perimeter and stopping periodically to tap the individual markers with the rods of office denoting the role of Churchwarden.

As well as scrutinising the kind of public responsibility outlined in the two preceding paragraphs, the leet also had an important part to play in trying to control various trading irregularities, both in the town’s shops and ale-houses and at the weekly market. No market officials were elected by the leet and no one is ever specifically referred to in this capacity, so perhaps the conduct of the market came under the jurisdiction of the court itself, with its elected constables made responsible for ensuring fair trading. Butchers, both from within Lowestoft itself and from further afield, feature most prominently in the records for breaches of honest dealing, involving themselves in all kinds of dubious practice.

In 1583, for instance, John Foxe and John Roden were fined 4d each for selling the flesh of “draught animals”, though whether in their shops or on the market is not made clear. Nor is it stated whether the offending meat derived from oxen or horses! The following year, Foxe received the much stiffer penalty of 10s for purveying beef from old, inferior animals which might have died from natural causes. In 1618 and 1619, there were instances of butchers regrating certain items in the market, thereby infringing both local and national regulations. For instance, a man from Beccles, called Burkine, was fined 6s 8d for buying a side of beef from someone else and then re-selling it, while a townsman called Silvester was fined the same amount for handling a cowhide in identical fashion. Two years later, in 1621, five Beccles men (Abraham Todd, John Balye, Richard Wake, ? Jackson and John Clarke – the last of whom was a mason) and one Lowestoft townsman (John Oarrman) were each fined 6s 8d for slaughtering bulls not purchased in Lowestoft and selling the meat on the market. This restriction on the purchase of outside livestock for killing was obviously intended to benefit local farmers and dealers. Two years later, in 1623, John Balye appeared once again – this time being fined 6s. 8d. for selling unwholesome meat. The regularity with which the same butchers appear in the leet records at this time suggests they believed that the money to be made from dishonest practice was worth the risk of being caught and getting fined.

The practice of regrating, referred to above, was universally banned throughout the realm in the interests of fair-trading and protection of the customer. No one was allowed to purchase goods anywhere on a market and then sell them on at a profit. The offence went hand in hand with another, known as forestalling – which was the purchase of goods on their way to market, or actually present there before the official opening bell was sounded, followed by sale at a profit once trading had begun. The term literally means “before stalling”. In other words, before the selling of goods had begun.

A reminder of the cruelty once experienced by animals destined for slaughter is to be seen in references to various butchers who were fined for selling meat from bulls which had not first been baited by dogs – something which was regarded as being essential to tenderise the flesh and improve its flavour. One of them, Abraham Sallers from Beccles, was found guilty of the offence in 1710 and had a fine of 10d imposed. The most common offence regarding meat, however, during the later seventeenth century and the first part of the eighteenth, was the inflation of cuts of veal by means of a blow-pipe. The joints had certain blood-vessels plugged with fat at one end while air was inserted in the other, which was then also plugged. By this means, the meat was made to appear plumper and more succulent than it really was. Two members of the Sallers/Sallows family from Beccles and a man called Thomas Copping, from Wenhaston, were fined 2s 4d each in 1689 for carrying out the practice, while the following year sums of 3s 4d were imposed on four offenders – one of whom was Abraham Sallows and another Abraham Nollard, from Wenhaston.

Bakers were also regular offenders in the matter of fair trading. The assize of bread (as it was termed) – a national term for the weight and price of the standard loaf, having its origins back during the 1260s and fluctuating with the cost of wheat – seems to have been contravened fairly regularly, with the customer being sold underweight loaves both in shops and on the market. At the leet of 1584, Roger Rant, John Parker and Richard Smyth of Lowestoft, and Richard Smyth of Beccles, were fined 2s 6d, 12d, 6d and 2s 6d respectively for carrying on their trade of “common bakers” less than honestly. Nearly thirty years later, in 1621, John Draper, William Mingaye, Peter Button and Robert Husskyne (all of Lowestoft) were each fined 6s 8d for identical offences. During the 19th century, the standard penny loaf was usually ten ounces in weight but this may not have been the case in earlier times.

