were settled by authority, competition was checked,1 while merchants had to pay heavy duties to the king, and were very much at the mercy of the royal officials.2

The Crusades.

§ 58. Foreign Trade. But, on the other hand, the Norman Conquest, which combined the Kingdom of England with the Duchy of Normandy in close political relations, gave abundant opportunities for commerce, both with France and the Continent, and foreign trade certainly received a stimulus from this fact. It was further developed by the Crusades. The most obvious effect of these remarkable expeditions for a visionary success was the opening up of trade routes throughout Europe to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and to the East in general. They produced also a considerable redistribution of wealth in England itself, for the knights and nobles that set out for the Holy Land often mortgaged their lands and never redeemed them, or they perished, and their lands lapsed to the crown or to some monastery that took the place of a trustee for the absent owner.*

As to foreign trade, our chief authority at this time is the old chronicler, Henry of Huntingdon, whose history was published about 1155 A.D.5 Like most historians, even of the present day, he says very little about so insignificant a matter as trade, but the single sentence which he devotes to it is probably of as great value as any other part of his book. From it we gather that our trade with Germany was extensive, and that we exported lead and tin among the metals; fish and meat and fat cattle (which seems to point to some improvement in our pastoral economy); and, most important of all, "most precious wool," though at that time the English could not weave it properly for themselves. Our 1 Cunningham, i. p. 230. * The Crusades opened up routes rather than followed those already existing; cf. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. lviii.

в

4 Cf. Gibbon, ut supra.

2 Stubbs, Const. Hist., i.

3 Quoted by Craik, Hist. of Brit. Commerce, i. 105.

p. 522.

"It appears from other authorities also that the export of these two metals must have been large. "The roofs of the principal churches, palaces, and castles in all parts of Europe are said to have been covered with English lead." Craik, ut supra, i. 105.

imports, however, were very limited, comprising none of the necessaries of life, and few of its luxuries beyond silver and foreign furs. Other imports were fine woven cloths, used for the dresses of the nobility; and, after the Crusades began, of rich Eastern stuffs and spices, which were in great demand, and commanded a high price. So, too, did iron, which was necessary for agricultural purposes, as Englishmen had not yet discovered their rich stores of this metal, but had to get it from Spain and the lands on the Baltic shore.1 Generally speaking, we may say that our imports consisted of articles of greater intrinsic value and scarcity than our exports, and thus were fewer in number, though there must have been some balance to be paid in coin or bullion. this balance must have been comparatively small, as coined money, though, of course, no longer a rarity, was by no means plentiful, and was very precious. The German merchants certainly paid for English wool in silver.2

But

§ 59. The Trading Clauses in the Great Charter. One great proof of the existence of a fair amount of foreign trade is seen in the clauses which were inserted in the Great Charter (1215), by the influence of the trading class. One enactment secures to foreign merchants freedom of journeying and of trade throughout the realm,3 and another orders an uniformity of weights and measures to be enforced over the whole kingdom. The growth

4

of town life is seen in the enactment which secures to the towns the enjoyment of their municipal privileges, their freedom from arbitrary taxation, and the regulation of their own trade. The amercement of a freeman, even upon conviction of felony, was never to include his contenement; nor his wares, if he were a merchant, nor his wainage if a villein. The exaction of forced labour or of provisions and 1 Rogers, Six Centuries, pp. 88 and 151.

2 Henry of Huntingdon, ut supra.

3 John had already promised this at the commencement of his reign. Maitland, Hist. of London, i. 73-75. It was again laid down in Clause 41 of the Charter.

Magna Carta, § 35. This had already been enjoined in an Assize of Richard I., and again by that King in 1194 (Hoveden, iii. 263; iv. 33). 5 Magna Carta, § 13. 6 Magna Carta, § 20.

chattels without payment by the royal officers was also forbidden,1 and this must have been a great boon to the agricultural population. On the other hand, it is very noticeable that the royal officers are not to take money in lieu of military service from those who are willing to perform the service in person,2 a regulation which shows that commutation for services, military and otherwise, was now very common.

The general tone of those clauses of the Great Charter which deal with merchants, or with commerce and industry, is certainly remarkable in an age when, on the Continent of Europe at least, the merchant and his calling were generally despised by the " upper classes"; and it is not a little to the credit of the English nobility of that day that they recognised the value of commerce and industry to the nation, and gave them special attention in the agreement which they forced upon King John. Their conduct showed both breadth and liberality, as compared with that of their Continental fellow-peers, who throughout Europe were accustomed to oppress and pillage the trader; nor is it the less creditable because it was actuated by a spirit of enlightened self-interest. The merchant class was now becoming a power in the land, and as such was worth recognising, even by the nobility; and probably some individual merchants of influence took care that the interests of their class were not neglected in the Charter of the nation.

