What would it have been like to walk through the town of Reading in the medieval period, while Henry V ruled? Or the period of the Wars of the Roses? What did it look like, and who lived there? Luckily, there’s a lot of local evidence for this period in surviving ancient deeds, parish records and other sources.
Many of the same historic landmarks we see today would have been known to Reading’s medieval residents. The Sun Inn on Castle Street was standing, but it's not clear if it was a public house or inn at this time. It was next to the town's gaol, the place offenders were imprisoned long before Reading Gaol first opened in 1785. There were many others. The George was open, and is mentioned in records from 1423. Unlike the crumbling ruins of today, Reading Abbey was a sprawling collection of neatly-arranged, well-maintained buildings with a mill, gardens and an impressive Norman abbey church.
By 1420 the abbey church's sister church, St Laurence’s, had been standing for three hundred years, a centre of worship, burials and marriages. At the start of the century, it would have been smaller than today, and without the impressive stone tower it is known for now. In around 1458 the church underwent substantial building works, which included the erection of the tower. Residents would therefore have been used to seeing wooden scaffolding on the church, with stonemasons and carpenters hammering away with their tools. The era saw St Laurence grow, with a new roof, internal extensions and the addition of new windows.
The market place alongside the church was owned by Reading Abbey, and traders from all around the country – and even further afield – would have come here to buy and sell produce. The medieval graveyard of St Laurence’s would have been smaller than it is today, extended with the permission of Mary I in the mid-sixteenth century. Immediately to the right of the main doors of the church was a gateway leading to Reading Abbey and today’s Forbury Gardens. Locals would have watched as kings, queens and nobles made their way through this entrance into the abbey’s interior with their large retinue of advisors, nobility and servants. The extravagant wedding of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster in 1359 at the abbey church would have been within living memory with tournaments and celebrations held in the Forbury. Throughout the 1400s, many English kings held parliament here, escaping into Reading Abbey whenever travelling this way, or in the event plague threatened London. The Calendars of Patent Rolls record appearances in Reading by kings such as Henry IV, Henry VI, Edward IV, and Henry VII throughout the century. The 1400s marked their own royal wedding in 1464, that of Elizabeth Woodville's sister Margaret Woodville, who married the heir to the earl of Arundel.
The era was marked by one of the most turbulent periods of English history: The Wars of the Roses. Reading’s role in the medieval civil war has been overlooked, but decisions on military affairs and political business were carried out in the centre of the town. Most notably, Edward IV presented his wife Elizabeth Woodville to the nobility as his wife for the first time in September 1464 within the walls of the abbey. From here too, Henry VI knighted his half-brothers from whom Henry Tudor would one day descend. Across the bridge in Caversham, curious visitors would be shown a dagger that was believed to have killed King Henry VI in the Tower of London, regarded for many years as an important spiritual and historical relic. The town also has a scandalous link to the very beginning of the unrest that triggered the Wars of the Roses. In 1444, a servant at the abbey criticised King Henry VI, accusing him of ruling weakly and like a child. He was hauled up for an investigation, condemned to die and at the last minute, pardoned by the king.
Some names of the town’s residents during this period survive, giving us an intimate glimpse into medieval Reading. Deeds record characters such as John Caylok of Herteley, who owned a tenement called Fougheresplace (Fowler’s Place) in Reading in 1404. A 1429 document describes this building later owned by John Say, John Whyte and John Veyre who granted it to William Stappere. It is described as being in the ‘street called Wodestret’ (Wood Street) in Reading, ‘extending to the lane called Bataylelane’ (Battle Lane). In 1456 a groom of Henry VI's household occupied a tenement in Wood Street - his name was John Barnet. We have to wonder if he knew William More, another member of Henry's household whose life is commemorated in a brass in St Michael's church in Tilehurst nearby. John Barnet married Agnes, and in her will, she left goods to Salisbury Cathedral and bequeathed a 'silver ring worth 6d' to 'the table of the high altar of St Mary's, Reading'. She wrote her will on 2 January 1456 and died on around 13 March in the same year. It is therefore possible that Agnes was ill and had a feeling that death would approach. Later, another servant lived here in Wood Street, a servant of Edward IV's household, William Barnett, in 1464. It's possible that William was a relative of John and Agnes.
New Street, today’s Friar Street, was a popular residential area, packed with homes of people from all backgrounds. Residents usually lived in tenements - buildings that contained individual rooms or quarters for living in - a bit like our modern-day flats. Richard Suward lived in a tenement on New Street in 1411, ‘in the angle between the lane called ‘Goturlane’ (Gutter Lane) on the west, and the tenement of Richard Welham formerly John le Brewer’s on the east’. In 1414 his home was transferred to William Huntyngdon, a glover living in the town. Stephen Bekke with his wife Agnes, and John Lewynden were neighbours, recorded two years later at New Street in 1416.
