England's Immigrants, 1330-1550: Resident Aliens in the Later Middle Ages

'England's Immigrants, 1330-1550' engages with topical debates about immigration and identity by undertaking a detailed analysis of the thousands of foreigners who made their homes and livelihoods in England in the later Middle Ages.

In the broader history of England's immigrant communities, the period between the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the coming of the Huguenots in the mid-sixteenth century is traditionally characterised as one of isolationism and bigotry. But there is another and very different kind of story to be told of the immigrant experience in England between 1330 and 1550. An extraordinarily rich body of material in the National Archives reveals the identities of thousands of foreigners who continued to find their way into England. Some of these people prospered, and became fully naturalised subjects of the English crown. Others clustered in the poor areas of larger towns or scratched a living as migrant, seasonal workers in the agricultural economy. There is every indication that both public opinion and official policy usually treated these resident aliens with a liberal tolerance that was altogether exceptional in pre-modern Europe.

The core data collected by the project comprises a series of taxes levied on aliens in England between 1440 and 1550. The largest groupings identified by the collectors were the Scots (who were an independent nation in this period), the Irish (who, although subjects of the English crown, were at first treated as aliens for tax purposes), the 'Dutch' (a label that denoted a range of northern Europeans who spoke Germanic languages) and the French (sometimes differentiated by regions as Picards, Normans, Bretons, Gascons, etc). There were also significant numbers of Italians, Iberians and Scandinavians. Preliminary investigations of the most comprehensive set of tax accounts, that for 1440, suggests that there were at least 20,000 registered aliens in England. This brings the alien presence to nearly 1% of a total population of 2.5 million, and as high as 6% in London. These figures are comparable with levels of immigration still being reported in the 1901 UK census.

More remarkably still, the tax records reveal a huge amount of detail about the life experiences of these incomers. Immigrants established themselves as householders and/or servants, artisans and labourers, and included significant numbers of single and married women. They spread out in a remarkable diaspora over the whole of the country: indeed, contrary to received opinion, a remarkably large proportion of late-medieval English rural society must have had direct human contact with foreigners. Other evidence also reveals a small but discernible group of non-whites (and, at least originally, non-Christians), mainly from Iberia, North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean.

The full database of immigrants recorded in England between 1330 and 1550 will offer numerous opportunities for researchers. Local historians will be able to document the diversity of their communities in the Middle Ages. Family historians will find a rich body of evidence for the foreign origins of modern English surnames. Political historians will re-evaluate the mechanisms by which government sought to regulate immigration. Economic and social historians will investigate the role of foreigners in the agricultural, manufacturing and commercial economies. And cultural historians will have a powerful body of data on which to base new debates about the integration of foreigners and their contribution to evolving notions of nationality, race and religion.

In these and many other ways, 'England's Immigrants, 1330-1550' aims to contribute significantly to the longer-term history of immigration and to provide a deep historical context for important contemporary debates about the free movement of peoples, about multiculturalism, and aboutnational identity.

'England's Immigrants, 1330-1550', will benefit a wide range of public users. This summary describes the broad constituencies that will be encouraged to take ownership of the project's online database and other outputs, to engage in additional work with the project team and its international board, and to use the database as a key resource in public history.

Three specific categories of public user have been identified. They are:

1. Education and Outreach Departments in Archives and Museums. These will be able to draw on the empirical evidence from the project to address inclusion agendas, to demonstrate the presence and involvement of foreigners and minorities in relevant communities (local, regional and national), and to develop the life-stories of the better-documented individuals identified from the project's database to further their programmes (including the addressing of Diversity issues).

2. Local and family historians and genealogical services. These will be able to access the database free of charge as a public resource, conduct comprehensive searches of persons, family relationships, places, occupations, etc, and access significant contextual material on the life histories of selected individuals, families, and local and national groupings. Understanding of the role of 'foreigners' in local communities in the fifteenth and sixteenth century will provide a powerful corrective to pervasive notions of a static and monolithic society in pre-modern times.

3. The media, especially history magazines and radio/TV. There is a powerful market for genealogical stories and resources that is served by media outputs such as the BBC's 'Who Do You Think You Are' (and its spin-off Magazine). Equally importantly, the project offers many opportunities to develop the database with additional inputs from archaeology, art, architecture and literature to explore the life histories of England's late medieval immigrants. In so doing, it can provide a powerful corrective to widespread assumptions that medieval society was closed to contact with the outside world.

The mechanisms by which the project will establish links and develop work with user groups in each category are set out in detail in the separate attachment, 'Pathways to Impact'.