Wherein a pitched battle takes place in the Cathedral Close and the monastery and cathedral go up in flames …
Fortunately this thing is pretty hard to burn. The spire, however, is the fourth as three came down in storms and the south face of the tower was rebuilt in the 1970s by Old Dive's current architectural firm after Victorian "repairs" threatened to bring the whole thing down.
Photo: courtesy Old Dive.
So … after the riot at the 1272 June Fair, when a priory man murdered a town man, things got pretty tense. There was a stand-off for several weeks while the good folk of the city occupied Tombland and the prior. besieged within the Close strengthened his defences with "three shiploads of bad lots from Yarmouth" (Blomefield).
In the second week of August it all kicked off. The citizens of Norwich attacked the Close and invaded the priory. I'll let James Campbell, writing in Rawcliffe and Wilson's "Mediæval Norwich" take up the tale:
"A great fire broke out, probably semi-accidental in origin. Most of the monastic buildings and much of the cathedral were burned. The intruders killed a number of priory men though all the monks escaped. The furore was intense."
Eventually things calmed down into a stand-off once more, but the king was so alarmed that: "On 1st September, King Henry III came to Norwich. Alleged participants in the riot were put on trial; some thirty were hanged. The bodies of some (perhaps all) were burnt; this was the penalty for arson.
The affair did not end there. Wider inquiries indicated that the prior was not innocent of provocation. He was deposed and the priory taken into the king's hand."
Contemporary sources have "something interesting to say about the forces from Yarmouth which the prior brought to resist, or oppress, the townsmen; namely that they were bad men who 'tempore turbationis regnii' (in the time when the kingdom was disturbed), had become thieves, ravagers and evil-doers."
Pretty much like the Yarmouth of today, then …
Here be dragons … Ethel and Bert's Gate, Photo courtesy Old Dive.
That same year of 1272, Henry's eldest son Edward, kicker of Simon de Montfort's arse, came to the throne, when Henry broke with family tradition and decided not to die of arse gravy but of "a long illness". Spoilsport.
Anyhoo, in Edward the First's reign, as part of a final settlement for the burning of the monastery, the citizens of Norwich paid for the building of the current Ethelbert Gate (above), replacing the original timber gatehouse, burned down in the riot.
We shall learn more of Edward the First next time.
Sources:
Norfolk Museums Service and the Norfolk Archæological Society
East Anglian Archæology Vol. 132: Norwich Castle: Excavations and Historical Survey: 1978-1988: Part 1: Anglo-Saxon to c.1345: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2009
Gesta Stephani: In translation by K. R. Potter and R. H. C. Davis: Oxford Mediæval Texts: 1976
The Anarchy of King Stephen's Reign: Edmund King (ed): 1994
Norwich Castle Keep: Romanesque Architecture and Social Context: T. A. Heslop: 1994
Stephen and Matilda : The Civil War of 1139 - 1153: Jim Bradbury: 2005
The Norman Connections - Castle: Part 1: Norwich Castle: Elizabeth Shepherd-Popescu: 2010
Mediæval Norwich: ed: Carole Rawcliffe & Richard Wilson: 2004
Francis
Blomefield: An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of
Norfolk: Volume 3: The History of the City and County of Norwich: 1753
to 1775
The Oxford History of England: 1087-1216: From Domesday to Magna Carta: Austin L. Poole (ed): 1951
2 comments:
Well, it's a beautiful gate and the citizens get to keep it, which is a happy ending.
"Forces from Yarmouth" sounds much like the "Federal Troops" old orange buttchuck sent to Portland. Some things never change.
Ethel and Bert are proud of their gate, Petrea. And yes, the weak and cowardly will always send someone else to beat down on the innocent.
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