Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 1. Green Alice Stopford
possibly oysters, see Hudson’s Norwich Leet Jurisdiction (Selden Society), 62, 63, 65. The practice of forestalling, carried to so great an extent as is here and elsewhere described, doubtless implied buying for the foreign market.
144
Hunt’s Bristol, 74, 94-96.
145
Schanz, i. 328. For St. Mary’s Gild in York see Hist. MSS. Com. i. 109, 110. This “mystery of Mercers,” or “Community of Mercers” in York formed into a body with a governor in 1430 – in fact, became a company of Merchant Adventurers. (Gross, ii. 280.) The Shipmen’s Guild of Holy Trinity in Hull drew up its constitution in 1369, but got its first royal grant in 1443. The Merchant Guild of S. George also dates from the fifteenth century. (Lambert’s Guild Life, 128-131, 156-161.)
146
In 1422 a writ was issued by the Privy Council to permit a Bristol merchant to take two vessels laden with cloth, wine, salt, and other merchandise not belonging to the Staple. The cloth and wine were to be sold, and meat, hides, salmon, herrings, and fish to be bought, and the salt used for salting these provisions. Proc. Privy Council, ii. 322-3.
147
When Taverner built his ship for the Mediterranean trade he got no reduction of tolls, but had to pay the high export dues fixed for foreigners. Schanz, i. 367.
148
Keutgen, 79; Plummer’s Fortescue, 232-3.
149
Eng. Chron. 1387-1461, 113. French pirates “whirling on the coasts so that there dare no fishers go out,” (Paston Letters, iii. 81) behave “as homely as they were Englishmen.” (Ibid. i. 114-116.)
150
For the frequent disputes in the reign of Henry the Fourth see Hist. MSS. Com. v. 443. In 1419, when some Bristol merchants had seized vessels belonging to the Genoese, the King sent a messenger to choose for him a portion of the prize, for which, however, he promised honestly to pay the merchants. Proc. Privy Council, ii. 267. The mayor of Lynn attended by two proctors travelled with the King’s embassy to Bruges in 1435 “for the worship of the town” as its representative to declare the wrongs done to Lynn merchants “by the master of Pruce and his subjects and by them of the Hanse.” Hist. MSS. Com., xi. 3, 163; Polydore Vergil, 159; Davies’ Southampton, 252-3, 275, 475.
151
Stubbs, ii. 314, iii. 57, 65; Plummer’s Fortescue, 235-7. From time to time money was collected for the protection of trade; (Nott. Rec. ii. 34-36). In 1454 Bristol gave £150 for this purpose – the largest sum given by any town save London. (Hunt’s Bristol, 97-8.)
152
Rymer’s Fœdera, viii. 470.
153
Debate of Heralds, 49. In 1488 a letter from London to the money-changer Frescobaldo, at Venice, told that Flanders galleys which left Antwerp for Hampton fell in with three English ships, who commanded them to strike sail, and though they said they were friends, forced them to fight. Eighteen English were killed. But on the complaint of the captain of the galleys the King sent the Bishop of Winchester to say he need not fear, as those who had been killed must bear their own loss and a pot of wine would settle the matter. Davies’ Southampton, 475.
154
See Libel of English Policy, Pol. Poems and Songs, ii. 164-5. For complaints in 1444 and 1485 see Rot. Parl. v. 113.
155
Libel of English Policy, Pol. Poems and Songs, ii. 159. Capgrave de Illust. Henricis, 135. A man at Canterbury was accused in 1448 of saying that the king was not able to bear the fleur-de-lys nor the ship in his noble. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 455.)
156
Heralds’ Debate, 17.
157
Schanz, ii. 27.
158
4 H. VII. cap. x.; Schanz, i. 368-9. Encouragement was also given to building of English ships – as for example by remission of tolls on the first voyage (Schanz, ii. 591).
159
Keutgen, 55, etc.
160
Ibid. 54.
161
Schanz, i. 332; ii. 575. A list of the charters granted to them follows, ibid. 575-8. See also treaty given, ibid. 159.
162
Ibid. i. 339, 340.
163
Ibid. ii. 162.
164
Ibid. i. 340.
165
1500; Schanz, ii. 545-7.
166
In 1505. Henry VII. issued regulations for the Merchant Adventurers. They might meet
167
Schanz notes the settlement in Antwerp as one of the most critical turning points of English industrial and commercial history (i. 339). The movement had well begun in the fourteenth and early part of the fifteenth centuries, but the real influx of English traders was from 1442-4 (ibid. i. 9). For the treaties with the Duke of Burgundy in 1407 concerning English traders in Flanders, Rymer’s Fœdera, viii. 469-78.
168
Schanz, ii. 577, 581, 582.
169
Ibid. i. 343, 344.
170
12 Henry VII. c. 6.
171
Wheeler, Treatise of Commerce, 19, 23.
172
“Déjà au quinzième siècle les Écossais avaient à Veere en Zélande un dépôt pour leurs marchandises, administré par un ‘Conservator.’ Sir Thomas Cunningham remplit cet office jusqu’à sa mort en 1655, et ce ne fut que le 28 novembre, 1661 (
173
Libel of English Policy. Pol. Poems and Songs, ii. 180, 181. See Hist. MSS. Com. x. 4, 445-6. William Mucklow, merchant at London, sent commissions to his son Richard at Antwerp; a Richard Mucklow was warden of S. Helen’s, Worcester, either in 1510 or 1519 (446). An account book of Wm. Mucklow, merchant, “in the Passe Mart at Barro, Middleburg, in the Synxon Mart at Antwerp, in the Cold Mart and in Bamys Mart,” in 1511 records sales of white drapery and purchase of various goods – a ball battery, fustian, buckram, knives, sugar, brushes, satin, damask, sarsenet, velvet, pepper, Yssyngham cloth, spectacles, swan’s feathers, girdles, “socket,” treacle, green ginger, ribands, brown paper, Brabant cloth, pouches, leather, buckets, “antony belles,” “sacke belles,” sheets, &c.; and the names of the vessels in which the goods were shipped.
174
Rot. Parl. iv. 126; Schanz, i. 443-445. For English reprisals, 27 H. VI. cap. i.; 28 H. VI. cap. i.; 4 Ed. IV. cap. 5.
175
Schanz, ii. 191-3, 203-6. Negotiations were still going on in 1499 as to the trade disputes between Henry the Seventh, the Archduke, and the Staple at Calais (Schanz, ii. 195-202). The main point in dispute was allowing English cloths to be cut in the Netherlands for making clothes.