Irish migration to England in the late middle ages: the evidence of 1394 and 1440

Abstract

In 1440, for the first and only time in the late middle ages, the Irish in England were treated as aliens for taxation purposes. At the Reading session of the parliament of 1439–40 the Commons had granted an alien subsidy. It was a poll tax, to be paid at the rate of 16d. per head by householders and at 6d. per head by non-householders, by all those either not born in England or Wales or who did not have letters of denization, that is, naturalisation. Men of religious obedience and children under the age of twelve were also exempted, as were alien women married to English or Welsh men. The grant was to last for three years, and the first assessments were to be made around Easter 1440 for a tax to be collected in two parts, at Easter and the following Michaelmas. Caught in the tax net were Gascons and Normans, Bretons and Flemings, Scots and Channel Islanders, French and Italians, Spanish and Portuguese, the occasional Icelander, Swede and Finn — and the Irish. Like all new taxes, it met with resistance, and pressure groups such as the Genoese and Hanseatic merchants were soon able to claim exemption by virtue of their charters. There were also protests from Ireland. The earl of Ormond, as head of the Dublin administration, pointed out to the king that this was something new and asked Henry VI that Englishmen born in Ireland should have the same rights and freedom as Englishmen born in England.