Like other counties of the Midlands, Warwickshire lacks natural boundaries, but within these borders the medieval county was divided into two distinct regions by the valley of the Avon. To the north of the valley lay the Arden, largely given to pasture and with substantial areas of high ground, notably the Birmingham Plateau; to the south, the more fertile and densely-populated Feldon region.
In the fourteenth century Steyning had always shared its representatives with the borough of Bramber, on the opposite bank of the river Adur. The Parliament of 1453, the first one in more than half a century in which Bramber and Steyning were represented in the Commons, marked a new departure, since never before had both boroughs each sent two Members. The Commons 1386-1421, i. 649-50. Thereafter, Steyning’s representation remained separate from its neighbour’s, but continued to be sporadic.
The port of New Shoreham on the estuary of the Adur had declined in the fourteenth century, owing to changes in the channel to the sea, caused by drifting sandbanks which from time to time blocked the river’s mouth. In the early fifteenth century a part of the town was destroyed by incursions of the sea, resulting in a dramatic reduction in its population. Whereas 100 years earlier New Shoreham had housed over 500 inhabitants, by 1421 there were said in a petition to Parliament to be no more than 36 impoverished people living in buildings all but surrounded by water. VCH Suss.
This very small town in west Sussex had a taxable population said to number just 15 in 1340 and only about 100 in 1523. VCH Suss. iv. 76. In the early fifteenth century lordship of the manor and borough, vested in the Bohun family, fell to the long-lived Sir John Bohun, who in 1432, the year before he died, finally reached an agreement with the townsmen to settle the disputes between them which had festered for many years.
Lordship of the barony and honour of Lewes, of which the borough formed a part, had passed at the beginning of the century to Thomas Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, who used Lewes castle as the administrative centre of his estates in east Sussex. Shortly before leaving for France in Henry V’s army in 1415, the childless earl settled the honour on his wife, Countess Beatrice, as part of her jointure, so it remained in the countess’s possession after his death that October, and she may have used Lewes castle as a place of residence on occasion.
In this period Horsham, lying near the Surrey border and on the road from London to Steyning, remained a small settlement with a taxable population which sometimes numbered fewer than 50 adults. Its inhabitants made a living from the sale of the products of the heavily-wooded land surrounding the town, pastoral farming, iron-working and quarrying stone. VCH Suss.
East Grinstead, a borough pertaining to the duchy of Lancaster, had been granted by Henry IV with the rest of the duchy estates in Sussex to Sir John Pelham*, to hold for life. Accordingly, it returned to the possession of the Crown only at Pelham’s death in 1429. Revenues paid annually by the townsmen to the Crown did not amount to much during the remainder of Henry VI’s reign, at best coming to a little over £2 13s. clear after deductions (as in 1440-1), at worse to no more than 18s. (as in 1458-9). On average, the profits amounted to about 33s. 4d.
First established by the Romans as the capital of a native kingdom, Chichester had long been the wealthiest and most densely populated place in Sussex. Even though it lacked direct access to the sea, the city had become an important trading centre and customs and subsidies charged by the Crown on wool, woolfells and hides were collected in Chichester harbour from the thirteenth century onwards.
From the late thirteenth century until 1384 the boroughs of Bramber and Steyning (situated facing each other on opposite banks of the river Adur) had been represented at roughly two out of every three Parliaments summoned. Most often they sent two Members jointly, but on occasion one or other place sent both; it never happened that Bramber and Steyning made separate returns.
Unique among the shires of England, Sussex was distinguished by its division into rapes. This split the county into six units: from west to east the rapes of Chichester, Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, Pevensey and Hastings, with their borders running from north to south. Each rape possessed distinct seigneurial characteristics and a castle as its seat of governance. Although the castle at Chichester had been demolished in the thirteenth century, by the period under review the city was well established as the focus of both county and diocesan administration.
