For cleansing the cloth use was made of the peculiar absorbent earth known as Fuller's earth, or 'walkerherth,'[546] as it was sometimes called. Fuller's earth is only found in a few places, the largest deposits being round Nutfield and Reigate,[547] and on account of its rarity and importance its export was forbidden.
The cloth, having been fulled, had to be stretched on tenters to dry, and references to the lease of tenter grounds are common in medieval town records.[548] A certain amount of stretching was legitimate and even necessary,[549] but where the cloth belonged to the fuller, and it was a common practice for fullers to buy the raw cloth, there was a temptation to 'stretch him out with ropes and rack him till the sinews stretch again'[550] so as to gain several yards. As a result of this practice, which greatly impaired the strength of the cloth, 'Guildford cloths,' made in Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire, lost their reputation, and in 1391 measures had to be taken to restore their good name by forbidding fullers, or other persons, to buy the cloth in an unfinished state.[551] Several other Acts were passed dealing with this offence, and during the sixteenth century ordinances were issued against the use of powerful racks with levers, winches, and ropes. Infringements of these Acts were numerous,[552] and as an example of the extent to which cloths were stretched we may quote a return from Reading in 1597, which mentions one cloth of thirty yards stretched with 'a gyn and a leaver with a vice and a roape' to thirty-five yards, and another stretched with a rope 'to the quantitye of three barrs length—every barr contayneth about 2½ yards.'[553]
On leaving the fuller the cloth passed into the hands of the rower, whose business it was to draw up from the body of the cloth all the loose fibres with teazles. Teazles, the dried heads of the 'fuller's thistle,' are mentioned amongst the goods of some of the Colchester cloth-workers in 1301,[554] were used from the earliest times, and have never been supplanted even in these days of machinery. Several unsuccessful attempts have been made to invent substitutes, and in 1474 the use of iron cards, or combs, instead of teazles, had to be forbidden.[555] The loose portions of the cloth thus raised by the teazles were next cut off by the shearman, upon whose dexterity the cloth depended for the finish of its surface, and, after the drawer had skilfully repaired any small blemishes, the cloth was ready for sale.
In view of the multiplicity of processes involved, it is obvious that the manufacture of cloth must have afforded employment to an immense number of persons. An account written in Suffolk just over the borders of our medieval period, in 1618, reckons that the clothier who made twenty broad cloths in a week would employ in one way and another five hundred persons.[556] But even at that time, when the capitalist clothier was firmly established, there were not very many with so large an output as twenty cloths a week, and in earlier times there were very few approaching such a total. The ulnager's accounts[557] of the duties paid on cloths exist for most counties for the last few years of Richard II., and throw considerable light on the state of the trade. In the case of Suffolk for the year 1395, we have 733 broad cloths made by about one hundred and twenty persons, of whom only seven or eight return as many as twenty cloths; the chief output, however, was narrow cloth, made in dozens (pieces of 12 yards, a 'whole cloth' being 24 yards); of these 300 makers turned out about 9200, fifteen of their number making from 120 to 160 dozens each. In the case of Essex there is more evidence for the capitalist clothier, as at Coggeshall the 1200 narrow cloths are assigned to only nine makers (the largest items being 400, 250, and 200 dozens), while Braintree, with 2400 dozens had only eight makers, of whom two pay subsidy on 600 dozens each and one on 480. The great clothiers, however, at this time are found in the west, at Barnstaple, where John Parman paid on 1080 dozen, and Richard Burnard on 1005, other nine clothiers dividing some 1600 dozens between them. For the rest of Devonshire, sixty-five makers account for 3565 dozens, or rather over fifty a piece. If Devon stood at one end of the scale its next-door neighbour was at the other, for Cornwall's total output was only ninety cloths, attributed to thirteen makers. At Salisbury the year's output of 6600 whole cloths was divided between 158 persons, only seven of whom accounted for more than 150 each, while at Winchester, where over 3000 cloths are returned, only three clothiers exceeded the hundred, and men of such local prominence as Robert Hall and 'Markays le Fayre'[558] had only eighty and forty to their respective accounts. Throughout Yorkshire the average does not seem to have been above ten cloths, and in Kent, a stronghold of the broad cloth manufacture, only one clothier exceeded fifty dozens, and only three others passed twenty-five. The whole evidence seems to limit the spheres of influence of the capitalist clothiers to a few definite towns prior to the beginning of the fifteenth century. But the latter half of the fifteenth century saw the rise of the great clothiers such as John Winchcombe,[559] the famous 'Jack of Newbury,' and the Springs of Lavenham,[560] employers of labour on a scale which soon swamped the small independent clothworkers, and drew them into a position of dependence.
