tenants of Bury St Edmunds to go to defend town. monks of Bury not to fortify town against the truce. (Coulson)
BURY ST EDMUNDS 5856 2640. Borough 1022x43 (BF, p. 165). Mint 1042-1154. 1334 Subsidy £360. A monastic settlement from the seventh century. Site of shrine dedicated to K Edmund the martyr. There was a vigorous small town here in 1086, enlarged and reshaped since 1066 (Little Domesday, fo. 372). The name ‘seynt Eadmundes biri’ does not necessarily indicate the existence of a town by 1043 (cf. BF, p. 165). In 1102-3, K Hen I confirmed the monastery and burgesses in the liberty they enjoyed under K Cnut and K Edw the Confessor, indicating a belief that there had been a town there by 1035. The single moneyer active at Bury c.1048-c.1065 was not very productive and probably indicates the status of the abbey rather than market activity, which perhaps took off in the 1060s. The market is later recorded as being in existence by 1087. Town enlarged in the twelfth century, in conjunction with the building of the new abbey ch. In 1202, the A of St Edmunds paid 40m. and 10m. for two palfreys for a royal charter by which no markets or fairs would be established in the liberty of St Edmunds that would damage his liberty (D. Whitelock ed., Anglo-Saxon Wills (Cambridge, 1930), pp. 74, 185; Regesta ii, no. 644; D.M. Metcalf, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon and Norman Coin Finds, c.973-1086 (London, 1998), pp. 157, 215; PR, 4 John, p. 115). See also the entry for Freckenham, Suffolk (q.v.). Market town c.1600 (Everitt, p. 475). Fair 1587, 21 Sept; 13 Nov (Harrison, p. 396). See also B. Gauthiez, ‘The planning of the town of Bury St Edmunds: a probable Norman origin’ and M. Statham, ‘The medieval town of Bury St Edmunds’, in A. Gransden ed., Bury St Edmunds: medieval art, architecture, archaeology and economy British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions xx (Leeds, 1998), esp. pp. 93, 99, 101-2. (Letters, S., 2003, Gazetter of Markets and Fairs in England and Wales to 1516 (Centre for Metropolitan History) online copy)