Introduction

Summary

The fifteenth-century manorial records of Newmarket are an unusual set of court rolls and account rolls that provide a fascinating glimpse into the life of a medieval small town. Although the court rolls span only fifteen years, the four different types of court they represent, manorial, market, fair and leet, are not replicated in the surviving records of any other medieval English small town. This in itself justifies the publication of this set of translations, as well as the remarkable insights they provide for a medieval market community. Alongside the court material also exist substantial sets of account rolls spread across the fifteenth century, which, in particular, provide details of the holdings, stalls and shops that were rented not just to Newmarket tenants, but also to many traders from further afield. The commercial focus of this settlement is clear from all these records and a vibrant reminder of the importance of the market to much of medieval society.

The small town of Newmarket lies on the border between Suffolk and Cambridgeshire in the landscape known as the East Anglian Chalk. It is bounded to the west by the Fens, to the north by the Breckland, and to the south and east by the boulder clay of the South Suffolk and North Essex Clayland (see Plate 1). The dryness of the region's climate did not encourage early settlement, but the area became an important transport corridor with the prehistoric long-distance track known as the Icknield Way running directly through it. In the Middle Ages, Newmarket lay on the boundary of two parishes, Exning, in Suffolk, to the north, and Woodditton, in Cambridgeshire, to the south, and was not a parish in its own right. It had no church, but two chapels of ease. The old chapel of the Blessed Mary, originally built as a chantry chapel for the Argentein family, was a chapel of ease in the parish of St Martin, Exning. It was located to the north-west of the marketplace and became the church of St Mary, Newmarket, in the sixteenth century. The new chapel of the Blessed Mary, later the chapel of All Saints’, was a chapel of ease in the parish of All Saints’, Woodditton, which only became the church of All Saints, Newmarket, in the nineteenth century. It was also divided between two manors from 1318, though the manorial administration for the town was amalgamated.