England’s Forgotten Maritime Communities: A study of Elizabethan coastal trading, 1568 - 1580

Abstract

While the maritime economy of Tudor England has been extensively studied, and powerful overseas merchants and mariners have been the focus of a great many works, the world of the coastal trader is little known. The work of T. S. Willan went some way to addressing this deficiency and various regional studies have incidentally included the examination of specific coastal merchants. However, this work has typically focused on individuals of particular social, financial, and political importance within particular regions, and coastal trading has rarely been examined in its own right. Given that an estimated three-quarters of English ship-voyages in this period were coastal, this is a significant omission. This thesis seeks to address this imbalance and to provide a rounded overview of coastal trading in three ports of commercial, social, and political significance during the years preceding the Anglo-Spanish War of 1585–1604, namely, Southampton, Bristol and Hull. Drawing on a rich diversity of primary source material (namely, national customs records (port books), lay subsidy returns, Admiralty Court records, and various local civic sources), this thesis revolves around a purpose-built relational database into which details of over 4000 ship-voyages have been transcribed. By cross-referencing the port book data with sources of a more qualitative nature it has been possible to undertake three distinct forms of analysis through which a full examination of coastal commercial activity has been produced. First, quantitative analysis of the port book data revealed the domestic geographic reach of the three ports and the commercial nature of that activity. Secondly, Social Network Analysis was used to generate network graphs that clarified the business relationships between traders and identified their operational approaches to coastal commerce. Finally, prosopographical analysis allowed for examination of the socio-economic and socio-political position of coastal traders in the context of their towns, including their occupational groups, their levels of wealth, and their inner-town residences.

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