From Brabant and Zealand came madder, woad, garlick, onions, and salt fish. In the markets of Brabant were exposed for sale the wares of France, Burgundy, and Hainault, brought overland in carts.
From Ireland came wool, hides, salt fish, such as salmon, haddock, herring; limes, skins of martens, otters, rabbits, kids, etc. Scotland exported direct, without passing through London, wool and hides.
From Brittany came wine, what wine? It must have been wine of the Loire country shipped from St. Malo; salt and canvas. Iceland sent stockfish and took corn, cloth, ale, and wine.
Thorold Rogers has compiled a list of English towns which produced and exported. London is not in that list. London made nothing except for its own use; it imported all the things which we have enumerated above, but it made nothing for export. This is a remarkable fact. It proves that the City was quite early regarded as a centre of distribution.
It will be observed in this list that in matters of necessity London could do without foreign assistance altogether. The houses were built of English oak and English stone; bread, butter, cheese, meat, game, fish, ale, cider, perry, mead, salt, honey, could be made or obtained; cloth, woollen stuffs of all kinds, linen, fur, fuel, all these necessary things were provided at home. Even wine—of a kind—was made of English grapes. The poorer classes had nothing to do with foreign imports. Except for woad—and some of this was grown at home—the manufactures and industries of the country could get along very well without foreign help. The swords of Toledo and Damascus were very beautiful, but an English cutlass made out of Sussex iron by an English artificer was more serviceable in battle. The imports were either luxuries for the wealthy classes, such as wine, preserved fruit, cloth of gold, buckram, fur, etc., or they were things wanted to supplement and make cheaper home products, as wax, honey, leather, salt fish, onions, garlic, etc. For this reason the imports were not as a rule equal to the exports, and the balance of trade was in favour of London. Compare the craftsman of Edward III. with him of Victoria. The former drank brews of various kinds but all home made, the latter drinks tea, coffee, cocoa, sometimes German beer, whisky, brandy, rum, geneva, and perhaps wine, all imported. The former ate bread, bacon, mutton, beef, cheese, eggs, fish, which were all produced at home. Half of the food stuffs of the latter come from abroad. The former made everything that was wanted for the house; the latter imports everything, doors, window-frames, coffins, matches, in fact everything that can be got cheaper from abroad than at home. Cheapness has its dangers; we no longer value what it costs no effort to procure; fine wheaten bread lies unheeded in our gutters; the sense of conquest and possession is lost; the struggle is no longer for the simple needs of life but for the luxuries.
A HOUSEHOLD DINING
From MS. 28162 in British Museum.
Mention has been frequently made of Fairs. There is nothing now in existence which in the least resembles one of the great Fairs of this time. The shops, which were sheds or stalls or booths covered with canvas, were ranged side by side in streets, called after the kind of goods sold in them. Thus, there was the “Spicery,” the “Portery,” the “Drapery.” The Fair lasted for two or three weeks. It was a fair for exchange as well as for sale; the wholesale merchants frequented the Fair, exchanging silks for wool or skins; and the retailers spread out their wares to catch the people. Everything was offered for sale, while the Fair, which always contained a certain element of feasting, was amply provided with taverns, eating and drinking shops, musicians, dancers, tumblers, and jugglers. When the necessity for the Fair gradually ceased, the entertainments remained. Yet down to the ’ fifties, in the nineteenth century, among the booths there were always some which kept up the semblance of serious trade; between the toy-stalls and the gingerbread were booths of cheap books and booths of hosiery and clothing.
Let us go on to consider the conduct of the trade of London Port. And, first, as regards the English merchants. When trade begins, all the regulations of trade for its security, such as the enforcement of debts, the due carrying out of contracts and agreements, must begin at the same time. Hence there was created in every trading town an organised Chamber of Commerce, anciently called the Merchant Gild. Of this organisation I will speak in another place (see vol. ii. pt. i. ch. ix.). This Chamber or association of traders assumed, as possessed by Royal Charter, executive powers, it passed laws, regulated trade in every branch, ordered prices, received foreign merchants and cargoes from abroad, appointed the time of market, and punished offenders. The Gild may have exercised all these functions not only in a prehistoric but also in a non-historic manner. For in London we have no Merchant Gild ever spoken of.