Chapter I: The Beginnings of British Commerce

In the remotest antiquity, before European civilisation dawned in Greece, Britain was already of some commercial importance. In those days, before the art of tempering iron was discovered, copper occupied the place which iron now fills. But an alloy of tin was requisite to give to copper the hardness and edge needed to fit it for useful tools for the artisan, for arrow and spear heads for the hunter, and for the warrior's sword and shield; and there were only two places known in the world where this valuable metal could be obtained--Spain and Britain. For ages the Phoenician merchants and their Carthaginian colonists had a monopoly of this commerce, as they only had the secret of the whereabouts of the "Isles of Tin." It is very difficult for us to realise to ourselves how heroic was the daring of those early adventurers. We, who have explored the whole earth, and by steam and telegraph brought every corner of it within such easy reach; we, to whom it is a very small matter to make a voyage with women and children to the other side of the world; we, who walk down to the pier to see the ships return from the under world, keeping their time as regularly as the Minster clock--we cannot comprehend what it was to them, to whom the tideless sunny Mediterranean was "The Great Sea," about which they groped cautiously from one rocky headland to another in fine weather, and laid up in harbour for the winter; to whom the Pillars of Hercules were the western boundary of the world, beyond which the weird ocean with its great tides and mountain-waves stretched without limit towards the sunset; we cannot comprehend the heroic daring of the men who, in those little ships, without compass, came from the easternmost shores of the Great Sea, ventured through its western portal into this outer waste, and steered boldly northwards towards the unknown regions of ice and darkness.

Our readers will remember that Strabo tells us how, when Rome became the rival of Carthage, the Romans tried to discover the route to these mysterious islands. He relates how the master of a Carthaginian vessel, finding himself pursued by one whom the Romans had appointed to watch him, purposely ran his vessel aground, and thus sacrificing ship and cargo to the preservation of the national secret, was repaid on his return out of the public treasury.

The trade, which included lead and hides as well as tin, when it left the hands of the Phoenicians, did not, however, fall into those of the Romans, but took quite a different channel. The Greek colony of Marseilles became then the emporium from which the world was supplied; but the scanty accounts we have received imply that it was not conveyed there direct on ship-board, but that the native ships and traders of the Gallic towns on the coasts of the Continent conveyed the British commerce across the Channel, and thence transported it overland to Marseilles.

The Britons, however, had ships, and it is interesting to know of what kind were the prototypes of the vast and magnificent vessels which in later days have composed the mercantile navy of Great Britain. They were a kind of large basket of wickerwork, in shape like a walnut shell, strengthened by ribs of wood, covered on the outside with hides.[403] Such constructions seem very frail, but they were capable of undertaking considerable voyages. Pliny quotes the old Greek historian Timæus as affirming that the Britons used to make their way to an island at the distance of six days' sail in boats made of osiers and covered with skins. Solinus states that in his time the communication between Britain and Ireland was kept up on both sides by means of these vessels. Two passages in Adamson, quoted by Macpherson,[404] tell us that the people sailed in them from Ireland as far as Orkney, and on one occasion we hear of one of these frail vessels advancing as far into the Northern Ocean as fourteen days with full sail before a south wind. The common use of such vessels, and the fact of this intercommunication between England and Ireland and the islands farther north, seem to imply, at least, some coasting and inter-insular traffic: ships are the instruments either of war or commerce.

The invasion of Julius Cæsar opened up the island to the knowledge of the civilised world, and there are indications that in the interval of a hundred years between his brief campaign and the actual conquest under Claudius, a commerce sprang up between the south and south-east of Britain and the opposite coasts of the Continent. In this interval the first British coinage was struck, and London became the chief emporium of Britain. When the island became a province of the Roman empire, active commercial intercourse was carried on between it and the rest of the empire. Its chief production was corn, of which large quantities were exported, so that Britain was to the northern part of the empire what Sicily was to the southern. Besides, the island exported cattle, hides, and slaves; British hunting dogs were famous, and British oysters and pearls. The imports would include all the articles of convenience and luxury used by the civilised inhabitants. We do not know with certainty whether this foreign commerce was carried on by British vessels or not. History has only preserved the record of the military navy. But when we know that the British fleet, which had been raised to control the piratical enterprises of the Saxons and Northmen, was so powerful that its admiral, Carausius, was able to seize upon a share of the empire, and that his successor in command, Allectus, was able, though for a shorter period, to repeat the exploit, we may conclude that the natives of the island must have acquired considerable knowledge and experience of maritime affairs, and were very likely to turn their acquirements in the direction of commerce. Many of the representations of Roman ships, to be found in works on Roman antiquities, would illustrate this part of the subject; we may content ourselves with referring the reader to a representation, in Witsen's "Sheeps Bouw," of a Roman ship being laden with merchandise: a half-naked porter is just putting on board a sack, probably of corn, which is being received by a man in Roman armour; it brings the salient features of the trade at once before our eyes.

