CHAPTER IX THE WOOLLEN TRADE AND MANUFACTURES § 73. England's Monopoly of Wool. THE development of the woollen industry in England is interesting and important for two reasons.1 On the one hand it shows us the origin of the peculiar wealth of our country both in the middle ages and later, and on the other it illustrates with great clearness the evolution of our industry generally, an evolution that begins with the rude efforts of prehistoric peoples, passes through the stages of family work and gild work in hand-made industry, till in more recent times it reaches the stage of the machine and the factory. It is also particularly associated with our own country, for in the middle ages England was the chief wool-producing country in the North of Europe. Spain grew wool also, but it could not be used alone for every kind of fabric,3 and, besides, it was more difficult to transport wool from Spain to Flanders, the seat of the manufacture of that article, than it was to send it across the narrow German Ocean, where swarms of light craft plied constantly between Flanders and the eastern ports of England. Hence England had a practical monopoly of the wool trade, which was due not only to its favourable climate and soil, but also to the fact that even at the worst periods of civil war-and they did not last for long-our island was incomparably more peaceful than the countries of Western Europe. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century the farmers of Western Europe could not possibly have kept sheep, the most defenceless and tender of domestic 1 Ashley, Early History of the English Woollen Industry, p. 1. 2 Burnley, Wool and Woolcombing, p. 59. * Bonwick, Romance of the Wool Trade, p. 346. • Burnley, Wool and Woolcombing, p. 58. 5 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 124. 6 Ashley, Woollen Industry, p. 35. animals, amid the wars that were continually devastating their homesteads; nor, as a matter of fact, did they do so.1 But in England, especially after the twelfth century, nearly everybody in the realm, from the king to the villein, was concerned in agriculture, and was interested therefore in maintaining peace. Even when the great landlords, after the Plague of 1348, gave up the cultivation of their arable land, they often undertook sheep-farming, and enclosed large tracts of land for that purpose. Hence the export trade in wool became more and more important, and there was always a continual demand for English wool to supply the busy looms of the great manufacturing towns in Flanders, Holland, and even Florence in Italy. § 74. Wool and Politics. The most convincing proof of the importance of the wool trade is seen in England's diplomatic relations with Flanders, which, by the way, afford an interesting example of the necessity of taking economic factors into account in dealing with national history. Flanders was the great manufacturing country of Europe at that time. England supplied its raw material in vast quantities, and nine-tenths of English wool went to the looms of Bruges and Ghent. A stoppage of this export from England used to throw half the population of the Flemish towns out of work, and cause great misery. The immense transactions that even then took place are seen from the fact that a single company of Florentine merchants would contract 5 with the Cistercian monks of England for the whole year's supply of the wool produced on their vast sheep-ranges on the Yorkshire moorlands; for the Cistercian order were among the foremost wool-growers in the country. Now, it is a curious and significant fact that when Edward I., Edward III., and Henry V. premeditated an attack on France, they generally took care to gain the friendship of Flanders first, so as to 1 Rogers, Econ. Interp., p. 9. 4 2 Burnley, Wool and Woolcombing, p. 60. * Ashley, James and Philip von Astevelde, 84, 91. 5 Cf. Peruzzi, Commercio e Banchieri di Firenze, 70, 71. 3 lb., p. 58. 6 Burnley, Wool and Woolcombing, p. 61. 7 Rogers, Econ. Interp., p. 8. use that country as a base from which to enter France, or at least as a useful ally; and secondly, they paid a large proportion of the expenses of their French expeditions by means of a wool-tax in England. Thus, when Edward III. opened his campaign against France in 1340, he did so from Flanders, with special help afforded by a Flemish alliance. This king also received annually £60,000 from the wool-tax alone,2 and on special occasions even more. Again, it was a grant of 6s. 8d. on each sack of wool exported that enabled Edward I. in 1275 to fill his treasury for his subsequent invasion of Wales.3 The same king in 1297 got the means for equipping an expedition against France, via Flanders, by the same means. Similarly Henry V. took care to cultivate the friendship of the Flemish and their rulers before setting out to gain the French crown, and paid for his expedition by raising taxes on wool and hides." We may add to the notices here given the treaty of 1274 between Edward I. and the Countess of Flanders, protecting the export of English wool to Flanders, and the well-known case of Perkin Warbeck. This impostor was supported by the dowager Duchess of Burgundy, and was well received in Flanders, then ruled by the Archduke Philip. As Philip, at the instigation of the Duchess, encouraged Warbeck, Henry VII. took the step of banishing all Flemings from England (1493), and as Philip replied by expelling all the English from Flanders, commercial intercourse between the two countries was almost entirely suspended. The result was that, as Bacon tells us, this interruption "began to pinch the merchants of both nations very sore," and they besought their respective sovereigns "to open the intercourse again." Philip withdrew his support from Warbeck, and the impostor was left without resources, so that his subsequent appearance in England was a complete failure. The want of English wool thus altered the policy of the Flemish rulers, and before long the "great treaty," or Intercursus 1 Green, Hist. of England, i. 411. 