Editorial

Abstract

This special issue focuses on ‘Immigration, Cultural Exchange and Community in Medieval and Early Modern England: Norfolk and the Low Countries’. In March 2013, the guest editor, Christopher Joby, collaborated with the Norfolk County Archivist, John Alban, in organizing a study day on the ‘Dutch and Flemish Strangers in Norfolk’. Held at the Norfolk Record Office, the event resulted in several research outputs, notably a special issue of the journal Dutch Crossing and Joby's monograph on John Cruso of Norwich and Anglo-Dutch Literary Identity in the Seventeenth Century.1 In 2023, chance encounters between Joby, Alban and Gary Tuson – Alban's successor as Norfolk County Archivist – led to the organization of another study day at the Norfolk Record Office, ten years after the original meeting. Rather than repeat the theme, it was decided to broaden the workshop to examine the shared history of Norfolk and the Low Countries in the medieval and early modern periods. Papers from the 2023 study day form the basis of this special issue.

This journal issue was commissioned while History: The Journal of the Historical Association was based at the University of East Anglia (UEA), under the editorship of Jayne Gifford and her team. Home to an internationally recognized School of History and Art History, UEA also hosts the Centre of East Anglian Studies, one of the earliest centres of regional history, which has a long tradition of situating local studies within national and international contexts, and of connecting with groups and individuals across academia and local communities. The journal has recently transferred to Northumbria University, and History’s new editorial team will introduce itself and its plans with an editorial in the June 2025 issue. It is particularly fitting that this is the final issue to appear under the UEA banner, given its direct connection to the university's home region. As guest editor (Joby) and as members of the incoming editorial team (Aston, Laqua), we would like to extend our thanks to Dr Gifford and all her colleagues for their work on this journal, including their commissioning of special issues such as the present one.

The time frame of the pieces that have been assembled here encompasses the late medieval and early modern period. They cover Norfolk's three main towns, Norwich, King's Lynn and Great Yarmouth, drawing on the extensive collection of material in the Norfolk archives alongside various other sources. Importantly, however, this collection of articles is not construed in purely local terms. Given their nature as mercantile, economic, political and/or ecclesiastical centres, the places in question had a significance and ties that extended far beyond their immediate surroundings. In referring to ‘Immigration, Cultural Exchange and Community in Medieval and Early Modern England’, the title of this special issue indicates some of the broader themes that are being tackled here.

By featuring this material within the context of a special issue, this publication pursues two broader aims. First, it demonstrates how Norfolk's history has been intimately connected to the Low Countries since the Middle Ages. The articles discuss the economic, cultural, religious and political activities (and experiences) of immigrants who had developed a presence in Norfolk. In this respect, the special issue adopts an outward-facing approach to local and regional history. Second, the articles illustrate how a specific county or region – in this case Norfolk – can be the basis for writing different kinds of history: the authors work in fields such as urban history, social history, book history and religious history. Christopher Joby's articles as well as Rebecca Feakes's article address aspects of Norfolk's connection to the Dutch Revolt as well as discussing the civic life of immigrants from the Low Countries. Joel Halcomb and Danny Buck explore chapters in the shared religious history of Norfolk and the Low Countries, whilst Susan Maddock and Alan Metters illuminate the shared commercial history of the two regions (in the former case with a particular emphasis on print).

As a whole, then, the material in this special issue should be relevant to scholars well beyond those who have a specific interest in Norfolk. Future issues of History will include many pieces that cover different countries or world regions as well as articles that adopt larger scales of enquiry (including global ones); as such, the present publication is but one manifestation of our general commitment to featuring a plurality of places, periods and perspectives in the pages of this journal. We hope that the material that has been gathered here provides encouragement to historians who wish not only to explore their own region's history, but also to place it in broader national and international narratives.