D. The Origin and Early History of the Fellowship of the Merchant Adventurers.
The Fellowship of Merchant Adventurers has the distinction of holding the first place, not only in England, but in Western and Central Europe, as the pioneer of great trading corporations. The Gilds of the Middle Ages were municipal and local institutions. The Hansa League in Germany was a bond, not between merchants dealing in particular wares, but between a group of towns.
England in the fourteenth century had no manufactures. Her only industries were cattle-breeding and agriculture; her exports were raw materials, chiefly wool. English wool was famed for its quality, and was much sought after by the cloth weavers of the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. The trade was almost entirely in the hands of the Hansa and of Italians, who sent over agents to England to buy up the wool and export it to the Continent. In England itself, before a.d. 1300, the sale of the best wool, that of the royal flocks and of the great landowners, was conducted under the royal licence by an official body or group of merchants, known as 'Merchants of the Staple'. A Staple (stabile emporium) was a place set apart for the export and import of certain articles; and there were ten or a dozen English towns, known as Staple Towns—among them Newcastle, York, Norwich, Westminster, and Bristol—where alone the wool traffic could be carried on. Also on the Continent there was a Staple Town, which was the recognized centre of the foreign trade, having exclusive rights. No wool could legally be shipped from England to any other port. During almost the whole of the fourteenth century the Staple was at Bruges. The institution by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, of the famous Order of the Golden Fleece, at Bruges in 1430, had a direct reference to the English wool, which had so much contributed to the town's prosperity. By that date, however, a change had already taken place in England. Flemish refugees had, during the troubled times of the Arteveldes, fled across the Channel, taking with them their skill in the textile industries. Many of them settled at Norwich, then one of the Staple towns, and introduced the art of cloth-weaving. Only the coarser fabrics, rough white cloths, baize, and kersey, were produced, and these were sent over to Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, and other places, to be finished and dyed. To a monopoly of this trade the Staple Company, which had in 1359 removed from Bruges to Calais, had no claim, and the exporting of cloth fell into other hands. Enterprising English traders, under the name of Merchant Adventurers, had already begun to visit foreign countries with their wares, the pioneers of a commerce which was one day to encircle the world. Their first official recognition came from the Kings of the house of Lancaster. By a letter patent of Henry IV, 1407, they were granted the privilege of appointing a governor or consul to represent them in certain towns, where they traded. Their consolidation into an organized society appears to have been a gradual process, and little is known of the actual steps by which the court or central governing body of the Merchant Adventurers came into being, but in the middle of the fifteenth century it was in existence, and at the same time Antwerp became the port to which exclusively their goods were sent and from which they were distributed to other parts of the continent—in other words, their Staple. At Antwerp a wharf, warehouse, and dwellings were erected for their use, and extensive privileges granted to them, including a certain autonomous jurisdiction.
The Charter which constituted them into an organized corporation was granted by Henry VI in 1462. By this Charter the Fellowship obtained the monopoly of the trade in woollen goods, at least all traders who were not members of the Fellowship had to pay a tax for their privilege, low at first, but which at the end of the century had risen so high as to be practically prohibitive. By this Charter the right of jurisdiction at Antwerp was confirmed and placed in the hands of a court consisting of a governor and twelve assistants, the governor being appointed by the King, the assistants elected by the members. Shortly after the granting of this Charter the activity of the Adventurers at Antwerp aroused the hostility of the Flemish weavers, and Duke Philip the Good was induced by their complaints to forbid in 1464 the importation of English woollen goods into his dominion. They had therefore for awhile to withdraw to Utrecht. On Philip's death in 1467 the interdict was removed, and Antwerp again became the Staple of the Adventurers, and was to be their home for wellnigh two centuries.
