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The

Ordinance of 1326.

the summons of an assembly "to consider the advisability of fixing the staple of wool at certain places within the realm "1. The sheriffs were enjoined to send bailiffs, merchants and representative burgesses from various towns to hold a conference before the treasurer and barons of the Exchequer. The document in which the opinions of the merchants are set forth has fortunately been preserved, and its recent publication throws a valuable light upon their attitude 2. They advised that two staples should be set up in England, one on each side of the Trent, and that alien merchants should trade there and not elsewhere. No foreign money was to be imported, but only gold, plate and bullion; and aliens were to be encouraged to come to our shores by the promise of speedy justice according to law merchant. The proposal, it was claimed, would bring prosperity to English towns, and security to native merchants from both losses at sea and recalcitrant debtors. At the same time it would restrain the influx of base money, and enable the king to raise loans from his own subjects instead of borrowing from strangers. The conference does not appear to have produced any immediate result, for the staple remained at Antwerp until some time after 13183, when apparently it was held at Bruges until 1320a, when it was put back at St. Omer 5 for a period of five years and then again removed to Bruges 6. But in 1326 the policy of home staples, which a few years earlier had proved abortive, was adopted through the instrumentality of Hugh le Despenser, and for two years there were no foreign staples beyond the sea. The Ordinance of 1326, which anticipated the more famous Ordinance of 1353, fixed the staple for wool, wool-fells and hides at fourteen places-eight in England, three in Ireland, three in Wales-and at these places only were aliens to buy staple commodities (wool, hides, wool-fells and tin) for purposes of export, upon penalty of

1 Letter Book E, 105.

2 See supra, p. 475 (n. 11).

3 Close Rolls, 1313–1318, p. 552. Reference to the staple at Antwerp. 4 Ibid. 1318–1323, p. 187. Certain English merchants at Bruges (1320) object to St. Omer, and "hinder merchants of the king's realm and power transferring themselves from Bruges to the aforesaid staple ".

5 Ibid. 1318-1323, p. 250.

7 Patent Rolls, 1324-1327, P. 274.

6 Ibid. 1323-1327, P. 378.

III.

forfeiting their purchases 1. Hugh le Despenser was rewarded for his enterprise by the appointment of "his town of Cardiff" as one of the Welsh staples. メ At his accession Edward III. confirmed the home staples, History of the staple but financial exigencies compelled him almost immediately under to postpone the operation of the Ordinance. Merchants Edward were allowed from September to Christmas to export wool freely, notwithstanding the Ordinance of the Staple, provided they contributed a loan in aid of the king's expedition to Scotland. The next year (1328) a parliament met at York, and considered the advisability of keeping the staple within the realm. The chief commercial towns, London, York, Winchester and others, were averse to its removal to the continent, and the king failing to overcome their opposition abolished the staple system completely in the same year at the parliament of Northampton: "It is enacted that the staples beyond the sea and on this side, ordained by kings. in times past, and the pains thereupon provided, shall cease; and that all merchants, strangers and privy may go and come with their merchandises into England after the tenor of the Great Charter" 4. For several years there was free trade, until in 1332 complaints were raised that certain merchants contrary to the Statute of Northampton had set up a staple at Bruges, where they compelled all who traded in parts beyond the seas to bring their wool and to pay heavy sums of money 5. This was possibly an attempt on the part of the Merchant Staplers to restore their monopoly, and we may perhaps connect their action with the revival of Edward II.'s Ordinance a few months later, by which the home staples were again set up within the realm. In 1334, however, they were once more abolished by a parliament held at York". In 1337 Edward III. was preparing to

1 Patent Rolls, 1324-1327, p. 269. Confirmed by Edward III. in 1327: ibid. 1327-1330, p. 98. The towns in England were London, Bristol, Norwich, York, Lincoln, Exeter, Winchester and Newcastle-on-Tyne. This Ordinance of 1326 is wrongly assigned to 19 Edw. I. (1291) in Hist. MSS. Comm. 14th Rep. App. viii. 6.

2 Patent Rolls, 1327-1330, p. 169 (1327); Letter Book E, 212.

3 R. R. Sharpe, London and the Kingdom (1894), i. 177.

4 Statutes, i. 259.

• Ibid. 362.

Patent Rolls, 1330-1334, p. 283.
Rot. Parl. ii. 377 b; Rymer, ii. part ii. 879.

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embark upon the great struggle in which the coveted prize was the crown of France, and he sought in every direction to win allies to his cause. Commercial considerations were sacrificed to political exigencies, and the staple was used as a bait to draw the great manufacturing towns of Flanders from their allegiance to the French king. A commission was appointed to open negotiations with the king's confederates, for fixing the staple of English wool without the realm1. As a result apparently of its deliberations, the bribe of a Flemish staple was held out to the count of Flanders and the cities of Bruges, Ghent and Ypres 2. For the moment the negotiations were unsuccessful; the count of Flanders remained loyal to France, and the staple was established at Antwerp. But the scruples of the Flemish were overcome when Edward assumed the French title, and still more, perhaps, by his promise to set up the staple in their dominions. Flanders joined to England by its trade in wool, to France by its feudal relation, became anew", says the historian of the Netherlands, "a shuttlecock between these two countries". Accordingly, in return for their aid the king fixed the staple at Bruges in 1340 5. Edward's commercial policy had been dictated by his political ambitions, and it was unpopular with the native merchants who recommended (1343) the removal of the staple to England. They contended that this would benefit prices, transfer the burden of losses at sea to alien shippers and prevent the influx of counterfeit money. As a more solid inducement, the king was tempted with the prospect of raising a subsidy of forty shillings on every sack of wool as export duty at the expense of the foreigner. These arguments appeared to overlook the consideration that, if foreign buyers were burdened with export duties and confronted with the risks of carriage, they would not be willing to pay their former prices. The real drawback to the staple at Bruges was that it was not free; the Flemings

