But however strongly a community may desire-or feel it necessary to be self-sufficing, it can never be so entirely. Differences of soil, of mineral wealth, and of other advantages cause one community to lack that which another has in abundance. Salt, for instance, was very largely in request (as we have seen) for salting meat for winter use, and some idea of the importance of the salt manufacture of that period may be obtained from the fact that in six shires no less than 727 salt works are named in Domesday as paying rent to their lords. But it cannot be universally procured in England, any more than iron and other necessaries of life. Hence internal trade, however limited, was still sure to arise, and we find evidence of its recognised existence in the laws of Ine, which require that "chapmen" should trade before witnesses. This proves the existence of a distinct class of traders, and it is also certain that local markets likewise existed. At first these were always held on the neutral boundaries between the territories of two or more villages or communities, the place of the market being marked by a boundary stone, the origin of the later "market cross." Sunday seems to have been the usual market day, till the influence of the church altered it to Saturday. Sometimes also, besides these local markets, larger ones were held at stated times during the year in wellknown localities, and the shrines of saints were among the most frequented spots for this purpose. These fixed markets often developed into towns. Thus the origin of Glasgow may be traced to the fair held at the shrine of St Ninian (570 A.D.), and many other instances of the religious origin, not only of fairs but also of towns themselves, might thus be quoted. These markets were productive of great revenue to the lord of the manor in which they were held; that at Taunton 5 brought in 1 Laws of Ine, 25; Thorpe, i. 118. * A good example of this is Moreton-in-Marsh, an ancient market town situated on the boundaries of the four counties of Oxford, Gloucester, Worcester, and Warwick. The fact is recorded by a stone, known as the "four shires' stone," and situated about a mile from the present town along the London road. 3 Craik, British Commerce, i. 74. Cunningham, i. 90. * For Taunton market dues, cf. Thorpe, Dip. Ang., 235; and Social England, i. 208. £2, 10s. a year in fees, and that at Bedford £7, and we shall have occasion to mention them as factors in the growth of towns in another chapter (pp. 87, 89). It seems that in the early days of the Saxon settlement, trade at the markets and fairs was largely carried on by Mere barter, however, is simple bartering of commodities. tedious and cumbersome; and although up to a late period of the Saxon settlement a large proportion, though not the whole, of English trade proceeded in this fashion,1 the use of coined money for the purposes of exchange became in the ninth ninth century, while in 900 regular money payments are recorded as being made by tenants to their landlords.2 And when we come to the levy of Danegeld (991 A.D.), it is clear from the very imposition of such a tax that metallic money must have been widely diffused and in general circulation. common § 23. Foreign Commerce and the Danes. A.D. It is Trade of all kinds had suffered a severe blow when the Romans quitted Britain, but even during the Saxon period English merchants still carried on a certain, though limited, This commerce was greatly amount of foreign commerce. stimulated by the Danish invasions and settlements. a curious fact that so many of the names of towns and places on our coast have Scandinavian forms, as e.g., those terminating in -ness, -vick, and by, and it is said to show that our maritime trade, not only in the Danish districts, but even outside them, was mainly in the hands of northern traders. But this is not surprising when we remember that the Danes, before ever they came England, were most enterprising navigators, as is shown by their very early commerce with Russia and the East, their colonisation of Iceland (874 A.D.), and their discoveries of Greenland (985 A.D.) and the east coast of North America.5 1 Cf. Craik, Hist. Brit. Commerce, i. 83, 84. Slaves and cattle were used 2 Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 112. as media of exchange. 3 The point is noted by A. L. Smith in Social England, i. p. 201. * Cunningham, i. 84. to 5 Cf. fully Mallet's Northern Antiquities, ch. ix., and the supplementary chapter in Bohn's edition, p. 244. Though they were cruel and savage pirates, they were traders also, and, when they had settled down, as they did in such large numbers in the North and East of England,1 they formed an active industrial and mercantile population, and often became merchants of great importance. To the Danes also we may trace the beginnings of some of our towns,2 since their merchants required fixed centres for their commerce. "The Danes and Northmen," says Professor Cunningham,3 were the leading merchants, and hence it was under Danish and Norse influences that the villages [which afterwards became towns] were planted at centres suitable for commerce, or that well-placed villages received a new development." Besides this they were instrumental in causing English trade to develope with the North of Europe, and, generally speaking, gave a needed stimulus to navigation, which the Saxons for some unaccountable reason neglected as soon as they settled down in England. A sign of their