For far-flung enterprises and those where special arrangements with foreign countries was required, there was sharing of stock of companies, usually by merchants of the same type of goods. In joint-stock companies each member took a certain number of shares and all the selling of the goods of each merchant was carried on by the officials of the company. The device of joint stock might take the form of a fully incorporated body or of a less formal and unincorporated syndicate. The greatest joint-stock company was East India Company, chartered in 1600 to trade there in competition with the Dutch East India Company. It was given a fifteen year monopoly on trade east of the southern tip of Africa. Unlike the Muscovy Company, and Merchants of the Staple, individual members could not trade on their own account, but only through the corporate body on its voyages. Each particular voyage was regulated and assisted by the Crown and Privy Council, for instance when further subscriptions were needed, or when carpenters were needed to be pressed into service for fitting out ships, or to deal with an unsuccessful captain. Its charter retained many of the aspects of the medieval trade guild: power to purchase lands, to sue and be sued, to make by-laws, and to punish offenders by fine or imprisonment. Admission was by purchase of a share in a voyage, redemption, presentation, patrimony (adult sons of members), and apprenticeship. Purchase of a share in a voyage was the most common method. A share for the first ship cost one hundred pounds. Cash payments for less than the price of a share could be invested for ultimate redemption. Occasionally presentation or a faculty "for the making of a freeman" was granted to some nobleman or powerful member. Members' liability was limited to their individual subscriptions. Each voyage had 1) a Royal Commission authorizing the Company to undertake the expedition and vesting in its commanders powers for punishing offenses during the voyage, and quenching any mutiny, quarrels, or dissension that might arise; 2) a code of instructions from the Company to the Admiral and to commanders of ships setting forth in great detail the scope and objects of the voyage together with minute regulations for its conduct and trade; 3) authorization for coinage of money or export of specie (gold or silver); and 4) letters missive from the sovereign to foreign rulers at whose ports the ships were to trade. The first voyage brought back spices that were sold at auction in London for ten times their price in the Indies and brought to shareholders a profit equivalent to 9 1/2% yearly for the ten years when the going interest rate was 8% a year.
Town government was often controlled by a few merchant wholesalers. The entire trade of a town might be controlled by its drapers or by a company of the Merchant Adventurers of London. The charter of the latter as of 1564 allowed a common seal, perpetual existence, liberty to purchase lands, and liberty to exercise their government in any part of the nation. It was controlled by a group of rich Londoners, no more than 50, who owned the bulk of the cloth exported. There were policies of insurance given by groups of people for losses of ships and their goods. Marine insurance was regulated.
New companies were incorporated for many trades. They were associations of employers rather than the old guilds which were associations of actual workers. The ostensible reason was the supervision of the quality of the wares produced in that trade, though shoemakers, haberdashers, saddlers, and curriers exercised close supervision over these wares.Companies paid heavily for their patents or charters.
There was no sharp line between craftsman and shopkeeper or between shopkeeper and wholesale merchant. In London, an enterprising citizen could pass freely from one occupation to another. Borrowing money for a new enterprise was common. Industrial suburbs grew up around London and some towns became known as specialists in certain industries. The building crafts in the towns often joined together into one company, e.g. wrights, carpenters, slaters, and sawyers, or joiners, turners, carvers, bricklayers, tilers, wallers, plasterers, and paviors. These companies included small contractors, independent masters, and journeymen. The master craftsman often was a tradesman as well, who supplied timber, bricks, or lime for the building being constructed. The company of painters was chartered with a provision prohibiting painting by persons not apprenticed for seven years.
The prosperous merchants began to form a capitalistic class as capitalism grew. Competition for renting farm land, previously unknown, caused these rents to rise. The price of wheat rose to an average of 14s. per quarter, thereby encouraging tillage once more. There was steady inflation.
