Cinque Ports: The fascinating history of Kent harbours

The Cinque Ports is a historic confederation of coastal towns in south-east England, mainly in Kent and Sussex. The name, which is Old French for “five harbours”, refers to the original five members of the confederation, namely Hastings, New Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich. The confederation was originally formed for military and trade purposes, but is now purely ceremonial.

At its peak in the Late Middle Ages, the Cinque Ports included over 40 members, and currently has a total of 14 members, comprising of five “head ports”, two “ancient towns”, and seven “limbs”. The ports are situated on the western shore of the English Channel, where the crossing to the European continent is narrowest and needs the most protection.

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Cinque Ports Origins

The origins of the Cinque Ports Confederation are believed to date back to the late Anglo-Saxon period, during the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066). At that time, certain south-east ports were granted the local profits of justice in exchange for providing ships. The ship service of Romney, Dover, and Sandwich (but not the confederation itself) was noted in the Domesday Book of 1086.

By 1135, the term “Cinque Ports” had come into use, and in 1155, a royal charter was established to maintain ships ready for the Crown in case of need.

The earliest general charter granting liberties to the ports in common dates from 1260. Their liberties are also mentioned in the Magna Carta of 1297 (clause 9). The chief obligation laid upon the ports, as a corporate duty, was to provide 57 ships for 15 days’ service to the king annually, with each port fulfilling a proportion of the whole duty.

It is sometimes claimed that the confederation was established to provide a guaranteed supply of men and ships to the Crown in times of war, and that the Cinque Ports played an important role in the development of the Royal Navy. However, some experts, such as N.A.M. Rodger, argue that the arrangement was never intended to raise any genuinely effective naval provision.

Instead, the original package of privileges may have been granted by Edward the Confessor to purchase the loyalty of a group of potentially troublesome ports that were of strategic importance to the control of cross-Channel traffic.

Regardless of its origins, the Cinque Ports played a significant role in the defence of the realm during the 13th and 14th centuries, although their importance declined thereafter. It is worth noting that the Cinque Ports did not contribute to English strength at sea significantly more than other English ports of similar size.

The Cinque Ports Head Ports

The Cinque Ports is a confederation of seven ports located in the south-east of England. The five original ports were Hastings, New Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich. Hastings was sometimes given precedence among the ports in medieval documents; however, this usage probably arose from geographical convenience. The ports were conventionally listed in order from west to east.

By 1190, two additional towns, Winchelsea and Rye, had joined the confederation to assist Hastings in providing ships. In time, they grew in prosperity and were recognized as possessing the same “head port” status as the original five ports.

However, in deference to the literal meaning of “Cinque Ports,” these two additional members were always distinguished under the title of the “Ancient Towns.” The confederation is therefore sometimes referred to as “The five Cinque Ports and two Ancient Towns.”

Cinque Ports minor members, so called ‘limbs’

Over the years, several towns and ports joined the confederation as detached “Limbs” or “Members” of the seven head ports. They took a share in the burden of ship service and a share in the privileges of the confederation.

The limbs were often distinguished as either “corporate limbs,” whose status was confirmed by royal charter, and which enjoyed a considerable degree of self-government, or “non-corporate limbs,” which were more heavily dependent on, and governed by, their head port.

The corporate limbs were Pevensey (limb of Hastings), Seaford (limb of Hastings), Tenterden (limb of Rye), Lydd (limb of New Romney), Folkestone (limb of Dover), Faversham (limb of Dover), Fordwich (limb of Sandwich), and Deal (limb of Sandwich; originally a non-corporate limb, but incorporated in 1699).

Non-corporate limbs have at various dates included Limbs of Hastings: Grange, Bekesbourne, Bulverhythe, Northeye, Eastbourne, Hydney, Pebsham, and Petit Iham; Limbs of New Romney: Old Romney, Bromehill, Dengemarsh, and Orwaldstone; Limb of Hythe: West Hythe; Limbs of Dover: Margate, St Johns, Goresend, Birchington Wood, St Peters, Ringwould, and Kingsdown; and Limbs of Sandwich: Reculver, Sarre, Walmer, Stonar, Ramsgate, and Brightlingsea.

Many of the historic members of the confederation have now either ceased to exist as a result of coastal change or have shrunk or lost status for other reasons. The current limbs of the confederation are Tenterden (limb of Rye), Lydd (limb of New Romney), Folkestone (limb of Dover), Faversham (limb of Dover), Margate (limbs of Dover), Deal (limb of Sandwich), and Ramsgate (limb of Sandwich).

