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was ordered that every city, town, and borough should be provided with a common bushel, according to the standard of the Exchequer.* This, along with many other facts already mentioned, shows that the number of buyers of produce was increasing, and that the vivifying principle of exchange was more active.

The food abounding in our seas was an object of active pursuit during the period under notice. "Fish-days" were religiously observed; and the manorial residence was incomplete without its fish-ponds. Sir William Dugdale has preserved a curious instance of the high price of a fresh-water fish which is now regarded as very ordinary fare at the humblest table. In 1419 the cost of a

RIVER-FISHING. From Harleian MS. No. 4374.

bream is set down at twenty pence; and in 1453 a pie, containing four of these fish, was sent from Warwickshire to a distant part of Yorkshire, which cost sixteen shillings, including the wages of two men employed for three days in taking them, the flour and spices with which they were dressed, and the charges of their conveyance.† Under these circumstances the sea-fishery could not fail to prove a source of ample profit. Even before the commencement of the present period the fishery on the coast of Norfolk was considered of so much importance that Richard II., in assembling shipping upon one occasion to make head against the French, exempted the vessels and the men engaged in it. The annual herring-fair at Yarmouth also enjoyed great celebrity, and attracted shipping and strangers from all parts: several statutes were passed for its regulation. A statute was passed in 1482, from which it may be inferred that there was a considerable exportation of fish, as there are provisions for the well packing of salmon, eels, and other fish in casks. At the siege of Orleans in 1424 an escort of seventeen hundred men was sent with a supply of herrings for the English. The liberty The liberty to fish without molestation was a frequent article in conventions between this country and other states. In 1403 Henry IV. entered into a treaty with Charles VI. of France, giving to their subjects the mutual right of freely fishing for herrings and other fish in certain specified parts of the seas. In 1404 an agreement was entered into with the Duke of Burgundy for one year, during which period

11 Henry VI. c. 8. +Dugdale's Warwick. p. 668,

the subjects of both parties were to be free from molestation while engaged in fishing. In 1440, probably with a view to improve the mode of curing fish, Henry VI. granted a license to sixty persons from the Netherlands to come to England in order to practise a new and improved method of making salt.

The use of coal as fuel became now much more general, and developed another source of natural wealth. In 1421 the coal-trade of Newcastle was so considerable that an attempt to evade the payment of certain dues taken by the king in that port on the traffic of coal occasioned a statute to be passed for securing the dues.* At the same time there are indications of the decay of some of the least common species of wood used in various arts. The price of bow-staves, as we have had occasion to notice in a preceding page, became excessive. In 1416 the patten - makers were restrained from making pattens or clogs of asp, in order that the fletchers might sell their arrows cheaper, the same wood being used for arrows. In 1464, however, the patten-makers represented to the parliament the hardship of this prohibition, and showed that turners, carpenters, wood-mongers, and cole-makers used and wasted a large quantity of asp-wood in their several trades; and they succeeded in obtaining permission to make pattens of such asp-wood as was not fit for arrows.

In the department of industry which comprises handicrafts and manufactures, we have proofs of their growing activity and importance in the numerous statutes passed for their regulation. A keen rivalry seems to have been maintained between certain classes of native and foreign artisans, against which the former repeatedly sought protection by the prohibition of foreign goods. The king had now a strong interest in the prosperity of trade, which added to his revenues in proportion as it flourished. The lords became sensible of the advantages which they derived from the activity of the artisan and tradesman; and a statute of the year 1477,8 for repressing the abuses of the Courts of Pie Poudre, which had had the effect of preventing the attendance of traders at the fairs, is avowedly founded on the fact that "the lords of the same fairs do lose great profit by the not coming of divers merchants to their fairs, and also

the commons be unserved of such stuff and merchandise which otherwise would come." Allowance must doubtless be made for the turbulent events which are crowded into this period; but it cannot be doubted, nevertheless, that, as more spirited efforts were made in every branch of industry, so also the fruits of industry were more highly prized than at any previous time. Industry was grievously fettered, but it had always been thus cramped in its movements; and the rights of property had long been violated under the sanction of law and custom in a manner nearly as injurious as if the