Nor was short measure confined to those people involved in making and selling bread. Various alehouse-keepers in town seem to have been equally dishonest – though the eleven who were indicted in 1618 (including a woman) and amerced 6d each did constitute an unusually large number to be dealt with in one session. During the early 1600s, the records of a six-monthly court known as The Tourn (held at Mutford Bridge) – which seems to have dealt with offences not adjudicated upon in the individual Lothingland leets – identifies the specific nature of selling ale and beer by short measure. The standard amount was usually the quart (two pints), but there is one reference in April 1607 of a tapster (barman) called Mumford serving beer in “small cans little more than a pynte”. At the other end of the time-scale under consideration, a man called Thomas Palmer was fined the sum of 5s in 1706 for refusing to allow the ale-taster to sample his product (unfortunately, no clue is offered as to the kind of adulteration which had been carried out) – but it was probably watering down. It is not stated whether he was a brewer or innkeeper.

Among the various other “weights and measures” offences recorded in the Lowestoft court books are ones relating to goods both specified and unknown. Margaret Coldham (merchant’s widow) was fined 6d in 1584 for selling cloth that had been measured by a yardwand. The following year, Samuel Puckle (merchant tailor), William Purse, William Bamforthe and Peter Butcher (servant of Samuel Puckle’s father, Robert) were all fined 3d each for doing the same thing. The particular infringement here must have related to the thirty-six inch measurement being used instead of the forty-five inch ell (the so-called clothyard or tailor’s yard), but Peter Butcher’s indictment is unusual because members of the lower orders scarcely feature in the leet records at all. It may well have been that he was cut or two above the normal type of servant or factotum.

In 1649, Richard Mighells (cooper) had a 12d. penalty imposed for refusing to let parish officials (it does not say who) inspect the measures he was using to make barrels of the required sizes and volume. Twenty-three years later, in 1672, an outsider from Frostenden, William Gayde, was fined 2s 6d for using an under-sized pint measure on the market, but the liquid dispensed is not named. Nor are the underweight goods which Thomas French sold in his shop and for which he was fined 5s in 1706. It was in this year also that Robert Nalborow of Great Yarmouth had an identical punishment imposed for selling shoes made from horse-hide to market customers. Finally, no account of commercial skulduggery would be complete without the presence of a miller; and the imposition of a 6d fine on Edward Taylor in 1584, for taking an excessive toll of grain for services rendered, would seem to fit perfectly with the way that millers were expected to behave. They were proverbial in Late Medieval and Early Modern England for dishonesty – a reputation based on their tendency to take more than a fair amount of grain or flour as payment for their services (if cash was not used). During the 1390s, Geoffrey Chaucer was able to have his Reeve, in The Canterbury Tales, say of Roger, the Miller of Trumpington, “A theef was he for sothe of corn and mele”.

With most of the various kinds of trading irregularity having been described, it is time to turn to consideration of breaches of the peace. These seem to have been confined largely to the Elizabethan and Jacobean period (when such matters were high on the national agenda because of central government’s concern with civil disorder), with physical assault being the most common offence. A standard fine of 3s 4d (a week’s wages or more for a skilled craftsman) was imposed on guilty parties, with an increase to 6s 8d the following year if no improvement in behaviour had resulted. Brawling was not confined to any particular occupational or social grouping and merchants were as likely to “draw blood” (the official phrase used) on each other or on other men, as were seafarers, tradesmen and artisans. Even the occasional gentleman was not above becoming involved in fisticuffs.

Verbal abuse sometimes went hand in hand with physical violence, apparently, with men such as Philip Hales (boatwright) and Oliver Graye (mason) being termed “common brawlers and scolders of their neighbours” – offences which resulted in each of them being fined 3s 4d in 1619. The term “scold” is an interesting one when used in connection with men; but, although the archetype was female, male examples were also to be found. Public recognition of the problems which could be caused by an uncontrolled tongue are to be seen in a leet court pronouncement of 1582: “Item we do further ordain that this Township of Lowestoft shall provide an Able ducking stool and to be placed in A place convenient before the feast of the nativity of St. John Baptist [24 June] next upon pain of xls [50s].” The device was almost certainly erected beside the common watering-place on Goose Green, previously referred to when the pollution of ponds was under discussion.

