A view of the merchants of Southampton from the Spanish archives in the Early Tudor period

Dr. María Grove-Gordillo (Universidad de Sevilla, Spain)

Southampton was one of the most important ports in the Medieval Period. Its proximity to London was an incentive for it receiving commodities from overseas territories, especially Spain. Spanish products like oil, wine, fruits, and hides, were highly valued in England. In return English goods such as chamelots, kerseys, long cloths, dozen norths, Tavistocks, hides and tin were exported from England to Spain by Genoese and Southampton merchants.

Prior to the Reformation some merchants from Southampton resided in the South of Spain, especially in Western Andalusia (Huelva, Seville, Cadiz and Sanlucar de Barrameda). The most important town for the Southampton trading community was the city of Sanlucar de Barrameda, where they enjoyed a series of privileges concerned with their commercial activity, representation (they had their own consul), and payment of taxes. The role of the traders of Southampton in this consulate was essential, having their representatives in the consul election board, together with the merchants of London and Bristol.

In my PhD Thesis, I studied the activity of this community between 1480-1561, finding data about these merchants in English and Spanish archives, some of them important to their community. So, in this post, I aim to explain what the Spanish records reveal about these Southampton merchants.  

Southampton merchants were not as numerous or as important as traders from London and Bristol, but they still undertook various activities. For example, Francis Bawdwyn (Francisco Baldobin in the Spanish records), one of the most important members of the Drapers Company of London and burgess of Southampton, was involved in the wine trade, and had a child in the town of Jerez de la Frontera (Francisca). Raffe Alport (Rafael Alporte) was another Southampton merchant who specialised in the wine trade. Other prominent members of the Southampton trading community in Spain included Jasper Keyre (Gaspar Quer), master of the Unicorn, and Robert Reneger (Roberto Renegar), the latter being involved in the assault of the San Salvador ship in 1545.

The activities of these merchants appear frequently in the notarial archives of Seville and Cadiz. They had a focus on the cloth and wine trades but were also involved in shipping oil, and other groceries. A key problem during my research was how to identify these traders due to the complexity of the transcriptions made by the Spanish notaries, especially with regards the Hispanised names given to the traders by Spanish officials. Additionally, Southampton could be rendered in several different was, such as Antona and Hanton, both the equivalent of Hampton (excluding “South” of this formula).

Figure 1. Notarial record of Cadiz showing the activity of Raffe Alport in 1545. Signature: AHPCa, PNC, leg. 4334, fol. 119v, 18^th March 1545. Original transcription:

“Sepan quantos esta carta uieren como yo Rafael Alporte mercader yngles vezino de la villa de Antona estante al presente en esta çibdad de Cadiz…”

Occasionally the transliterations were so far removed from their English names I had to rely on the signatures of these merchants.

Figures 2 and 3. Notarial record of Seville showing the activity of Jasper Keyre in 1553 and his signature. Signature: AHPSe, PNS, leg. 9170, fol. 1199r, 20^th May 1553. Original transcription:

“Sepan quantos esta carta uieren como yo Gaspar Quer yngles vesyno dela çibdad de Antona qe es Ynglaterra…”

The importance of cross-referencing has been essential to my research. In this task I was aided by the English-edited resources produced by the Southampton Record Society, the database Tudor Revels (managed by Dr Cheryl Butler), and the records from The National Archives.

Figure 4. Tudor Revels database. Managed by Cheryl Butler

As I mentioned before, the intervention of the Sotonians was not as outstanding as that of the Londoners and Bristolians but not less important during the earlier decades of the 16th century. Indeed, during the reigns of the First Tudors Southampton traders played an important role in the social and economic life of Western Andalusia and these are activities are well-documented in Spanish records.