The Famine in Belchamp Water 1524/27
I'm not sure how I found this research, I was probably just looking for things from the
16th Century and the name Clopton and the village of Melford was found on the localpopulationstudies.org.uk website.
I admit that I am a little confused in that during a period of famine that there was an unrising at the
same time between the local weavers of Hadleigh, Sudbury and Lavenham in 1525. The link below may give a clue
to how the "Amicable Grant", Henry VIII, The Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk, £800,000 tax for the war
in France fits with the local scene.
Hunger could well have been the motivator here!
In Belchamp Walter those who were working on the land were likely to have been amongst the hungry. Those
inheriting
land and buildings were probably immune to this?
Futher research reveals that John Spring of Lavenham assisted the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk in the suppression
of the uprising by the removal of the clappers from the bells in Lavenham Church.
Top
The David Dymond article:
"
THE FAMINE OF 1527 IN ESSEX
David Dymond
David Dymond is resident tutor in Suffolk for the University of Cambridge
Board of Extra-mural Studies.
"
The purpose of this article is to draw attention to a corn certificate of 1527 which survives for a block of ten
parishes in the north-west of Essex, part of the largest hundred in the county called Hinckford.
These ten parishes lie within a large bend of the river Stour, Opposite the Suffolk towns of Clare, Melford
and Sudbury. The certificate is complete and systematic, and therefore seems an obvious candidate for detailed
analysis.
"
John Stow in his Annales confirms that 1527 was indeed a year of crisis and dearth. Heavy rain during the previous
winter had 'destroied corne fields, pastures, and beasts.' To make matters worse, it rained every day from
12 April until 3 June 'wherby Corne failed sore in the yeare following.'
So, after a run of five good years, the harvest of 1527 was disastrous. The price of wheat rose higher than
it had ever been since 1450, 'with an average price for the harvest year fully two-thirds above the norm.'
The inevitable result was widespread discontent which some times, in Norfolk for example, erupted into violence.
To contemporaries the winter of 1527-8 must have seemed the worst and most dangerous within living memory:
indeed only two other harvest years in the entire sixteenth century (1556 and 1596) exceeded 1527 for the scarcity
of wheat.
"
The commissioner appointed by the Crown to survey this piece of Hinckford Hundred was William Clopton, Esg, of
Liston Hall. He was the second son of Sir William Clopton of Long Melford, and grandson of the celebrated
John Clopton who had been largely responsible for the grand rebuilding of Melford Church during the years
1460 to 1495. This distinguished landowning family had lived at Kentwell Manor since the later 14th century,
but William Clopton as a second son established a new branch at Liston where it remained until the eighteenth century.
Clopton's commission began its work on 15 December 1527, when the situation was already critical.'
The certificate records how much grain was available in each parish, and how much extra was needed,
in order to support the population over a period of thirty-eight weeks: until, that is, the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady on 8 September 1528, when presumably the next harvest, or most of it, would already be cut and new supplies of grain therefore available. This dramatically illustrates the historical significance of the 'harvest year.' The commission's calculations were based on the assumption that in a week six persons would consume
a bushel of 'breadcorn' and a bushel and a half of 'drinkcorn.'