Apart from the specific matter of launching attacks upon one’s neighbours with intemperate words, other kinds of abuse were not favourably regarded either. Sometimes, the insults and threats were directed at manorial officers in the execution of their duties. Thomas Burges (smith) was fined 3s 4d in 1585 for abusing and threatening chief pledges when they visited his house, though the purpose of the visit is not revealed. In 1649, Thomas Bacheller was fined 12d for swearing at Thomas Gardner (blacksmith) and William Harweld (al. Harrold), the ale-tasters, while in 1706 Thomas Spratt (mariner) had a 2s 6d penalty imposed for swearing at and mocking chief pledges. Three years later, the same sum was exacted from Simon Holliday (yeoman) for his having abused certain of the leet court jurors in the execution of their duties.

In addition to incidents where manorial representatives suffered verbal attacks from fellow townsmen, there are also examples of people being fined for general abuse directed at all and sundry. Richard Hewes (mariner) was fined 3s 4d in 1582 for his use of bad language, and the impression of general rowdyism on his part is reinforced by his being presented two years later for firing off a gun in the street. He was fined 12d for that particular offence. Altogether different from the examples of verbal aggression, but probably no less disruptive in its effect on the immediate locality, was the case of Stephen Harte, who was fined 4d in 1584 for being a “common eavesdropper” around the houses of his neighbours.

The last offence of any note to occupy the attention of the leet, again during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, was gambling. In 1582, Thomas Hadenham, John Parker and John Medley were fined 6d each for allowing illegal games to be played inside their houses. The three men may have been alehouse-keepers, but no positive information is given regarding their status and nor are the offending games identified. Any moral objections to gambling in the thinking of the time were probably the result of conventional Christian attitudes to a pursuit that was seen to have no merit, but there was also the practical matter of the disorder it could lead to among its adherents when disputes arose. Carrying out such activity on Sunday mornings, during Church service time, was regarded even more seriously – and not only because of any perceived moral lapse, since Sabbath attendance was seen also as a mark of loyalty to the Monarch, who was Head of the Church of England.

In 1618, the alehouse was specifically named as the venue for the playing of illegal games, when Henry Westgate (mason), Thomas Neale (husbandman), Robert Frarye (blacksmith), Thomas Ferney (cobbler), Robert Oxe (blacksmith), Robert Ottle, Ellis Roope and John Warde were all fined 6s 8d each for being participants. Nor did the proprietors go unpunished. Edward Westgate (father of Henry and owner of the Old White Horse inn), Thomas Bleasby (husbandman), Henry Cobb (innkeeper) and John Murcock (yeoman) were also fined 6s 8d each. The only reference to card-playing is recorded in a year not part of the sampling process used. It occurred in 1635, when Michael Bentley was fined 40s for allowing Robert Haltwaye and Joseph Bird (mason) to use his house for the purpose. Haltwaye and Bird were fined 6s 8d each for the offence and a further 3s 4d each for fighting. Thus, it would seem that the game had ended in dispute.

It may perhaps be inferred from the amount of occupational data appended to the names of people mentioned in this section that the minute books themselves reveal such information. They do not. Occupations or social groupings are only divulged occasionally throughout the whole sequence of surviving records. Gentlemen are often accorded the courtesy of having their status given, but an occupation is usually only written down to distinguish between people who had the same name as each other. Where trading irregularities are concerned, the people selling unwholesome meat or underweight loaves are obviously thereby identified as butchers and bakers, but they are not always described as such. Most of the occupational information given derives from parish register entries and probate material (wills and inventories). 

