Important as was the wool trade, for centuries the main source of England's wealth, its history, pertaining to the realms of commerce rather than of industry, does not concern us here, and we may ignore the raw material to deal with the manufactured article. To treat at all adequately the vast and complicated history of clothmaking would require a volume as large as this book, even if the line be drawn at the introduction of the New Draperies by Protestant refugees in the time of Elizabeth, and all that is possible here is briefly to outline that history.

The weaving of cloth is of prehistoric antiquity, implements employed therein having been found in numbers in the ancient lake-village of Glastonbury, and on other earlier sites, but documentary evidence may be said to begin with the twelfth century. By the middle of that century the industry had so far developed in certain centres that the weavers of London, Winchester, Lincoln, Oxford, Huntingdon, and Nottingham, and the fullers of Winchester, had formed themselves into gilds, which were sufficiently wealthy to pay from 40s. to £12 yearly to the king for various privileges which practically amounted to the monopoly of cloth-working in their several districts.[453] If these were the principal they were by no means the only centres of the industry. Stamford,[454] on the borders of Lincolnshire and Northants., was another; and Gloucester,[455] while dyers are found at Worcester[456] in 1173, and at Darlington[457] ten years later.

To the twelfth century also belong the remarkable 'laws of the weavers and fullers' of Winchester, Marlborough, Oxford, and Beverley.[458] These, which all closely resemble one another, and were either based upon, or intimately related to the regulations in force in London, show the clothworkers in a state of subjection for which it is difficult to account. Briefly summarised, they lay down that no weaver or fuller may traffic in cloth or sell it to any one except to the merchants of the town, and that if any became prosperous and wished to become a freeman of the town, he must first abandon his trade and get rid of all the implements connected with it, and then satisfy the town officials of his ability to keep up his new position without working at his old trade. But the most singular provision, found in all these laws, was that no fuller or weaver could attaint or bear witness against a 'free man.' Here it is clear that 'free man' is used not as opposed to a villein,[459] but as implying one possessing the full franchise of his town, in other words, a member of the governing merchant gild, or equivalent body. Probably the English cloth trade, which was very extensive during the twelfth century, was entirely in the hands of the capitalist merchant clothiers, at any rate so far as the great towns here in question were concerned, and they had combined to prevent members of the handicraft gilds of clothworkers from obtaining access to the merchant gilds. As the charter granted to the London weavers by Henry II. early in his reign confirms to them the rights and privileges which they had in the time of Henry I., and orders that no one shall dare to do them any injury or despite,[460] it may be suggested that these restrictive regulations were drawn up in the time of Stephen. For the date at which they were collected, evidently as precedents for use in London, we may hazard 1202, in which year the citizens of London paid sixty marks to King John to abolish the weavers' gilds.[461]

It is curious that most modern writers assume the English cloth trade to have practically started with the introduction of Flemish weavers by Edward III. It is constantly asserted[462] that prior to this the cloth made in England was of a very poor quality and entirely for home consumption. Both statements are incorrect. A very large proportion of the native cloth was certainly coarse 'burel,' such as that of which 2000 ells were bought at Winchester in 1172 for the soldiers in Ireland,[463] or the still coarser and cheaper Cornish burels which were distributed to the poor by the royal almoner about this time.[464] At the other end of the scale were the scarlet cloths for which Lincoln and Stamford early attained fame. Scarlet cloth, dyed if not actually made on the spot, was bought in Lincoln for the king in 1182 at the prodigious price of 6s. 8d. the ell, about £7 in modern money. At the same time 'blanket' cloth and green say cost 3s. the ell, and grey say 1s. 8d.[465] Thirty years later the importance of the trade is indicated by the inclusion in Magna Carta of a section fixing the breadth of 'dyed cloths, russets, and halbergetts' at two ells 'within the lists.'[466] Infringements of the 'assize of cloth' were of constant occurrence, and were amongst the matters inquired into by the justices holding 'pleas of the Crown'; for instance, in Kent, in 1226, some thirty merchants and clothiers are presented as offenders in this respect,[467] Henry III. at the beginning of his reign, in May 1218, had ordered that any cloths of less than two ells breadth exposed for sale should be forfeited,[468] but this order was not to take effect before Christmas so far as burels made by the men of London, Marlborough, and Bedwin (Wilts.) were concerned, and in 1225 the citizens of London were exempted from keeping the assize, provided their burels were not made narrower than they used to be.[469] In 1246 the sheriff of London was ordered to buy one thousand ells of cheap burel to give to the poor;[470] and in 1250 we find the king discharging an outstanding bill of £155 due to a number of London burellers, whose names are recorded;[471] amongst them was one Gerard le Flemeng, but otherwise they appear to have been native workmen. The burellers seem to have already separated off from the weavers, and had certainly done so some time before 1300, at which date disputes between the two classes of clothmakers were common.[472]