With enclosure of agricultural land there could be more innovation and more efficiency, e.g. the time for sowing could be chosen. It was easier to prevent over-grazing and half-starved animals as a result. The complications of the open system with its endless quarrels and lawsuits were avoided. Now noblemen talked about manure and drainage, rotation of crops, clover, and turnips instead of hunting, horses, and dogs. The breed of horses and cattle was improved. There were specializations such as the hunting horse and the coach horse. By royal proclamation of 1562, there were requirements for the keeping of certain horses. For instance, everyone with lands of at least 1,000 pounds had to keep six horses or geldings able for demi-lances [rider bearing a light lance] and ten horses or geldings for light horsemen [rode to battle, but fought on foot]. One with under 100 pounds but over 100 marks yearly had to keep one gelding for a light horseman. Dogs had been bred into various types of hounds for hunting, water and land spaniels for falconry, and other dogs as house dogs or toy dogs. There were no longer any wild boar or wild cattle. The turkey joined the cocks, hens, geese, ducks, pigeons, and peacocks in the farmyard. Manure and dressings were used to fertilize the soil. Hay became a major crop because it could be grown on grazing lands and required little care.
There are new and bigger industries such as glassware, iron, brasswares, alum and coppers, gunpowder, paper, coal, and sugar. The coal trade was given a monopoly. Coal was used for fuel as well as wood, which was becoming scarce. Iron smelters increasingly used coal instead of charcoal, which was limited. Iron was used for firebacks, pots, and boilers. Good quality steel was first produced in 1565 with the help of German craftsmen, and a slitting mill was opened in 1588. Small metal goods, especially cutlery, were made, as well as nails, bolts, hinges, locks, ploughing and harrowing equipment, rakes, pitch forks, shovels, spades, and sickles. Lead was used for windows and roofs. Copper and brass were used to make pots and pans. Pewter was used for plates, drinking vessels, and candlesticks. Competition was the mainspring of trade and therefore of town life.
The mode of travel of the gentry was riding horses, but most people traveled by walking. People carried passes for travel that certified they were of good conduct and not a vagrant or sturdy rogue. Bands of roving vagabonds terrorized the countryside. After a land survey completed in 1579 there arose travel books with maps, itineraries, and mileage between towns in England and Wales. Also, the Queen sent her official mail by four royal postal routes along high roads from London to various corners of the nation. Horses are posted along the way for the mail-deliverer's use. However, private mail still goes by packman or common carrier. The nation's inland trade developed a lot. There were many more wayfaring traders operating from town inns. In 1564, the first canal was built with locks at Exeter. More locks and canals facilitated river travel. At London Bridge, waterwheels and pumps were installed.
New sea navigation techniques improved voyages. Seamen learned to fix their positions, using an astrolabe or quadrant to take the altitude of the sun and stars and to reckon by the north star. They used a nocturnal, which was read by touch, to help keep time at night by taking the altitude of the stars. They calculated tides. To measure distances, they invented the traverse board, which was bored with holes upon lines, showing the points of the compass; by means of pegs, the steersman kept an account of the course steered. A log tied to a rope with knots at equal intervals was used to measure speed. There were compasses with a bearing dial on a circular plate with degrees up to 360 noted thereon. Seamen had access to compilations of Arab mathematicians and astronomers and to navigational manuals and technical works on the science of navigation and the instruments necessary for precision sailing. For merchants there were maps, books about maps, cosmographical surveys, and books on the newly discovered lands. In 1569 John Mercator produced a map taking into account the converging of the meridians towards the pole. On this chart, a straight line course would correspond to a mariner's actual course through the water on the earth's sphere, instead of having the inaccuracies of a straight line on a map which suggested that the world was flat. It was in use by 1600.
In 1600 William Gilbert, son of a gentleman, and physician to Queen Elizabeth, wrote a book on the magnetic properties of the earth. He cultivated the method of experiment and of inductive reasoning from observation and insisted on the need for a search for knowledge not in books but in things themselves. He showed that the earth was a great magnet with a north pole and a south pole, by comparing it to lodestones made into spheres in which a north and south pole could be found by intersecting lines of magnetism indicated by a needle on the stone. The vertical dip of the needle was explained by the magnetic attraction of the north pole. He showed how a lodestone's declination could be used to determine latitude at sea. He showed how the charge of a body could be retained for a period of time by covering the body with some non-conducting substance, such as silk. He distinguished magnetism from electricity, giving the latter its name. He discovered that atmospheric conditions affected the production of electricity, dryness decreasing it, and moisture increasing it. He expounded the idea of Copernicus that the earth revolves around the sun in a solar system. However, the prevailing belief was still that the earth was at the center of the universe.