Chapter XII: Confederation (3)

[1] The right of pit and gallows was never formally revoked. The last case was under Charles I. (Rogers’s Agriculture and Prices, i. 132). The gallows at Southampton stood on the common; in Colchester at the end of East Street.

[2] The Inquisition de quo Warranto, Ed. I., proves that S. Martin’s and other villages were under the jurisdiction of Canterbury; inquests at these places were held by the city coroner. York had a territory of 2,700 acres. (Agric. and Prices, iv. 579.) The burgesses of Dorchester claimed the right to weigh all goods within twelve miles of the town. A special statute was passed in 1430 “that they shall not be disturbed of their right,” in consequence of the Act of 1429 ordering weights and measures in every town. (9th Henry VI. cap. vi.) Other instances, such as Norwich, Nottingham, &c., are too numerous to give.

[3] The mariners of the Cinque Ports drew up treaties with “French shipmen,” as to ransom for mariners, sailors, or fishing boats that might be captured on either side; the people of the coast were to be set free without charge, while “gentlemen” and merchants were to pay whatever the captors chose to ask. The shipowners and merchants of each port signed the compact; and all the towns of the coast from Southampton to Thanet joined the league. The document which was drawn up was handed over to the keeping of the Lord Warden in Dover, and in case of dispute messengers from the Ports rode there to see its provisions, or to make a copy for their own guidance. Hist. MSS. Com. v. 537-8; iv. i. 434.

[4] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 146; xi. 3, pp. 12-13, 171, 113. For 1340 see Ashley’s Arteveldes, 126-7.

[5] Stubbs Const. Hist. iii. 484-488. Hallam Const. Hist. iii. 36. Gneist, who gives different figures, considers that one of the greatest dangers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was the irrational and meaningless increase of town representation. (Constitution Communale, tr. by Hippert, i. 333, 338; ii. 9.)

[6] Rep. of Com. on Mun. Corp., 1835, 20, 21; 29-34; Papers relating to Parl. Representation, 93, 94. Vol. ix. No. 92. ii.; 31 x.

[7] See Paston Letters, i. 160-1, 337, 339-40; ii. 78, 28, 31, 35-36; iii. 52-3. Richard the Redeless, passus iv. The great people occasionally exercised influence in towns; Hist. MSS. Com. v. 497; ix. 138. For various modes of voting in towns see Lynn, Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 146-151; Chichester, Gross. Gild Merchant, ii. 48; Reading, Coates, 459; Sandwich, Boys, 402; Exeter, Freeman, 152; Worcester, Eng. Guilds, 373, 393; Bristol, Hunt, 86; Cinque Ports, Boy’s Sandwich, 774, 796.

[8] The first mention of burgesses in the Empire is in 1066 at Huy, in the bishopric of Liege. Pirenne, Dinant, 18.

[9] Dr. Gross gives a list of 150 towns which had gained the right of having a merchant gild—most of them in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

[10] Edward the First in the thirty years of his rule created fifty-four new boroughs. In the first eighty years of the fifteenth century the kings only issued nine charters of this kind.

[11] London was not apparently before other cities in the winning of liberties. (Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, 372.) There were reasons enough for especial caution of Henry the Second in the matter of London.

[12] Gross, Gild Merchant, i. 73, note; Archæologia, vii. p. 337-347; Stubbs, ii. 486.

[13] Burgage rents in the earliest times were accounted for by the officers not in a lump sum but “as the pennies come in.” Rep. on Markets, 13.

[14] Cutt’s Colchester, 111-117, 126-7.

[15] Two other innkeepers had much the same stock-in-trade.

[16] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. part i. 491-2, 478, 489. In Reading at the muster roll of 1311 there appeared eight men armed with sword, bow, arrows, and knife; thirty-three with bows, arrows, and knives; and over two hundred and thirty-five (besides some names lost at the foot of the roll) with hatchets and knives. In 1371 the town was able to raise a body of archers for service abroad; and under Edward the Sixth it sent fifty soldiers armed with bills, swords, daggers, bows, and arrows, and paid each soldier forty pence “for the King’s affairs into Boulogne.” Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 7, 171, 182.

[17] Ibid. v. 497.

[18] Act of Parliament for paving Gloucester, 1455; Fosbrooke’s Gloucestershire, i. 157. For Exeter in 1466; Freeman’s Exeter, 91. For Canterbury in 1474, because the “evil report” carried away by pilgrims “would be stopped if the roads were properly pitched with boulders and Folkestone stone”; Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 168, 144, 174. For Southampton in 1477, after a century of vain attempts to pave the streets; Davies, 119, 120; in 1384 a tax was levied for pavage; in 1441 accounts were rendered of paving stones provided; payments were made in 1457 to a London paviour. By the Act each citizen was ordered to pave before his own door as far as the middle of the street since “the town was full feebly paved and full perilous and jeopardous to ride or go therein, and in especial in the High Street,” so that “strangers thither resorting have been oftentimes greatly hurt and in peril of their lives.” For Bristol in 1491 when the whole town seems to have been new paved. Ricart, 47-48.

[19] To take a single instance, in 1421 the water-supply of Southampton was undertaken by the council, and new leaden pipes provided by the grant of a burgess who had thus bequeathed his money “for the good of his soul.” An aqueduct was made at considerable expense in 1428; 261 days’ work at it was paid at from 4_d._ to 6_d._ a day; over £12 more was spent on an iron grating for it, and 27_s._ 2_d._ given to the plumber who fixed it; great stones from Wathe called “scaplyd stonys” were carried, with loads of chalk, quicklime, pitch, rosin, solder, wax, and wood. In 1490 a new well was made with a “watering-place for horse and a washing-place for women.” Davies, 115, 117; Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 138-40. In many towns wells were repaired, enclosed with a wall and covered with a roof and put under the care of wardens.

[20] Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 137, 145. See Paston, i. 434; Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 7, 169; x. 4, 529-30.

[21] English Guilds, 241, 249.

[22] For the contrast in this respect between the shire and the borough see Round’s Geoffrey de Mandeville, 356-7.

[23] Luchaire, Communes Françaises, 22-25. See Piers Ploughman, passus i. 139-146; ii. 90-99; ix. 19-76; x. 223-227.

[24] Piers Ploughman, passus xvi. 248-255.

[25]

“The Jews that were gentlemen, Jesus they despised,
Both his lore and his law, now are they low churls,
As wide as the world is woneth (dwelleth) there none
But under tribute and tallage as tikes and churls.
And those that become Christian by counsel of the Baptist
Are franklins and free....
And gentlemen with Jesus.”