Apart from the burels, which were probably very similar wherever made, the cloths made at different centres usually possessed distinctive characteristics. In the list of customs paid at Venice on imported goods in 1265,[473] we find mention of 'English Stamfords,' 'dyed Stamfords,' and of 'Milanese Stamfords of Monza,' showing that this particular class of English cloth was sufficiently good to be copied abroad. It is rather a noticeable feature of the cloth trade that so many of the trade terms were taken from the names of the places in which the particular wares originated. A prominent instance of this occurs in the case of 'chalons,' which derived their name from Chalons-sur-Marne, but were made in England from an early date. 'Chalons of Guildford' were bought for the king's use at Winchester Fair in 1252.[474] Winchester itself was an early centre of the manufacture of chalons, which were rugs used for coverlets or counterpanes, and in the consuetudinary of the city,[475] which dates back at least to the early years of the thirteenth century, the looms are divided into two classes, the 'great looms' used for burel weaving paying 5s. a year, and the 'little looms' for chalons paying 6d. or 12d., according to their size. The chalons were to be of fixed dimensions, those 4 ells long being 2 yards in breadth (devant li tapener), those of 3½ yards 1¾ yards wide, and those of 3 ells long 1½ ells wide. Coverlets formed also an important branch of the Norfolk worsted[476] industry; in this case the ancient measurements were said in 1327 to have been 6 ells by 5, 5 by 4, or 4 by 3.[477] At a later date, in 1442, we find worsted 'beddes' of much greater dimensions, the three 'assizes' being 14 yards by 4, 12 by 3, or 10 by 2½,[478] but presumably these were complete sets of coverlet, tester and curtains, such as those of which a number are valued at from 6s. 8d. to 20s. a piece in the inventory of the goods of the late King Henry V. in 1423.[479] Besides bedclothes the worsted weavers made piece cloth, and amongst the exports from Boston in 1302 figure worsted cloths and worsted seys.[480] Boston, as we might expect from its nearness to Lincoln, exported a good deal of scarlet cloth, while the amount of 'English cloth' sent out is proof of a demand for this material abroad: a ship from Lubeck took 'English cloth' worth £250 for one merchant, Tideman de Lippe, and two other ships carried cargoes of the same material worth more than £200. 'Beverley cloths' are also represented amongst these exports, and coloured cloths of Lincoln and Beverley are found about this time at Ipswich paying the same tolls as foreign cloths.[481] At Ipswich also cloths of Cogsall, Maldon, Colchester, and Sudbury are mentioned as typical 'clothes of Ynglond' exported[482] and are classified as 'of doubele warke that men clepeth tomannyshete,' and a smaller kind 'of longe webbe that they call omannesete,'[483] or 'oon mannys hete.' The origin of these terms appears to be unknown, but as these were probably the narrow cloths afterwards known as 'Essex straits,' there was possibly some connection with the narrow 'Osetes' of Bristol.[484]

So far as London is concerned, the skill of the weavers at the end of the thirteenth century is shown by the variety of types of cloth which are referred to in the regulations of 1300.[485] Here we find mention of cloths called andly, porreye, menuet, virli, lumbard, marbled ground with vetch-blossom, hawes, bissets, etc. But it would seem that the English cloth makers failed to keep pace[486] with their Continental rivals, and instead of improving the quality of their goods endeavoured to keep up prices by restricting their output.[487] Edward III., seeing the need for new blood, took measures to attract foreign clothworkers[488] to England, and at the same time, in 1337, absolutely prohibited the use or importation of foreign cloth.[489] In order to stimulate the output he even withdrew all restrictions as to measures, and licensed the making of cloths of any length and breadth; but this excess of freedom soon proved unworkable. The newcomers were not very popular with the native weavers, and in 1340 the king had to send orders to the Mayor of Bristol to cease from interfering with Thomas Blanket and others who had set up machines for making cloth, and had brought over workmen.[490] The vexation against which Blanket had appealed seems to have been the regulation that every new weaving loom was to pay 5s. 1d. to the Mayor, and 40d. to the aldermen; this rule was confirmed in 1346, but annulled in 1355.[491]

Before dealing with the various ordinances by which the manufacture of cloth was controlled, it may be as well to consider the processes through which the wool passed before it reached the market, for

Having dropped into verse, we may perhaps continue in that medium, and set out the various stages of the manufacture in a poem,[493] written in 1641, but equally applicable to earlier times:—

