Having earlier established a dual structure of trade, southwards to Gascony and eastwards to the Baltic, Colchester merchants continued to profit from these routes in the early fifteenth century. Trade with Bordeaux revived after the crisis of 1407 and was following its old course in 1413/14, dominated by merchants from Colchester itself. A customs account of that year also shows Colchester men importing herrings from the Baltic. But the 30 years following 1407 brought little opportunity for merchants to increase their sales abroad, either directly or through the mediation of foreign merchants. England's cloth trade, having contracted suddenly in 1402, did not regain its former level until the 1420s, and even in the years 1430–4, the number of cloths exported was about the same as in 1395–9. 2 Colchester's traditional markets were in the doldrums. Gascony, suffering from depopulation, wartime devastation and monetary disorder, showed as yet no sign of economic recovery. In Prussia the defeat of the Teutonic Knights at Tannenberg in 1410 initiated a new era of invasion, depopulation and commercial disruption during the course of which the market for cloth contracted. Total exports of English cloth by non-Hanseatic aliens increased by 13 per cent between 1406/7–1415/16 and 1426/7–1435/6, but this was because of developments at Southampton; it is unlikely that they benefited the export of Essex cloths by Italian merchants.