(Piers Ploughman, ed. by W. Skeat for Early English Text Society, part iii.; pass. xxii. 34.) I have ventured to give quotations from mediæval writers in modern spelling, as I am here concerned neither with philology nor the history of literature: and there are many to whom the old methods of spelling only serve to obscure the sense.

[26] Stubbs, ii. 137-144, 239-244.

[27] Ibid. ii. 560, 671.

[28] Stubbs, ii. 332-4.

[29] Ibid. ii. 257; iii. 16.

[30] The former devices for illegal taxation on the King’s part broke down when the commons looked so sharply after these matters that no attempt at unauthorised taxation of merchandise was made after the accession of Richard the Second. Stubbs, ii. 574-578. How completely the relation of King and commons had been reasoned out by the people we see in Langland’s writings.

“Then came there a King, and ‘by his crown,’ said,
‘I am a king with crown the commons to rule,
And holy Church and clergy from cursed men to defend.
And if me lacketh to live by, the law wills that I take
There I may have it hastelokest; (quickest) for I am head of law,
And ye be both members, and I above all.’

* * * * *

‘On condition,’ quoth conscience, ‘that thou conne defend
And rule thy realm in reason right well, and in truth;
Then, that thou have thine asking as the law asketh;
_Omnia sunt tua ad defendendum, sed non ad deprehendendum_.’”

(Piers Ploughman, passus xxii. 467-472, 478-481.)

[31] Stubbs, iii. 77; Rogers, Agric. and Prices, iv. viii.

[32] See the description of a session of Parliament in Richard the Redeless, passus iii. A.D. 1399.

[33] Piers Ploughman, passus iv. 376, &c.

[34] Ibid. passus v. 176.

[35] Ibid. passus vi. 181. M. Jusserand (Epopée Mystique du Moyen Age, 101-118), justly points out what a typical representative of common opinion Langland was. Compare the popular manifesto of 1450. (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 267.) “They say the King should live upon his commons, and that their bodies and goods are his; the contrary is true, for then needed him never to set Parliament and to ask good of them.”

[36] The burden of taxation was gradually being transferred from one class to another as subsidies on moveables, and customs on import and export were found more productive and more easily managed. Stubbs, ii. 570.

[37] Reductions of rent are too numerous to give; they occurred everywhere, and were sometimes apparently bought at a considerable price. (See Round’s Geoffrey de Mandeville, 366.) Loans from the towns seem to have been voluntary. In 1435 the Sandwich commonalty refused to lend money to the King; and further excused themselves from sending him soldiers for the defence of Calais, “having all the men they can spare already employed in the service of the Duke of York.” (Boys, 672.) A grant to the King was again refused in 1486. (Ibid. 678.) The Norwich citizens got into trouble for instituting a suit to have their loan returned (Blomefield, iii. 147, 152). In 1424 Lynn lent 400 marks, and in 1428 the council agreed that burgesses of parliament should receive from executors of the late king a hundred pounds for a pledged circlet of gold because they could not get more (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. part 3, 161). In 1491 the king was at Bristol, where he had a benevolence of £1,800 (Ricart, 47-48). At the coming of Richard the Third in 1484, York, to gain a reduction of the fee-ferm, agreed to give him 100 marks in a cup of gold, and to the queen £100 in a dish. A list is given of the citizens who subscribed—the mayor giving £20, the recorder £100, and so on. The whole sum subscribed was £437 (Davis’ York, 167-9, 174). It would be quite impossible to mention all the loans, but the instance of Canterbury is curious as the first foreshadowing of the national debt. In 1438 £40 was lent to the king, and in 1443 £50; in these cases private individuals advanced the money in various amounts according to their taste for speculation, and probably got certificates promising interest and redemption at par (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. part 1, 139).

[38] Luchaire, 288-9.

[39] Luchaire, 64, 137.

[40] M. Jusserand in his Epopée Mystique du Moyen Age has well pointed out that the war with France was royal rather than national. Pp. 7-9, 117.

[41] Stubbs, Lectures on Mediæval History, p. 342; Friedman, Anne Boleyn, i. pp. 1-4; Gneist, La Constitution Communale, trans. by Hippert, i. p. 334, &c. “England at the accession of Henry the Seventh was far behind the England of the thirteenth century.” (Denton, Lectures on the Fifteenth Century, 120, 118.) “This low and material view of domestic life had led to an equally low and material view of political life, and the cruelty which stained the Wars of the Roses was but the outcome of a state of society in which no man cared much for anything except his own greatness and enjoyment. The ideal which shaped itself in the minds of the men of the middle class was a king acting as a kind of chief constable, who, by keeping great men in order, would allow their inferiors to make money in peace.” (Gardiner’s Student’s History, 330-1.) “The despondency of the English people, when their dream of conquest in France was dissipated, was attended with a complete decay of thought, with civil war, and with a standing still or perhaps a decline of population, and to a less degree of wealth.” (National Life and Character, by Charles Pearson, p. 130-1.) “There are few more pitiful episodes in history. Thirty-five years of a war that was as unjust as it was unfortunate had both soured and demoralised the nation.” “England had entirely ceased to count as a naval power.” As for the burgesses, “if not actively mischievous they were sordidly inert.” (Oman’s Warwick, 4-11, 67, 133.)

[42] In Ricart’s Calendar in Bristol he enters duly the fact that a battle had been fought and that one side or other was victorious without further comment. He misplaces the date of the murder of Suffolk three years, though he might well have remembered it; and he writes as a sort of after-thought in the margin of his record, “and this year the two sons of King Edward were put to silence in the Tower of London.” (Ricart, 40-46.) In 1460 Norwich had its captain and 120 soldiers with King Henry in the north, and all the rest of its available forces had to hurry off to Edward at his accession. (Blomefield iii. 162-163.) The city raised £160 for the coming of Richard the Third to the city, and £140 for the coming of Henry the Seventh. (Ibid. 173-174.) For Nottingham, see vol. ii. There is no mention of Bosworth in Canterbury, and Henry the Seventh was received with the same pomp as former kings. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 145.) For Bosworth, where men stood afar off waiting to join the victorious side, see Fabyan, 672-673. The policy of the burghers was the same in this respect as that of the great Churchmen, who were entirely passive in the real crises of the civil war, and so ready to serve every king, that not one of them suffered loss from fidelity to any side. (Rogers’ Agricul. and Prices, iv. 9, 10.) The people in general were equally indifferent. “I have read thousands of documents penned during the heat of the strife, and have found only one allusion to the character of the times in the earlier, and one about the later war of 1470-1.” (Ibid., 19.) An interesting parallel to the indifference of the trading communities of the fifteenth century during the Wars of the Roses may be seen in the action of the Merchants’ Company in the civil wars of the seventeenth century. (Lambert’s Gild Life, 177-178.)

