Paying the rent in Herrings at Whitby - John Rushton
A Whitby lady called Marsanilla made a donation
to the nunnery at Yedingham in theVale of Pickering
in the 12th century. Perhaps she was going to enter
that religious house, of which a slight remnant
stands on the north side of the river Derwent. She
gave her toft at the port of Whitby , the old name
for the plot on which a house stands . This had once
been held by Walter the Forester, paying a rent to
the Abbot of Whitby who was lord of that borough. He
was probably the forester of William of Aumale who had
built Scarborough Castle, and worried the Whitby monks
into allowing him hunting rights in the Forest of
Whitby. Two Scarborough men signed the deed, Ralph
the chaplain and Ralph de Bolebec, the Scalby forester
who had a Sandside plot at the bottom of Sandgate.
The Prioress and the nuns turned the gift to good
advantage. Whitby was a developing haven for
fishermen .Filey men put in there regularly. Men from
Allerston and Pickering had moved to the borough.
From Flanders had come Herman the Fleming to settle as
a burgess . A Lincoln family of some substance
wanted a borough plot and the nuns wanted fish for
Wednesdays and Fridays, for the many holy days and
the long meatless days of Lent. Hugh of Lincoln
took their toft , for an annual rent of a thousand
herrings, payable on St. Andrew's Day. Later members
of the Lincoln family traded wine from Gascony. One
established Whitby's only chantry, with a priest
saying prayers for his soul.
John Rushton
OTHER ARTICLES
• The port of Scarborough in the late 15th Century
• History of the Whitby whaling industry
• Harwood Brierleys description of Scarborough harbour at the opening of the 20th century
• Scarborough ships in the baltic - an article by John Rushton
• Fighting the Scots in Scarborough Waters in the early 16th century. John Rushton
• Famous fishing families - the Whitby Storr family and the Leadleys
• Havens on the North Yorkshire coast. An article on scarboroughs maritime history by John Rushton
• The Yorkshire smuggler - the smuggling of contraband
• The early years of the Scarborough Lifeboat
• The Borough of Scarborough formed in the 12th Century
• The 200 year history of scarboroughs RNLI
• The national RNLI and the Scarborough lifeboat of 1861.
• The history of the herring fishing in the North Sea
• Shipbuilding at Scarborough - the wooden barques and schooners
• Shipping Ironstone down the coast by John Rushton
• Coastal erosion in the 19th Century around the North Bay and Scarborough Castle area
• Gristhorpe man - the reaction of victorians - John Rushton
• Carrying Coal to the Yorkshire Coast - John Rushton
• Seabathing in scarborough - an article by John Rushton
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