talk report - september 2006
27 September: Mr Paul Cross - Life and Times in Tudor Lancashire
Mr Cross gave us a very interesting and informative talk about Tudor Lancashire. He began his talk by asking where the boundaries of Lancashire lie as far as we were concerned and we all agreed that Lancashire exists within the boundaries set up over many centuries and bear no relationship to the current administrative areas. He then discussed the estimated population of Lancashire in 1558 when Elizabeth I came to the throne at 95,000 this meant that the area was sparsely populated except for the towns of Manchester with 3000 and Preston 1000. The County Palatinate Court was at Preston and this meant that the landed gentry and nobility of the county had town houses in Preston. Manchester was a centre for cloth and textile trading mostly wool, linen, and canvas. Bolton had a population of 700 built on a rising volume of textile production by putters-out. Liverpool was developing as a port with a population of 600 and Lancaster, the county seat, had 400. Lancashire being a widespread and sparsely populated area clung to medieval land practices long after they had begun to disintegrate in other parts of the country. It was also a hot-bed of Roman Catholicism, "a very sink of popery", and during the years of threat from Spain spies were sent to search for treason. Three areas were particularly under suspicion, West Derby Hundred, Amounderness Hundred, and Lonsdale Hundred. During the uncertainty before the Spanish Armada the number of recusants in the area was noted, with 10 families living in Ormskirk in 1586.
The Tudor period was also a time of high inflation and as land holdings were kept for either 21 or 33 years this meant that rents could not be increased during this time, However by the end of the period the rent term was 7 or 3 years thus making it possible to increase rents more often. During the Tudor period there was a series of bad harvests and wet summers, which made the finding of the rents more difficult. The majority of farmers were subsistence farming meaning that it was hand to mouth with little over for cash sale. However during this period a lot of houses were built using the timber "cruck" construction. These houses were built end on to the road and were divided into three parts. The middle part consisted of the main living room with fire for warmth and cooking and was called "Th'Howse". To the left was the byre or shippon for the animals or if not a farm a workshop for wood-working, blacksmithy etc. To the right of the main room was a buttery on the cool side of the building and a bed-chamber though sometimes there was another bed-chamber in the roof. An altogether fascinating talk.