1 Patent Rolls, 1334-1338, p. 428 (1337).

2 Rymer, ii. part ii. 966 (1337), 1063 (1338); Patent Rolls, 1338– 1340, p. 193. 3 Ibid. 1338-1340, p. 189 (1338). P. J. Blok, History of the Netherlands (trans. 1898), i. 137. Patent Rolls, 1338-1340, pp. 511-512.

Rot. Parl. ii. 143 a.

would not allow buyers from other countries to export wool from Flanders, in order to retain the whole supply for the home industry, and their exclusion from the market caused a fall in prices. The market was still more restricted when the larger towns, Ghent, Bruges and Ypres, excluded the smaller industrial centres. These complaints against Bruges were repeated in different years 1, and serve to illustrate the difficulties which attended the establishment of foreign staples.

Ordinance

The representations of the merchants were not without The weight in the councils of the English king, who in 1348 made of 1353. a formal complaint to Bruges 2, and eventually they carried the day. The famous Ordinance of 1353 ordered the staple of wool, leather, wool-fells and lead, to be "perpetually holden" at Newcastle, York, Lincoln, Norwich, Westminster, Canterbury, Chichester, Winchester, Exeter and Bristol in England, and a fixed number of places in Ireland and Wales 3. According to John of Reading, the king, his eldest son and others swore to make the home staples perpetual. He attributes the removal of the staple to the breach with France and the consequent danger of the seas, but the failure of peace negotiations came the following year. The Ordinance contained elaborate regulations for the organization of the home staples. Wool and other native produce intended for export were ordered to be brought to one of the appointed centres, and there weighed and sealed. When the staple town was inland, the wool was then conveyed to the port attached to it, for example, from York to Hull, and from Winchester to Southampton; and here the exports were weighed a second time by the revenue officers. In order to encourage foreign merchants to frequent the English marts, they were promised safe-conduct, and for the same reason denizens were prohibited to ship wool abroad; they were to carry it to the staple and so force

1 Rot. Parl. ii. 143 a (1343); ii. 149 a (1344); ii. 165 b (1347); ii. 202 a (1348). 2 Rymer, iii. part i. 153. 3 Statutes, i. 332. Amended and confirmed: ibid. i. 348. The importance of the staples is shown by the fact that one of the main reasons for the summons of parliament in 1354 was to amend the Ordinance: Rot. Parl. ii. 254 a. 4 Chronica Johannis de Reading, 119, 257.

to Calais.

aliens to buy their commodities in England. All commercial transactions were excluded from the jurisdiction of the king's justices and entrusted to the rulers of the staple, for every staple town was governed by a mayor and two constables. who sat with two alien assessors "to see that plain right be done to the merchant aliens". Suits were determined according to law merchant, and not common law or borough custom; also "because that merchants may not often long tarry in one place . . . we will and grant that speedy right be to them done from day to day and from hour to hour"! This novel legislation does not appear to have realized all that was expected from it; and in 1361 representatives of Calais were enjoined to meet English merchants 2. It was Removal of proposed to transfer the staple to Calais, and parliament was the staple summoned to give its advice. The Lords approved; but the Commons delayed their answer until they had conferred with the merchants, of whom some favoured the proposal in the belief that it would be a good thing for Calais, while others held a contrary opinion 4. Calais had been made the staple for tin, lead and woollen cloth in 13485, and now in 1363 it was also made the staple for wool. In 1369 the staple was ordered to be brought back to England; this, however, was not done immediately, and in any case was not intended as another experiment, but was a temporary expedient devised on account of the outbreak of war. It was again put back at Calais, for in 1375 the Commons complained against licences allowing wool to be exported elsewhere than to Calais. These complaints were repeated with extreme indignation in 1376, when the Good Parliament declared that staple commodities had been shipped to other

1 For law merchant, see supra, p. 230; this had been promised to alien traders in the Ordinance of 1326 (supra, p. 476). As early as 1320 alien merchants had sought that half the jury should consist of foreigners (Rot. Parl. i. 382 a). At Bristol the mayor of the staple was also mayor of the town (Little Red Book, i. 178); but at Exeter the two offices were kept distinct (Select Cases in the Court of Requests, p. lxxv). When the staple was removed to Calais, the local staples in England continued to serve mercantile functions relating to debt, contracts, etc.

2 Close Rolls, 1360-1364, p. 267.
4 Ibid. ii. 269 a.

3 Rot. Parl. ii. 268 a (1362).

5 Rymer, iii. part i. 158.
'Staple officers at Calais are mentioned in 1370:

Calais under English Rule (1908), 67.

8 Statutes, i. 390; Rot. Parl. ii. 301 b.

• Statutes, i. 390. G. A. C. Sandeman,

Rot. Parl. ii. 318 a.

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