The first process, then, was the sorting of the wool. The better quality was used for the ordinary cloths, and the worst was made up into coarse cloth known as cogware and Kendal cloth, three-quarters of a yard broad, and worth from 40d. to 5s. the piece.[497] The term cogware seems to have sprung from its being sold to cogmen, the crews of the ships called cogs; but whether for their own use, or for export is not quite clear. The alternative name of Kendal cloths was derived from the district of Kendal in Westmoreland, a seat of the industry, at least as early as 1256.[498] The mixing of different qualities of wool in one cloth was prohibited; and as it was forbidden to mix English wool with Spanish,[499] so was the use of flocks, or refuse wool, in ordinary cloth,[500] except in the case of the cloth of Devonshire, in which, owing to the coarseness of the wool, an admixture of flock was necessary.[501]

In dyeing two mediums are required, the colouring matter and the mordant which fixes the dye in the wool. The mordant most in use in the Middle Ages was alum,[502] and at Bristol in 1346 we find that only 'Spyralym, Glasalym, and Bokkan' might be used and that any one using 'Bitterwos' or 'Alym de Wyght,' which must have derived its name from the Isle of Wight, or even found with any in his possession, was liable to be fined.[503] Far the commonest dye-stuff was the blue woad, of which enormous quantities were used. The plant (Isatis tinctoria) from which this was prepared is indigenous (the ancient Britons, indeed, wore the dye without the intervention of cloth), but practically all the woad used commercially in England was imported, Southampton being one of the great centres of the trade.[504] In 1286 the authorities at Norwich came to an agreement with the woad merchants of Amiens and Corby as to the size of the packages in which woad and weld, a yellow dye in much demand, might be sold,[505] and at Bristol some sixty years later elaborate regulations were drawn up for the preparation of the woad, of which two varieties are mentioned, that of Picardy and that of Toulouse.[506] The woad was imported in casks in the form of dry balls; these had to be broken up small, moistened with water, and then heaped up to ferment; after a few days the top layer became so hot that it could hardly be touched with the hand; the heap was then turned over to bring the bottom to the top, and left till this in turn had fermented; a third turn usually sufficed to complete the process.[507] In Bristol special 'porters' were appointed to undertake and supervise this seasoning and the subsequent storing of the woad, and a further regulation compelled the merchant to sell his woad within forty days after it had been stored and assayed.[508] The setting of the woad, that is to say its conversion into dye, was also an art in itself, and it would seem that in Bristol it was the custom for dyers to go to the houses of their customers and prepare the woad-vats. Through undertaking more jobs than they could properly attend to, much woad was spoilt, and in 1360 they were forbidden to take charge of more than one lot of dye at one time.[509] Further abuses arose through the ignorance and incapacity of many of the itinerant dyers, and in 1407 it was enacted that only those dyers who held a certificate of competency should ply their trade in the town.[510] At Coventry, another great centre of the trade, complaints were made in 1415 that the dyers had not only raised their prices, charging 6s. 8d. instead of 5s. for a cloth, 30s. instead of 20s. for 60 lbs. of wool, and 6s. instead of 4s. for 12 lbs. of the thread for which the town was famous, but were in the habit of taking the best part (la floure) of the woad and madder for their own cloths, and using only the weaker portion for their customers' cloths. A petition was therefore made that two drapers, a woader and a dyer, should be elected annually to supervise the trade.[511] Some fifty years later we have at Coventry a notice of what appears to have been a medieval instance of a quarrel between a 'trade union,' the Dyers Company, and 'blackleg' firms.[512] Thomas de Fenby and ten other dyers of Coventry complained against John Egynton and William Warde that they had assembled the members of their trade and had compelled them to swear to various things contrary to the law and their conscience, as that no one should buy any woad until it had been viewed and appraised by six men chosen for the purpose by the said Egynton and Warde, and that no dyer should make any scarlet dye (grene) at less than 6s. (the vat?), or put any cloth into woad for less than 4d. or 5d. Warde and Egynton had also adopted the medieval form of picketing, by hiring Welshmen and Irishmen to waylay and kill the complainants on their way to neighbouring markets.

