Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/34

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIL JAK 12, 1907.

1325, 22 March.!* Writ of aid for one year mentioning the appointment, a few years before (14 Edward II.), of collectors in the towns and ports of Oreford, Goseford, Erewell, and Ipswich, all in the county of Suffolk.

1326, 18 Feb. and 12 April. Commission of oyer and terminer in the suit against Adam Payne, of Arewell, Richard Love and Roger atte Hide, both of Harwich, and many other men, who have carried away a great fish called " cete " found in the manor of Walton, in Essex. Mr. Marsden mentions Payne, but not the other two men.

A document dated 3 Sept., 1326, about the assembly of ships at Erewell, mentions also the port of Herewiz.

1326, 10 Sept. Appointment of three men to select twelve ships in the towns of Harwich and Ipswich and their members, to be at Orfordnesse on a certain day to repel the enemy if they attempt a landing there while the fleet is assembled at Erewell.

Mr. Karl Kunze in his ' Hanseakten aus England ' (Halle, 1891) has published some documents which bear upon our subject. They are as under :

1314, 24 Sept. Patent Roll containing the king's order about a ship seized " in portu de Herwico." A similar order of same date about goods illegally seized in Orwell Haven. A similar order, dated 20 Sept., 1314, about a ship seized in Har- wich harbour.

1403. Complaints of certain merchants of Prussia about the illegal seizure of ships from " Danczik " laden with salt. " Navis est apud Orwell."

1404. Complaint of the " consulatus " of Hamburg about the seizure of a ship by the brothers Thomas and John Rudde, who took her "in Norwelle," where they divided with others the cargo. The host of the said brothers "in Norwelle," whose name was Cogghendorp,* received as his share of the spoil 10 lasts of beer (" 10 laste cervisiarum "). We are told elsewhere in the same document that in those days " quelibet lasta [cervisie] comprehendit 12 vasa et quelibet lasta taxata est in valorem 8 nobl."

The last two documents do not mention Harwich, and therefore do not help to any solution, but are of some interest apart from the present controversy.

Mr. Wylie quotes also a document of

Westfal, "veniens ad portum Orwell, quidam de Herewich, nomine Cockenthorp ipsam navem arrestavit" (' Hanserecesse,' vol. lii. p. 192).
 * About 1378 a ship, whose master was Conrad

1355 mentioning a vicar of Orwell, but, the county not being mentioned, it is quite- possible that it refers to the place of the- same name which belonged to the diocese of Ely, and was situated in the county of Cambridge, where the Gilbertian canons had a monastery. g^>

One of the proofs adduced by Mr. Marsden in support of his contention that the name of " Orwell " was occasionally used for " Harwich " is that we find sometimes the same ship described indifferently as " of Harwich " and " of Orwell," and ships owned in Harwich are called " of Orwell." He cites five examples, to test four of which would necessitate a visit to the Public Record Office. The fifth ship, named the Erasmus, is mentioned in one of the docu- ments quoted, but not in the other, amongst the ships of the Iceland fleet then recently returned to England. Moreover, the Eras- mus belonged to a period (i.e., Henry VIII.'s reign), when, as we shall presently see, the town of Orwell was no longer in existence. Two ships out of the other four belonged to a still more recent period, and therefore three out of the five ships prove nothing.

It has already been pointed out by Mr. Wylie that Harwich is in the county of Essex. Orwell, on the other hand, is as a rule referred to in the documents as being in Suffolk ; but there are exceptions to this rule. Thus, e.g., a Patent Roll of 14 Henry III. (1230) conveys an order to seize all " naves in portubus de Erewell et in aliis portubus comitatus Essexie invent as"; and the document is headed " De navibus in comitatu Essexie arrestandis." Old Silas Taylor, alias Domville, who wrote in 1676, also tells us that

"the principal officers of his Majesty's Ordinance in the Tower of London do still (according to former precedents) continue the Writing of Land- guard-Fort in Essex." Sam. Dale's 'History of Harwich and Dovercourt' (London, 1730), p. 15.

Some lines lower down, however, the same writer states that south-west of the fort " is the entrance into the Harbour," showing that, as regards the county in which Land- guard Fort was situated, he was at variance with the principal officers in the Tower.

The order dated 18 Feb., 1351, to the col- lectors of the twopenny subsidy in the port of Orewell, as to how to deal with a certain ship driven by tempest into that port, does not state the county, and it is only the modern index that assigns the port to Essex (' Cal. of Close Rolls Edward III.').

On the other hand, some explanation is required what power the Sheriff of Essex