John Clerk, John Whyte, Robert Godewyne and Robert Bodewyn are some of the mayors listed for the period. In 1414 the constables of the town included Robert Keynes and Alexander Colleshulle, while Nicholas Barbur and Walter Baron were bailiffs. You would have met these men if you were summoned to answer at the the town council, engaged in legalities or were sent to be imprisoned.
In the 1460s and 1470s one couple in particular dominate the town records in New Street. Thomas and Elizabeth Clerk moved into the street in 1458, according to a deed of that year where they were granted a tenement by Robert Farle of Reading. Robert had inherited the home on the death of his father Richard. Thomas Clerk was a draper and later served as mayor of Reading during the reign of Edward IV. One of the couple's neighbours was Henry Justice. Thomas appears again in a letter of attorney in 1465 but by 1476 Elizabeth is described as a widow. On 8 January of that year Elizabeth transferred all her goods to the ironmonger John Langham and his wife Joan, along with the tenement she once shared with her husband. The couple's nephew, Edward Clerk, also lived in the town and inherited some of his uncle's property on his death. The Langhams seem to have lived in the old Clerk home until 1484, when John Langham released his right to the tenement during the brief reign of Richard III.
Thomas and Elizabeth Clerk were wealthy, judging by the expensive gifts they granted to St Laurence’s church, and not only made a career in local government but were an example of the potential of those who took part in Reading's bustling cloth trade. The founding of Reading Abbey in 1121 by Henry I encouraged visitors of all walks of life into the town and increased its attraction as a centre of commerce, politics and religion. The Clerks were drapers, but there were shoemakers, leather-sellers and other cloth workers and merchants living in the town. Later, in the reign of Henry VIII, report was made of John Vyntener living in a corner tenement with his wife Amisia. Theirs was a corner plot with a shop and kitchen on New Street, and they agreed to add a solarium to it within two years. Vyntener was described as a 'barber and painter' in 1512.
Reading’s other medieval churches were active, too. St Giles and St Mary’s both welcomed parishioners for worship. St Giles had work undertaken in 1398. Residents in these areas included John Denys, a cook who lived in London Street in 1498, and John and Helen Carpynter, who lived in Reading's High Street and also had a shop in Butcher Row, roughly where the Minster Street end of the Broad Street is today. In May 1497 Thomas Carpynter is named as living in the High Street near the market place with his wife Margaret, a property with a garden. Thomas and Margaret were later benefactors to St Laurence's Church. In 1544, during the reign of Henry VIII, John' son William made a claim to the family's tenement following his father's death.
Various records mention a tenement called 'Le Cok' in the High Street. This would have been a pictorial image which hung from the building so that residents who could not read were able to navigate through the town. John Hunte was a butcher in the time of Henry IV, married to his wife Matilda. John had died by 1409, when Matilda is mentioned as a widow in a legal document. A shoemaker, John Mereham, is mentioned in a deed relating to London Street in 1442. There were also masons, hosiers and merchants living in the area. One interesting record of 1466 relates to 'Red Rose Rent', with Gilbert Sawyer granting a tenement in London Street to John Body for life, 'on payment of a red rose yearly', as long as Sawyer agreed to carry out repairs on the tenement, excepting any damages 'that Body or his servants shall cause'.
While Reading was split into different wards for administration and religious reasons, it was still a small town in the 1400s, and residents from different parishes would have known one another. They would have met at the markets, festivals and performances, like the one held at the Forbury in the abbey grounds on May Day in 1499, where locals were treated to an enactment of Robin Hood. There is also some evidence that a Maypole was erected near here for dancing on special occasions.
Reading might have been much smaller than it is today, but the medieval town was an important centre, not only to its own families, but in national decisions and actions carried out through war, commerce, religion and the administration of the realm. Mayors, bailiffs and constables lived alongside shoemakers, ironmongers and cooks and they all celebrated important events such as Henry V’s victory after Agincourt, to the birth of Henry VI. They would have watched Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville leave, smiling, through the abbey gates and whispered as rumours of the fates of the Princes in the Tower trickled into the town through salesmen and merchants. Later, they lit bonfires and drank wine in the streets to celebrate the coronation of Henry VII and the dawn of the Tudor age.
Interested in the Wars of the Roses? My first book explores the roles of women from all sectors of fifteenth century society and the impact they had on the Wars of the Roses conflict. Reading is mentioned, as is Elizabeth Clerk. Order your copy here.
My second book, Power Couples of the Tudor Era, published by Pen and Sword Books, explores the contributions sixteenth century couples made to their own times as well as how they influenced our own. Order your copy here.
Never want to miss a post? Subscribe to my newsletter here:
Source:
A Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient Deeds in the Public Record Office. Vols 1-6. Mackie and Co Ltd, London, 1902.
_p3.296_-_Stonor,_Oxfordshire.jpg)
