From the 1560s on, export-oriented worsted-weaving expanded rapidly in the Black Forest of Württemberg, particularly in the districts of Calw and Wildberg. Almost from the beginning, the emergence of this new economic activity also gave rise to new corporate groups, which secured privileges from the Württemberg state. This chapter traces the rise of this proto-industry, and the parallel rise of corporate groups with privileges over it. Section I examines the pre-history of worsted production in the older woollen industry of the Black Forest region. Section II traces the rise of worsted-weaving in this region after about 1560, and the rapid spread of worsted-weavers' guilds between the 1580s and the 1620s. Section III examines the trade in wool, yarn and worsteds, and the largely unsuccessful attempts of merchants and dyers to exercise monopolies and monopsonies over it up to 1650. Section IV describes the establishment of the Calwer Zeughandlungskompagnie in 1650, and the nature of the state privileges it enjoyed over the Württemberg worsted industry until 1797. Section V summarizes the conclusions which can be drawn from the institutional development of this proto-industry.

Worsteds (or ‘new draperies’) emerged as mass export wares throughout Europe in the sixteenth century, often, as in Württemberg, at the expense of woollens (or ‘old draperies’). Although this enormous expansion of worsted production throughout the continent was arguably the most important change in the textile industry of early modern Europe, its causes are still obscure. Contemporaries perceived clear differences between woollens and worsteds.