Dec 17 2009
History of the Cinque Ports
The Cinque Ports Confederation dates back to the 11th Century, during the reign of Edward the Confessor. It was started by the ports Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich for mutual protecton and trade. Edward gave official recognition by granting a Royal Charter which was later confirmed by William the Conqueror .
Rye and Winchelsea became ’limbs’ of the Head Port of Hastings in the second half of the 12th Century. They were incorporated as ‘Antient Towns’, which meant they were ‘worthy of veneration’. Before Henry II died in 1189, he conferred on them the same privileges as were enjoyed by the original members of the Cinque Ports Federation.
The privileges were in exchange for services; the towns which formed the Confederation supplied ships and seamen for a set number of days per year and in times of trouble, The privileges they received in return (legalised by Royal Charter in 1278) enabled the Cinque Port towns to be exempted from many taxes, to trade wherever they wished and to hold their own courts.
12th to 13th Century Cinque Ports Ship
In 1229 Rye supplied five ships for the King out of the Confederation’s total of fifty seven. In 1337 the Hundred Years War began and the ships of the Cinque Ports were vital to the defence of England and for carrying the army to France. In 1415 the Confederation fleet transported Henry V and an army of ten thousand to Ifarfleur, which subsequently won the Battle of Agincourt.
The importance of Rye and Winchelsea, and the decline of Hastings elevated them to become Cinque Ports and Head Ports in their own right in the 14th Century although this does not seem to have been marked by any special event or legal formality. In typically English fashion the name of the Confederation was not changed, but continued under the somewhat cumbersome title of the ’Five Ports and Two Ancient Towns’.
Although the main duty of the Confederation was providing ships for the Crown, the Cinque Ports also organised and supplied Bailiffs to the Yarmouth Herring Fair, an annual event which continued until the late seventeenth century. This big market and festival fixed the price for the herring catch. There were often clashes between the men of Rye and Winchelsea and the men of Yarmouth who resented the privileges held by the Cinque Ports towns.
The decline of the ports dates from the mid-14th century when changing ways of warfare made it necessary to have a more permanent marine force and the consequent larger ships were too big for the harbours, which had begun to silt up. Despite the reduced strategic and tactical importance of the Cinque Ports fleet, the ports remained commercially active. One Rye seaman accompanied Drake on his voyage around the world.
The Ports were asked by Queen Elizabeth to provide ships for the Spanish Armada and in 1588 Rye, with its limb, Tenterden, produced–at twenty days notice–a ship of sixty tons called the William, a feat reflecting its relative prosperity at the time.
By the end of the sixteenth century a professional navy, forerunner of the modem Royal Navy, was established. The Cinque Ports continued their slow decline.
Today only Rye and Dover remain as true ports. However, by providing ships and men for the Royal Fleet for some 400 years they laid the foundations of England’s maritime power, and their ceremonial importance–at Coronations for example– lasts to this day.