A list of cloths made in York in 1395-6[513] gives some idea of the colours in general use. For the first three months, September-December, blue largely predominated, but for some unexplained reason this colour almost disappeared from January to May, its place being taken by russet. Red, sanguine, morrey (or orange), plunket,[514] green, and motleys, white, blue, and green occur; also 'paly,' which was presumably some striped material, and in a very few cases black. By the regulations drawn up in London in 1298,[515] no dyer who dyed burnets blue[516] or other colours might dye 'blecche' or tawny: the reason does not appear, but this uncertain tint, 'blecche,' occurs again as reserved specially for Spanish wool.[517] For blue, as we have seen, woad was used, and for yellow weld, a combination of the two yielding green; scarlet was derived from the grain (greyne),[518] and reds and russets from madder, which was imported in large quantities. Several varieties of lichen were probably included under the head of 'orchal,' and afforded shades of brown and red. Fancy shades were formed by double dyeing, and apparently were not always reliable, as a statute[519] passed in 1533 ordered that none should dye woollen cloth 'as browne blewes, pewkes, tawnyes, or vyolettes,' unless they were 'perfectly boyled, greyned, or madered upon the wode, and shotte with good and sufficient corke or orchall.' At this time brazil, or logwood, was being adopted as a dye, and its use was absolutely forbidden.

Carding, or combing, and spinning are processes which need not detain us long. They were both home industries, and spinning, in particular, was the staple employment of the women, and accordingly regulations were not infrequently made to ensure a good supply of wool for their use. At Bristol, in 1346, no oiled wool ready for carding and spinning might be sent out of the town until the carders and spinners had had a chance of applying for it; moreover, it might only be exposed for sale on a Friday, and no middleman might buy it.[520] Similarly at Norwich, in 1532, the butchers were ordered to bring their woolfells into the market and offer them for sale to the poor women who lived by spinning.[521] When the clothmaking trade got into the hands of the big capitalist clothiers, who gave out their wool to be carded and spun, it became necessary to pass laws[522] to ensure on the one hand that the workers should do their work faithfully, and not abstract any of the wool,[523] and on the other, that the masters should not defraud the carders and spinners by paying them in food or goods[524] instead of in money, or by the use of false weights, making women, for instance, comb 7½ lbs. of wool as a 'combing stone,' which should only contain 5 lbs.[525]

Weaving was, of course, the most important of all the processes in clothmaking. Reduced to its simplest form, the weaver's loom consists of a horizontal frame, to the ends of which the warp threads, which run longitudinally through the cloth, are fastened in such manner that they can be raised and depressed by heddles, or looped threads, in alternate series, leaving room between the two layers of warp for the passage of the shuttle, charged with the woof.[526] The shuttle, flying from side to side across the alternating warp threads, covers them with woof, which is packed close by a vertical frame of rods, the lay or batten, swinging between the warp threads. To weave tight and close required considerable strength, and at Norwich women were forbidden to weave worsteds because they were 'not of sufficient power' to work them properly.[527] The cloth as it was woven was wound on a roll, bringing a fresh portion of the warp within the weaver's reach, but while its length was thus limited merely by custom or convenience, its breadth was obviously controlled by the width of the loom, and when Henry IV., in 1406, ordered that cloth of ray should be made six-quarters of a yard broad instead of five-quarters, as had always been the custom, the order had to be revoked as it would have necessitated all the ray weavers obtaining new looms.[528] For the right to use looms payments had often to be made to authorities of the town. At Winchester in the thirteenth century, every burel loom paid 5s. yearly, the only exceptions being that the mayor, the hospital, and the town clerk might each work one loom free of charge.[529] Nottingham was another town where duties were paid on looms,[530] and at Bristol, as we have seen, prior to 1355, the erection of a 'webanlam' entailed payments of 8s. 5d. in all.

To guard against false working, it was the rule at Bristol that all looms must stand in shops and rooms adjoining the road, and in sight of the people, and the erection of a loom in a cellar or upstair room entailed a fine.[531] It was possibly for the same reason that weavers were forbidden to work at night,[532] though an exception was made at Winchester in favour of the period immediately preceding Christmas.[533] On the other hand, the London jurors in 1320 coupled this ordinance against working by candle light with the enforced holiday which the weavers' gild compelled its members to take between Christmas and the Purification (2nd February)[534] as measures prejudicial to the commonalty, and intended to restrict the supply and so maintain the price of cloth.[535] A further device for the same purpose was the rule that no cloth of Candlewick Street was to be worked in less than four days, though they might easily be made in two or three days.[536] Thanks to these methods, and to the way in which admission to the gild was limited, the looms in the city had been reduced in thirty years or so from 380 to 80, and the price of cloth had risen accordingly. The authorities throughout the country were constantly in the dilemma of having on the one hand to permit the restriction of the numbers of the weavers, with a consequent rise in the cost of their wares, or, on the other hand, running the risk of inferior workmanship 'to the grete infamie and disclaundre of their worshipfull towne.' Not only were the unauthorised weavers often ignorant of their art, not having served their apprenticeship, but they used flock and other bad material, and bought stolen wool and 'thrummes.'[537] The latter were the unwoven warp threads left over at the end of the cloth, and as there was no export duty on thrums, the weavers contrived to cut them off as long as possible, and in this way much woollen yarn was sent out of the country without paying customs, until the practice was made illegal by an Act of Parliament in 1430.[538]

