At a Council Meeting of the SURTEES SOCIETY, held in Durham Castle, on Tuesday, 7th March, 1916, the Rev. Henry Gee, D.D., in the Chair, It was resolved, That the volume to be issued for the year 1917 be selections from the MSS. belonging to the Merchant Adventurers of York, under the editorship of Miss MAUD SELLERS, Litt.D. WHE 5968 V.129 PREFACE. My best thanks are due to Mr. Hamilton Thompson, who not only revised my proofs, but generously allowed me to draw on his unrivalled knowledge of ecclesiastical history. It is impossible for me to express adequately the gratitude I feel for the ceaseless care with which he supervised the passage of this volume through the press. To Canon Fowler I owe thanks for many interesting suggestions with regard to emendations of the text. It is obviously impossible for a writer to deal successfully in a limited introduction with a period of more than five hundred years, and with matter inclusive of all branches of history, constitutional, industrial, economic, religious, and social. I have not attempted the impossible. In my introduction, however, I have tried to give such an analysis that I hope my readers will turn to the text, and study for themselves the documents on which my brief account is based. To the governor of the Merchant Adventurers, Mr. H. Ernest Leetham, my most cordial thanks are due, for allowing me unrestricted access to all the documents under his charge, and for constant interest in my work. I have not given a schedule of the sources from which the extracts are selected, as all the documents in possession of the company are now arranged chronologically, enclosed in cartels, and placed in the hall, where they may be consulted any weekday between the hours of 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Merchants' Hall, Fossgate, York. 343831 M. S. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Early importance of York, i; three strongly contrasted periods in history of merchants, two progressive, one retrogressive, ii, iii; origin of gild in religion-licensed by Edward III-erection of hall and chapel-early account rolls-institution of hospital, iv-ix; sub- mergence of religious side of the gild supremacy of mistery in fifteenth century-office of master of mistery, prelude to office of lord mayor of city-the royal charter-the poet historians: Langland, Chaucer, and Gower, ix-xix; the middle of the fifteenth century the climax of civic supremacy-the later account rolls-the pageant effort of ecclesiastical power to regain its early position, xix-xxix; aliens— shipping-northern merchants enlist royal sympathy against London bully, xxix-xxxviii; life in a mart town-struggle to wrest trade from Hanse-gradual centralisation of power in the hands of London Licence for the gild-account rolls of 1357, 1368-licence for 33-36 37-55 Rent rolls of hospital 55-59 Meetings of mistery-account rolls-pageant 63-75 Complaint of tyranny of governor in mart town-account rolls- pageant-ordinances-rent roll 75-115 Pageant-account and rent rolls-trade in lead 128-140 140-198 198-205 INTRODUCTION. Had medieval politicians been in search of an ideal spot for the foundation of a capital for Great Britain, the choice would undoubtedly have fallen on the site of the present city of York. Under Constantine it was one of the imperial cities of the Roman empire; when the Saxon Eadwine held supreme authority over all the English kingdoms save Kent, the northern city on the Ouse was his capital. Had Cnut's dream of a great Scandinavian empire with England at its head been realised, the position of York as the imperial capital would have been secured beyond controversy. But the Norman conquest, which drew England from its natural association with Scandinavia to an artificial association with the south, robbed York of the advantages of its unique geographical position. The ruthlessness of William the Conqueror failed, however, to obliterate all signs of York's former supremacy. Domesday records "the king had in York three ways by land and a fourth by water." These radiate through Aldborough to the north and Scotland; through Tadcaster to the south and London; and through Stamford Bridge to the east and the sea. The fertile vale of Pickering with its stretches of cornland was easily accessible, though the forest of Galtres impeded communication north of the city Teeswards. The wild Cleveland district, however, offered few attractions to the settler before Teesside cattle were famous, iron and coal supreme factors in industrial life. It is true that the old kingdom of Elmet, the present West Riding, raised a formidable barrier between York and the sea on the west; but a huge continent beyond the Irish sea had not yet entered into young men's visions or old men's dreams.2 1 1 Domesday (Yorkshire), fo. 298. 2 J. R. Green, The Making of England, passim. In spite of inaccuracies and a blind reliance on untrustworthy data, few historical workers of the eighties will forget the thrill they experienced as they read this fascinating account of the making of their native land, a "The fourth road by water" of the record is technically correct, but the bald description needs amplification. The Ouse, which connected York with Hull and ultimately the continent, was, in medieval days, tidal eight miles above the city. A second outlet on the east, the Derwent, was reached by the royal road to Stamford Bridge. The most casual glance at the map shows a network of rivers in the surrounding district. In the days of scanty and ill-made roads and no mechanical transports, the water communication, secured by the Ouse, the Derwent, the Swale, the Ure, and the Wharfe, was an industrial asset of far-reaching importance. In fact, by the middle of the fourteenth century, when the story of the merchant adventurers opens, the access of York to the sea by the Ouse and Humber had become a factor of greater importance to the welfare of the city than the strength of its military fortifications, or the multiplicity of its monastic buildings. The history of the merchant adventurers is especially interesting in the present crisis, for it illustrates the curiously haphazard though practically efficient manner in which a small body of Englishmen, each trading with his own capital, his own factor, using his own individual methods of trade, managed not only to break the monopoly of the state-regulated English staple, but also to wear down a powerful organisation of foreign merchants, the Hanzards, who had seized the lion's share of England's foreign trade. Strenuous individual effort was apparently the simple but efficient weapon with which the battle was won. The history of the company, from 1356 to the present day, can be divided into three strongly contrasted periods. The first phase, from 1356 to 1420, is marked by steady mercantile and industrial development, though the importance of the movement is obscured by the complicated religious and social machinery within which it worked. Original conception and vigourous execution characterises the second and most important phase, from 1420 to 1580. By the end of the first decade of this period the mistery was sufficiently successful to throw overboard the simulacrum of |