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evil had proceeded from a foreign enemy who had overrun the country. It had been the practice for the crown to seize ships, mariners, and soldiers, artificers, victuals, materials, conveyances, and goods, the property of the subject, whenever it thought proper to require them. The restrictions upon apprenticeship must also be considered as having greatly impeded the prosperity of individuals, who were thus cut off from participating in the advantages of an active demand for the wares which they manufactured. Such also must have been the effect of the repeated attempts that were made to establish a certain rate of wages in all the departments of manual industry. The wages of several descriptions of artificers as regulated by the statute of 1444,* already mentioned, were as follow :-Those of a mason or master-carpenter not to exceed 4d. a-day with his diet, or 54d. without diet; of a master tiler, slater, rough mason, or other builder, with diet 3d., without diet 4d. a-day; of other non-agricultural labourers 2d. a-day with, and 3d. without diet. From Michaelmas to Easter they received winter wages, which were ld. per day lower than those paid in summer. Only the wages of the most common kinds of labour are fixed by the statute; from which it may be inferred that the blacksmith, the weaver, and the members of other trades in which a combination of numerous individuals is not required, worked on their own account chiefly; there is no reason indeed to suppose that either the great staple manufacture of the time or any other was usually as yet carried on otherwise than by each man in his own house. Twenty years afterwards (in 1464) we find complaints made of the master-clothiers paying wages in kind; a statute passed in consequence of which† enacted that the clothiers should pay ready money to their work-people, as well as that the wool given them to work up should be previously weighed. In the preamble it is stated that they had been accustomed to force the people they employed to take pins, girdles, and other unprofitable wares instead of money. Nearly every craft was now incorporated, and they were very properly submitted to a uniform principle of government. In 1436 a statute was passed, the preamble of which states that the incorporated guilds and companies," oftentimes by colour of rule and governance, and other terms in general words to them granted, make themselves many unlawful and unreasonable ordinances." For remedy of this it was provided that the charters of each company should be duly enrolled, and their ordinances approved of by the justices of the peace, or by the local authorities in cities and towns.

The position of several classes of artificers in reference to foreign competition, and also the extent to which the division of employments had been carried may in some degree be judged of from one of the statutes relating to trade and manufactures passed

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in the beginning of the reign of Richard III.* It enumerates the following artificers as joining in a complaint that the articles the fabrication of which used to furnish them with employment and bread were now brought from parts beyond sea:Girdlers, point-makers, pinners, pursers, glovers, cutlers, blade-smiths, blacksmiths, spurriers, goldbeaters, painters, saddlers, lorimers, founders, card-makers, hurers,† wire-mongers, weavers, horners, bottle-makers, and coppersmiths. The statute in consequence prohibited the importation of the following articles:-Girdles, or any harness wrought for girdles, points, laces, leather purses, pouches, pins, gloves, knives, hangers, tailors' shears, scissors, and irons, cobbards, tongs, fireforks, gridirons, stock-locks, keys, hinges and garnets, spurs, painted glasses, painted papers, painted forcers, painted images and cloths, beaten gold or silver in paper for painters, saddles, saddle-trees, horse-harness, boots, bits, stirrups, chains, buckles, latten-nails with iron shanks, turrets standing candlesticks, holy-water stops, chafing-dishes, hanging lavers, curtain rings, cards for wool except Rouen cards, clasps for gowns, buckles for shoes, brooches, bells except hawk-bells, spoons of tin and lead, chains of wire, as well of latten as of iron, candlesticks of iron, grates, and lantern-horns. The importation of several other articles had been already prohibited by another statute of the same kind passed in 1463.‡

The division of employments was in some instances directly promoted by statutes which forbade certain trades to be carried on together by the same person. Thus, in 1423, a statute § was passed prohibiting "cordwainers using the mystery of tanners." The improvement of a craft was also in some cases attempted to be stimulated by legis lative enactments. In the last-mentioned statute it is affirmed that "much of the leather tanned by the tanners is so deceitfully tanned, that boots, shoes, and other necessaries thereof made, be in a small season wasted and destroyed, to the great deceit and loss of the commonalty of the realm." To remedy this a heavy penalty was inflicted upon tanners who made leather of inferior quality.

The following notices of the conditions under which various trades and manufactures were carried on are chiefly derived from the statutes.

When the woollen manufacture first began to assume importance as the great staple of the nation, it was chiefly carried on in London and the immediate neighbourhood, but it soon spread itself into the adjacent counties of Surrey, Kent, Essex, Berks, Oxford, and subsequently into Dorset, Wilts, Somerset, Gloucester, and Worcester. These were the counties which produced the best wool, and, in the imperfect state of the means of communication, the manufacture naturally became located within reach of the raw material. The

1 Richard III. c. 12.

↑ Macpherson (Ann. of Com, i. 203) conjectures hurers to be work ers in hare. 13 Edward IV. c. iv, 2 Henry VI. c. 7,