The period of the greatest prosperity of the Fellowship was the sixteenth century, the period of the Tudors. This prosperity was built up on the privileges and monopoly granted to them by the Charter of Henry VII in 1501, which was extended in 1505 and remained in force until the reign of James I. The governing body consisted of a governor and twenty-four assistants, elected by the 'General Court', as the whole assembly of members was styled. This governing body had extensive powers, legislative, executive, and judicial. Their jurisdiction over the members was not confined to civil actions, but they had the power of inflicting heavy fines and even imprisonment for criminal offences. To become a member—'a free and sworn brother'—of the Fellowship an apprenticeship of not less than eight years had to be served, except in the case of sons of members; and proof had to be given of English birth and parentage. A 'brother' who married a foreigner or acquired foreign property was disqualified.
Four times a year the ships of the Fellowship gathered at London and sailed to Antwerp, carrying a cargo of half-finished white cloths, kerseys, and baize. The merchants themselves had to accompany their goods, for it was prescribed 'that every one must sell his own wares'. These sales could only take place in the Court-house, and only three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The carrying out of these regulations and jurisdiction within the Staple was entrusted to a secondary governing body or court consisting, like the head body in London, of an elected governor and assistants. The great rival of the Adventurers had been the Staple Company and the Hansa League, but both these bodies became in the sixteenth century decadent, and with the capture of Calais in 1558 the Staple Company ceased to exist. But though the loss of Calais made Antwerp more than ever the centre of the English continental trade, troubles were in store for the Merchant Adventurers.
With the accession of Elizabeth disputes arose between the English and Spanish Governments about the interpretation of the treaty of commerce, known as the Magnus Intercursus, concluded in 1496 between Henry VII and Philip the Fair. Margaret of Parma, the Governor of the Netherlands, took in 1563 the strong step of forbidding the entrance of English goods into the Netherlands. Elizabeth replied by closing the English harbours to ships from the Netherlands. For about a year this state of things spelt ruin to the Adventurers, but no less so to Antwerp. In 1564, accordingly, an understanding was reached, and the Court once more returned to its old quarters on the Scheldt. But for a brief space only. The outbreak of the Revolt led to the banishment of the Adventurers from the Netherlands, and at the end of 1564 they left Antwerp finally.
Shut out from the Netherlands, the Fellowship now tried to set up their Staple further north in the region dominated by their chief rivals the Hansa League. At first they found a resting-place at Emden, but in 1567 they were tempted by an invitation from Hamburg to set up their Court in that great seaport, from whence by the Elbe they had access to the German market. Hamburg thus played for its own profit the part of traitor to the League, of which it was one of the foremost members. The residence at Hamburg lasted ten years, but the bitter opposition of the Hansa to their presence proved too strong, and by an Imperial decree of Rudolph II they were in 1577 banished from German soil. The energies of the Adventurers were now diverted into different channels, small factories being placed at Stade, Emden, and even at Elbing near Dantzic. A more important move was the attempt to re-enter the Netherlands by the erection of a subsidiary court at Middelburg in 1582. Holland and Zeeland had now practically freed themselves from Spanish rule, and Middelburg, on the island of Walcheren, was the capital of Zeeland, and at that time a flourishing port. With the growth of the United Provinces in power and wealth, it was clearly the best policy of the Fellowship to establish its chief Staple and Court within the boundaries of the Republic. There were many claimants, among them Groningen, Delft, and Rotterdam. But after many negotiations, an influential deputation sent by Middelburg in January, 1598, to London, decided the choice of the English Government and of the General Court of the Adventurers in favour of making this town their sole Staple upon the Continent, and the seat of their Great Court. Many points concerning the rights and privileges to be enjoyed, together with the restrictions imposed, were the subject of much discussion before the terms of the agreement was finally settled between the town of Middelburg, the States of Zeeland, and the States-General on the one hand, and the English Privy Council and the governing body of the Fellowship on the other. The principal conditions were that the Adventurers should carry on their entire business within the Republic at the one Staple-town, and all English subjects were forbidden to bring woollen goods to any other port of the United Provinces. Their later history is told in the lectures that precede. The Staple and Court remained at Middelburg from 1598 to 1621; at Delft from 1621 to 1634; at Rotterdam from 1634 to 1656; at Dordrecht from 1656 to 1665. After the close of the Second English War the States-General in 1668 refused to grant the Adventurers their old privileges, and the long connexion with the Netherlands ceased.