• Foreword + Summary
• Details:– Early to 1199

Details:– 1200 to 1399

• 1244 Rabbits brought into England from France, which then bred like humans; The Park was stocked with them.
• 1279
  • May: Edward Ⅰ devalues the English currency by dividing the Tower Pound (5,400 grains of sterling silver) into 243 pence rather than the old standard of 240 pence. Between 1280 & 1281 this degrading was temporarily increased to 245 pence. And so it begins.
     
    A groat was struck for the first time in England. It was composed of 89 grains of sterling silver, and was worth four pennies (symbol: ‘4d’, and hence ⅓ of a shilling, which itself is 12 pennies or ‘1s’ or ‘1/–’). A farthing (quarter-penny) and a halfpenny (the latter in 1280) were also struck (pdf) for the first time. Before now (since Saxon times) only pennies were issued (in the language of the time these were ‘esterlings’ (‘sterlings’)), with occasional coins being cut in half to represent a half-penny, or in half yet again for a farthing.
     
    The groat was not accepted by the people as coinage, although some were made into jewellery. It seems likely that the new coins were suspended between 1281 and 1285, whilst the groat was abandoned (reintroduced in 1351). For this reason early Edwardian groats are extremely rare.
     
    A Farthing was first introduced into the 1222 Patent Roll (during Henry Ⅲ’s reign), but until very recently no such coins had ever been found. Just 5 examples now exist, but in the absence of any concurrent documentation the jury is still out on whether any such coins were actually minted before this date.
     
    Over 4 million silver farthings were produced during the whole of Edward Ⅰ’s reign. Most were minted in London, but some were also produced at the Berwick, Bristol, Lincoln, Newcastle & York mints. Very few from any mint have survived to the current day (they were tiny, not considered worthy to hoard and difficult for metal detectors to find).
• 1284 February 12: Edward Ⅰ grants a Charter to Nottingham:
  • “St Mathew’s Fair”: the right to hold a fair on St Matthew’s Day, which leads to Goose Fair.
  • Post of Mayor created (wiki); 1ˢᵗ Mayor is Roger de Crophill.
• 1200s (late): Gervase de Clifton buys the Manor of Clifton & styles himself after the seat. This is the likely start_date for the first Clifton Hall, although the current building is reputed to have been constructed in the 1500s.
• 1252: Start Date for the Castle Gatehouse, Castle Road (Grade Ⅰ listed) (completed 1255). Built for Henry Ⅲ. Only 3 of these medieval gatehouses survive in the country.
• 1290 July 12: Jews in Nottingham were forced by King Edward Ⅰ to leave the town & country, despite having lived in Nottingham for at least 2 centuries.
• 1301 First Record of the Brodewell (St. Ann’s Well) (elsewhere called “Oswell” & “Robin Hood’s Well”); location of the natural spring that became a stream flowing through the valley towards the River Leen & was originally known as the ‘Bek’ & later the ‘Beck’.
• 1302 Earliest mention of the Bridge Estate (pdf).
• 1315: Start Date for St. James’s Street. It’s original name was Jam Gate, then St James Lane, and in the 1800s it became the modern St James’ Street.
• 1319: Start Date for 56 Village Road, Clifton (Grade Ⅱ* listed)
• 1330
  • A Parliament is held in the town.
  • Oct 19: The Castle is the scene for a coup d’état by King Edward Ⅲ against his mother, Isabella of France & her lover Roger Mortimer. The adulterous couple were rumoured to have murdered her husband (this includes the infamous rumour of use of a red-hot poker) & were now Regents for her under-age son. Shortly before his 18ᵗʰ birthday, Edward gained ingress to the castle via a secret tunnel (today known as “Mortimer’s Hole”, there is no wiki for this, but there is a short YT video utilising 3D scans to show it) + a door at the top unlocked from within. His mother was forced into retirement & Mortimer was sent to the Tower of London, then on 29 November 1330 hanged at Tyburn.
• 1335: Start Date for Castle Gate: [The Severn’s Building (Grade Ⅱ listed (every house in this block is HE-listed))]; this was originally built in Middle Pavement & was removed lock, stock & barrel to Castle Gate in 1970.
• 1346 King David Ⅱ of Scotland was held prisoner within the Castle. There is a subterranean structure beneath the Castle named after him (see a YouTube 3D-fly-though).
• 1348 June: A seaman departs Gascony, France & arrives at Weymouth, Dorset. The seaman is infected with Yersinia pestis. The Black Death (bubonic plague) has arrived in England for the first time. In the next 2 years half the population of the island will rapidly die with horrific, painful symptoms (it is up to 95% loss with the pneumonic version) & the nation will be transformed.
   
  It got called the Black Death in the 17ᵗʰ Century because one side-effect can be loss of blood supply to the flesh, most commonly in toes or fingers, which then turn black. The societal side-effect was a destruction of the slave-trade (otherwise known as Serfdom), and the rise of the Day Labourer, otherwise known as the middle-class.
   
  An Acre was defined at this time as “The area of land that a man and his team of oxen can plough in a day”. Suddenly, skilled ploughmen were difficult to find, and could name their price.
• 1351: Gold coins, received (for example) from Flanders as payment for English wool, caused changes in the English currency, which previously was entirely based on silver (also highly respected in Europe for the — almost — lack of debasement of the coin).
   
  Up to this point, and from Saxon times, coinage in England consisted almost entirely of a single coin — the penny, symbol: ‘1d’ — made of sterling silver. Edward Ⅰ had experimented with the groat (‘4d’, abandoned), the halfpenny & farthing (quarter-penny - see 1279). The money of account (notional, no coins) was the Pound (symbol: ‘£’, 240d) and the mark (160d).
   
  At first, in 1344 King Edward Ⅲ introduced a gold double-florin equivalent to 6 shillings. Unfortunately the ratios of gold-to-silver caused Europe to drain England of it’s silver.
   
  Edward got it right at the 2ⁿᵈ attempt in 1351 with a gold noble worth 80 pence (⅓ pound, ½ mark). Later, gold half-nobles & quarter-nobles were also produced in quantity, and the groat was re-introduced. In this way, England moved from a silver currency to a binary gold+silver currency:–
  • Noble : gold : 80d
  • Half Noble : gold : 40d
  • Quarter Noble : gold : 20d
  • Groat : silver : 4d
  • Half Groat : silver : 2d
  • Penny : silver : 1d
• 1361: 2ⁿᵈ outbreak of Yersinia pestis; this is NOT as deadly as the first in 1348 (a greater proportion of the population survive, with only 20% loss), and that pattern is repeated in the following centuries as more waves of plague repeat throughout the medieval and early modern periods.
• 1377: Start Date for St Mary’s Church, High Pavement (Grade Ⅰ listed)

• 1392: Start Date for Plumptre Hospital, Poplar Street (Grade Ⅱ listed). The HE entry locates this building on Plumptre Square; the Highways Register places this square at both ends of Pemberton Street and many places in between & around.

• Details:– 1400 to 1599
• Details:– 1600 to 1799
• Details:– 1800 to 1899
• Details:– 1900 to current