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woollen manufacture had not yet found its way into Yorkshire, though in Devonshire, the wool of which was of an inferior description, it had existed long before the present period. The various descriptions of cloth manufactured in the kingdom are specified in one of the statutes ;* but the names do not indicate anything connected with the history or circumstances of the manufacture. The office of aulneger, from aulne or ell, is mentioned in a statute of 1328. This officer was the duly authorised cloth-measurer. Blackwall Hall, in London, had been purchased as a market-house for cloth in 1397. By a statute passed in 1405 country clothiers and others were allowed to sell their goods by wholesale in London.† In 1439 it was enacted‡ that there should be but one measure of cloth throughout England, by the yard and inch, and not by the yard and handful, according to the measure of London; so that it would seem the commercial customs of London were not always regarded as a standard. In 1464, in a statute § regulating the measure of pieces of cloth, it is asserted in the preamble, that the workmanship of cloths and other woollen goods was become to be of such fraud as to be had in small reputation in other countries, to the great shame of this land; and that by reason thereof great quantities of foreign cloth are imported and sold at excessive prices. It was in consequence provided that no cloth but that of Ireland and Wales should be imported. A later statute|| directs that no cloth shall be dyed with orchell, or cork called yare-cork; that no chalk shall be put upon white cloth; that tenters shall not be kept within doors; and that no cloths shall be set, drawn, or tentered after being wetted. By the middle of the fifteenth century the prohibition of English cloth was regarded by foreign nations as an effective means of annoying the English. A statute of 1464 notices an ordinance of the Duke of Burgundy, prohibiting English cloth in Brabant, and retaliates by interdicting the importation of any merchandise except provisions from the countries governed by the Duke of Burgundy, until English cloths be re-admitted into those countries.

The exportation of woollen-yarn was also vigilantly prevented, lest the foreign manufacturer should obtain facilities for rivalling us. In 1429 it was enacted that "no man buy yarn of wool, called woollen-yarn, unless he will make cloth thereof." It appears also by another statute of the same year,tt that the weavers had been accustomed, "when they wrought a cloth near the end, to cut away for their private profit the thread which is left unwoven, and call the same thrums," and to sell the said thrums, to the loss of the owners, to persons carrying them into Flanders, "though the king have thereof no profit of customs nor subsidy;" but the principal grievance was, that under cover of thrums, woollen yarn was exported, thereby

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SPINNING WITH THE DISTAFF. Harl. MS. 4374.

preventing its being wrought in the kingdom. In 1444 the export of thrums and woollen-yarns was prohibited for a term of three years.*

The worsted manufacture had fixed itself in the eastern counties. "Cloths called worsteds" had been an article of export in 1376. In the preamble of a statutet passed in 1441, for the regulation of the trade, it is observed that, "worsted was sometime a good merchandise, and greatly desired and loved in the parts beyond the sea, but now, because that it is of false work and of false stuff, no man thereof taketh regard." Persons purchased goods "trusting that it shall be within as it sheweth without, where of truth it is contrary.” To provide a remedy for these malpractices, weavers were ordered to put their marks on their worsted, and those of Norwich, and also the weavers in the county of Norfolk, were each to choose wardens for securing the due observance of the statute. In 1444 the weavers of Suffolk were empowered to appoint wardens; and in 1467 those of Cambridgeshire received the same privilege §

The interests which were connected with silk as a raw material only come before our notice during this period as claimants for protection against foreigners. This branch of industry does not appear as yet to have stood upon a very broad foundation. In 1455 it was enacted that no wrought silk belonging to the mystery of silkwomen shall be brought into England by way of merchandise for five years to come.|| The preamble of the statute assigns as the ground for this provision the grievous complaints of the silk-women and spinners of the mystery and occupation of silkworking, within the city of London, how that divers Lombards and other strangers, imagining to destroy the said mystery, and all such virtuous occupations of women, bring into the realm such silk so made, wrought, twined, ribands and chains falsely and deceitfully wrought, in no manner of wise bringing any good silk unwrought as they were wont. The Lord Mayor was empowered to appoint

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searchers to prevent any infringement of the statute. These restrictions upon the importation of silk were afterwards repeatedly renewed.*

The crafts which were occupied in working in metals were numerous. The armorers were as much distinguished as the goldsmiths for their skill and taste. One of our old chroniclers gives a description of a solemn just at Oxford in the reign of Henry IV.,† from which it is evident that great variety of design and much skill were displayed by this superior order of artificers. The aid of the goldsmith was required to give the highest degree of beauty to a suit of armour. The jewels and plate pledged by Henry V. to raise the means for invading France evince a magnificence of display which proves that the class of men by whose skill it was produced could not occupy an unimportant station in the rank of traders and merchants. Henry VI. pledged a large quantity of silver plate to two goldsmiths to whom he owed above 3000l. The trade of the goldsmiths had been regulated by statute more than once during the fourteenth century. In 1423 it appears that the work in gold and silver done by the goldsmiths of Newcastle, York, Lincoln, Norwich, Coventry, Salisbury and Bristol, in addition to those of London, was so extensive as to render an assay-office necessary in each of these places.§ Several prior statutes show that, from the temptation to fraud which it presented, it was a craft requiring a vigilant eye to be kept upon it. In 1403 an attempt was made by statute to check the deceits which had crept into the trade. The act provides that," whereas many fraudulent artificers, imagining to deceive the common people, do daily make locks (brooches), rings, beads, candlesticks, harness for girdles, hilts, chalices, and sword-pommels, powder-boxes, and covers for cups, of copper and of latten, like to gold or silver, and the same sell and put in gage to many men not having full knowledge thereof, for whole gold and whole silver, to the great deceit, loss and hindrance of the common people," in future such articles shall not be gilt or silvered over under a penalty of 100l. ; but articles for the church, except chalices, are allowed to be silvered though made of copper or latten, SO that always in the foot, or some other part of every such ornament so to be made, the copper and the latten shall be plain, to the intent that a man may see whereof the thing is made, for to eschew the deceit aforesaid." In 1414 another interference by statute¶¶ was made with the goldsmiths, who, it is alleged, "would not sell the wares of their mystery but at the double price of the weight of the silver of the same, which seemeth to the king very outrageous and too excessive a price." The statute provided a summary remedy by fixing the price per lb. of silver gilt. In 1420 it was enacted ** that " none from henceforth shall gild any sheaths nor metal but silver and the ornaments

