The Story of London

by Henry B. Wheatley

By the Ordinance of Staple 27 Edw. III. (1353) ten staple towns were appointed in England, Wales and Ireland, Westminster and London together being considered as one of the ten. The staple of Bruges was removed from Bruges to Westminster by this Act.

In 1360 part of this Act was repealed. Calais[297] remained a staple till it was temporarily suppressed in 1369 (Statute 43 Edw. III., cap. 1). By this Act the staple of wool was in future to be confined to the following English ports: Newcastle, Hull, Boston, Yarmouth, Queenborough, Westminster, Chichester, Winchester, Exeter, and Bristol.

The staple towns continued to be changed, and there were great complaints made by the English in Tudor times that the staple was fixed abroad. We read that ‘the caryage out of wolle to the stapule ys a grete hurte to the pepul of England, though hyt be profitabul both to the prince and to the merchant also.’[298] The changes in the wool trade in England during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries caused an industrial revolution, the effects of which are well marked in our literature. The raw material was no longer exported, but in its place the cloth made here was sent to countries which had formerly supplied us with cloth in exchange for our wool. In consequence the number of wealthy merchants increased. With this prosperity the country became proud, and the lawgivers did all they could to foster the manufactures of the country.[299] A Statute passed in 1463 (3 Edw. IV. cap. 4) prohibited by enumeration the import of almost all wrought goods in order that ‘the English artificers may have employment.’ A similar Act was passed in the reign of Henry VIII., by which foreign books could only be introduced in sheets, so that work should be provided for the English bookbinders. The famous poem written by Adam de Molyneux, Moleyns or Molins, Bishop of Chichester, and Keeper of the Privy Seal (died 1450), which was entitled ‘The Libel of English Policy’ (1437), contains a full account of commodities exchanged between the countries of Western Europe. The full title of this important Libellum shows its object—‘Here beginneth the prologe of the processe of the Libelle of Englyshe Polycye exhorting alle Englande to kepe the see enviroun, and namelye the narowe see, shewynge whate profete commeth thereof, and also worshype and salvacioun to Englande and to alle Englyshe menne.’

The leading idea of the little book, as may be seen from the title, is that which agitates the public mind at the present time, and shows how important it is that England should keep the seas and protect the food and clothing coming to this country.[300]

In connection with the commerce and trade of the country the official weighing of goods was a matter of great importance. As far back as the Saxon period standard weights and measures were preserved in the City of London, and with these the weights and measures throughout the kingdom had to conform. The King’s great Beam or Tron was used for weighing coarse goods by the hundredweight, and the small beam or balance for silks, spiceries and goods sold by the pound weight.

The King’s weigh-house in Fish Street Hill, London, and the Tron Church in Edinburgh remind us of the old weighing machines of the country.

It was formerly the custom to allow a margin to buyers at the Tron. According to the Liber de Antiquis, in 1305 the weigher allowed the buyer a draft of four pounds in every hundredweight.

At the present day there is a survival of this custom in the tea trade and some others, for the importer gives a precisely similar ‘draft’ to the dealer, viz., one pound in every chest of tea of twenty-eight pounds.[301]

Foreigners and strangers were not permitted, as a rule, to take up their residence within the walls of London for a longer period than forty days, and were subject to several restrictions as to trade. Exceptions were, however, made from time to time with various foreign towns. Natives of Denmark enjoyed the privilege of sojourning in London all the year through: in addition to which they had a right to all the benefits of ‘the law of the City of London,’ that is, they were entitled to the right of resorting to fair or to market in any place throughout England. Norwegians had the same right of sojourning in London all the year, but did not enjoy ‘the law of the city,’ as they were prohibited from leaving it for the purposes of traffic.[302]

In February 1303 the King, by the Carta Mercatoria, granted exceptional privileges to foreign merchants, and these concessions caused great indignation among his subjects at home. A tax was exacted from these foreigners, and in 1309 the Friscobaldi were appointed by the King to receive the ‘new custom,’ and two years later he ordered their arrest for failing to render an account of the money received under that head. Their detention, however, was of short duration.[303]