The Gatehouse website record of a grant of murage for Great Yarmouth granted 28/9/1261

Great Yarmouth (Gernemuth) was given a grant of murage dated 28/9/1261.

This was in the form of:-

Surtax:- for 6 years
Licence to crenellate Starting 29/9/1261 running to 28/9/1267.

Wording

Licence for the burgesses of Gernemuth to close their town with a wall and ditch so that the town shall remain closed so long as the burgesses remain faithful to the king and his heirs; and grant that there shall be a gaol in the town for the incarceration and keeping of prisoners and malefactors according to law and the custom of the realm.
Grant to the bailiffs and good men of Great Yarmouth of murage for six years from Michaelmas, 45 Henry III.
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Pro ballivis de Gernem'.—Rex ballivis suis de Gernem' salutem. Sciatis quod pontes et cleyas, que sunt in custodia vestra apud Gernem', et quas dilecto fratri nostro regi Alemannie concesseramus, dedimus vobis in auxilium ville vestre claudende, vobis mandantes quod predictos pontes et cleias ad hoc capiatis de dono nostro. Teste ut supra. {Teste rege apud Sanctum Paulum London' xxvij. die Septembris.}

Granted by Henry III. (Regnal year 45). Granted at St. Paul's, London.

Primary Sources

Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1910, Calendar of Patent Rolls Henry III (1258-66) Vol. 5 p. 177 online copy
Stamp, A.E. (ed), 1938, Calendar of Close Rolls, Henry III Vol. 11 p. 441 online copy

Secondary Sources

Coulson, Charles, 2009, Murage Grants (Handwritten list and notes)
Turner, H.L., 1971, Town Defences in England and Wales (London) p. 139

Comments

Close Roll reads something like:-
"To the King's baliffs of Great Yarmouth, greetings. Regarding the bridges and hurdles, which are in your custody in Great Yarmouth, and which our beloved brother, the king of Germany, had granted to you in aid of enclosing the town. You are to have the said bridge and hurdles as our gift." Quite what the 'hurdles' (cleyas) were is open to question but does not seem to be a defensive feature. I suspect stock pens and the value of this is as market toll points. However, might also be something to do with fishing (? somewhere to dry and repair nets).
GREAT YARMOUTH 6529 3076. Borough 1066 (BF, p. 139; Darby, p. 366). 1334 Subsidy £1000. A town with at least 70 burgesses in 1066. It was already a specialised fishing centre, with 24 fishermen in 1086 and salthouses nearby (Alecto Historical Editions, Little Domesday Book: Norfolk (London, 2000), f. 118; Alecto Historical Editions, Little Domesday Book: Suffolk (London, 2000), f. 283). The town’s herring fair probably originated in this period and had become very important by the 1230s. Men from the Cinque Ports were active at Yarmouth before 1100 and established rights of juristriction over the herring fair. The men of Hastings had rights and property at Yarmouth by 1158 and a court there by 1215. K Hen III confirmed the laws of Great Yarmouth on 26 Oct 1272 (CChR, 1257-1300, p. 185; A. Saul, ‘Great Yarmouth in the Fourteenth Century: a study in trade, politics and society’ (Oxford DPhil thesis, 1975), pp. 146-50; K.M.E. Murray, The Constitutional History of the Cinque Ports (Manchester, 1935), pp. 6, 18, 146-59, 232). See also Lothingland, Suffolk (q.v.). Market town c.1600 (Everitt, p. 474). (Letters, S., 2003, Gazetter of Markets and Fairs in England and Wales to 1516 (Centre for Metropolitan History) online copy) See also Stephen Alsford, 1998-2011, History of medieval Yarmouth

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