Edward was granted the right of pre-emption of 20,000 sacks of wool in England, he forthwith had them exported to Antwerp in Brabant, which was made the staple town. The Duke was thus prevailed upon to ally himself with England.

Meanwhile, Edward turned to the Flemish rebels, offering to renew their privileges of sending their cloth to England, and to make Bruges once more a staple town. In January 1340 a treaty on these terms was made with Arteveldt, and Count Louis fled to the protection of the French King.

In the same year Edward, having received a grant of customs on the export of English wool, hides and woolfells, and wishing to conciliate the powerful wool industry at home, allowed the export of wool on the condition that silver, of which moreover he was in some need, should be imported in return, the same to be taken to the King's exchange and there to receive his money', which was then much debased. Finally, in 1341, a further subsidy in the form of wool having been granted to the King, it was ordered that no merchant should export wool till the Michaelmas next ensuing, to the intent that 'the King may be served of that to him granted'.

I

It would thus appear that the royal policy cannot be adequately explained on any definite economic principle. The protection of the cloth industry was partial, and it was not consistently maintained. At one time the export of the raw material was forbidden; at another it was encouraged, or made use of for the financial needs of the Crown, and, above all, the royal policy was altered in the interests of diplomacy.

Nevertheless we may well believe that even this partial protection, and more especially the introduction through foreign craftsmen of more skilled workmanship, had its effect. Of this at least we may be certain: it is from the reign of Edward III that we can trace a remarkable development in the manufacture In March certain merchants of Brabant are allowed to export wool. In 1340 merchants of Brabant are allowed to sell foreign cloth in England 'in consideration of their good deeds to the King'. Close Rolls, 1338, pp. 318, 339, 3535 1340, P. 393. In 1338 Edward granted trading privileges in England to the burgesses of Dort, Brussels, Mechlin, and Louvain. Rymer, Foedera, ii. 1058. Cf. also the Treaty of 1339, Voisin, p. 29.

I

14 Ed. III, Stat. 1, c. 21.

2

15 Ed. III, c. 5.

Competition among the Crafts for the trading monopoly.

and in the export trade of cloth. Hence a growing connexion with the Continent and a widening of the market which at once gave new importance to the function of the trader.

There were several classes of men concerned in the wool trade, any one of which might have availed themselves of this opportunity of earning the profits which have always fallen to the dealer: those who dealt in wool, those who spun the yarn, and those who made or finished the cloth. In the earlier days, when the chief trade was in the export of wool, the dealers in wool had no doubt the chief monopoly, but, although in the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries men, like the famous Jack of Newbury or John Winchcombe the clothier, united in their own persons the functions of the grower and buyer of wool with those of the great modern entrepreneur who employs the artisans to make up the raw material and exposes it for sale, at the period with which we are now dealing, when the industry was for the most part confined to the towns, it was among those who made up the wool that the competition arose."

There are some indications that the Dyers, the Fullers, and the Weavers did attempt to become the employers of others and to sell the finished article. In 1335, as we shall see directly, the Weavers were allowed to sell cloths which they had made themselves to London merchants,3 but a regulation of 1362 forbade Weavers and Dyers to be so daring as to prepare any manner of cloth on pain of forfeiture of the cloths so made'. In the Charter granted

1 The increase in the export of cloth is shown by the fact that it was thought worth while to impose new customs on such export. According to one authority the exports of cloth in 1354 amounted to 4,774 pieces of cloth, and 8,0611⁄2 pieces of worsted stuff. The finest kinds of cloth were, however, still imported. Ashley, Econ. Hist. i. 204.

The question how far this improvement in cloth-making, so far as Yorkshire is concerned, was due to Edward's measures is discussed in the Victoria County History, Yorks., iii. 438 ff. Cf. also Heaton, The Cloth Trade in Yorkshire, to be published shortly.

2 Unwin, Industrial Organization, p. 30 ff., shows that the same struggle was going on abroad, especially in Paris and Strassburg. Cf. also Vierteljahrschrift für Social- und Wirthschaftsgeschichte, ii. 64, 65, for the same struggle in the Low Countries; and Dören, Florentiner Wollentuch-Industrie, for Florence. 3 Liber Cust., Rolls Series, II. i. 130, 423.

4 Riley, Memorials, p. 309.

to the Drapers in 1364, Weavers, Dyers, and Fullers were allowed to sell to Drapers and to Lords and Commoners for their own use in gross, and we shall see that at a later date these craftsmen made some further attempts to retain the right to trade. But their proper function was to weave, full, and dye the wool entrusted to them by others,' and they never seriously competed for the trading business. Of the Dyers or the Fullers attempting to do so we have no other instance, and if the Weavers did do a little selling in 1335, it was apparently confined to such cloths as they wove themselves, and did not include any which they had put out to be woven by others. Nor were they allowed to finish the cloth by fulling, or dyeing, or shearing. The offences of which they are charged in 1335, and to which we shall return, are the offences of those who work for others rather than those of employers, and, as the process of specialization advanced, they dropped back into the position of Weavers only, and were engaged in constant quarrels with the newly imported foreign Weavers. Although in 1378 they formed a religious Fraternity, their Gild had then sunk to the ninth place among the Mysteries. It was perpetually in arrears with its payments to the King, and at the close of the fifteenth century it is evidently composed of poor artificers.3

It has been generally assumed that the first London Craft to The establish an important cloth industry in London was that of Burellers. the Burellers, and that they were the predecessors of the Drapers. Herbert derived the word Bureller from the old rule that the width of cloth should be two ells, such pieces being termed Burells. Mr. Unwin suggested that Bureller is another name for 'Burler', one who 'burls' or picks the burrs or burls from the surface of the cloth.5 It seems to me far more probable, as Mr. Sharpe thinks, that the Burellers were so called from Borel, a coarse kind of cloth, which was originally made in Normandy, and which with some certainty can be identified with cloth of

1 Liber Cust., pp. 130, 423.

2 Unwin, Gilds and Companies of London, p. 139. 3 Ashley, Econ. Hist., II. iii. 201.

Herbert, Livery Companies, i. 645.