Cinque Ports privileges

As compensation for their ship service, the towns were granted various privileges, including exemption from tax and tallage. They were also given the rights of sac and soc, which gave them jurisdiction over criminal and civil cases within their liberties. Furthermore, the towns had the rights of toll and team, which allowed them to have authority over the sale or passage of cattle and other property within their liberties.

In addition, they were given the rights of bloodwit and fledwit, which gave them the authority to punish shedders of blood, and those seized in an attempt to escape justice. The towns also had the rights of pillory and tumbril, which gave them the authority to punish delinquents.

The towns were also granted the rights of infangthief and outfangthief, which gave them the authority to imprison or execute thieves or other felons. They also had the right of mundbryce, which allowed them to enter private property to erect banks or dikes as a defence against the sea.

The towns also had the rights of waifs and strays, which allowed them to appropriate unclaimed property and stray animals. Additionally, they had the rights of flotsam, jetsam, and ligan, which gave them the right to appropriate the debris and cargo of wrecked ships.

These privileges granted the towns a degree of self-government, legal jurisdiction, and financial advantage. The confederation was considered to hold a status equivalent to that of a shire in many respects.

From the 13th century, representatives of the ports sat in Parliament, and by the end of the 14th century, the practice had been regularised. The five head ports and two ancient towns, and one corporate limb (Seaford), were each entitled to send two Members to Parliament.

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The Cinque Ports Barons

The ports of the Cinque Ports were collectively known as the Barons of the Cinque Ports, and all their freemen were deemed to be barons. This entitled them to attend the king’s parliament, a privilege granted to them in 1322 in recognition of their earlier support of the Despensers, father and son.

The Barons of the Cinque Ports were considered members of the baronage, and were viewed as quasi feudal barons, reflecting the early concept that military service at sea constituted land tenure per baroniam.

The treatise Modus Tenendi Parliamentum, written in the early 14th century, stated that the Barons of the Cinque Ports held a place of precedence below the lay magnates (Lords Temporal) but above the representatives of the shires and boroughs (Knights of the Shire and burgesses).

During the deposition of Edward II, the Barons of the Cinque Ports were noted to have been present in the embassy of deposition. Writs of summons to parliament were sent to the warden, following which representative barons of the Cinque Ports were selected to attend parliament.

The common seals of the barons of the individual ports suggest they formed a corporation, as the seal was designed to be affixed to charters and legal documents which would bind them as a single body. This was likely related to their privileges as monopolies. However, the warden and barons often experienced clashes of jurisdiction.

In the 21st century, the title “Baron of the Cinque Ports” is now reserved for Freemen elected by the Mayor, Jurats and Common Council of the Ports to attend a coronation, and is solely honorary in nature. The barons had held the right to hold a canopy above the monarch during the procession on foot between Westminster Hall and Westminster Abbey since time immemorial.

This procession was discontinued after the Coronation of George IV in 1821, but for the Coronation of Edward VII in 1902, the barons were given a new role. They were to process inside the abbey as far as the choir and there receive the banners of the monarch’s realms, a function which they have repeated at all the 20th-century coronations.

For the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla in 2023, fourteen barons joined the congregation in the abbey, representing the original five ports, the two ancient towns, and the seven limbs.

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Decline of the Cinque Ports

The confederation of the Cinque Ports faced a variety of challenges that led to its decline. While it survived attacks from the Danes and the French, plagues and political conflicts, natural causes such as the silting of harbours and the withdrawal of the sea had a significant impact on the confederation. The rise of Southampton and the need for larger ships also contributed to its decline.

By the 14th century, the confederation faced challenges from a greater consolidation of national identity in the monarchy and Parliament. However, the legacy of the Saxon authority remained, and even after the 15th century, the Ancient Towns continued to serve with the supply of transport ships.

During the 15th century, New Romney was considered the central port in the confederation, but it was washed away by the sea in the 13th century. Hastings, which was once a port of great importance, also went into a decline during which it ceased to be a major port due to the raids and burning by the French.

New Romney, which was originally a harbour town, ceased to be a port due to a series of severe storms that weakened the coastal defences of Romney Marsh in the latter part of the thirteenth century. The harbour and town were filled with sand, silt, mud and debris, and the River Rother changed course, now running out into the sea near Rye, Sussex. Hythe, which is still on the coast, has also lost its natural harbour due to centuries of silting.

Dover is the only Cinque Port that is still a major port, while Sandwich is no longer a port and is now 3 km (1.9 mi) from the sea. Ongoing changes in the coastline along the south east coast, from the Thames estuary to Hastings and the Isle of Wight, inevitably reduced the significance of a number of the Cinque port towns as port authorities.