[43] See vol. ii. ch. i.

[44] In Lydd corn was given to the poor at Christmas and Easter, and gifts to lepers; payments made from 1480-1485 for Goderynge’s daughter, “poor maid,” “hosen, shoes, her keep, kertyl-cloth and for making thereof;” also in 1490, “paid to the poor man keeping the poor child 12 pence.” After a long list of expenses for a thief and making stocks for him and a halter, “paid for one pair of shoes to his daughter 3_d._,” and “given to the quest of women 4_d._”; summoned perhaps in reference to the daughter. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 527, 526.) In Rye sums were paid to the poor on opening the box of maltotes. (Ibid. 494.) For Southampton, Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 112; the steward’s book in 1441 contains a list of alms, £4 2_s._ 1_d._, given away every week to poor men and women. (Davies, 294.) According to the usual calculation at this time in almshouses of a penny a day for living, this sum would mean that the corporation paid weekly for the mere subsistence of 140 persons. For Bristol, Ricart’s Kalendar, 72-80, 82, &c. For Chester, Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 371. For Romney, Hist. MSS. Com. v. 535-6. The Mayor of Sandwich had to manage the hospitals of S. Bartholomew and S. John, to appoint their officers, to audit their accounts, and administer their estates made up of innumerable parcels of land and houses left by pious people. (Boys, 17-21, 526.) The municipal council of Exeter appointed every year a Warden of the Poor to look after their many charitable foundations. It had charge of Magdalen Hospital, of the Ten Cells Hospital for Poor, founded in 1406 by Simon Grendon, Mayor; the Combrew Almshouse, founded by Sir William Bonville, 1408; and an almshouse founded by John Palmer. (Freeman’s Exeter, 175-6.) There was a municipal almshouse in Hereford supported by way of payment to the corporation from ecclesiastical tenants for a share in the city’s privileges. (Arch. Ass. Journ. xxvii. 481.) In the fifteenth century bequests by burgesses for these purposes were very frequent and were usually left to the management of the corporation. In all large towns the mayor and aldermen presided over the court of orphans. (Davies’s Southampton, 239.) The indications of poor relief by the towns must modify Mr. Ashley’s conclusion (Economic History, I. part ii. 338) that “no attempt was made by the State as a whole, _or by any secular public authority_, to relieve distress. The work was left _entirely_ to the Church, and to the action of religious motives upon the minds of individuals.” It seems difficult to follow in this connexion his distinction drawn between the craft associations which had or had not grown out of religious fraternities (p. 325).

[45] Besides the customary Latin prayers a Norfolk guild used English prayers for Church and State, harvest and travellers, like our Litany. (English Guilds, 111-114.) The play of the Lord’s Prayer was performed by a York guild. “They are bound to find one candle-bearer, with seven lights, in token of the seven supplications in the Lord’s Prayer.” “Also they are bound to make, and as often as need be to renew, a table showing the whole meaning and use of the Lord’s Prayer, and to keep this hanging against a pillar in the said cathedral church near to the aforesaid candle-bearer.” (Ibid. 137-9.) See also Hibbert’s Shrewsbury Guilds, 62. For Pecok as “the first author of the Middle Ages who propounded reason as a judge of faith,” and one who “might be claimed as at once the forerunner of the Erastian theory of the church, and of the Rationalist interpretation of its theology”; and for the place now given to general councils see Rogers’s Agriculture and Prices, iv. 11-13. For the first signs that the revenues of monastic houses were to be devoted to other purposes. (Ibid. 101.)

[46] Agriculture remained stationary during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was in fact but little changed from the time when Walter of Henley published his treatise until the time when Fitz Herbert wrote his work about 1523 embodying most of the rules which Walter had given before him. The real progress lay not in the country but in the town.

[47] Nott. Records, ii. 143, 145, 167, 179, 191; iii. 21, 29.

[48] Clément, Jacques Cœur, 196-7. Nicholas Sturgeon was ordered by the Privy Council in 1442 “to go and choose six singers of England such as the messenger that is come from the Emperor will desire for to go to the Emperor.” Proceedings and Ordinances of Privy Council, ed. Sir Harris Nicholas, 1834, v. 218.

[49] Mr. Jacobs tells me that he has found no direct evidence of Jews lending to townspeople in the twelfth century; there are only some indications such as that they sought for debtors in S. Paul’s; (The Jews of Angevin England, p. 45) and that they claimed to attend the assizes at Bury. (Ibid. 142.) If their business lay, as it seems, with nobles and landowners, it would prove the absence of any demand for capital in the towns.

[50] For an account of the Staple see Schanz, i. 327 et seq.; von Ochenkowski, Englands Wirthschaftliche Entwickelung im Ausgange des Mittelalters, 220; Stubbs, ii. 446-8.

[51] Schanz, i. 329, &c.

[52] Ibid. 657.

[53] Schanz, i. 543; von Ochenkowski, 216-7. For the Law Merchant see Mr. Maitland’s Pleas in Manorial Courts (Selden Soc.), p. 137. For Staple Statutes see 14 R. II. cap. 3, 4.

[54] Schanz, i. 332, 338.

[55] See Paston Letters, iii. 166.

[56] Schanz, i. 501.

[57] Von Ochenkowski, 202, 210; Schanz, 495-500. Petition of merchants in 1442 to be relieved from these rules refused. Proc. Privy Council, v. 217.

[58] In 1442 the merchants of the Staple of Calais begged that payment should be made to the soldiers for the surety of the merchants’ wools. (Proceedings of Privy Council, v. 215, 216.) When the lords seized Calais in 1459, “they shifted with the Staple of Calais for £18,000” to carry on the war with. After Edward’s accession, in 1462, the merchants claimed repayment. Edward refused, and after long efforts the merchant who represented them and had borne the chief charges died a ruined man in sanctuary at Westminster (Fabyan, 635, 652-3).

[59] A sack was 364 lbs. of 16 oz. each (Schanz, ii. 569).