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of holy church, nor shall silver any metal but knight's spurs, and all the apparel that pertaineth to a baron." In 1423 a statute enacted* that no gold and silver should be sold "before that it be touched with the touch of the leopard's head." In 1477 the trade of the goldsmiths was again regulated. The great majority were now probably Englishmen, but it is observed in the preamble of the statute, that there be divers goldsmiths and other workers of gold and silver, aliens and strangers within two miles of the city, who carry on their business secretly, and not under the superintendence of the goldsmiths of London. It is in consequence enacted that, for the better surveying of the said aliens and strangers in time to come, they be required to inhabit the open streets of the city, and "where better and more open showing is of their craft.”

An interesting notice respecting the manufacture of hats and caps occurs in the preamble of a statute passed in 1482. It is stated that "hats, bonnets, and caps, as well single as double, were wont to be faithfully made, wrought, fulled and thicked by men's strength, that is to say, with hands and feet, and thereby the makers of the same have honestly before this time gained their living, and kept many apprentices, servants, and good houses, till now of late that, by subtle imagination, to the destruction of the labours and sustenance of many men, such hats, bonnets, and caps have been fulled and thicked in fulling-mills, and in the said mills the said hats and caps be broken, and deceitfully wrought, and in no wise by the mean of any mill may be faithfully made, to the great damage of our sovereign lord the king and of all his subjects, and to the final undoing of such which be the makers of hats, caps and bonnets." The old mode of manufacture," by hands and feet," is ordered to be continued, and a penalty of 40s. is imposed upon those who should set to sale any hats or caps produced by mechanical power.

Scarcely any class of traders escaped the vigilance of this spirit of legislative restriction. In a statute of 1433§ it is affirmed that the wax-chandlers sold candles, images, and figures, and other works of wax made for offerings, at the rate of a lb. of wax for 2s. when 1 lb. of wax is worth only 6d., whereby they gain 1s. 6d. in every lb., by which means people are defrauded of their good intent and devotion. The remedy which the statute provides is, that in future only 3d. per lb. should be charged for the manufactured article over the value of the raw material. By another statute passed in 1464,|| shoemakers in London, or within three miles of it, were prohibited from making "any shoes, galoches, or huseaus, with any pike or poleyn that shall pass the length of two inches, which shall be judged by the wardens or governors of the same mystery.' The shoemakers were also prohibited by the same statute under a penalty of

2 Henry VI. c. 17. 22 Edward IV. c. 5.

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20s. from following their craft on Sundays. In 1455, a statute was passed,* the reason for which is not alleged, by which it was enacted that no public brewer in Kent shall make above one hundred quarters of malt annually to his own use. But the restriction upon the number of attornies in Norwich, Norfolk and Suffolk is the most remarkable of these examples of legislative interference. The statute was passed in 1455,† and was occasioned by the number of attorneys attending the king's courts in the city of Norwich and counties of Norfolk and Suffolk having increased from six or eight to ten times that number. Under the former state of things, it is remarked in the preamble, "great tranquillity reigned in the said city and counties, +33 Henry VI. c. 7.

⚫33 Henry VI. c. 4.

and little trouble or vexation was made by untrue or foreign suits." Now, it is added, there are four score attorneys, the greater part of whom have nothing to live upon but the gains of their attorneyship, and also are not possessed of a proper knowledge of the law. Their practices are thus described:-"They come to every market, fair, and other places where there is any assembly of people, exhorting, procuring, moving, and inciting the people to attempt untrue and foreign suits, for small trespasses, little offences, and small sums of debt." The statute provided a summary remedy by enacting that there should be but six common attorneys in Norfolk, six in Suffolk, and two in Norwich, to be elected and admitted by two of the judges.

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