Traditionally, it is said that there are seven Burnhams. When I first went to the Burnhams back in 1982, I first thought the seven referred to the villages you can find on the map. Thus, Burnham Market, Burnham Thorpe, Burnham Overy Town, Burnham Overy Staithe, Burnham Norton, Burnham Deepdale... and then I don't know what I thought the seventh one was. Later, I heard that the seven Burnhams referred instead to the parish churches: Burnham Sutton, Burnham Norton, Burnham Thorpe, Burnham Overy, Burnham Deepdale, Burnham Ulph and Burnham Westgate (St. Ethelbert's of Burnham Sutton is not extant, but there's at least some ruins at "St. Albert's corner" in Burnham Market, and Burnham Ulph church is now "Sutton cum Ulph"). I have now read other explanations, but my favorite is the churches. I suspect that even if there once were other meanings for the seven Burnhams, most people think of them as the parish churches.
Nowadays, the Burnhams are known for two things: 1) The Admiral Lord Nelson was born in Burnham Thorpe, where his dad was the rector, and 2) Burnham Market has become a chi-chi place for weekending celebrities. Go figure. We're not going to deal with either of those factoids, which just aren't medieval, are they?
Let's take a look at what Mapquest has to tell us instead. There are only 6 Burnhams listed on their map, and they are the hamlets, not the churches. So Burnham Overy Town and Burnham Overy Staithe both appear, while Burnhams Sutton, Ulph and Westgate do not. You can see the river Burn wending its winding way from beyond Burnham Thorpe to the sea -- and it is quite clear that the coast isn't even close anymore. Burnham Overy Staithe is still a staithe (harbor), but just barely, and it had clearly better be high tide when you head out to go looking for seals.
For a little moment, I'd like to think particularly about Burnham Overy Town and Staithe. Burnham Overy Town is the one that appears in Domesday Book, though it is merely called "Bruneham" there. Staithe is a much later creation -- how much later I'm not quite sure. The first question I know you're dying to ask has to do with that name: Burnham Overy?? What's up with that? No, this was not an early experiment in feminist utopianism -- Overy has to do with sheep. We can assume this was sheep country (Domesday says that "Godwin" used to have 180 sheep in Burnham Thorpe, for instance). In Domesday Book, the Burnhams were part of the Hundred of Brothercross (brudecros) -- named after the cross at Burnham Overy, the base of which appears in this photo. Crosses like this one were places of assembly in Anglo-Saxon time and later. The cross is usually described locally as the "market cross," and it would make sense that an ancient gathering place of a Hundred would become a market, especially since Burnham Overy was also the harbor. You'd hardly believe it now, since there are hardly any houses there, and the sea is so far away. But the church, St. Clement's, is a beautiful and lovely place, much larger than it seems at first, surrounded by the few houses that remain, and notably dedicated to the patron saint of mariners. There is also a medieval wall-painting of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, inside. Prosperity and population, however, followed the harbor, and when the Burn silted up enough to make navigation impossible this far inland, the harbor moved to Overy Staithe. The church remained where it was, but most of the people moved out. The market may have moved even earlier to what is now called "Burnham Market," though that name only officially dates from the establishment of the railroad. There is a long skinny green located about half way between the churches of Burnham Ulph and Burnham Westgate (both 12th-century), and this may have been purposefully left clear to serve as a market.What happened to Overy Town also happened to Burnham Norton, situated slightly to the west. St. Margaret's is an enormous and obviously once wealthy church that sits high on a hilltop, visible inland from the Overy Staith-Deepdale road, surrounded by... well, nothing. No village whatsoever. There is, however, a sign for the village of Burnham Norton on the sea side of the same road. Clearly, the village moved as the sea did, and fishermen or others who made their living from the sea headed closer to their livelihood. My fingers were itching for an archeological dig around St. Margaret's. I want to dig there almost as much as I want to dig at Montaillou. Perhaps someday.
I'm not going to drag you through each of the Burnham hamlets or parish churches, lovely and fascinating though they are (though I do especially recommend a little jaunt to Burnham Thorpe, where you can have a pint and/or a meal at the Admiral Lord Nelson pub, under new management). From here, I'd actually like to examine two sets of ruins that will pose a rather interesting conundrum. Let's start with the Carmelite priory, where we are able to visit certain picturesque ruins across the street from the local primary school. This priory, like so many other mendicant convents, was founded in the thirteenth century, in 1241. Judging from the size of this gatehouse, and the size of the various bumpy ruins in the fields, this was a substantial place.Since about 1970, it has been taken as a truism among medievalists that the mendicants established their priories in urban locations. In fact, Jacques le Goff has notably suggested that the easiest way to distinguish a "town" from a "village" is to find a mendicant convent.* We may not quite be able to tell what is urban and rural from our present vantage point, but the mendicants could, and did, and established their houses there. Better preaching, better begging. So what in the heck were the Carmelites doing building a convent in a crummy little village like Burnham Norton?
The plot thickens when we drive by a place labeled "Peterstone Priory Farm" on the road leading from Overy Staithe towards Holkham (this picture comes from an 1891 map from http://www.old-maps.co.uk/). As this map shows, Peterstone Farm is on the site of St. Peter's Priory or Hospital, an Augustinian foundation of the late twelfth century, commonly known as Peterstone Priory. More mendicants. Two mendicant priories within just a couple of miles?? And not simply was this one a priory, but also a hospital. Moreover, doing a little bit of digging (in the utterly fabulous Historical Atlas of Norfolk), I was able to ascertain that this particular priory was in fact the head of an "enigmatic" congregation of Augustinians, known as the "Order of Peterstone." Not quite sure what the "enigmatic" means here, but I'm guessing it means that we don't have much documentation about them! Nonetheless, it is clear that this priory was the head of the order, which comprised 6 houses (also included Walsingham, Wormegay, Beeston, Weybridge and Great Massingham).The very same Historical Atlas of Norfolk (p. 66) also tells me that "The Burnhams" were "an important Middle Anglo-Saxon multiple-estate" with "a minster church and royal vill" (the authors of the atlas argue that "minster" churches were some kind of monastic foundation). They also tell us (p. 32) that metal-detectors have revealed the Burnhams to be what they call "productive sites," with finds from the Anglo-Saxon period. So, in Anglo-Saxon times, this was an "important" place -- and by the 13th century, it had two convents of friars. The only other places in Norfolk with more than a single convent of friars were Lynn, Norwich, Yarmouth and Thetford, all clearly towns now, and all clearly towns in the Middle Ages. So would Jacques Le Goff call this a town, and not merely a village? I have to say I think he might. But this town, unlike the others, didn't last.
One conclusion we can certainly draw by looking at the shifting sites and sizes of the Burnhams is that appearances can be very deceiving. And that is something we will see even more of once we get to Blakeney and the Glaven ports.
*There are two articles by Le Goff in Annales E.S.C. that are useful here: 1969 and 1970. But most recent books on medieval towns also discuss Le Goff's research.