[60] Stubbs, iii. 69, Stat. 27, H. VI. c. 2.

[61] Schanz, ii. 15.

[62] Under the system of paying a fixed sum in good and bad years alike the poor merchants became bankrupt, and in the middle of the sixteenth century the number of wool exporters fell enormously (Schanz, ii. 17). An extremely interesting statement by the Staplers of the causes of their decay is given by Schanz in vol. ii. 565-9.

[63] In the years from 1485 to 1546 general trade had increased by one-third, while the wool trade had decreased by one-third (Schanz, ii. 12).

[64] In the Paston Letters there is even in the fifteenth century complaint of the quality of Norfolk cloth, i. 83.

[65] Ashley’s Woollen Industry, 39, afterwards expanded in his Economic History, part ii., chap. iii. This book was published after these pages had been printed. Riley’s Mem. London, 149-50; Schanz, i. 436-440, 588-9.

[66] The first charter to the company of drapers or dealers in cloth in London was in 1364.

[67] This statement is made by Schanz, i. 441, and his reasons are given, ii. 1-7. 31 H. VI. c. 8.

[68] 4 H. VII. c. 11; Schanz, i. 449.

[69] Schanz, i. 11; ii. 17, 18.

[70] Schanz, ii. 571-2.

[71] In 1472 the prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, buys from a London alderman two pieces of cloth for gentleman’s livery, nine for yeoman’s, and five for groom’s, the price, £39 14_s._; from a “raymaker” in New Salisbury he buys similar cloths in 1475 and 1480; again from Hadley, in 1499, he got eighteen pieces, and russet cloths from a Cranbrooke clothier. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 436-7, 459.) Fastolfe bought cloth for his soldiers at Castlecoombe, Wilts (Paston Letters). The Warden of Merton, Bishop Fitz James, bought for his fellows and himself at Norton Mandeville in Essex. (Rogers’ Economic Interpretation of History, 151.)

[72] Paston Letters, ii. 235. 1465.

[73] Debate between the Heralds of France and England, probably published from 1458 to 1461, translated by Pyne, p. 61. Published in French by the Société des Anciens Textes Français. In 1454 the commons petitioned that silver mines in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset, should be worked (Schanz, i. 493). For coal see Paston, iii. 363. Nottingham Records, i. 145. In 1307 there were complaints about the corruption of London air by use of coal. Cruden’s Gravesend, 84-5.

[74] Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 347.

[75] Rogers’ Econ. Interpretation, 276.

[76] Brazen pieces, invented 1340 or 1370, were first used in England at the siege of Berwick, 1405 (Eng. Chron. 1377-1461, p. 184); not known in France so well (Three books of Polydore Vergil’s English History, 9-10 Camden Society). For the Lydd gun of 1456 the gunmakers were paid 11s. 8d.; the binding and iron for it cost 18s. “Guns with six chambers” mentioned as early as 1456 in Cinque Port towns. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. xvii.)

[77] Journ. of Archæl. Association, 1871, p. 416; Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 489.

[78] Pirenne, Dinant, 102, 94, 95. In the fifteenth century the Dinant traders sent their wares by Antwerp, not by Damme.

[79] For English brick building see Rogers’ Agric. and Prices, iv. 440. First notice of bricks at Cambridge 1449, in London 1453, in Oxford 1461; common in eastern counties before end of fifteenth century. Ibid. iii. 432, 433. The proverb, “as red as Rotherham College,” refers to one of the first brick buildings in Yorkshire.

[80] There is good fifteenth century English glass at Malvern and elsewhere. But according to Dugdale English glass was forbidden in the Beauchamp chapel at Warwick.

[81] Turner’s Domestic Architecture, 98.

[82] Silk manufacture in London in the fifteenth century was carried on by women; their complaints of the Lombard merchants noticed in Act of 1454 (33 H. VI. c. 5). A bill with the royal sign manual prays that the king would grant to Dom. Robert Essex his frames “ordeigned and made for the makyng of sylkes,” with their instruments which now “stondith unoccupyed within your Monastery of Westminster,” and he will ordain workmen to use them. Temp. Edward the Fourth, Hist. MSS. Com. iv. I, 177.

[83] Libel of English Policy. (Political Poems and Songs, composed between 1327 and 1483, ii. ed. Wright Rolls Series.) For export of English beer to Flanders, see Fœdera, xii. 471 1492. Beer was a “malt liquor flavoured with bitter herbs,” as distinct from ale, made before 1445, though commonly ascribed to a century later.

[84] Blomfield, iii. 160. 33 H. VI. cap. vii.

[85] Piers Ploughman, Introduction to Text C, xxxi.

[86] Schanz, ii. 35, 36.

[87] Italian Relation, 42-3 (Camden Soc.); Schanz, i. 513; Heralds’ Debate, 65.

[88] Plummer’s Fortescue, 114-5, 132. Compare Bacon’s Henry the Seventh, 71-72.

[89] Heralds’ Debate, 61, 1453-1461.

[90] Richard the Redeless, passus iii. 172.

[91] Brinklow’s Tracts, published in the first half of the sixteenth century, afford interesting illustrations of the type of radical politician formed in the towns. His proposal for a single chamber and the list of reforms sketched out are not more significant than his criticism of parliamentary despotism and inefficiency, “This is the thirteenth article of our creed added of late, that whatsoever the Parliament doth must needs be well done. and the Parliament, or any proclamation out of the parliament time cannot err ... then have ye brought Rome home to your own doors and given the authority to the King and Parliament that the cardinal bishops gave unto the Pope ... if this be so, it is all vain to look for any amendment of anything.” Brinklow’s Complaynt, E. E. Text Society, 35. See also pp. 8, 12.

[92] Libel of English Policy (Political Poems and Songs, ii. 157-205. Roll’s series, ed. Wright). The Libel was probably written after 1436. The Bishop was murdered in 1450. (Agric. and Prices, iv. 533.)

[93] Wright’s Pol. Poems, ii. 282-7. Schanz, i. 446.

[94] Compare the very similar expression of faith in a modern labour paper. “To this island, small as it is, has been given the work of leading the industrial organization of the world; that is to say, of governing and ordering the affairs of the world.” Trade Unionist, Dec. 26, 1891.

[95] Compare Paston Letters, i. 531; Brinklow’s Complaynt 11.

[96] Pauli, Drei volkswirtschaftliche Denkschriften, s. 61, 75.