The Saxon invasion overwhelmed the civilisation which was then widely spread over Britain; and of the history of the country for a long time after that great event we are profoundly ignorant.

It appears that the Saxons after their settlement in England completely neglected the sea, and it was not until the reign of Alfred, towards the end of the ninth century, that they again began to build ships, and not until some years later that foreign commerce was carried on in English vessels. In these later Saxon times, however, considerable intercourse took place with the Continent. There was a rage among Saxon men, and women too, for foreign pilgrimages; and thousands of persons were continually going and coming between England and the most famous shrines of Europe, especially those of Rome, the capital city of Western Christendom. Among these travellers were some whose object was traffic, probably in the portable articles of jewellery for which the Saxon goldsmiths were famous throughout Europe. It seems probable that some of these merchants were accustomed to adopt the pilgrims' character and habit in order to avail themselves of the immunities and hospitalities accorded to them; and, perhaps, on the other hand, some of those whose first object was religion, carried a few articles for sale to eke out their expenses. This, probably, is the explanation of the earliest extant document bearing on Saxon commerce, which is a letter from the Emperor Charlemagne to Offa, King of the Mercians, in which he says: "Concerning the strangers, who, for the love of God and the salvation of their souls, wish to repair to the thresholds of the blessed Apostles, let them travel in peace without any trouble; nevertheless, if any are found among them not in the service of religion, but in the pursuit of gain, let them pay the established duties at the proper places. We also will that merchants shall have lawful protection in our kingdom; and if they are in any place unjustly aggrieved, let them apply to us or our judges, and we shall take care that ample justice be done them." The latter clause seems clearly to imply that English merchants in their acknowledged character were also to be found in the dominions of the great Emperor.

The next notice we find of Saxon foreign commerce is equally picturesque, and far more important. It is a law passed in the reign of King Athelstan, between 925 and 950, which enacts that every merchant who shall have made three voyages over the sea in a ship and cargo of his own should have the rank of a thane, or nobleman. It will throw light upon this law, if we mention that it stands side by side with another which gives equally generous recognition to success in agricultural pursuits: every one who had so prospered that he possessed five hides of land, a hall, and a church, was also to rank as a thane.

The law indicates the usual way in which foreign commerce was carried on by native merchants. The merchant owned his own ship, and laded it with his own cargo, and was his own captain, though he might, perhaps, employ some skilful mariner as his ship-master; and, no doubt, his crew was well armed for protection from pirates. In these days a ship is often chartered to carry a cargo to a particular port, and there the captain obtains another cargo, such as the market affords him, to some other port, and so he may wander over the world in the most unforeseen manner before he finds a profitable opportunity of returning to his starting-place. So, probably, in those times the spirited merchant would not merely oscillate between home and a given foreign point, but would carry on a traffic of an adventurous and hazardous but exciting kind, from one of the great European ports to another.

From a volume of Saxon dialogues in the British Museum (Tiberius, A. III.), apparently intended for a school-book, which gives information of various kinds in the form of question and answer, Mr. S. Turner quotes a passage that illustrates our subject in a very interesting way. The merchant is introduced as one of the characters, to give an account of his occupation and way of life. "I am useful," he says, "to the king and to ealdormen, and to the rich, and to all people. I ascend my ship with my merchandise, and sail over the sea-like places, and sell my things, and buy dear things which are not produced in this land, and I bring them to you here with great danger over the sea; and sometimes I suffer shipwreck with the loss of all my things, scarcely escaping myself." The question, "What do you bring us?" demands an account of the imports, to which he answers, "Skins, silks, costly gems, and gold; various garments, pigment, wine, oil, ivory, and onchalcus (perhaps brass); copper, tin, silver, glass, and such like." The author has omitted to make his merchant tell us what things he exported, but from other sources we gather that they were chiefly wool, slaves, probably some of the metals, viz., tin and lead, and the goldsmith's work and embroidery for which the Saxons were then famous throughout Europe. The dialogue brings out the principle which lies at the bottom of commerce by the next question, "Will you sell your things here as you bought them there?" "I will not, because what would my labour profit me? I will sell them here, dearer than I bought them there, that I may get some profit to feed me, my wife, and children." For the silks and ivory, our merchant would perhaps have to push his adventurous voyage as far as Marseilles or Italy. Corn, which used to be the chief export in British and Roman times, appears never to have been exported by the Saxons; they were a pastoral, rather than an agricultural, people. The traffic in slaves seems to have been regular and considerable. The reader will remember how the sight of a number of fair English children exposed for sale in the Roman market-place excited Gregory's interest, and led ultimately to Augustine's mission. The contemporary account of Wolfstan, Bishop of Worcester, at the time of the Conquest, speaks of similar scenes to be witnessed in Bristol, from which port slaves were exported to Ireland--probably to the Danes, who were then masters of the east coast. "You might have seen with sorrow long ranks of young people of both sexes, and of the greatest beauty, tied together with ropes, and daily exposed to sale: nor were these men ashamed--O horrid wickedness--to give up their nearest relations, nay their own children, to slavery." The good bishop induced them to abandon the trade, "and set an example to all the rest of England to do the same." Nevertheless, William of Malmesbury, who wrote nearly a century later, says that the practice of selling even their nearest relations into slavery had not been altogether abandoned by the people of Northumberland in his own memory.

Already, on the death of Ethelbert, in 1016, the citizens of London had arrived at such importance, that, in conjunction with the nobles who were in the city, they chose a king for the whole English nation, viz., Edmund Ironside; and again on the death of Canute, in 1036, they took a considerable part in the election of Harold. At the battle of Hastings the burgesses of London formed Harold's body-guard. A few years previously, Canute, on his pilgrimage to Rome, met the Emperor Conrade and other princes, from whom he obtained for all his subjects, whether merchants or pilgrims, exemption from the heavy tolls usually exacted on the journey to Rome.

During the peaceful reign of Edward the Confessor a much larger general intercourse seems to have sprung up with the Continent, and the commerce of England to have greatly increased. For this we have the testimony of William of Poictiers, William the Conqueror's chaplain, who says, speaking of the time immediately preceding the Conquest, "The English merchants to the opulence of their country, rich in its own fertility, added still greater riches and more valuable treasures. The articles imported by them, notable both for their quantity and their quality, were to have been hoarded up for the gratification of their avarice, or to have been dissipated in the indulgence of their luxurious inclinations. But William seized them, and bestowed part on his victorious army, and part on the churches and monasteries, while to the Pope and the Church of Rome he sent an incredible mass of money in gold and silver, and many ornaments that would have been admired even in Constantinople."

We are not able to give any authentic contemporary illustration of the shipping of this period. Those which are given by Strutt are not really representations of the ships of the period: Byzantine Art still exercised a powerful influence over Saxon Art, and the illuminators frequently gave traditional forms; and the ships introduced by Strutt, though executed by a Saxon artist, are probably copied from Byzantine authorities. The Bayeux tapestry is probably our earliest trustworthy authority for a British ship, and it gives a considerable number of illustrations of them, intended to represent in one place the numerous fleet which William the Conqueror gathered for the transport of his army across the Channel; in another place the considerable fleet with which Harold hoped to bar the way. The one we have chosen is the duke's own ship; it displays at its mast-head the banner which the Pope had blessed, and the trumpeter on the high poop is also an evidence that it is the commander's ship. In the present case the trumpeter is known, from contemporary authority, to have been only wood gilded; but in many of the subsequent illustrations we shall also find a trumpeter, or usually two, who were part of the staff of the commander, and perhaps were employed in signalling to other ships of the fleet.

The Conquest checked this thriving commerce. William's plunder of the Saxon merchants, which was probably not confined to London, must have gone far to ruin those who were then engaged in it; the general depression of Saxon men for a long time after would prevent them or others from reviving it; and the Normans themselves were averse from mercantile pursuits. In the half-century after the Conquest we really know little or nothing of the history of commerce. The charters of the first Norman kings make no mention of it. Stephen's troubled reign must have been very unfavourable to it. Still foreign merchants would seek a market where they could dispose of their goods, and the long and wise reign of Henry II. enabled English commerce, not only to recover, but to surpass its ancient prosperity. An interesting account of London, given by William FitzStephen, about 1174, in the introduction to a Life of à Becket, gives much information on our subject: he says that "no city in the world sent out its wealth and merchandise to so great a distance," but he does not enumerate the exports. Among the articles brought to London by foreign merchants he mentions gold, spices, and frankincense from Arabia; precious stones from Egypt; purple cloths from Bagdad; furs and ermines from Norway and Russia; arms from Scythia; and wines from France. The citizens he describes as distinguished above all others in England for the elegance of their manners and dress, and the magnificence of their tables. There were in the city and suburbs thirteen large conventual establishments and 120 parish churches. He adds that the dealers in the various sorts of commodities, and the labourers and artizans of every kind, were to be found every day stationed in their several distinct places throughout the city, and that a market was held every Friday in Smithfield for the sale of horses, cows, hogs, &c.; the citizens were distinguished from those of other towns by the appellation of barons; and Malmesbury, an author of the same age, also tells us that from their superior opulence, and the greatness of the city, they were considered as ranking with the chief people or nobility of the kingdom.