A comparison of leet activity in the Jacobean and early Georgian periods leads to some very interesting contrasts, which manifest themselves in Tables 1 and 2. Though the number of indictments had doubled by the 1720s, the number of people presented remained practically the same – and this in spite of a population increase from something well under 1,500 people (the result of the 1603 plague epidemic) to 1,850 or so. Moreover, it can be seen that the gambling, the brawling, and the cursing and swearing had disappeared – reflecting not so much a change in society as less concern for such behaviour being shown by the authorities. There had been a general tightening up of the moral climate in England during the first half of the 17th century (partly the result of the increase in people adopting Puritanism as their personal brand of Christianity), but attitudes changed greatly after the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. 

On the other hand, both trading irregularities and the lack of control of livestock seem to have genuinely diminished, with far fewer presentments than before – which may indicate that fewer people kept animals than had been the case a century before (this, in turn, reflecting Lowestoft’s increased maritime speciality during the later part of the 17th century and early decades of the 18th). Neglect of highways of one kind or another remained the chief offence, though the number of people involved showed little change from a century earlier. However, there were noticeable increases in offences relating to public safety, to boundaries and surface-water drainage, to damage done to the common greens (such acts consisting largely of the deposition of rubbish and muck, the digging of clay and sand, and various types of encroachment), and to dereliction of manorial and parochial duties – all of which may point to a weakening of manorial control as the community became more committed to maritime pursuits and more urban in nature. The only offence which is not to be found in either of the five-year periods compared is the pollution of ponds because, although this did occur from time to time, it was never a major problem.

Table 1. Leet Cases, 1618-22

(Note that the left-hand columns show the number of charges, the right-hand ones the number of people presented.)

Table 2. Leet Cases, 1718-22

Tourn Cases

The Mutford and Lothingland tourn is likely to have been a court of the Lords of the two Half-hundreds from quite early on. But, it could well have had its origins in late Anglo-Saxon times in the twice-yearly visit to every hundred and half-hundred in the County of Suffolk by the Sheriff – the post-Easter and post-Michaelmas meeting-times matching those of these six-monthly inspections. The court’s jurors consisted of chief tenantsfrom the various local manors and, in dealing with a variety of petty offences, it was a mirror-image of the individual leets. Also, through being a survival from an earlier period, it probably continued to operate because it had a particular usefulness at local level. Records of its activities are only extant for the years 1588-1612, but they serve as a useful complement to the Lowestoft material (largely filling in the gap which exists in the sequence of court books between 1586 and 1615). 

Moreover, since the Tourn dealt with misdemeanours identical to those handled in the various Leets, the question arises as to why there was such duplication. Perhaps the court acted as a kind of safety-net for the area, whereby cases which had escaped the attention of jurors in local leets, or which had been deferred for some reason, were brought to adjudication at either of the six-monthly tourns. Two volumes covering the years 1588-94 and 1595-1612 are the only surviving sources which contain an account of the activities of the Tourn, whereas Lowestoft’s leet courtmaterial is available in such quantity because details of its proceedings, along with those of the court baron, happen to have survived for such an extensive period of time. 

The number of cases considered relating to Lowestoft and to the other parishes in Lothingland Half-hundred certainly fluctuated a good deal, which reinforces the notion of the tourn being used as a back-up agency. Its basic fine was 4d, which made it one penny more than the Lowestoft leet, and the higher penalties were usually multiples of this (the most common ones were 12d and 3s 4d). On some occasions there was no Lowestoft misdemeanour considered at the tourn, whereas at other times there were as many as nine or ten individual cases. It is not possible to ascertain whether such fluctuations are reflected in corresponding “highs” and “lows” in leet presentments because the two sets of records do not overlap. There are few references in the tourn material to the offenders’ places of origin, but it is possible to identify Lowestoft people because of the family reconstitution process carried out on the parish registers from 1561-1730.