[97] In 1447 exactions in England were so heavy “as that the minds of men were not set upon foreign war, but vexed above measure how to repel private and domestical injuries, and that therefore neither pay for the soldier nor supply for the army were as need required put in readiness.” (Polydore Vergil, 77 Camden Soc.) For interruption of trade by the war, Paston, i. 425-6. Davies’ Southampton, 252-3. The Staplers complain that before the war the French bought yearly 2,000 sacks of wool, now only 400 (Schanz, ii. 568). For effect of the war on the salt trade, Rogers’ Econ. Interpretation of History, 100. For the wine trade, &c., Schanz, i. 299-300, 643-50. “It cannot be brought to pass by any mean that a French man born will much love an English man, or, contrary, that an English will love a French man; such is the hatred that hath sprung of contention for honour and empire.” (Pol. Vergil, 82.)

[98] Schanz, i. 32-33.

[99] See the series of statutes with which the reign of Edward the Fourth opens. 4, Ed. IV. c. 1-8. Schanz, i. 447.

[100] Ashley’s Wool. Ind. 81-2; expanded in his Economic History, part ii. Schanz, i. 445.

[101] Schanz, i. 446. “The caryage out of wolle to the Stapul ys a grete hurte to the pepul of Englond; though hyt be profitabul both to the prynce and to the marchant also.” (Starkey, England in the Reign of Henry the Eighth. Early English Text Society, p. 173.)

[102] Brinklow’s Complaynt, E. E. Text Soc. p. 11. Schanz, i. 479, note.

[103] The fellowship of the mercers and other merchants and adventurers living in London “by confederacy made among themselves of their uncharitable and inordinate covetous for their singular profit and lucre contrary to every Englishman’s liberty, and to the liberty of the Mart there” made an ordinance and constitution that every Englishman trading with the marts of Flanders or under the Archduke of Burgundy should first pay a fine to the Merchants’ Fellowship in London on pain of forfeiture of all their wares bought and sold. The fine was at first half an old noble, and demanded by a colour of a fraternity of S. Thomas at Canterbury, and “so by colour of such feigned holiness it hath been suffered to be taken for a few years past.” Finally, however, the London Fellowship raised the fine to £20, then the other merchants began to withdraw from the marts and the cloth trade to suffer. On the complaint of the merchant adventurers living outside London Parliament ordered that the fine should only be ten marks. (12 Henry VII., cap. 6.) For the complaint of the Hull traders against the merchant adventurers of London in 1622 see Lambert’s Gild Life, 171-2.

[104] Schanz, i. 342.

[105] Schanz, ii. 571.

[106] 3 Ed. IV. c. 4.

[107] Schanz, i. 618-19.

[108] Bacon’s History of Henry the Seventh, 38.

[109] The men of Cologne had a house in London as early as 1157.

[110] Founded before 1240 (Schanz, i. 291-3). Some interesting details are given in Mr. Hudson’s Notes on Norwich (Norfolk Archæology, xii. 25; see section on madder and woad.) For merchants of Lorraine, Denmark, &c., Liber Custumarum, Nunimenta Gildhallæ Londiniensis (Rolls Series), vol. ii. part 1, xxxiv. &c.

[111] In the beginning of the fourteenth century (Schanz, i. 113-8).

[112] See Keutgen, Die Beziehungen der Hanse zu England, 40.

[113] Boys’ Sandwich, 375; Paston, iii. 436. The foreign trade is illustrated by some of the things in Fastolf’s house; the Seeland cloth, i. 481; iii. 405—brass pots and chafferns of French making, i. 481—silver Paris cups, 475; iii. 270-1, 297-8—blue glasses, i. 486—habergeons of Milan, 487—”overpayn of Raines,” 489—cloth of Arras, 479—harness from Almayne, iii. 405—German girdles, iii. 270-1—the treacle-pots of Genoa, ii. 293-4, bought of the apothecary. The merchant’s marks were especially noted for fear of adulteration. The grocer, or dealer in foreign fruits, also sold hawks, iii. 55-6. In the reign of Henry the Eighth about a dozen shops in London sold French or Milan cups, glasses, knives, daggers, swords, girdles, and such things. Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 93. “A discourse of the commonwealth of this Realme of England.”

[114] Libel of English Policy; Political Poems and Songs (Rolls Series), ii. 173, 172. Fabyan, 630. See petition of burghers against the Lombards, 1455, in Rot. Parl. v. 334

[115] Schanz, i. 65. Strangers exporting wool had to pay 43_s._ 4_d._ a sack, English merchants only 5 nobles or 33_s._ 4_d._ (Fabyan, 594-5).

[116] In 1372 there is a receipt by two of the company of the Strozzi for money from Archbishop Langham. Hist. MSS. Com. iv. part 1, 186.

[117] Clement, Jacques Cœur, 23-4.

[118] For the failure of this company in 1437 and its effect on English traders, see Bekynton’s Corres. i. 248-50, 254.

[119] Libel of English Policy. Pol. Poems and Songs, ii. 172.

[120] Schanz, i. 124-6.

[121] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 11, 87. 11 H. IV. c. 7. Yarn and unfulled cloths paid only subsidy—finished cloths paid also customs and measuring tax. Schanz, i. 448, note.

[122] Davies’ Southampton, 254.

[123] Denton’s Lectures, 192; Paston Letters, iii. 269.

[124] Pauli’s Pictures, 126-132.

[125] Keutgen, 41.

[126] Keutgen, 41. Dinant was the only town outside German-speaking countries that belonged to the Hanseatic League. It entered the League in the middle of the fourteenth century as a sort of external member—only _sharing its privileges in England_ and never voting in its assemblies—tolerated rather than holding its right by formal grant. Pirenne, Dinant, 97-102.

[127] Keutgen, 5, 30.

[128] Keutgen, 14-18.

[129] For a description of the Steel-yard see Pauli’s Pictures.

[130] The ordinary size of French ships seems to have been 1,000 or 1,200 tons. (Heralds’ Debate, 51-2.) Cannyngs, of Bristol, had in his little fleet vessels of 900, 500, or 400 tons. (Cruden’s Gravesend, 131.) The “Harry Grace à Dieu,” built at Woolwich, 1512, was of 1,500 tons, and cost £6,472. (Ibid. 143-9.)

[131] 1382; 5 Richard II., Stat. 1, c. 3. See Schanz, i. 360, for the scope of this law.

[132] 6 Richard II., Stat. 1, c. 8.