Skill and industry in the cloth trade had always been assured of a good return, and when combined with enterprise had often led to wealth; but there have always in all times and all places been men who would try the short cut to fortune through fraud; and the openings for fraud in the cloth trade were particularly numerous. 'Certayne townes in England ... were wonte to make theyre clothes of certayne bredth and length and to sette theyre seales to the same; while they kept the rate trulye strangers dyd but looke over the seale and receyve theyre wares, wherebye these townes had greate vente of theyre clothes and consequently prospered verye welle. Afterwards some in those townes, not content with reasonable gaynes but contynually desyrynge more, devysed clothes of lesse length, bredthe and goodnes thanne they were wonte to be, and yet by the comendacioun of the seale to have as myche monye for the same as they had before for good clothes. And for a tyme they gate myche and so abused the credythe of theyr predecessours to theyre singulere lukere, whiche was recompensede with the losse of theyre posterytye. For these clothes were founde fawltye for alle theyre seale, they were not onelye never the better trustede but myche lesse for theyre seale, yea although theyre clothes were well made. For whanne theyr untruth and falshede was espyede than no manne wolde buye theyre clothes untylle they were enforsede and unfoldede, regardynge nothynge the seale.'[561]
This complaint, written in the time of Henry VIII., is borne out in every detail by the records of Parliament and of municipalities. Regulations were constantly laid down for ensuring uniformity, and officials called ulnagers[562] were appointed to see that they were obeyed, no cloth being allowed to be sold unless it bore the ulnager's seal. The assize of cloth issued in 1328[563] fixed the measurements of cloth of ray at 28 yards by 6 quarters, and those of coloured cloths at 26 yards by 6½ quarters, in the raw state, each being 24 yards when shrunk. The penalty for infringement of the assize was forfeiture.[564] This assize, which was confirmed in 1406, repealed next year, but reaffirmed in 1410,[565] applied only to broad cloths, but in 1432 it was laid down[566] that narrow cloths called 'streits' should be 12 yards by 1 yard, when shrunk; if smaller they were not forfeited, but the ulnager cut the list off one end, to show that it was not a whole cloth, and it was sold as a 'remnant' according to its actual measure. In the case of the worsteds or serges of Norfolk, four different assizes were said in 1327 to have been used from time immemorial, namely, 50, 40, 30, and 24 ells in length;[567] but as early as 1315 merchants complained that the cloths of Worsted and Aylesham did not keep their assize, 20 ells being sold as 24, 25 ells as 30, and so on.[568] In the western counties, Somerset, Gloucester, and Dorset, fraudulent makers were in the habit of so tacking and folding their cloths that defects in length or quality could not be seen, with the result that merchants who bought them in good faith and took them to foreign countries were beaten, imprisoned and even slain by their angry customers 'to the great dishonour of the realm.' It was therefore ordered in 1390 that no cloth should be sold, tacked, and folded, but open.[569] The frauds in connection with stretching Guildford cloths have already been referred to, and in 1410 we find that worsteds which had formerly been in great demand abroad were now so deceitfully made that the Flemish merchants were talking of searching, or examining, all the worsted cloths at the ports of entry. To remedy this 'great slander of the country,' the mayor and his deputies were given the power to search and seal all worsteds brought to the worsted seld, or cloth market, and regulations were made as to the size of 'thretty elnys streites' (30 ells by 2 quarters), 'thretty elnys brodes' (30 ells by 3 quarters), 'mantelles, sengles, doubles et demy doubles, si bien les motles, paules, chekeres, raies, flores, pleynes, monkes-clothes et autres mantelles' (from 6 to 10 ells by 1¼ ell), and 'chanon-clothes, sengles, demy doubles et doubles' (5 ells by 1¾), the variety of trade terms showing the extent of the industry.[570] A similar complaint of the decay in the foreign demand for worsteds owing to the malpractices of the makers was met in 1442 by causing the worsted weavers of Norwich to elect annually four wardens for the city, and two for the county to oversee the trade.[571] Half a century later, in 1473, English cloth in general had fallen into disrepute abroad, and even at home, much foreign cloth being imported: to remedy this general orders were issued for the proper working of cloth, the maintenance of the old assize, and the indication of defects, a seal being attached to the lower edge of any cloth where there was any 'raw, skaw, cokel or fagge.'[572]
The last-mentioned statutes of 1473 give the measurements of the cloths as by the 'yard and inch.' Originally it would seem to have been customary when measuring cloth to mark the end of each yard by placing the thumb on the cloth at the end of the clothyard, and starting again on the other side of the thumb. Readers of George Eliot will remember that the pedlar, Bob Salt, made ingenious use of his broad thumb in measuring, to the detriment of his customers; and the London drapers in the fifteenth century claimed to buy by the 'yard and a hand,' marking the yards with the hand instead of with the thumb, and thereby scoring two yards in every twenty-four.[573] Although this was forbidden in 1440, the use being ordered of a measuring line of silk, 12 yards and 12 inches long, the end of each yard being marked an inch, it evidently continued in practice, as the 'yarde and handfull' was known as London measure at the end of the sixteenth century.[574]
The last years of the medieval period of the woollen industry, which we take as terminating with the introduction of the 'New Draperies' by foreign refugees early in the reign of Elizabeth, are chiefly concerned with the rise of the town clothiers at the expense of the small country cloth workers, assisted by Acts which restricted, or at least aimed at restricting, the industry to corporate boroughs and market towns, and prohibited any from setting up in trade without having passed a seven years' apprenticeship.[575] Infringements of these laws were frequent, and, thanks to the system of granting a portion of the fines inflicted to the informer, accusations were constantly levelled against clothiers for breaking the various regulations with which the trade was hedged about.[576] Many of the charges fell through, and in some cases they look like blackmail, but that offences were sufficiently plentiful is clear. For the one year, 1562, as many as sixty clothiers from Kent alone, mostly from the neighbourhood of Cranbrook and Benenden, were fined for sending up to London for sale cloths deficient in size, weight, quality, or colour.[577] An absolute fulfilment of all the regulations was possibly no easy thing, for although cloths which had been sealed by the ulnager in the district where they were made were not supposed to pay ulnage in London the makers preferred as a rule to pay a halfpenny on each cloth to the London searchers rather than risk the results of too close a scrutiny.[578]
Of the many local varieties of cloth made in England that which derived its name from the village of Worsted in Norfolk was, on the whole, the most important. We have seen that by the end of the thirteenth century worsted weaving was well established in Norfolk, and particularly in Norwich, and that worsted serges and says were articles of export, while a century later the forms in which these cloths were made up were very varied. Norwich continued to hold the monopoly of searching and sealing worsteds, wherever made, until 1523, when the industry had grown to such an extent in Yarmouth that the weavers of that town were licensed to elect a warden of their own to seal their cloth; the same privilege was granted to Lynne, provided there were at least ten householders exercising the trade there; but in all cases the cloths were to be shorn, dyed, coloured, and calendered in Norwich.[579] When the art of calendering worsteds, that is to say giving them a smooth finish by pressing, was introduced in Norwich is uncertain, but in the second half of the fifteenth century the 'fete and misterie of calendryng of worstedes' in London was known only to certain Frenchmen. An enterprising merchant, William Halingbury, brought over from Paris one Toisaunts Burges, to teach the art to English workers, and, in revenge, one of the London French calenders endeavoured to have Halingbury arrested on his next visit to Paris.[580] At the beginning of the sixteenth century a process of dry calendering with 'gommes, oyles and presses' was introduced, by which inferior worsteds were made to look like the best quality, but if touched with wet they at once spotted and spoiled. The process was therefore prohibited in 1514, and at the same time the practice of wet calendering was confined to those who had served seven years' apprenticeship, and had been admitted to the craft by the mayor of Norwich or the wardens of the craft in the county of Norfolk.[581]
In 1315 cloths of Aylsham (in Norfolk) are coupled with those of Worsted as not conforming to the old assize,[582] and at the coronation of Edward III. some 3500 ells of 'Ayllesham' was used for lining armour, covering cushions and making 1860 pennons with the arms of St. George.[583] But as Buckram and Aylsham are constantly bracketed together,[584] being used, for instance, in 1333 for making hobby horses (hobihors) for the king's games,[585] presumably at Christmas, it would seem that Aylshams were linen and not woollen, especially as 'lynge teille de Eylesham' was famous in the fourteenth century.[586]