Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages / Third Edition

by Edward Lewes Cutts

From a volume of Saxon dialogues in the British Museum (Tiberius, A. III.), apparently intended for a school-book, which gives information of various kinds in the form of question and answer, Mr. S. Turner quotes a passage that illustrates our subject in a very interesting way. The merchant is introduced as one of the characters, to give an account of his occupation and way of life. “I am useful,” he says, “to the king and to ealdormen, and to the rich, and to all people. I ascend my ship with my merchandise, and sail over the sea-like places, and sell my things, and buy dear things which are not produced in this land, and I bring them to you here with great danger over the sea; and sometimes I suffer shipwreck with the loss of all my things, scarcely escaping myself.” The question, “What do you bring us?” demands an account of the imports, to which he answers, “Skins, silks, costly gems, and gold; various garments, pigment, wine, oil, ivory, and onchalcus (perhaps brass); copper, tin, silver, glass, and such like.” The author has omitted to make his merchant tell us what things he exported, but from other sources we gather that they were chiefly wool, slaves, probably some of the metals, viz., tin and lead, and the goldsmith’s work and embroidery for which the Saxons were then famous throughout Europe. The dialogue brings out the principle which lies at the bottom of commerce by the next question, “Will you sell your things here as you bought them there?” “I will not, because what would my labour profit me? I will sell them here, dearer than I bought them there, that I may get some profit to feed me, my wife, and children.” For the silks and ivory, our merchant would perhaps have to push his adventurous voyage as far as Marseilles or Italy. Corn, which used to be the chief export in British and Roman times, appears never to have been exported by the Saxons; they were a pastoral, rather than an agricultural, people. The traffic in slaves seems to have been regular and considerable. The reader will remember how the sight of a number of fair English children exposed for sale in the Roman market-place excited Gregory’s interest, and led ultimately to Augustine’s mission. The contemporary account of Wolfstan, Bishop of Worcester, at the time of the Conquest, speaks of similar scenes to be witnessed in Bristol, from which port slaves were exported to Ireland—probably to the Danes, who were then masters of the east coast. “You might have seen with sorrow long ranks of young people of both sexes, and of the greatest beauty, tied together with ropes, and daily exposed to sale: nor were these men ashamed—O horrid wickedness—to give up their nearest relations, nay their own children, to slavery.” The good bishop induced them to abandon the trade, “and set an example to all the rest of England to do the same.” Nevertheless, William of Malmesbury, who wrote nearly a century later, says that the practice of selling even their nearest relations into slavery had not been altogether abandoned by the people of Northumberland in his own memory.

Already, on the death of Ethelbert, in 1016, the citizens of London had arrived at such importance, that, in conjunction with the nobles who were in the city, they chose a king for the whole English nation, viz., Edmund Ironside; and again on the death of Canute, in 1036, they took a considerable part in the election of Harold. At the battle of Hastings the burgesses of London formed Harold’s body-guard. A few years previously, Canute, on his pilgrimage to Rome, met the Emperor Conrade and other princes, from whom he obtained for all his subjects, whether merchants or pilgrims, exemption from the heavy tolls usually exacted on the journey to Rome.

During the peaceful reign of Edward the Confessor a much larger general intercourse seems to have sprung up with the Continent, and the commerce of England to have greatly increased. For this we have the testimony of William of Poictiers, William the Conqueror’s chaplain, who says, speaking of the time immediately preceding the Conquest, “The English merchants to the opulence of their country, rich in its own fertility, added still greater riches and more valuable treasures. The articles imported by them, notable both for their quantity and their quality, were to have been hoarded up for the gratification of their avarice, or to have been dissipated in the indulgence of their luxurious inclinations. But William seized them, and bestowed part on his victorious army, and part on the churches and monasteries, while to the Pope and the Church of Rome he sent an incredible mass of money in gold and silver, and many ornaments that would have been admired even in Constantinople.”

We are not able to give any authentic contemporary illustration of the shipping of this period. Those which are given by Strutt are not really representations of the ships of the period: Byzantine Art still exercised a powerful influence over Saxon Art, and the illuminators frequently gave traditional forms; and the ships introduced by Strutt, though executed by a Saxon artist, are probably copied from Byzantine authorities. The Bayeux tapestry is probably our earliest trustworthy authority for a British ship, and it gives a considerable number of illustrations of them, intended to represent in one place the numerous fleet which William the Conqueror gathered for the transport of his army across the Channel; in another place the considerable fleet with which Harold hoped to bar the way. The one we have chosen is the duke’s own ship; it displays at its mast-head the banner which the Pope had blessed, and the trumpeter on the high poop is also an evidence that it is the commander’s ship. In the present case the trumpeter is known, from contemporary authority, to have been only wood gilded; but in many of the subsequent illustrations we shall also find a trumpeter, or usually two, who were part of the staff of the commander, and perhaps were employed in signalling to other ships of the fleet.