[133] A small war vessel with probably about forty sailors, ten men-at-arms, and ten archers. Nott. Rec. i. 444.

[134] Southampton had to keep a ship, “le Grâce de Dieu,” at its own expense for the king’s service. In the last year of Henry the Sixth its master received from the mayor £31 10_s._ 0_d._ In the first year of Edward the Fourth the mayor paid for the victualling and custody of the ship £68 5_s._ 10_d._ In 1470 there was a great deal of difficulty about the matter. The king ordered certain payments to be made for the ship which the town for some months absolutely refused to carry out. The sheriff at last stepped into the breach and paid the sums due from money in his own office, and the next year the town was forced by the king to refund what he had spent. Three successive sheriffs were in difficulties about this dispute between the king and the town. They made payments as best they could, and were afterwards given indemnity for the sums they spent. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 98-100; Davies, 77. See also H.M.C. xi. 3, 215-16, 188-191, 221-2; Ibid. iv. 1, p. 426, 429-31; Ibid. v. 517-18, 521, 494; Boys’ Sandwich, 663; Nottingham Records, i. 196; Paston Letters, ii. 100-105; Rot. Parl. i. 414, ii. 306-7.) Full accounts of the making of a barge in Ipswich in 1295 are given in Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 257-8.

[135] Schanz, i. 356-7, 362, 367. On page 357 he quotes from a petition of the commons in 1371 (Rot. Parl. ii. 306-7) to prove that the one result of the foreign policy of Edward the First was the _narrowing of town franchises_, and consequent decline of the navy. If the petition is read to the close the passage seems to be merely a piece of fine writing to arrest attention, and the town franchises are not mentioned again when the king asks to have the real grievances stated. In the second petition (Rot. Parl. ii. 332) the gist of the complaint is that foreign merchants are allowed to sell and buy in England, which is represented as a loss of all their franchises.

[136] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 501.

[137] Edward the Fourth made one futile attempt to revive the protection of English shipping, but the Act only lasted three years. (3 Ed. IV. c. i.)

[138] Schanz, i. 328.

[139] Heralds’ Debate, 51-2.

[140] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 528. See the hiring out of the London barge; loss by accident from tempest or enemies to fall on the commonalty; Mem. Lond., 478.

[141] Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 215-16, 221-2, 188-191.

[142] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 534-540.

[143] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 496. Rye kept its own “schipwrite,” John Wikham, who had the freedom of the town for sixteen years while building the ships of the port, and at last left in 1392 with a glowing testimonial from the mayor and barons of Rye. Along with other towns it had made profit by selling ships to aliens, which might afterwards be used by the enemies of England, and a proclamation was sent to Rye in 1390 forbidding such sales. For the export of eggs from Norwich in 1374, as well as butter and cheese and corn, and possibly oysters, see Hudson’s Norwich Leet Jurisdiction (Selden Society), 62, 63, 65. The practice of forestalling, carried to so great an extent as is here and elsewhere described, doubtless implied buying for the foreign market.

[144] Hunt’s Bristol, 74, 94-96.

[145] Schanz, i. 328. For St. Mary’s Gild in York see Hist. MSS. Com. i. 109, 110. This “mystery of Mercers,” or “Community of Mercers” in York formed into a body with a governor in 1430—in fact, became a company of Merchant Adventurers. (Gross, ii. 280.) The Shipmen’s Guild of Holy Trinity in Hull drew up its constitution in 1369, but got its first royal grant in 1443. The Merchant Guild of S. George also dates from the fifteenth century. (Lambert’s Guild Life, 128-131, 156-161.)

[146] In 1422 a writ was issued by the Privy Council to permit a Bristol merchant to take two vessels laden with cloth, wine, salt, and other merchandise not belonging to the Staple. The cloth and wine were to be sold, and meat, hides, salmon, herrings, and fish to be bought, and the salt used for salting these provisions. Proc. Privy Council, ii. 322-3.

[147] When Taverner built his ship for the Mediterranean trade he got no reduction of tolls, but had to pay the high export dues fixed for foreigners. Schanz, i. 367.

[148] Keutgen, 79; Plummer’s Fortescue, 232-3.

[149] Eng. Chron. 1387-1461, 113. French pirates “whirling on the coasts so that there dare no fishers go out,” (Paston Letters, iii. 81) behave “as homely as they were Englishmen.” (Ibid. i. 114-116.)

[150] For the frequent disputes in the reign of Henry the Fourth see Hist. MSS. Com. v. 443. In 1419, when some Bristol merchants had seized vessels belonging to the Genoese, the King sent a messenger to choose for him a portion of the prize, for which, however, he promised honestly to pay the merchants. Proc. Privy Council, ii. 267. The mayor of Lynn attended by two proctors travelled with the King’s embassy to Bruges in 1435 “for the worship of the town” as its representative to declare the wrongs done to Lynn merchants “by the master of Pruce and his subjects and by them of the Hanse.” Hist. MSS. Com., xi. 3, 163; Polydore Vergil, 159; Davies’ Southampton, 252-3, 275, 475.

[151] Stubbs, ii. 314, iii. 57, 65; Plummer’s Fortescue, 235-7. From time to time money was collected for the protection of trade; (Nott. Rec. ii. 34-36). In 1454 Bristol gave £150 for this purpose—the largest sum given by any town save London. (Hunt’s Bristol, 97-8.)

[152] Rymer’s Fœdera, viii. 470.

[153] Debate of Heralds, 49. In 1488 a letter from London to the money-changer Frescobaldo, at Venice, told that Flanders galleys which left Antwerp for Hampton fell in with three English ships, who commanded them to strike sail, and though they said they were friends, forced them to fight. Eighteen English were killed. But on the complaint of the captain of the galleys the King sent the Bishop of Winchester to say he need not fear, as those who had been killed must bear their own loss and a pot of wine would settle the matter. Davies’ Southampton, 475.

[154] See Libel of English Policy, Pol. Poems and Songs, ii. 164-5. For complaints in 1444 and 1485 see Rot. Parl. v. 113.

[155] Libel of English Policy, Pol. Poems and Songs, ii. 159. Capgrave de Illust. Henricis, 135. A man at Canterbury was accused in 1448 of saying that the king was not able to bear the fleur-de-lys nor the ship in his noble. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 455.)

[156] Heralds’ Debate, 17.

[157] Schanz, ii. 27.