The cloth on leaving the loom was in the condition known as 'raw,' and although not yet ready for use was marketable, and many of the smaller clothmakers preferred to dispose of their products at this stage rather than incur the expense of the further processes. This seems to have been the case on the Welsh border, as Shrewsbury claimed to have had a market for 'pannus crudus' from the time of King John.[539] Much raw cloth was also bought up by foreign merchants and sent out of the country to be finished; and at the beginning of the sixteenth century Parliament, with its usual terror of foreign trade, seeing only that the finishing processes would be carried out by foreign workmen instead of English, forbade the export of unfinished cloth. It had then to be pointed out that, as most of these cloths were bought to be dyed abroad, and as after dyeing all the finishing processes would have to be repeated, the cost of the cheaper varieties would be so raised that there would be no sale for them; cloths below the value of five marks were therefore exempted.[540]

Raw cloth had next to be fulled, that is to say, scoured, cleansed, and thickened by beating it in water. Originally this was always done by men trampling upon it in a trough, and the process was known as 'walking,' the fuller being called a 'walker' (whence the common surname), but during the thirteenth century an instrument came into general use called 'the stocks,' consisting of an upright, to which was hinged the 'perch' or wooden bar with which the cloth was beaten. The perch was often worked by water power and fulling, or walking, mills soon became common. By the regulations of the fullers' gild of Lincoln recorded in 1389,[541] no fuller was to 'work in the trough,' that is to say to walk the cloth, and a further rule forbade any man to work at the perch with a woman, unless she were the wife of a master or her handmaid. Probably the intention of this last rule was to put a stop to the employment of cheap female labour 'by the whiche many ... likkely men to do the Kyng servis in his warris and in the defence of this his lond, and sufficiently lorned in the seid crafte, gothe vagaraunt and unoccupied and may not have thar labour to ther levyng.'[542] About 1297 a number of London fullers took to sending cloths to be fulled at certain mills in Stratford, and as this was found to result in much loss to the owners of the cloths, orders were given to stop all cloths on their way to the mills, and only allow them to be sent on at the express desire of the owners.[543] This seems to point to mill fulling being inferior to manual labour, while possibly the fulling being conducted outside the control of the city may have tended to bad work. At Bristol in 1346, one of the rules for the fullers forbids any one to send 'rauclothe' to the mill, and afterwards receive it back to be finished,[544] and in 1406 the town fullers were forbidden to make good the defects in cloths fulled by country workmen.[545]

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]

In the adjacent county of Suffolk the village of Kersey was an early centre of clothmaking, and gave its name to a type of cloth which was afterwards made in a great number of districts. The kerseys of Suffolk and Essex were exempted in 1376, with other narrow cloths, from keeping the assize of coloured cloths,[587] and just a century later the measurement for kerseys was set out as 18 yards by 1 yard.[588] Curiously enough the chief trouble with the assize of kerseys, at least in the sixteenth century, was not short measure, but over long, the explanation being that kerseys paid export duty by the whole cloth, and it was therefore to the merchant's advantage to pay duty on a piece of 25 yards rather than to pay the same duty on 18 yards.[589] Kerseys were largely made for export, and a petition against restrictions tending to hamper foreign trade was presented, about 1537, by the kersey weavers of Berks., Oxford, Hants, Surrey, and Sussex, and Yorkshire.[590] These counties were the chief centres of the manufacture, though Devonshire kerseys were also made; in Berkshire, Newbury was then the great seat of the industry, and the kerseys of John Winchcombe ('Jack of Newbury') in particular had a more than local fame. Hampshire kerseys was the generic name applied to these made in Hampshire, Sussex, and Surrey, but in earlier times the Isle of Wight had almost a monopoly of the manufacture in the district. The ulnage accounts for Hampshire in 1394-5 give ninety names of clothiers for the Isle of Wight,[591] who made 600 kerseys, and no other kind of cloth, and about a century later we find a draper complaining that when he had bargained with a London merchant for a certain number of 'kersys of Wyght' worth £6 he had been put off with Welsh kerseys worth only £4, 13s. 4d.[592]

Suffolk did a considerable trade in a cheap, coarse variety of cloth known as 'Vesses or set cloths' for export to the East; and, as it was the recognised custom to stretch these to the utmost, and they were bought as unshrunk, this class of cloth was exempted in 1523 from the regulations as to stretching cloth.[593] Possibly these Vesses were connected with the 'