Kevin Dixon: When Devon was the gateway to the world

Not always have the coastal villages of South Devon been backwaters in England’s history.

For hundreds of years the county was a departure point for the defence of the nation, for explorers, and for invasions and raiding into Europe and beyond.

Of special strategic importance as a deep-water anchorage was the ‘Port of Dartmouth’. As early as 1147 and 1190, the town was used as a place to rally England’s forces before setting off to fight in the Crusades.

By the fourteenth century, Dartmouth was regarded as the third most important in the kingdom. Illustrating its significance, in 1373 Geoffrey Chaucer visited, and among the pilgrims in his Canterbury Tales was “a sailor, living far out west; for all I know, he was of Dartmouth town.”

Such immense military and commercial efforts could never be the responsibility of a single small town, however. The entire population was only 1,200.

The Port of Dartmouth meant “the whole of the district embraced in the king’s fiscal port and not the haven alone”. All the surrounding villages took part, contributing ships, men and supplies.

In 1346, for instance, communities across South Devon took part in the siege and capture of Calais.

On 12 July 1346 an English army of some 10,000 men under the command of King Edward III landed in northern Normandy. ‘The Port of Dartmouth’ had provided 31 ships and 757 men for Edward’s campaign, while Plymouth only found 26 ships and 603 men.

In France, the English devastated large swathes of the countryside. On 26 August, while fighting on ground of their own choosing, the English inflicted a heavy defeat on a large French army at the Battle of Crecy.

A week later they laid siege to the well-fortified and garrisoned port of Calais.

Several attempts to take Calais failed, and the French were able to carry on supplying the town by sea. However, in late April the English established a fortification which enabled them to command the entrance to the harbour and cut off the further flow of supplies.

On 25 June 1347, the French garrison wrote for help. In response, on 17 July a relief army of 20,000 French troops was sent, but confronted with an English and Flemish force of more than 50,000, they withdrew.

With no hope, on 3 August Calais capitulated. A “vast amount of booty was found within the town” while the entire French population was expelled and replaced with English settlers.

The surrender of Calais gave the English an important strategic base for the remainder of the Hundred Years’ War and beyond.

The town then became an integral part of the Kingdom of England, with its representatives sitting in the English Parliament. In 1360 the Treaty of Bretigny assigned Guines, Marck and Calais, collectively the ‘Pale of England', to English rule in perpetuity.

Here was the “brightest jewel in the English crown” owing to its great importance as the gateway for the tin, lead, cloth and wool trades. Its customs revenues amounted to a third of the English government’s revenue.

Calais was only recaptured by the French in 1558.

Yet our villages weren’t just involved in being beastly to our overseas neighbours.

Back in the fifteenth century, we had an extremely important and indeed commercially rewarding role in the international ‘tourist trade’.

This took the form of our facilitating the medieval tradition of pilgrimages to holy places.

The objective of one specific pilgrimage was to visit the shrine of the apostle Saint James in Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. It was believed that the remains of the saint were buried in the cathedral.

The route was the Camino de Santiago, known in English as the Way of St James, one of the most important Christian pilgrimages during the Middle Ages. The others were to Rome and Jerusalem.

It was also a pilgrimage on which an ‘indulgence’ could be earned. This was a way to reduce the amount of punishment one had to undergo for committing sins. Other pilgrims took part to receive an inheritance or as part of a sentence imposed by a court.

The earliest records of visits paid to the shrine date from the ninth century, but it wasn’t until the late eleventh century that large numbers of pilgrims from England were regularly making the journey.

The Spanish pilgrimage then became highly organised, taking the devout and those evading earthly punishment from across Britain.

Millions of people from all over Europe made pilgrimages to Santiago. Ten percent of the population of Europe was involved in making or, in some way, supporting the pilgrimage. A Moorish emissary at the time complained of the delays on the road, as there were so many pilgrims travelling to, and returning from, the shrine.

This was, however, a very expensive, dangerous and difficult journey.

Pilgrims walked the Way of St James, often for months or years at a time, to arrive at the great church in the main square of Compostela and pay homage to St James.

The daily needs of pilgrims on their way to and from the shrine were met by a series of hospitals staffed by Catholic orders and under royal protection.

Nevertheless, many lives were lost on the journey. There were deaths from storms at sea and a lack of fresh food and clean water while some became ill or were the victims of robbery.

For those returning from Compostela, it became customary to carry back with them a Galician scallop shell as proof of their completion of their journey. This practice led to the scallop shell becoming the badge of a pilgrim.

Getting English pilgrims there and back became the vocation of many of the mariners of South Devon.

Pilgrims could only be carried in licensed ships, and a petition of 1389 shows that they were only allowed to leave from Plymouth and Dover. Accordingly, Devon’s ports were amongst the earliest to furnish ships for the trade.

It was a very profitable business and became an important part of English maritime enterprise. Nobles and merchants became involved, and ships were chartered by the grantees of licences in London who possessed no ships of their own. For example, in 1391 Dartmouth shipowner Thomas Ashended obtained a licence to carry 200 pilgrims.

Initially the ships used locally were those used in trading fish, hides or wine and were not very large. By the fifteenth century, however, direct transport in larger ships across the Bay of Biscay became the norm, often arriving in the Spanish port of A Coruña.

Throughout the pilgrimage period, Dartmouth and Plymouth were by far the places that provided most capacity. Yet the demand was more than the two medieval ports could satisfy, and it became a much larger enterprise.

In consequence, Brixham, Topsham, Exeter, Exmouth, Teignmouth, and Portlemouth contributed their ships and seafarers.

But the pilgrimages weren’t to last. The route was most popular in the first half of the fifteenth century, but then the Black Death and political unrest across Europe led to its decline.

In England the Protestant Reformation condemned pilgrimages as a Catholic practice, viewing the adulation of saints as a form of idolatry. John Calvin further criticised the practices of celebrating relics and creating shrines as not true forms of worship.

And so, the flow of English pilgrims and a very profitable business opportunity ended.

Now the pilgrimage has had a resurgence, and last year around 446,000 pilgrims walked the route.