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II. The English Wool Trade in the reign of Edward IV

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2011

Eileen Power
Eileen Power
Affiliation:
Reader in Economic History at the London School of Economics
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Extract

The importance of the English wool trade in the middle ages is so well recognised that it is difficult to remember that its history is still largely unwritten. This is particularly true of the century before the advent of the Tudor dynasty to the throne. The careful researches of Professor Tout have thrown some light upon the origins of the Staple system in Edward II's reign and those of the late Professor Unwin and his seminar upon the wool trade in the reign of Edward III, but in this, as in most other branches of economic history, the period of the Lancastrian and Yorkist dynasties is an almost unworked field. Ample materials for an investigation of the subject exist, but many of the most important are still hidden in English and foreign archives and much laborious spade work remains to be done before the whole story can be told. That story really involves two distinct problems, which for convenience's sake can be separated—first the institutional history of the Staple and its financial and other relations with the government, and secondly the history of the wool trade, that is to say the technical and financial organisation of the trade, the persons engaged in it, their relations with wool growers at home and wool buyers abroad, and the dimensions of the trade year by year, as reflected in the customs accounts. This article is an attempt to sketch the second of these subjects only, and that for a very limited period. The reign of Edward IV has been chosen because it was a period of considerable commercial activity and because there happens to exist a particularly important collection of material relating to the wool trade at this time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Historical Journal , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , 1926 , pp. 17 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1926

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References

page 17 note 1 Schanz, , Englische Handelspolitike gegen Ende des Mittelalters (1881), vol. IIGoogle Scholar.

page 18 note 1 Gray, H. L., “The Production and Exportation of English Woollens in the Fourteenth Century” (E.H.R. 1924)Google Scholar.

page 18 note 2 The Cely Papers, ed. Maiden, H. E. (Royal Hist. Soc. 1900)Google Scholar.

page 18 note 3 The Stonor Letters and Papers, ed. Kingsford, C. H. (Royal Hist. Soc. 1909)Google Scholar.

page 18 note 4 Calendar of State Papers (Venice), ed. Brown, R. (1864), vol. IGoogle Scholar.

page 18 note 5 Pagnini, Delia Decima e delle altre Gravezze in Firenze (Lucca 1766); see Pegolotti in vol. I and Uzzano in vol. II.

page 18 note 6 Bronnen tot de Geschiedenis van de Leidsche Textielnijverheid, ed. Posthumus, N. W. (’s Gravenhage, 1910–1912)Google Scholar.

page 19 note 1 Schanz, op. cit. II. 567.

page 19 note 2 Bronnen etc., ed. Posthumus, I.48–9, 74–5, 133–4. There were similar regulations at Douai. Rec. de documents rel. à l'hist. de l'industrie drapière en Flandre, ed. Espinas, and Pirenne, (Brussells 1906), I. 322–3Google Scholar.

page 19 note 3 Rot. Parl. V. 564, 630; Stats, of the Realm, 4 Edw. IV, c. 3; Cal. of Pat. Rolls (Edw. IV), III. 159.

page 20 note 1 See instances in the Cartulaire de l'ancienne Estaple de Bruges, ed. Gilliodts van, Severen (Bruges 1904), II. 36, 63Google Scholar.

page 20 note 2 Pagnini, op. cit. IV. 185–7.

page 20 note 3 His career has been sketched by Miss Scofield, , Life and Reign of Edward IV (1933), II. 430–8Google Scholar.

page 20 note 4 Cal. of State Papers (Venice), I. 130.

page 21 note 1 Early Chanc. Proc. 59/69. Another Fortey is found suing a Florentine for a wool debt in 1460. Guildhall, P. and M. Rolls, A 84, m 5.

page 21 note 2 Cely Papers, pp. 45, 48. The Celys' spelling is a weariness of the flesh, and I have modernised it, except where I quote from the unpublished papers.

page 21 note 3 K.R. Custom Accts. London 73/40; L.T.R. Enrolled Accts. 22 f. 71 do.

page 21 note 4 See Cal. of Pat. Rolls (Edw. IV), passim.

page 21 note 5 For a clear case of the sale of a licence to ship 600 sacks of wool through the Straits of Marrock by one Godfrey Wolleman of London to one John Maldon, grocer, see Guildhall, Cal. P. and M. Rolls, A 73, m 6. The phrase used is that Geoffrey had “desired John to be his factor and attorney” for this purpose.