[158] 4 H. VII. cap. x.; Schanz, i. 368-9. Encouragement was also given to building of English ships—as for example by remission of tolls on the first voyage (Schanz, ii. 591).

[159] Keutgen, 55, etc.

[160] Ibid. 54.

[161] Schanz, i. 332; ii. 575. A list of the charters granted to them follows, ibid. 575-8. See also treaty given, ibid. 159.

[162] Ibid. i. 339, 340.

[163] Ibid. ii. 162.

[164] Ibid. i. 340.

[165] 1500; Schanz, ii. 545-7.

[166] In 1505. Henry VII. issued regulations for the Merchant Adventurers. They might meet _in Calais_ to elect governors; and they were at the same time to elect a council of twenty-four called “assistants,” who were to have jurisdiction over all members and power to make statutes, and to appoint officers both in England and in Calais to levy fines and to imprison offenders. The council filled up its own vacancies. Every merchant using the dealings of a Merchant Adventurer was not only to pay its tolls and taxes, but must enter the fellowship and pay his ten marks. The Calais officials were to proclaim the marts whenever required to do so. The Adventurers might appoint their own weighers and packers, and have nothing to say to the royal officers. (Schanz, ii. 549-553.)

[167] Schanz notes the settlement in Antwerp as one of the most critical turning points of English industrial and commercial history (i. 339). The movement had well begun in the fourteenth and early part of the fifteenth centuries, but the real influx of English traders was from 1442-4 (ibid. i. 9). For the treaties with the Duke of Burgundy in 1407 concerning English traders in Flanders, Rymer’s Fœdera, viii. 469-78.

[168] Schanz, ii. 577, 581, 582.

[169] Ibid. i. 343, 344.

[170] 12 Henry VII. c. 6.

[171] Wheeler, Treatise of Commerce, 19, 23.

[172] “Déjà au quinzième siècle les Écossais avaient à Veere en Zélande un dépôt pour leurs marchandises, administré par un ‘Conservator.’ Sir Thomas Cunningham remplit cet office jusqu’à sa mort en 1655, et ce ne fut que le 28 novembre, 1661 (_sic_), que Sir W. Davison en fut chargé; il demeura de temps en temps à Amsterdam, où il eut des querelles à l’occasion des impôts municipaux. Plus tard, il eut des différends avec le pasteur épiscopal Mowbray, qui par suite fut déplacé, et enfin avec les Écossais de Veere eux-mêmes. En 1668 Davison fit un traité avec la ville de Dordrecht, pour y transporter les affaires d’Écosse; mais comme les Écossais ne voulurent pas s’y conformer, Davison fut contraint de prendre son congé en mai 1671; Veere resta le dépôt du commerce écossais. Consultez encore l’ouvrage très rare. “An account of the Scotch Trade in the Netherlands, and of the Staple Port in Campvere. By James Yair, Minister of the Scotch Church in Campvere. London, 1776.” (Œuvres Complètes de Huygens. Amsterdam, 1893. Note on a letter from R. Moray to Huygens, Jan. 30, 1665.)

[173] Libel of English Policy. Pol. Poems and Songs, ii. 180, 181. See Hist. MSS. Com. x. 4, 445-6. William Mucklow, merchant at London, sent commissions to his son Richard at Antwerp; a Richard Mucklow was warden of S. Helen’s, Worcester, either in 1510 or 1519 (446). An account book of Wm. Mucklow, merchant, “in the Passe Mart at Barro, Middleburg, in the Synxon Mart at Antwerp, in the Cold Mart and in Bamys Mart,” in 1511 records sales of white drapery and purchase of various goods—a ball battery, fustian, buckram, knives, sugar, brushes, satin, damask, sarsenet, velvet, pepper, Yssyngham cloth, spectacles, swan’s feathers, girdles, “socket,” treacle, green ginger, ribands, brown paper, Brabant cloth, pouches, leather, buckets, “antony belles,” “sacke belles,” sheets, &c.; and the names of the vessels in which the goods were shipped.

[174] Rot. Parl. iv. 126; Schanz, i. 443-445. For English reprisals, 27 H. VI. cap. i.; 28 H. VI. cap. i.; 4 Ed. IV. cap. 5.

[175] Schanz, ii. 191-3, 203-6. Negotiations were still going on in 1499 as to the trade disputes between Henry the Seventh, the Archduke, and the Staple at Calais (Schanz, ii. 195-202). The main point in dispute was allowing English cloths to be cut in the Netherlands for making clothes.

[176] In 1493; Schanz, i. 17, 18.

[177] Schanz, ii. 582-5.

[178] Ibid. i. 7-11.

[179] Schanz, i. 31, 32.

[180] Ibid. i. 339.

[181] Schanz, i. 345; ii. 561, 562.

[182] Instances, Schanz, ii. 557, 558.

[183] Ibid. ii. 564.

[184] Ibid. ii. 543.

[185] From Antwerp Archives; Schanz, ii. 539-43.

[186] In November, 1504, the Staplers and Adventurers appeared before the Star Chamber. The Staplers pleaded a charter which declared them free from the jurisdiction of the Adventurers. The Star Chamber decided that every Stapler who dealt or traded as an Adventurer was to be subject to the courts and dues of the Adventurers: and every Adventurer dealing as a Stapler in like manner to be subject to the Staple (Schanz, ii. 547). This decision seemed to imply the ruin of Staplers, but the next year it was explained that the authentic interpretation was simply that “the merchants of the Staple at Calais using the feate of a Merchant Adventurer passing to the marts at Calais should _in those things_ be contributories to such impositions and charges” as the Adventurers had fixed (ibid. 549); and that they could not be compelled to join the Adventurers’ company. In 1510 Henry the Eighth repeated the decree of Henry the Seventh that the Adventurers must not force Staplers to join their body (555). For the pleadings before the Star Chamber under Henry the Eighth see Schanz, ii. 556-564.

[187] Schanz, i. 249.

[188] Keutgen, 42, 51-54.

[189] Schanz, i. 251.

[190] Keutgen, 30, 81.

[191] Ibid. 44, &c.

