About the year of our Lord 1100, about 500 years past, it pleased God to lay the first foundation of the east town of Yarmouth into firm land, even out of the main sea. Which place was then called and known by the name of Sardike sand, and Sardike shore; and in a short time it proved to be a fit and commodious place for a town to be built, meet for seafaring men to inhabit in. And by the permission of many noble kings in this land, his majesties progenitors, many did resort thither, and began to build the same, and to enclose it with a stone wall on the east side of the town (the haven being on the west side) inasmuch that within a short time the same grew populous. And long before Yarmouth town was incorporated, the barons of the five ports did yearly hold a free fair in the three towns of Yarmouth (that is to say) Easton, Weston, and Southton, beginning the said fair on the feast of St. Michael and so continued forty days together. And by the authority of the King, they did then use to make their repair thither on purpose for the governing of the said fair. And in those days was yearly sent from the brotherhood of the five ports, and the antient towns, nine or ten bailiffs who governed the fair. And it is to be noted, that long before any liberties were granted to Yarmouth, the towns of Lowestoft and Kirkley in the county of Suffolk, were built, and populously inhabited; and the then town of Kirkley being the greatest town of account, and the most antient upon the coast, and being a haven town, (the place now called Kirkley haven was the antient haven), before that Yarmouth was Yarmouth, and thereupon the whole fishing seas upon the confines of Suffolk and Norfolk, take the name of Kirkley seas. And to this day the seas upon those coasts are called or known by the French fishermen coming there to fish, by the name of Kirkley seas. And long since, before Yarmouth was incorporated there was such trading and merchandising of herrings at Lowestoft, and the same was by the Yarmouth men so much envied that civil wars subsisted for a long time between them, with much bloodshed, until it pleased God to take the matter into his own hands, who ended the strife with such a great mortality of people, that there died of the plague in Yarmouth 7,000 persons, and then the wars ceased.