page 22 note 1 In this connection see an interesting petition (1455) in Rot. Parl. V. 335–6. On Edward IV as a trader, see Scofield, op. cit. II. 84, who assumes that the wool was his own.

page 23 note 1 Rot. Parl. V. 275.

page 23 note 2 L.T.R. Enrolled Accts. 22, ff. 70–2, passim.

page 23 note 3 Bronnen etc. ed. Posthumus, I. 93.

page 24 note 1 For these wills, see Somerset House, P.C.C. Stokton 25 (John Fortey), Wattys 22 (Thomas Fortey), Moore 16 (William Midwinter), Wattys 29 (John Busshe), and Bodfelde 38 (Thomas Busshe).

page 25 note 1 Camden Miscellany, XIII. 12–13; Chanc. Misc. 37/11, f. 19; Cely Papers, p. 11.

page 25 note 2 Cal. of Pat. Rolls (Edw. IV), III. 321.

page 25 note 3 Cal. of Letter Books, L., ed. R. Sharpe, p. 259.

page 25 note 4 Rot. Parl. VI. 59.

page 26 note 1 See Early Chanc. Proc. 20/48, 27/137, 64/311 and especially 66/442.

page 27 note 1 Early Chanc. Proc. 64/585.

page 27 note 2 See the account of costs incurred in all these matters by George Cely in Chanc. Misc. 37/10, ff. 29–30, and compare the charges noted by Pegolotti.

page 28 note 1 K.R. Customs Accts. London 73/40.

page 28 note 2 Cely Papers, pp. 160, 162.

page 28 note 3 For the statistics (compiled from Bronnen etc. ed. Posthumus, II. 367 ff.) see Posthumus, , De Gesctriedenis van de Leidsche Lakensindustrie (’s Gravenhage, 1908), pp. 422 ff. They exist for every year of Edward IV's reign, except 1468, 1474 and 1478–83, and the names of all the purchasers are givenGoogle Scholar.

page 29 note 1 Bronnen etc. I. 46, 72, 74, 92–3, 148–52, 189, 299–306.

page 29 note 2 Ib. I. 352–3, 454–61, II. 42, and Rymer, Foedera, XII. 66 ff.

page 30 note 1 Cely Papers, pp. 32–3, and compare pp. 73–81, and the three agitated letters about £10 in Carolus groats which failed to arrive.

page 30 note 2 Ib. pp. 121–2, 124, 128.

page 31 note 1 He belonged to a well-known family of Staplers and his will is in P.C.C. Godyn 4.

page 32 note 1 Bronnen etc. ed. Posthumus, I. 184.

page 32 note 2 See an excellent example, Cely Papers, pp. 147–8.

page 32 note 3 Chanc. Misc. 37/11, f. 30; and compare similar transactions printed in Cely Papers, pp. 12–13 and Stonor Papers, II. 62–3.

page 32 note 4 See, for instance, Cely Papers, p. 5. I am greatly indebted in dealing with the question of credit on the wool market to Mr M. Postan, of the London School of Economics, who has in hand a book on the financing of trade during the later middle ages, which will throw light upon many dark places. It was he who pointed out to me the method of charging interest for deferred payments and keeping prices level by manipulating the exchanges.

page 33 note 1 Early Chancery Proc. 16/369 and 24/247.

page 34 note 1 “Car les Merchauntz de l'Estaple de Calais…ne sount comenes acchateurs des Marchandises en Flaundres” (1423), Rot. Parl. IV. 252.

page 34 note 2 See the general pardon to a group of London mercers, nine of whom are also merchants of the Staple (1481), Cal. of Pat. Rolls (Edw. IV), III. 243.

page 34 note 3 Many records of these transactions can be studied in the Cely Papers; see, for example, pp. 159–60, 161–2, and Chancery Misc. 37/11, ff. 32–5, a book in which are noted George Cely's financial transactions at Balms Mart 1478 (“I took with me thre lettyrs of payment…. Mony reseyved for me…. Mony made hovyr home,” etc., all highly interesting).

page 34 note 4 P.R.O. Anct. Correspondence, 59/2.

page 35 note 1 Cely Papers, pp. 159, 165. The financial organisation of the wool trade and the reciprocal relations of mercers and staplers as they appear in the Cely Papers, should be compared with the retrospective account given by an anonymous author (probably Clement Armstrong) half a century later in his Treatise concerninge the Staple, reprinted from Pauli's edition in Tudor Econ. Documents, ed. Tawney and Power, III. 90–114.