[192] Pauli’s Pictures, 172, 185. Keutgen, 10-43. Richard the Second complained to the Grand Master that traders were forced to carry their cloth to Elbing instead of Danzig (ibid. 72). In 1388 three citizens of London and York were sent to Marienberg with an interpreter to make a treaty of commerce with the “general master of the house of S. Mary of Teutonia.” (Hist. MSS. Com. i. 109.) In 1397, however, trade with the Easterlings was practically stopped. The English imposed enormous duties on German imports; the Germans forbade traffic in English cloth. For the negotiations carried on by Henry the Fourth see Literæ Cantuarienses, iii. xxviii.-xxxi., and the various letters on the subject. The English colony in Danzig increased greatly after the peace of Marienberg. (Schanz, i. 231.) In 1392 more than 300 English came into Danzig to carry corn. (Keutgen, 71.) But the resistance of the Danzig burghers to English trade was strenuous. They were less jealous of the Netherlands manufacturers, and the Teutonic Order in the fifteenth century sent to Dinant for the rough cloth needed for the Baltic trade. (Pirenne, Dinant, 97; Keutgen, 81-83.)

[193] Pauli’s Pictures, 135-8.

[194] 8 H. VI. c. 2; Proc. Privy Council, iv. 208; Schanz, ii. 170.

[195] In 1425 there were letters from Henry the Sixth to the King of Dacia, Norwegia, and Swecia, concerning the merchants of Lynn who traded with the parts of North Berne; (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 203). In 1427 he wrote to the English merchants “in partibus Prucie, Dacie, Norweie, Hanse, and Swethie commorantes,” to assemble in a sufficient place, elect governors and make ordinances for self-government in mercantile matters, and for reasonable punishment of any merchants disobedient (203). At times the English even forced compensation from the Hanse merchants for outrages (Schanz, i. 250). In 1438 rye was brought from Prussia “by the providence of Stephen Browne,” the mayor, at a time of famine in England, when a bushel of corn was sold for 3s. 4d., and the people were making bread of vetches, peas, beans, and fern-roots. (Fabyan, 612.)

[196] Schanz, i. 254.

[197] Libel of English Policy. Pol. Poems and Songs, ii. 191. The bailiffs and community of Chepstowe did trade with Iceland and Finmark. (Proc. Privy Council, iv. 208.) In 1426 Lynn forbade trade with Iceland to its inhabitants and the whole community sent a petition against the trade to the King’s Council. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 160.)

[198] Hunt’s Bristol, 94-6. In 1491 fishing-smacks starting for Iceland had to get leave to sail, after finding surety that they would not carry more grain nor any other forbidden thing than sufficed for their own food. Paston Letters, iii. 367-9.

[199] Keutgen, 30.

[200] Ibid. 84-5, 70-71. For these negotiations see Rymer’s Fœdera, x. 656-7, 666-70, 753. Bekynton, i. 215.

[201] In 1439. Bekynton’s Corres. i. 183-4.

[202] “Whereof the payment was kept secret from writers” (Fabyan, 657.)

[203] The fortunes of Memling’s Last Judgement now at Danzig give a curious illustration of this war and the trade complications of the time. Ordered at Bruges through the Florentine agents there (the Portinari), probably by Julian and Lorenzo de Medici, the picture could not be carried to Florence on account of this war begun in 1468. At last in 1473 it was sent off from Sluys in a British-built ship, which had been bought by English merchants as a French prize, chartered by Florentines in Bruges for a voyage to London, registered in the name of the Portinari, commissioned by a French captain, and navigated under the Burgundian flag for greater security against capture. It was, however, taken off Southampton by a privateer sailing under the Danzig flag and commanded by a noted captain Benecke. In spite of a bull issued by Sixtus the Fourth the cargo was sold at Stade and the picture brought by the owners of the ship to Danzig. (Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Early Flemish Painters, 257-260.)

[204] Henry the Sixth, on the other hand, brought the help of the Genoese. Possibly the excessive price of fish mentioned in the Paston Letters in 1471 may have been caused by the political troubles (iii. 22, 254).

[205] Schanz, i. 172-9; ii. 388-396. Pauli’s Pictures, 185-7.

[206] Schanz, i, 186.

[207] Schanz, i. 294.

[208] Schanz, i. 257.

[209] Schanz, i. 237-42.

[210] For the negotiations between the Easterlings and the English merchants, see Schanz, ii. 397-430; i. 179-201. In 1498 Archduke Philip, seeing the utter ruin into which Bruges had fallen, tried to revive it by ordering that all foreign merchants should do their business there only, by improving the harbour, _and by making it the Staple for English cloths in Flanders_. (Schanz, i. 26-27.) In 1501 Philip made Bruges a Staple where English cloth might be sold in Flanders under strict conditions. (Ibid. ii. 203-6.) In 1506 Henry won from the Archduke the right to sell cloth by the yard and to have the manufacture of it finished in all his dominions except Flanders. (Ibid. i. 31.)

[211] The friendly way in which the English merchants even in 1405 looked on Genoese traders is illustrated in the story told by Fabyan (571), of three carracks of Genoa laden with merchandise plundered by English lords. The Genoese merchants made suit to the King for compensation, and meanwhile borrowed from English merchants goods amounting unto great and noble sums. When their suit was seen to be in vain they made off with their spoils “to the undoing” of many merchants.

[212] Hunt’s Bristol, 97-8.

[213] For the anxiety as to the friendship of powerful maritime states see the French boast of the alliance of Spain and Genoa; Heralds’ Debate, 59. It is interesting to notice that both Edward the Fourth and Henry the Seventh preferred Florence to Venice. Disputes about the Venetian wool trade under Henry the Sixth are mentioned in Bekynton’s Corresp. i. 126-9.

[214] The price of wine had been raised in England by new rules about measures.

[215] A pilgrim to Rome in 1477 got letters in London on the bank of Jacobo di Medici. (Hist. MSS. Com. vi. 361.)

[216] 1. English merchants might trade freely with Florence in all kinds of wares of home or foreign origin.

2. The Florentines promised to buy no wool save from English ships. The English on their side were bound to carry yearly to Pisa an average quantity for all the Italian states save Venice. In Pisa they were to have all the privileges of inhabitants and to have land for a building.

3. The English were to be free from personal services and from taxes which might be raised on trade.

4. The merchants might form a corporation in Pisa.

5. Quarrels between Englishmen to be settled by their own head. Quarrels between an Englishman and a foreigner to be decided by the municipality and the English consul. Criminal cases by the municipality alone.

6. The English to share all advantages the Florentines might win by trading treaties.

7. The wishes of the English to be considered in all new privileges granted in the Florentine dominions.

8. The English King was to allow no stranger to carry wool out of England. The Venetians only might carry 600 sacks.

9. The wool was to be of good quality and well packed. (Schanz, i. 126-137.)