However, ship building and repair, fishing, piloting, off shore rescue and sometimes even “wrecking” continued to play a large part in the activities of the local community.

With the advance in shipbuilding techniques came a growth in towns such as Bristol and Liverpool and the wider development of ports such as London, Gravesend, Southampton, Chichester, Plymouth and the royal dockyards of Chatham, Portsmouth, Greenwich, Woolwich and Deptford.

The development of the canal, turnpike and railway networks across Britain, and the increased quantity of overseas trade these could distribute from the new major ports developing from the 18th century, further contributed to the decline of many older ports.

Local government reforms and Acts of Parliament passed during the 19th and 20th centuries, notably the Reform Act 1832, eroded the administrative and judicial powers of the Confederation of the Cinque Ports. In 1985, HMS Illustrious established an affiliation with the Cinque Ports, which was changed to HMS Kent in 2005.

Cinque Ports records and documentations

The early history of the confederation is not well-documented, and can only be traced through incidental mentions in the charters granted to individual ports or other external records.

The “Domesday of the Ports,” a list of the then-members of the confederation and the services they owed, is an important early document, first compiled in the 13th century but now surviving only in later and variant copies.

From 1432 onwards, the confederation’s activities are much better documented, with minutes of the proceedings of the Brotherhood and Guestling consistently taken. The “White Book” covers the years 1432 to 1571 and comprises a transcript made in 1560, while the “Black Book” covers the years 1572 to 1955.

Both books were held at New Romney until 1960 when they were transferred to the Kent Archives Office (now the Kent History and Library Centre) in Maidstone. A comprehensive calendar of the two books was published in 1966.

Cinque Ports Heraldry

The Cinque Ports confederation has a traditional coat of arms that is divided per pale, depicting three gold half lions passant gardant on a red field on the dexter side, and three gold half ships’ hulls on a blue field on the sinister side.

The earliest certain evidence for the use of the arms is on a common seal of Dover dating from 1305, but they also appear on the common seal of Hastings which may be a few years earlier. The arms are flown as an heraldic banner and form the basis of the banner of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.

It has been assumed that the arms were created through a process of heraldic dimidiation by combining half of the royal arms of England (the three lions) with half of an unidentified coat of arms depicting three ships. However, none of the earliest representations of the arms show the vertical partition of the field, suggesting that it was originally of only one colour.

It therefore appears more likely that, while certainly alluding to the royal arms, the arms of the Cinque Ports were devised from the outset as a design depicting three half-lion-half-ships, probably on a red field. Only at a later date, probably in the mid-14th century, was the field partitioned into two colours.

There has been some confusion as to whether the three ships should be depicted as gold (“or“) or silver (“argent“). Both variants are found in reputable heraldic sources from the late middle ages to the 19th century. The modern consensus is to depict them as gold in the confederation arms, although silver ships appear in some of the derivative arms borne by individual member ports.

The traditional arms and banner may only officially and lawfully be displayed by representatives of the confederation itself, or by the local authorities for its member ports. However, in 2017, the Cinque Ports Authority registered with the UK Flag Registry a flag of three gold ships’ hulls on a blue field as a “regional” or “community” flag, which may be flown by anyone who wishes to express identity with the Cinque Ports.

Several of the member ports have their own coats of arms, which in some cases are modified or derivative versions of the confederation arms. Sandwich bears arms identical to those of the confederation but with the three ships’ hulls silver. Hastings bears a variant on which the central half-lion-half-ship is replaced by a full lion, and the two ships’ hulls are silver.

Deal bears a version of the confederation arms differenced by a chief on which the Lord Warden’s “oar of Admiralty” appears. New Romney bears three gold lions on a blue field. Others incorporate elements from the confederation arms or otherwise allude to them. Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, never a member of the confederation but closely associated with it through its herring fishery and fair, bears a variant on which the three half-ships are replaced by three fishes’ tails.

Cinque Ports Acts 1811 to 1872

The Cinque Ports Acts 1811 to 1872 refer to a collection of Acts, which includes the Cinque Ports Act 1811, Cinque Ports Act 1821, Cinque Ports Act 1828, Pilotage Law Amendment Act 1853, Cinque Ports Act 1855, Cinque Ports Act 1857, Cinque Ports Act 1869, and Merchant Shipping Act 1872.

These Acts were enacted in the United Kingdom to regulate the rights and privileges of the Cinque Ports, which were a group of five ports on the southeast coast of England. The Acts covered various aspects such as pilotage, shipping, and other maritime matters.

This blog post was originally published on 24 January 2024 and last updated on 24 January 2024