As far as any account of the town’s basic system of justice is concerned, the tourn is most useful as a provider of detail not given in the leet. The “illegal games” mentioned in its various entries, for instance, turn out to include both dice and shove-ha’penny (the latter being referred to as slide-groat), while bowls was also on the proscribed list (it may well have referred to skittles). The objection to these activities was probably that money was being wagered on the outcome, but there is also the possibility that they were being played during Church service times. Regarding the matter of assault, there are instances of men not only attacking each other, but assaulting women as well – such as the cases recorded in May 1593, when William Copping was fined 20d for striking Katherin, the wife of Jeremiah Marks, and in October 1595, when John Munds (cordwainer) had a 3s 4d penalty imposed for hitting Elizabeth Godfreye. 

There are occasional references in the leet minutes to the illegal keeping of dogs – a matter which is clarified in the tourn records by specific mention of mastiffs. People were obviously not allowed to keep these animals because of their size and aggressive nature. More information is also afforded regarding sale of beer by unlawful measure: a number of alehouse-keepers were fined at the tourn for selling their drink in “small cans little more than a pynte” (presumably, a quart should have been the correct quantity, as referred to earlier). Finally, the offence of scolding and hurling abuse can be seen, on the evidence of the tourn records, to have been considered serious not only because of its disruptive effect on the community, but also because of the bad example it set other people. In October 1588, Christopher Harrold was fined 9d for allowing his wife Elizabeth to be the common scold of the neighbourhood, while in April 1594, George Rugge (shopkeeper) was amerced 12d for being a “railer and slanderer”, thereby disturbing the peace and setting a bad example to his wife (he, having been fined 4d at an earlier court, in October 1589, for being “a common drunkard”). He lived in a premises at the top (south side) of what became known much later as Crown Score – but which, during his tenancy (and for some little while afterwards) was referred to as George Rugge’s Score. 

If the last five full years of tourn offences are analysed (so as to provide the nearest possible comparison in terms of time with the leet indictments presented in Table 1), the degree of similarity regarding the type of misdemeanour dealt with is clearly seen. Table 3 shows that six of the ten standard offences occupied the attention of the jurors during the period in question, though another three (hazards to public safety, water pollution and gambling) do appear at other times. The only cases not to feature at any point are those concerning damage done to the common greens by digging holes for clay and sand or for dumping rubbish – though there are a number of references to pigs rooting up the ground (a matter classified under livestock control). The cross-section of society represented by the offenders is exactly the same as that detectable in the leet material: the people indicted range from gentlemen down to husbandmen, with the lowest orders of society not visible at all. Six of the forty-six men who appear in the indictments categorised in the table also appear in the leet presentments for 1618-22, while others are detectable in other years. 

The six in question were Thomas Betts (linen weaver), Oliver Graye (mason), Philip Hales (boatwright), William Mayhewe (mariner), Thomas Powle (husbandman) and Francis Whayman (gentleman). The offences were as follows: Betts (jury default), Gray (allowing his pigs to root up the Denes), Hales (depositing muck in the High Street), Mayhewe (not keeping the street surface outside his house in good order), Powle (jury default) and Whayman (allowing pigs to wander on one of the common greens). Their leet transgressions were these: Betts (not maintaining the street surface outside his house), Graye (brawling and hurling abuse), Hales (brawling and hurling abuse), Mayhewe (not maintaining his fences next to the Denes), Powle (not maintaining the street surface outside his house) and Whayman (not cleaning out his ditches on Skamacre Heath).

The overall impression derived is that the punitive action taken by the manorial courts generally had little effect upon the transgressors.

Table 3. Tourn Cases, 1607-11

CREDIT: David Butcher

(As before, the left-hand columns show charges, the right-hand ones people presented.)

Source documents used

Lowestoft Manor Court Minute Books 1582-5, 1618-23, 1649-53, 1669-73, 1689-93, 1709-14 and 1718-22 - Suffolk Archives, Ipswich - 194/A10/4, 5, 8, 11&12, 13, 14 &16 and 17. 

Lothingland Tourn Minute Books 1588-94 and 1595-1612 - Suffolk Archives, Ipswich 192/ 4 and 194/C1/1.

This article was extracted from Chapter 10 of the writer’s book Lowestoft 1550-1750: Development and Change in a Suffolk Coastal Town (2008) and re-shaped for use in LO&N’s History pages.