There is today much debate about the historical development of Spurn with one theory suggesting that it has been destroyed by the sea and reformed, in a slightly different location, at intervals throughout its history, and another suggesting that it has had a more or less continuous existence with the broad tip or 'Point' situated on approximately the same site that it occupies today. What is not in question is that for most of recorded history there has been a promontory or spit of land at the south-east tip of Holderness which we know today by the name of Spurn Head or Spurn Point.

The earliest reference to the headland is in the 7th century A.D. when according to Alcuin's Life of St. Willibrord, Wilgils, the father of the apostle to the Frisians, Willibrord, is said to have settled there as a hermit. Known as Ravenser, from 'Hrafn's Eyr' or 'Hrafn's Sandbank', there are several references to Spurn in the Icelandic sagas, especially in connection with its use as an embarkation point for the defeated Norwegian army after the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. The name Ravenser was also applied to a small settlement, probably of Danish origin, which seems to have been located somewhere near the base of the headland a mile or two south-east of old Kilnsea. Never itself a town of major importance and predominantly rural in character, Ravenser was to be completely overshadowed by what may be described as a mediaeval 'new town', its near neighbour, Ravenser Odd.

For those familiar with present-day Spurn with its handful of lifeboatmens' houses and pilots' look-out tower, it is difficult to imagine the existence of a thriving, bustling sea port with streets and buildings at the end of the peninsula. And yet at the height of its fortunes in the early years of the 14th century, Ravenser Odd was a town of national importance, regularly supplying the king with two fully equipped ships and armed men for his wars with the Scots. At the same time it had achieved borough status and was receiving harbour and other dues from more than 100 merchant ships a year. Benefiting from a Royal charter, it  had its own market and annual fair, a town mayor, customs officers  and other officials, and was furnished with cargo ships, fishing boats, wharves, warehouses, customs sheds, a tanhouse and  windmills as well as boasting a court, prison, and chapel. The port flourished from about 1235, when it was founded, until its final destruction by the sea about 1360.

Evidence for the history of Ravenser Odd comes from a variety of sources, chiefly the Chronicle of Meaux Abbey with its graphic accounts of the last dramatic days of the town and reports from inquisitions and grants. The date of the port's foundation may be inferred from the statement of the jury of an inquisition held in 1276 which recalled that "forty years and more ago, the casting up of the sea caused stones and sand to accumulate, and on them the Earl of Aumale began to build a certain town which is called Ravenserodd: and it is an island: the sea surrounds it". An account of the early occupation of the new sandbank is given by the jury of another inquisition in 1290:

It is not clear whether Ravenser Odd was an island only at high tide or only during the earlier period of its history. There is a useful description in the Chronicle of Meaux Abbey (written at the end of the 14th century) which shows plainly that overland access to the 'island' was the usual method at least in the later period:

"For that town of Ravenser Odd ... at the extreme limits of Holderness, situated between the waters of the sea and the Humber, lay about a mile or more distant from the mainland. Access to it from early times from Old Ravenser was by means of a sandy road strewn with rounded yellow pebbles ... [and] scarcely a bowshot in width and marvellously withstanding the floodwaters of the sea on its eastern side and the tides of the Humber on its western side. This road can still [c.1394-1400] be seen by travellers on foot and horseback; but at its further end, it was washed into the Humber for the space of half a mile by the floodwaters of the sea. Of the site, therefore of Ravenser Odd, scarcely a trace is to be found ... This town, was situated about four [old English] miles distant from Easington".

As the new town developed more people began to settle there, and because of its position at the mouth of the Humber, it was favourably situated both for the establishment of a fishing industry and for seaborne commerce. Its success in both of these activities was marked by a growing rivalry between Ravenser Odd and other ports on the Humber, notably Grimsby, whose merchants complained that their new neighbours were going out to sea in small boats in order to intercept inbound merchant ships and persuade their masters to trade at Ravenser Odd rather than at Grimsby. Initially Ravenser Odd lay in the fief of the Counts (and later Countess) of Aumale and was fostered by them as a source of income, collected in tolls and rents. In 1293, however, on the death of the Countess Isabella, the Aumale estates passed to the king, Edward I. Five years later, in 1298, a petition was presented to him by the merchants of Ravenser Odd for the granting of a royal charter to the town. In the following year, on payment of £300, the charter was duly granted and Ravenser Odd became a free borough. According to the terms of the charter, a warden and coroner were to be appointed, a king's prison and gallows were to be erected, and two weekly markets (Tuesday and Sunday) were to be established with the merchants of the town being granted certain tax immunities in their trading throughout the kingdom.

For the next forty or so years Ravenser Odd continued to grow in wealth and prosperity receiving regular grants of quayage (the right to levy harbour dues on ships using the port) from its royal patron and providing him with ships and men for his wars against the Scots. One or two ships, manned and fitted out, were required from Ravenser Odd on at least seven occasions between 1310 and 1346. In addition ships were sometimes chartered to deliver stores to the king's forces in Scotland and for other errands connected with the struggle. Another sign of the importance of Ravenser Odd in the early 14th century is the regular representation of the town in the ad-hoc parliaments and so-called naval parliaments of the period.

By about 1340 however it must have been more than apparent that the town could no longer continue to prosper, and that even its physical survival was being threatened by the inroads of the sea. In his account of the abbacy of Hugh of Leven in the years from 1339 to 1349, the chronicler of Meaux Abbey writes:

In 1346 an inquisition appointed by the king found that two thirds of the town and its buildings had been lost to the sea by erosion and that there remained only a third of the population able "to pay or support the tithes, tolls and other burdens hitherto assessed upon the said town ..." In the years that followed, from about 1349 to 1360, the sea completed its destruction of Ravenser Odd. The monkish chronicler of Meaux describes how the erosion exposed the bodies buried in the chapel's graveyard, much as it was to do some 450 years later at nearby Kilnsea:

As was to happen later at Kilnsea, the bodies were re-buried in the churchyard at Easington.

The final days of the once great port, faced with the ever-increasing menace from the incursions of the sea and its effects on the town's inhabitants, leading to scenes of looting and panic-flight, are graphically recounted in the two passages from the Chronicle of Meaux Abbey, quoted below, which provide a fitting end to the story of Ravenser Odd:

The chronicler goes on to describe how the displaced merchants of Ravenser Odd   dispersed to settle in other towns and ports "wherever the spirit would lead them;" most of them seem to have been led to Hull where many were to lay down the foundations for future successful merchant dynasties.