influence is seen in the "doom" or decree, probably of the tenth century, which provided that "if a merchant thrived so that he fared thrice over the sea by his own means, then was he of thegen-right worthy "—and this thegen-right gave him a comparatively high rank. The settlement of German 1 Their presence is still so clearly perceptible in the place-names, provincial words, and the physique of the population of these districts, that we need not further enlarge upon the abiding nature of their influence. It will be sufficient to note briefly the extent of the "Danelagh" (as given by F. York Powell, Soc. Eng., i. p. 145). Middlesex and Essex, Saxon land chiefly settled by Danes. do. do. Land of the English of the March, Lincoln, Leicester, Derby, Notts, Land of the English of the March, settled Stamford district, Yorks and part of Durham, North English land settled chiefly by Northmen. 2 The five Danish boroughs of Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln Leicester, and Stamford had a most complete municipal constitution. 3 English Industry and Commerce, i. 88. Ranks, 6; Thorpe, i. 193. It was probably passed in Athelstan's reign, Craik, i. 66. merchants in London,1 pointing to an increasing continental traffic, also dates from the time of Ethelred the Unready (about 1000 A.D.). Much of this foreign trade, such as it was, and it certainly was not very great, lay in the quantities of precious metals and stuff for embroideries which were imported for use in the monasteries (p. 41). A good list of such imports is given by the merchant who is supposed to speak in Ælfric's Saxon Dialogues. He mentions purple, silk, gems, ivory, gold, dyed stuffs, dyes, wine, oil, brass, tin, glass, and sulphur; while the dangers of the foreign traders calling are pithily expressed in his remark, that "sometimes I suffer shipwreck with the loss of all my goods, scarcely escaping myself." Besides the imports mentioned here we may add furs and skins (which came gradually to be imported instead of exported, as wild animals died out in England), weapons of war, and iron-work. The exports iron. 3 which were exchanged for these were chiefly raw products, including wool-which afterwards became more and more important-cattle, and horses, with tin, lead, and possibly There was a very large export trade in slaves, and their prices are recorded in the laws of the period. Bristol was a great centre of this sad traffic,5 and remained so till the twelfth century, and English and Danish slaves formed an important merchandise in the markets of Germany. The devout Gytha, Earl Godwin's wife, is said to have shipped whole gangs, especially of young and pretty women, for sale in Denmark. As in many modern instances, her piety was not allowed to prejudice her pocket. As regards the travels of English merchants, we know that they went as far as Marseilles, and frequented the great French fairs of Rouen and St Denis in the ninth century; while, rather earlier, we have a most interesting document, our 1Craik, Hist. Brit. Comm., i. 68. 2 See Thorpe, Analecta Anglo-Saxonica, p. 101. 3 These are mentioned in a law of Athelstan, Craik, i. 71. Leges Wallice, II. xvii. 30, 31, and II. xxii. 13. The price was one pound of silver, or a pound and a half "if brought from across the sea. " William of Malmesbury, Vita Wlfstani, ii, 20, and Craik, i. 71. 6 Pearson, Hist. of Eng., i. 287. 7 Cunningham, i. 80. 1 first treaty of commerce in fact, dated 796 A.D., by which Karl the Great, or Charlemagne, as he is sometimes called, grants protection to certain English traders from Mercia. In King Alfred's days, one English bishop is said to have "penetrated prosperously" as far as India,2 bearing the King's gifts to the shrine of St Thomas, on the Malabar coast, but this is an isolated case, and though Alfred tried to encourage navigation by his care for the navy, and by his interest in the adventurous voyages of Othere and Wulfstan, the fact remains that foreign merchants, including Jews, came to England in greater numbers than the English ventured abroad. § 24. Summary of Trade and Industry in the Saxon Period. Taking a general survey of the period between the Saxon and the Norman conquests, we see that crafts and manufactures were few and simple, being limited as far as possible to separate and isolated communities. The fine arts, and works in metal and embroideries, were confined to the monasteries, which also imported them. The immense mineral wealth of the island in iron and coal was practically untouched. Trade, both internal and foreign, was small, though it developed as the country became more peaceful and united. The great mass of the population was engaged in agriculture, and every man had, so to speak, a stake in the land and belonged to a manor or an overlord. A landless man was altogether outside the pale of social life. Land, in fact, was the basis of everything, and it is for this reason that it is so important to understand the conditions of tenure and the whole land system of that age. Hence we must occupy a short time in the discussion of the origin of the manorial system, which at the close of the Saxon period we find in force throughout the country. 1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, iii. 496. 2 So William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontif., ii. 80. 3 Cf. Craik, Hist. Brit. Commerce, i. 65. 5 Craik, British Commerce, i. 63, 64. 6 Stubbs, Const, Hist., I. ch. v. pp. 74, 79. 4 In his Orosius. |