5 Stubbs, Const. Hist., ii. 192, 244. 5 Bacon's History of King Henry VII. see for full account of Warbeck. Rot. Parl., ii. 200. Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 304. Magnus, was made between the two nations (1496), by which trade was once more allowed to proceed unchecked, and "the English merchants came again to their mansion at Antwerp, where they were received with procession and great joy." 1 2 Henry VII. also made a commercial treaty with Denmark (1490), and one with the Republic of Florence, securing to that city a stipulated supply of English wool every year. The enormous revenues also, which from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries were exacted from England by the Papal Court, and by the Italian ecclesiastics quartered on English benefices, were transmitted in the shape of wool to Flanders, and sold by the Lombard exchangers, who transmitted the money thus realised to Italy. Matthew Paris estimated the amount of ordinary papal taxation for the year 1245 at a sum of no less than 60,000 marks. The extent of these revenues may also be gathered from the fact that the Parliament of 1343, in a petition against Papal appointments to English ecclesiastical vacancies, asserted that "The Pope's revenue from England alone is larger than that of any Prince in Christendom." 6 And at this very time the deaneries of Lichfield, Salisbury, and York, and the archdeaconry of Canterbury, were all held by Italian dignitaries, while the Pope's collector sent from London 20,000 marks a year to his master at Rome. Now, these impositions were paid out of the proIt is interesting, too, to find that ceeds of English wool. taxes for King Edward III. were calculated, not in money, but in sacks of wool. In one year (1338) the Parliament granted him 20,000 sacks; in another year (1340) 30,000 sacks. In 1339 the barons had granted him "the tenth Early in the fifteenth century sheaf, fleece, and lamb." 10 8 1 Bacon's History of King Henry VII., p. 147. 3 lb., xii. 390. • Cf. Cunningham, English Industry, i. 194, 271, 378; and Schanz, Engl. Handelspolitik, i. 111. 5 Quoted by Cunningham, Growth of Eng. Industry (1 vol. ed. 1882), P. 146. • Green, Hist. of English People, i. 408. 10 Ib. 7 Ib., p. 408. 9 Stubbs, Const. Hist., ii. 380. £30,000 out of the £40,000 revenue from customs and taxes came from wool alone.1 Once more, as in the days of the Crusades, we are able to see how the Hundred Years' War with France and the exactions of Rome were paid for by the industrial portion of the community, while underneath the glamour of the victories of Edward III. and Henry V. lies the prosaic but powerful wool-sack. $75. Prices and Brands of English Wool. 2 Having now seen the importance of wool as a factor in English industry and in political history, we must proceed to study more closely the facts of the woollen trade, and the manufacture of woollen cloth. The chief growers of wool were the Cistercian monks, who owned huge flocks of sheep. The wool grown near Leominster, in Herefordshire, was the finest of all, and, generally speaking, that grown in Wiltshire, Essex, Sussex, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Cambridge, and Warwickshire was the best. The poorest came from the North of England and from the Southern downs. There were a number of different breeds of sheep, for care was taken to improve the breed, and it would seem that forty-four different brands of English wool, ranging in value from £13 to £2, 10s. the sack (of 364 lbs.) were recognised both in the home and foreign markets. The average price 5 of wool from 1260-1400 was 2s. 14d. per clove of 7 lbs., i.e., a little over threepence a pound, sometimes fourpence. In the middle of this period (1354) the average annual export, according to Misselden, was about 32,000 sacks, which is equal to 11,648,000 lbs., representing a value of some £180,683 yearly. At this time the export trade in wool between England and the Low Countries was not carried on by English merchants, but by foreigners, and chiefly those belonging to what was known as the "Hanse of London." This was not the great Teutonic Hansa, but 8 1 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 305. 2 Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 547. Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 383. Rot. Parl., 32 Hen. VI. "Circle of Commerce, 119. 8 Ashley, Woollen Industry, p. 38. was engaged in the wool trade. 5 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 366. 7 Cf. Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 367. Of course the Teutonic Hansa also |