William the Conqueror’s Ship.

The Conquest checked this thriving commerce. William’s plunder of the Saxon merchants, which was probably not confined to London, must have gone far to ruin those who were then engaged in it; the general depression of Saxon men for a long time after would prevent them or others from reviving it; and the Normans themselves were averse from mercantile pursuits. In the half-century after the Conquest we really know little or nothing of the history of commerce. The charters of the first Norman kings make no mention of it. Stephen’s troubled reign must have been very unfavourable to it. Still foreign merchants would seek a market where they could dispose of their goods, and the long and wise reign of Henry II. enabled English commerce, not only to recover, but to surpass its ancient prosperity. An interesting account of London, given by William FitzStephen, about 1174, in the introduction to a Life of à Becket, gives much information on our subject: he says that “no city in the world sent out its wealth and merchandise to so great a distance,” but he does not enumerate the exports. Among the articles brought to London by foreign merchants he mentions gold, spices, and frankincense from Arabia; precious stones from Egypt; purple cloths from Bagdad; furs and ermines from Norway and Russia; arms from Scythia; and wines from France. The citizens he describes as distinguished above all others in England for the elegance of their manners and dress, and the magnificence of their tables. There were in the city and suburbs thirteen large conventual establishments and 120 parish churches. He adds that the dealers in the various sorts of commodities, and the labourers and artizans of every kind, were to be found every day stationed in their several distinct places throughout the city, and that a market was held every Friday in Smithfield for the sale of horses, cows, hogs, &c.; the citizens were distinguished from those of other towns by the appellation of barons; and Malmesbury, an author of the same age, also tells us that from their superior opulence, and the greatness of the city, they were considered as ranking with the chief people or nobility of the kingdom.

The great charter of King John provided that all merchants should have protection in going out of England and in coming back to it, as well as while residing in the kingdom or travelling about in it, without any impositions or payments such as to cause the destruction of their trade. During the thirteenth century, it seems probable that much of the foreign commerce of the country was carried on by foreign merchants, who imported chiefly articles of luxury, and carried back chiefly wool, hides, and leather, and the metals found in England. But there were various enactments to prevent foreign merchants from engaging in the domestic trade of the country. In the fourteenth century commerce received much attention from government, and many regulations were made in the endeavour to encourage it, or rather to secure as much of its profits as possible to English, and leave as little as possible to foreign, merchants. Our limits do not allow us to enter into details on the subject, and our plan aims only at giving broad outside views of the life of the merchants of the Middle Ages.

Let us introduce here an illustration of the ships in which the commerce was conducted. Perhaps the only illustration to be derived from the MS. illuminations of the thirteenth century is one in the Roll of St. Guthlac, which is early in the century, and gives a large and clear picture of St. Guthlac in a ship with a single mast and sail, steered by a paddle consisting of a pole with a short cross handle at the top, like the poles with which barges are still punted along, and expanding at bottom into a short spade-like blade. Some of the seals of this century also give rude representations of ships: one of H. de Neville gives a perfectly crescent-shaped hull with a single mast supported by two stays; that of Hugo de Burgh has a very high prow and stern, which reminds us of the build of modern prahus. Another, of the town of Monmouth, has a more artistic representation of a ship of similar shape, but the high prow and stern are both ornamented with animals’ heads, like the prow of William the Conqueror’s ship. The Psalter of Queen Mary, which is of early fourteenth-century date, gives an illustration of the building of Noah’s ark, which is a ship of the shape found in the Bayeux tapestry, with a sort of house within it. The illustration we give opposite from the Add. MS. 3,983, f. 6, was also executed early in the fourteenth century, and though rude it is valuable as one of the earliest examples of a ship with a rudder of the modern construction; it also clearly indicates the fact that these early vessels used oars as well as sails. The usual mode of steering previous to, and for some time subsequent to, this time was with a large broad oar at the ship’s counter, worked in a noose of rope (a gummet) or through a hole in a piece of wood attached to the vessel’s side. The first mode will be found illustrated in the Add. MS. 24,189, at f. 30, and the second at f. 5 in the same MS. The men of this period were not insensible to the value of a means of propelling a vessel independently of the wind; and employed human muscle as their motive power. Some of the great trading cities of the Mediterranean used galleys worked by oars, not only for warfare, but for commercial purposes: e.g. in 1409 A.D., King Henry granted to the merchants of Venice permission to bring their carracks, galleys, and other vessels, laden with merchandise, to pass over to Flanders, return and sell their cargoes without impediment, and sail again with English merchandise and go back to their own country.