5 Unwin, Industrial Organization, p. 28. On personal reference to him, Mr. Unwin has withdrawn this explanation and says that he now agrees with me. In the later thirteenth century the Fullers did this burling. Letter Book L, p. 261, note to fo. 265 b.

2

Candelwick Street.1 We hear of London Borel as early as 1218, when it was specially exempted from the Assize of Cloth which had fixed the lengths of certain kinds of cloth, but the first notice of a Bureller that I have come across is of the year 1277, when we hear of Alfred Le Bureller.3 Two years later we meet with a Bureller of Candelwick Street, and another in 1280,5 while in 1289 another Bureller, Fulk de St. Edmund, was a Sheriff of London. In the early fourteenth century the notices of the Burellers are frequent,' and three documents of the dates of 1300, 1320, and 1335 seem to be conclusive as to their functions at that date. In 1300 seven Burellers, seven Weavers, and four Aldermen were appointed to draw up ordinances defining the relations of the two Crafts of Burellers and Weavers.

8

In 1320 the Weavers presented the following claims before a Jury: that if any one made pannos de Candelwyke Street' he ought to be supervised by the Weavers' Gild and that no one should make such a 'pannum' in less than one day; that all yarn used should be inspected; that if members of their own Gild brought bad yarn they should be punished by the Craft, but if it were brought by a Bureller he should be fined by the Mayor on their information. The Jury, while supporting the claim of the Weavers to view the yarn brought to them by Burellers, as well as their general demand that no one should interfere with their Mystery in London or in the suburbs, condemned their policy of calling canny' and of limiting the number of their members and their looms, measures which were maliciously adopted for the purpose of enhancing the price.

' Letter Book A, p. 37, note to fo. 19. 'Pannos de Candelwickestrete.' Liber Cust., Rolls Series, II. ii. 417. It was also made at Marlborough. Close Rolls, 1207, p. 82; Patent Rolls, 1218, p. 164. In 1280 a Bureller is also called a chaloner, or maker of coverlets and blankets. He also buys yarn. Letter Book A, fos. 19, 31.

2 Patent Rolls, 1218, pp. 153, 155; 3 Letter Book A, fo. 135 b.

5 Letter Book A, fo. 19.

7 Letter Book D, fos. 41 b, 43, 84 b; fos. 238, 260, 296. Calendar of Wills, i. 8 Liber Cust., Rolls Series, II. i. 121.

ibid., 1225, p. 523.

• Calendar of Wills, i. 39.

6

Ibid., fo. 102.

E,

fos. 9, 24 b, p. 172, note to fo. 139 b, 424, 458.

9 In 1335 the Weavers, on the indictment of the Wards of Candelwick Street

The matter, however, did not end there. In 1335 the Weavers accused the Burellers of interfering with their Craft by weaving without becoming members of their Gild. The question having been brought before the Mayor and the Sheriffs, the Burellers answered that though they were not Weavers they were at liberty, as freemen of the City, to engage in any trade or Mystery, and further that they had servants who were apprentices and members of the Weavers' Gild. At the second hearing of the case the Weavers did not appear, and were declared to be 'in mercy' for a false claim, while the demand of the Burellers, and indeed of all freemen, to have looms was confirmed.1

From these documents it appears that the Burellers made some at least of the yarn for the cloth of Candelwick Street; that they sometimes wove it or had it woven at home, sometimes sent it to the Weavers to be woven, and then they, rather than the Weavers, were the employers. In 1335 we also hear of a Bureller buying woad, which looks as if they sometimes dyed it themselves, while it is noticeable that there is no mention at all of their burling' the cloth. On the other hand, the Burellers claimed the right of having looms themselves because of their privileges as freemen. That the Burellers did sell cloth of Candelwyke Strete' we learn from a reference to certain members of the Craft who had sold sixty pieces to the King. All this, however, does not prove that the Burellers had a monopoly either of the making or selling cloth in London, since at the same time the Weavers are also mentioned as being allowed to sell. The truth of the matter seems to be that there were several Crafts, then as at a later date, which did some selling, and

and of Wallbrook, were condemned for conspiring together in the Church of St. Margaret de Patyns to raise the price of their labour. Liber Cust., II. i. 416.

Letter Book E, fos. 243, 247, 247 b, 248. By the so-called custom of London, any citizen who was free of a Gild could carry on the trade of any other Gild.

2 Cf. 421, 'Burellarius qui fecit filum'; 423, 'Si aliquis Burellarius detulerit

filum aliquod texendum'.

3 Letter Book A, fo. 135 b. 5 Letter Book E, fo. 139 b.

1603-1

* Letter Book E, fos. 247, 247 b, 248.

6 Liber Cust., i. 423.

L