The great charter of King John provided that all merchants should have protection in going out of England and in coming back to it, as well as while residing in the kingdom or travelling about in it, without any impositions or payments such as to cause the destruction of their trade. During the thirteenth century, it seems probable that much of the foreign commerce of the country was carried on by foreign merchants, who imported chiefly articles of luxury, and carried back chiefly wool, hides, and leather, and the metals found in England. But there were various enactments to prevent foreign merchants from engaging in the domestic trade of the country. In the fourteenth century commerce received much attention from government, and many regulations were made in the endeavour to encourage it, or rather to secure as much of its profits as possible to English, and leave as little as possible to foreign, merchants. Our limits do not allow us to enter into details on the subject, and our plan aims only at giving broad outside views of the life of the merchants of the Middle Ages.

Let us introduce here an illustration of the ships in which the commerce was conducted. Perhaps the only illustration to be derived from the MS. illuminations of the thirteenth century is one in the Roll of St. Guthlac, which is early in the century, and gives a large and clear picture of St. Guthlac in a ship with a single mast and sail, steered by a paddle consisting of a pole with a short cross handle at the top, like the poles with which barges are still punted along, and expanding at bottom into a short spade-like blade. Some of the seals of this century also give rude representations of ships: one of H. de Neville gives a perfectly crescent-shaped hull with a single mast supported by two stays; that of Hugo de Burgh has a very high prow and stern, which reminds us of the build of modern _prahus_. Another, of the town of Monmouth, has a more artistic representation of a ship of similar shape, but the high prow and stern are both ornamented with animals' heads, like the prow of William the Conqueror's ship. The Psalter of Queen Mary, which is of early fourteenth-century date, gives an illustration of the building of Noah's ark, which is a ship of the shape found in the Bayeux tapestry, with a sort of house within it. The illustration we give opposite from the Add. MS. 3,983, f. 6, was also executed early in the fourteenth century, and though rude it is valuable as one of the earliest examples of a ship with a rudder of the modern construction; it also clearly indicates the fact that these early vessels used oars as well as sails. The usual mode of steering previous to, and for some time subsequent to, this time was with a large broad oar at the ship's counter, worked in a noose of rope (a _gummet_) or through a hole in a piece of wood attached to the vessel's side. The first mode will be found illustrated in the Add. MS. 24,189, at f. 30, and the second at f. 5 in the same MS. The men of this period were not insensible to the value of a means of propelling a vessel independently of the wind; and employed human muscle as their motive power. Some of the great trading cities of the Mediterranean used galleys worked by oars, not only for warfare, but for commercial purposes: _e.g._ in 1409 A.D., King Henry granted to the merchants of Venice permission to bring their carracks, galleys, and other vessels, laden with merchandise, to pass over to Flanders, return and sell their cargoes without impediment, and sail again with English merchandise and go back to their own country.

A very curious and interesting MS. (Add. 27,695) recently acquired by the British Museum, which appears to be of Genoese Art, and of date about A.D. 1420, enables us to give a valuable illustration of our subject. It occupies the whole page of the MS.; we have only given the lower half, of the size of the original. It appears to represent the siege of Tripoli. The city is in the upper part of the page; our cut represents the harbour and a suburb of the town. It is clearly indicated that it is low water, and the high-water mark is shown in the drawing by a different colour. Moreover, a timber pier will be noticed, stretching out between high and low-water mark, and a boat left high and dry by the receding tide. In the harbour are ships of various kinds, and especially several of the galleys of which we have spoken. The war-galley may be found fully illustrated in Witsen's "Sheep's Bouw," p. 186.

The same MS., in the lower margin of folio 9 v., has an exceedingly interesting picture of a whaling scene, which we are very glad to introduce as a further illustration of the commerce and shipping of this early period. It will be seen that the whale has been killed, and the successful adventurers are "cutting out" the blubber very much after the modern fashion.