History of Colchester

[5] Five Bronze Age barrow mounds remain near the University of Essex on the north-east outskirts of the town, although the building of the railway line between Colchester and Clacton-on-Sea in the 1850s may have destroyed more.

[6] Strabo reports Rome's lucrative trade with Britain; the island's exports included grain, gold, silver, iron, hides, slaves and hunting dogs.

[14] Aulus Plautius led the four Roman legions across to Britain with Camulodunon being their main target,[10] defeating and killing Togodumnus near the Thames and then waiting for Claudius to cross the Channel.

Tacitus wrote that the town was "a strong colonia of ex-soldiers established on conquered territory, to provide a protection against rebels and a centre for instructing the provincials in the procedures of the law".

[10] As the symbol of Roman rule in Britain the city was the first target of the rebels, with its Temple seen in British eyes as the "arx aeternae dominationis" ("stronghold of everlasting domination") according to Tacitus.

[6] The colonia became a large industrial centre, and was the largest, and for a short time the only, place in the province of Britannia where samian ware was produced, along with glasswork and metalwork, and a coin mint.

[2] There is a possibility that due to financial and time constraints on archaeological investigations from the 1960s–1980s that some Anglo-Saxon evidence may have been lost,[29] with Saxon finds from the demolition of the Medieval Cups Hotel on the High Street suggesting that some structures or features were missed.

[6] The isolated raids by Vikings in the first half of the 9th century took a far more serious turn in 865 when a great army of Danes under the command of Ivar the Boneless invaded the Kingdom of East Anglia.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that after liberating Maldon, Edward's army: "Went to Colchester, and beset the town, and fought thereon till they took it, and slew all the people, and seized all that was therein; except those men who escaped therefrom over the wall.

"[40] After being restored to English rule by Edward the Elder the settlement at Colchester flourished into a prosperous small burh[35][41] with a developed system of rights and privileges for its burgesses.

[35] In 1069 a Danish fleet unsuccessfully attacked the east coast of England, failing to take Dover, Sandwich, Ipswich and Norwich, although it appears to have severely damaged Colchester,[6] with a second invasion scare in 1071.

[8] Although the church still stands as the Colchester Masonic Centre, large portions of the associated graveyard and earlier Roman features were removed and destroyed by building contractors with little archaeological investigation during the creation of a car park in the 1970s and 1980s.

[35] The thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries also saw a series of conflicts between the burgesses of the town and St. John's Abbey and several local lords over the infringements of their charter rights.

[35] The resulting dispute with the town led to him besieging it between August and November 1350, damaging Colchester's eastern suburbs and taking grain and hay from Greenstead, before he was bought off with £20.

[35] In the winter of 1348–49 the Black Death struck the town, killing up to 1,500 people including the Abbot and Prior of St. John's Abbey by the time it began to die down in August 1349.

[8] The following year, in 1429, during a dispute with the townsfolk over the ownership of the Hythe water mill the Abbot of St John's called the town a nest of Lollards, intending it as an insult.

[43] By the end of the Middle Ages Colchester's population had begun to decline with the shrinking of the medieval cloth trade to about 5,000 by 1520, placing it eleventh in size of English provincial towns.

Henry VI's charter extended the liberty of the borough to include the previously independent vills of Lexden, Greenstead, Mile End and West Donyland.

[41] The government of the borough was conducted through a group of officials, whose number, role and electoral procedures altered over the course of the Middle Ages as political, demographic and economic changes affected the town.

[35] Originally the two highest officials were reeves, later replaced by two bailiffs who were royal officers charged with collecting the fee farm for parliament and holding the borough courts, as well as taking the role of coroners when needed.

[43] Jury courts met fortnightly at the Moot Hall, and at three other major hearings on Michaelmas, Hilary and Hock Days, called law hundreds where view of frankpledge was held, and cases concerning the town's treasure trove, the raising of hue and cry, bloodshed, encroachments, overcharging the common, breaches of the assize of ale and of weights and measures, and nuisance were heard.

[35] Thomas Malory, author of the Arthurian romance Le Morte d'Arthur, was imprisoned in Colchester Castle in October 1454 for crimes including horse theft.

[35] The local trade in grain, fish, cattle and sheep, as well as by-products such as beer, bread, wool, cloth, milk, cheese, butter, leather and meat was focused on the town,[41] and were exported to other markets at Ipswich, Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn.

[33][41][52] The kilns also specialised in producing Colchester-ware louvers (ceramic vents or chimney stacks for letting air and smoke out of the roofs of houses and manors), some of which are very elaborate, during the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries which were used across Essex at places like West Bergholt, Heybridge, Chelmsford and Great Easton.

[41] However, it was the decades after the Black Death in 1348–49, when Colchester experienced large scale immigration from across Britain and the Low Countries, which saw the greatest boom in the wool trade for the town.

[41] Colchester's main trade partner outside England was Bruges, to which cloth, wool and dyes (as well as grain, butter and cheese) were exported in exchange for more exotic products such as wine, spices, saffron, nuts, furs, salt, soap, bitumen, ginger, garlic, pepper and silk.

[43] Next to St Marys was le Posterne, which was made by widening an existing Roman drain in the walls to create a foot passageway out of the town onto Balkerne Lane.

[43] As well as housing a goal for those awaiting trial in its courts, the Moot Hall also contained a white-washed strong room in its cellar to hold valuables for the market holders.

[56] By that time, many of the town's most ancient monuments like St. Mary's Church and the Gate of St. John's Abbey were partially destroyed and the inhabitants were reduced to eating candles and boots.

The Times for Wednesday 23 April reported damage "in the many villages in the neighbourhood from Colchester to the sea coast", with many poor people made homeless, and estimated the financial cost of the quake at 10,000 pounds sterling.