The Hanseatics purchased from the English the produce of their flocks and tillage, that is to say, wool, strong hides, corn, beer, and cheese. Wool was from the earliest date one of the chief and most important articles of their exportation from England. This was sent to Flanders and the Netherlands to be worked up. It was only later, as the English learnt to manufacture skilfully this costly produce, that the Hanseatics exported the finished goods in lieu of the raw material. The details concerning this wool trade show how many places in England were engaged in it, and how appropriately the Chancellor of England is seated upon a wool-sack as symbol of one of the main sources of England's ancient wealth. So valuable, indeed, was this wool trade that a special tax was placed upon the wool, a tax which Edward III. repeatedly farmed out to Cologne merchants for the space of several years in advance in return for ready cash.
Among the articles imported by the League we find pepper, potash, various kinds of wood adapted for building ships and making crossbows, iron and iron utensils, flax, linen, hemp, grease, fish, corn, and Rhenish wines. We even find that they imported French wines after the English had lost all their possessions in France with the exception of Calais. By their means, too, there came to England Italian and Oriental produce, such as choice spices, perfumes, medicines, metals, figs, almonds, dates, even gold dust, and jewels, with which they provided themselves at Bruges.
A very important branch of trade was that in salted cod-fish, or stock-fish as it was called, an article largely used on the Continent and in England too in the Middle Ages. With this the English were then accustomed to feed their troops when on service. Nor were even living creatures lacking among their cargoes, such as choice falcons from Norway or Livonia, for which the English nobility, who were then, as now, passionately addicted to sport, paid high prices.
Indeed, the Steelyard was one of the staple places for the export and import of all the principal necessaries of life before men had thought of the products of America.
Nor was London by any means their only depôt. It was the chief, but they also had factories in York, Hull, Bristol, Norwich, Ipswich, Yarmouth, Boston, and Lynn Regis. Some mention of them is found in Leland's "Itinerary." Under an invitation to the Hanseatics to trade with Scotland we find the name honoured in legend and song of William Wallace. In John Lydgate's poems we also meet with our Hanseatics. In relating the festivities that took place in London city on the occasion of the triumphal entry of Henry VI., who had been crowned king at Paris some months previously, the poet narrates how there rode in procession the Mayor of London clad in red velvet, accompanied by his aldermen and sheriffs dressed in scarlet and fur, followed by the burghers and guilds with their trade ensigns, and finally succeeded by a number of foreigners.
"And for to remember of other alyens,
Fyrst Jenenyes (Genoese) though they were strangers,
Florentynes and Venycyens,
And Easterlings, glad in her maneres,
Conveyed with sergeantes and other officeres,