Medieval Fishbourne

The village from Domesday to the dissolution

After the Roman period, Fishbourne reverted to a modest agricultural and fishing settlement on the harbour shore. The great palace was forgotten, buried beneath the fields, and the village's medieval history is that of a small Sussex community rather than a grand estate.

The Domesday Book of 1086 records Fishbourne as two manors, and the medieval village developed around the church and the harbour. The pattern of narrow lanes, the church at St Peter and St Mary, and the relationship between the settlement and the tidal creek are all features that took shape during the medieval period.

Fishbourne was part of the Rape of Chichester, one of the great administrative divisions of Sussex established after the Norman Conquest. The village's lords owed service to the earl or his successor, and the manorial court managed local affairs. Agriculture was the main occupation, supplemented by fishing and the gathering of shellfish from the harbour.

The parish church was the centre of community life, providing not only religious services but also the social and administrative framework within which medieval village society operated. The font, the basic plan of the building, and the churchyard all have medieval origins.

The dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII in the 1530s and 1540s had less direct impact on Fishbourne than on some neighbouring parishes. The village had no monastic house of its own, though it may have been affected by the dissolution of Boxgrove Priory, which held lands in the area.