Medieval Norfolk’s relationship with North Sea

‘Norfolk and its North Sea World in the Late Middle Ages’ will open at the Norfolk Record Office in Norwich on Tuesday (13 April). The exhibition tells the story of the county’s relationship with the North Sea and the countries bordering it, with items relating to international trade, exchange of ideas, naval affairs, defence and war on show.

Documents written in Latin, French, English, Dutch and Low German all feature in the exhibition and demonstrate that during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries – the period covered by the exhibition – Norfolk was a vital and significant link between England and the continent.

The exhibition is being held to coincide with a major international conference at the University of East Anglia, ‘East Anglia and its North Sea world’, which runs from Tuesday, 13 to Thursday, 15 April. The conference will include contributions from scholars working in Iceland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium, together with those based in the UK.

Trade and commerce with the Low Countries, Scandinavia and particularly with the German Hanse trade association are explained through numerous documents from King’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth. For example, there are sumptuously decorated letters patent of Henry VI, issued in 1428, confirming Henry IV’s grant, made in 1404, of powers of self-government to English merchants in Prussia, Scandinavia and the Hanseatic regions.

Another important document is the Great Yarmouth customs account for 1379-80, which shows a port heaving with vessels from the Baltic, Germany and the Low Countries. The Yarmouth accounts are significant as being one of only three series of English local customs accounts which survive locally, and they are by far the most extensive and complete.

‘Norfolk and its North Sea World in the Late Middle Ages’ will open on Tuesday and run until Tuesday, 13 July at the Norfolk Record Office, located in the Archive Centre on the County Hall site in Norwich. Admission to the exhibition and centre is free, for more information and centre opening hours, visit www.archives.norfolk.gov.uk.