Sussex

The township of Bramber was overshadowed by the adjoining borough of Steyning, but its position on the most southerly road running the length of Sussex, at the crossing of the river Adur, gave it a measure of independence from its neighbour. The castle, manor and borough formed part of the barony of Bramber belonging to the dukes of Norfolk. On the execution of Catherine Howard the 3rd Duke surrendered his interest in the barony to Henry VIII, and on the death of his stepmother in 1545 Bramber passed to the crown.

The castle, manor and borough of Arundel formed part of the honor of the same name held in chief from the crown by the Fitzalan earls. The borough was governed by a mayor assisted by the burgesses (a term apparently restricted to the town authorities themselves) and several officers. The mayor presided over the borough court as well as the court leet of the manor. A minute book begun in 1539 and some other borough records survive from the period. On the suppression of Calcetto priory in 1525 the borough acquired much of its property and the upkeep of Arundel bridge devolved upon the mayor.

New Shoreham, planted after the Norman Conquest at the mouth of the river Adur, near the Saxon village of Old Shoreham, became one of the most important Channel ports of the 12th and 13th centuries, and at a stage in its history even threatened to oust Chichester as the county town. It frequently provided ships for royal service: in the 1340s as many as 21 vessels manned by 300 men at a time. But thereafter the port declined.

Midhurst, situated 12 miles due north of Chichester, was scarcely more than a village. Returns made for the tenths granted by Parliament in 1332 listed no more than 32 taxpayers, of whom only one was assessed to pay 13s.4d., one 6s.8d. and all the rest less. Fifty-eight persons (20 of them women) contributed to the poll tax of 1379, and on that occasion just two paid 1s., most of the rest being charged the basic sum of 4d. Despite its size, Midhurst enjoyed borough status from quite early times.

Build on a spur of the South Downs descending to the banks of the river Ouse, Lewes had emerged in the tenth century as the virtual capital of east Sussex, and in the later Middle Ages it sometimes challenged Chichester’s supremacy in the county as a whole.

Probably founded as a ‘new town’ by the de Braose family soon after the Norman Conquest, Horsham grew up in a heavily wooded area which regularly supplied timber, firewood and charcoal to manorial estates in the south of the county. Called a ‘borough’ from the early 13th century, it nevertheless remained one of little economic or administrative significance until long after our period. In 1334 it had the lowest taxation assessment of any Sussex borough except Bramber, and although the county court had met there on a handful of occasions in the past, it did not do so again after that date.

East Grinstead, situated in the midst of royal forests, passed in 1372 into the possession of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, together with Ashdown forest, the manor of Willingdon and Maresfield, and the rape and castle of Pevensey, after the duke had formally surrendered to the Crown certain other properties in the east of the county.

First established by the Romans as the capital of a native kingdom on the coastal plain, Chichester became in medieval times an important trading centre and port, even though it lacked direct access to the sea. Markets and fairs were regular events there, and from the early 13th century customs dues on wool, woolfells, and hides were collected in Chichester harbour, after 1341 the locally based customers being made responsible for the whole coastline from Southampton Water to Seaford.

The two boroughs, scarcely a mile apart on the west bank of the river Adur, shared a common parliamentary history, even though their origins were diverse. Steyning, settled in the early Saxon period, had become so prominent a centre of trade as to have housed a mint for much of the 11th century, only to be eclipsed as the chief town of the region following the creation of New Shoreham, five miles down river on the coast. As the lordship of the manor of Steyning pertained to Fécamp abbey, from 1369 the manor was continuously in the hands of the Crown, owing to the war with France.

Arundel’s strategic position at the extremity of one of the high, narrow ridges of the South Downs, overlooking the Arun valley, had made it an obvious place to build a stronghold in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest. The castle, manor and borough of Arundel formed part of the honour of the same name then created, which from the mid 13th century was held in chief from the Crown by the Fitzalans.