Fifteenth century immigration in the Ongar Hundred

There is nothing new in our long and troubled relationship with Europe and the movement of its citizens, even if the language has changed. To our medieval ancestors, ‘strangers’ and ‘foreigners’ were individuals from other parts of England, whereas ‘aliens’ were those from countries under a different ruler. ‘Aliens’ were not allowed to work or trade, but could apply for ‘letters of protection’ which enabled them to do so, usually for a limited period. There were two other possibilities for European settlers – firstly, to obtain ‘letters of denization’ which allowed them to buy and devize land (but not to inherit it, or to hold any office under the Crown) – and secondly by naturalisation through a private Act of Parliament. Apart from those wealthy or influential enough to obtain naturalisation, additional restrictions were placed on those with letters of protection or denization during periods of heightened international tension.
Records of these procedures have survived in the National Archive at Kew, and now enable researchers to identify medieval settlers from Europe. These individuals were taxed at twice the rate of the indigenous population, so they can be identified from the payments were recorded in contemporary tax returns. A recent national research project has created a medieval immigrant database, free for anyone to search, on www.englandsimmigrants.com.

Migrants might have been expected in a market town such as Chipping Ongar, but none appear on the database. Instead there are a few scattered individuals in the surrounding countryside – Navestock, Lambourne, North Weald, Stapleford Tawney and Fyfield, most of these settlers identified in the 1440s from the double rate of tax they were obliged to pay. Some of surnames suggest a country of origin, for example the Navestock resident Gylmyn Flemmyng probably came from the Low Countries. Unfortunately there is usually nothing to show how they were earning a living, or why they had settled here, apart from two cases.

One, a John without a surname, was working as a servant to Roger Spyce of Stapleford Tawney. The records provide much more detail about the other, namely Nicholas Touk of Stanford Rivers. He came from France, and in 1337 was granted letters of protection ‘in consideration of services to Queen Isabella’. The record also notes that he was parson of Stanford Rivers, and this is confirmed in Newcourt’s Repertorium which gives the induction of ‘Nic. Touch, clericus’ a decade earlier in 1326/7, presented by the church’s patron, the recently crowned King Edward III.

Queen Isabella, daughter of the King of France, was the wife of King Edward II whose reign was dominated by the consequences of his infatuation with Piers Gaveston. Queen Isabella took an active political role in the reign of that unfortunate king. After retiring to the French court for a while, she returned to England in 1326/7, landing at Orwell in Suffolk with a small French force to rally support for her son, the future Edward III. Her husband to flight west from London, but was captured and met his death under mysterious (and possibly gruesome) circumstances. We will probably never know what part Nicholas Touk played in her affairs but, being French, he may have come to England in 1326/7 as part of the Queen’s extensive household. Nothing more is known about Touk himself, though he probably died in 1348 when the next rector succeeded to the parish. But why had he been parson of Stanford Rivers for nearly 10 years before requiring letters of protection in 1337? The answer is almost certainly that 1337 marked the commencement of the Hundred Years War, with England making active preparations for a continental offensive and Essex effectively being put on a war footing to raise men, ships and supplies for the invasion. At such a time anyone with European origins could well have felt very vulnerable.