1

3

1 Magna Carta, §§ 28, 30, 31, 23. These clauses raise the whole question of "purveyance," i.e., the prerogative enjoyed by the crown of buying up provisions and other necessaries for the use of the royal household at an appraised valuation, and even without the consent of the owner; also of forcibly impressing the carriages and horses of a subject to do the King's business upon a public road on paying a fixed price. The abuses to which this prerogative gave rise were, of course, many and various, nor was the evil completely suppressed till the prerogative was formally resigned by Charles II. The prerogative was extended to men's labour as well as their goods. Thus Edward III. granted a commission to William of Walsingham to impress painters for the works at St Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, "to be at our wages as long as shall be necessary,” and all such as refused were to be imprisoned by the Sheriff. Edward IV. granted a similar impressment of workers in gold for the royal household. Rymer, t. vi. 417; t. xi. 852; Hallam, Middle Ages, iii. 149; Taswell-Langmead, Const. Hist., p. 132.

2 Magna Carta, § 29.

3 Taswell-Langmead, Const. Hist., p. 132.

§ 60. The Jews in England.

Among the mercantile community, moreover, there was a distinct class which also has special recognition in the Charter, for we find clauses 1 which endeavour to restrict usury as exacted by the Jews-a fact which, while pointing to a not unfamiliar aspect of the Hebrew race, also shows their growing importance as an economic factor in medieval England. We will, therefore, briefly mention the facts concerning them at this period.

The first appearance of the Jews in England may practically be reckoned as occurring at the time of the Norman Conquest, for immediately after 1066 they came in large numbers from Rouen, Caen, and other Norman towns.2 They stood in the peculiar position of being the personal property, or "chattels," of the King, and a special officer governed their settlements in various towns. These settle

ments were called Jewries, of which those at London, Lincoln, Bury St Edmunds, and Oxford were at one time fairly considerable. They were protected by the King (for, being royal "chattels," no one dared interfere with them), and, of course, paid him for their protection. Their general financial skill was acknowledged by all, and William II. employed them to farm the revenues of vacant sees, while barons often employed them as stewards of their estates. They were also the leading, if not the only, capitalists of that time, and must have assisted merchants considerably in their enterprises, though only upon a heavy commission. After the death of Henry I., the security which they had enjoyed was much weakened, in proportion as the royal power declined in the civil wars, and in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries they were in a precarious position. Stephen and Matilda openly robbed them, Henry II. (in 1187) demanded one-fourth of their chattels, and Richard I. 1 Magna Carta, §§ 10 and 11.

2 Craik, Hist. British Commerce, i. p. 94; Bourne, Romance of Trade,

p. 9.

3 Cunningham, i. p. 145.

5 Craik, British Commerce, i. 95.

• Romance of Trade, p. 10.

• The rate seems to have been 40 per cent. Cf. Anglo-Jewish Exhibition l'apers, 207.

1

obtained large sums from them for his crusading extravagances. From 1144 to 1189 riots directed against them became common, and the Jewries of many towns were pillaged. In 1194 Richard I. placed their commercial transactions more thoroughly under local officers of the crown. John exploited them to great advantage, and levied heavy tallages upon them, and Henry III. did very much the same. They were expelled 1 from the kingdom in 1290, and before this had greatly sunk from their previous position as the financiers of the crown to that of petty money-lenders to the poor at gross usury. What concerns us more immediately to notice in this early period of English history is their temporary usefulness as capitalists in trading transactions at a time when capital was not easily accumulated or kept in safety, and as a body from whom the crown. could obtain money in times of need without appealing to the nation at large. Their expulsion seems to have been due to an outbreak of fanaticism of more than usual virulence.

§ 61. Manufactures in this Period: Flemish Weavers. We now turn from the subject of trade and finance to that of manufacturing industry. On doing so, we find that the chief industry is that of weaving coarse woollen cloth. An industry so necessary as this, and one, too, that can be carried on in a simple state of society with such ease as a domestic manufacture, would naturally always exist, even from the most uncivilised times. had been the case in England. although Henry of Huntingdon mentions the export of "fine

This, as we saw above,2 But it is noticeable that,

1 It appears that this expulsion of the Jews was not absolutely complete, and Jewish tradition gives the year 1358 as the date of final expulsion; but in 1410 a Jewish physician, Elias Sabot, was certainly allowed to practise in England. There seems to have been a certain immigration of Jews to England when they were expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella (1492), for there are notices of them recovering debts in English law courts. Their presence in this country was, however, only first publicly sanctioned by Cromwell; and during the Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II. they came back here in considerable numbers. Cf. Wolf's Anglo-Jewish Exhibition Papers, p. 57; and my own History of Commerce in Europe, p. 99; Craik, British Commerce, i. p. 129; Cunningham, Eng. Ind., i. pp. 266, 267.

2 Pp. 6 and 8, above.