Fifteenth-century Southampton was a vibrant and successful port engaged in national and international trade. The incoming trade which was distributed from the port by land was recorded in the Southampton brokage books. These are a remarkable and unique source, which have allowed the port's inland trade to be analysed in a variety of different ways – chronologically, geographically, by goods and by towns – considered in a recent book. This essay examines an aspect of trade not covered in that volume, namely the role played by the port of Southampton in the supply of religious institutions. Although Southampton was just one link in the network of supply for these establishments, this essay will focus specifically on the port's part in supplying the religious houses of Winchester. Beginning with an overview of Southampton's overland trade system, it then considers the patterns of consumption in religious institutions in Southampton's hinterland, and uses two commodities, fish and wine, to illustrate the extent to which such houses were reliant on this particular port.

On Friday 15 November 1538 a carter named John de Huse left Southampton bound for St. Swithun's Cathedral Priory, Winchester, with a butt of wine and two barrels of herring. This was just one cart of many which left the port in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and an entry typical of the many thousands of others in the brokage books. Southampton was a thriving port for much of this period and, situated centrally on England's south coast, was in a key position to engage in England's inland trade. Drawing on both coastal and international trade, the arrival of goods at the port was the first stage in the process. Small coastal vessels arrived laden with cargoes of slates from Devon, tin from Cornwall, and fish from places ranging from Penzance in Cornwall to Southwold in Suffolk. Ships from France, Spain and the Mediterranean frequented the port for much of the century, along with Venetian galleys and Genoese carracks, of which as many as ten or eleven visited each year between 1421 and 1458.