[70] There is an account preserved in the exchequer of the exports and imports in the year 1354. The total value of the exports was £212,338. They consisted of 31,651 sacks of wool, at £6 a sack; 65 wool-fells, hides, to the value of £89; 4774 pieces of cloth; 8061 pieces of worsted stuff. The imports mentioned consist of a little fine cloth and wax; 1830 tuns of wine; and linens, mercery, and grocery to the value of £23,000. To show the severity of the wool tax, it is to be observed that on the above-named exports the duty was £81,846, or more than 40 per cent. Robert of Avesbury gives a somewhat different account. He put the exports at 100,000 sacks of wool. He is thought to have died about 1356.
[71] In 1250 a fair was held in Tothill Fields, and all the shops in London were shut.—Matthew of Paris.
[72] There were also great Italian merchants and bankers. Thus we hear that Edward III. ruined the Bardi, that the taxes at the end of Edward I. were pledged to and collected by the Frescobaldi. The extent of the German transactions may be seen by a complaint in 1348, that the Tidmans of Limburg had bought up all the Cornish tin.
[73] By the 14th Richard II. half the money they received was to be expended in the commodities of the land.
[74] For the history of guilds, see Dr Brentano’s Preface to the “Ordinance of British Guilds,” in the English Text Society.
[75] The goldsmith’s mark on all silver plate is a relic of this custom.
[76] Chaucer’s Prologue:—
“He knew well alle havans as they were,
Fro’ Gothlande to the Cape of Finnisterre.”
[77] “Quod progenitores nostri, Reges Angliæ, domini maris et transmarini passagii, totis præteritis temporibus extiterunt.”—Rymer, ii. 953.