The Town's origins
Bolton apparently started with a longer name - 'Botheltun' - 'a settlement with a building'. The implication is that this was an important building, so maybe it was the church. Personally I'm inclined to think it wasn't the church that gave the name, as the England's landscapes abounds with places that got their name from a church: Churchtown, Kirkby, Eccleston, Church Stretton, Kirby Lonsdale and so on.
Many other accounts of Bolton's history recap (rightly) that it gained a market charter in the 1250s, and also became a borough. 'Granting' the right to hold markets and fairs was royal racketeering, a genteel way of saying 'Pay up or we'll stop you', because I expect Boltonians had actually heard of, and been having a good old go at, this 'market' idea for a while by the time the Royal Charter arrived.
The tell-tale signs of an early market can still be seen in the street plan around Churchgate, Deansgate and Bradshawgate, where the roadway gets wider and then narrows down again. This is where the markets took place, and the streets could be easily blocked off to pen livestock if need be.
The 'gate' element of these street names comes from the Old Norse 'Gatta' - same word we get 'gutter' from - meaning a street. Nothing to do with actual gates.
Many other accounts of Bolton's history recap (rightly) that it gained a market charter in the 1250s, and also became a borough. 'Granting' the right to hold markets and fairs was royal racketeering, a genteel way of saying 'Pay up or we'll stop you', because I expect Boltonians had actually heard of, and been having a good old go at, this 'market' idea for a while by the time the Royal Charter arrived.
The tell-tale signs of an early market can still be seen in the street plan around Churchgate, Deansgate and Bradshawgate, where the roadway gets wider and then narrows down again. This is where the markets took place, and the streets could be easily blocked off to pen livestock if need be.
The 'gate' element of these street names comes from the Old Norse 'Gatta' - same word we get 'gutter' from - meaning a street. Nothing to do with actual gates.
Cloth - the fabric of society?
Sorry about the pun. But making textiles was such an important, vital everyday task that it's left its mark in our modern speech. An unmarried woman....spinster. Valuable object passed through the family....heirloom...because looms were big, expensive pieces of kit that were inherited. Surnames like Fuller, Weaver, Webster, Shearer, Sheppard, Dyer. Spinning a yarn, shuttling to and fro, and so on.
Lancashire's cloth-production was somewhat behind the rest of the country, including Yorkshire, in both quality and quantity. England's first major source of wealth in the Middle Ages was wool, both raw fleeces and woven cloth, and the major buyers were on continental Europe. The Pennines were in our way, and we were producers of second-best rather coarse woollen cloth.
The only other available fibre produced in Britain was linen, from flax. While this was grown in the larger river valleys and in low-lying west Lancashire, most of the flax used in England was imported up rivers from Ireland. Bolton began to specialise early on in making linen cloth and also a wool-linen mix called fustian.
We know next to nothing about the movement of workers in medieval Lancashire, but many accounts say specialist weavers from the Low Countries settled here. Surnames like Fleming and Gaunt (from Ghent) may identify some of these early immigrants, who were given royal protection under Edward III - which suggests they needed it. 'Coming over here, weaving our cloth' - not much changes.
Lancashire's cloth-production was somewhat behind the rest of the country, including Yorkshire, in both quality and quantity. England's first major source of wealth in the Middle Ages was wool, both raw fleeces and woven cloth, and the major buyers were on continental Europe. The Pennines were in our way, and we were producers of second-best rather coarse woollen cloth.
The only other available fibre produced in Britain was linen, from flax. While this was grown in the larger river valleys and in low-lying west Lancashire, most of the flax used in England was imported up rivers from Ireland. Bolton began to specialise early on in making linen cloth and also a wool-linen mix called fustian.
We know next to nothing about the movement of workers in medieval Lancashire, but many accounts say specialist weavers from the Low Countries settled here. Surnames like Fleming and Gaunt (from Ghent) may identify some of these early immigrants, who were given royal protection under Edward III - which suggests they needed it. 'Coming over here, weaving our cloth' - not much changes.