8 - The town and trade: the later fortunes of the Company of the Staple and of the Johnson partnership

Summary

We are fortunate that Calais in the early sixteenth century was extensively surveyed by royal officials. There is thus in existence a collection of plans or ‘platts’, to use the contemporary expression, sketches of the town and prominent places in the Pale, and terriers and rentals with details of all the landholdings. The sketch of Calais from the sea (Figure 4) gives an overall impression of the town; the prominent landmarks are the day watch-tower, the bell-tower of the town hall and the spires of the two churches enclosed within the circle of its walls, St Nicholas and Our Lady. The small sketch of the walls and the quayside outside the Lantern Gate (Figure 6), the area known as Paradise, the quarter where fisherman lived, shows groups of half-timbered houses with courtyards and gardens as well as the long curve of the east jetty, so often damaged by the action of the tides and the waves. The pattern of landholding is recorded in a thorough survey carried out in 1556 using the most up-to-date methods of the day. There is also a sixteenth-century copy of a terrier or rent roll dating from the reign of Edward iv. Other documents from the sixteenth century detail the dues and tolls payable to the Crown from the Pale and set out the regulations governing the conduct of business in the town and the garrison.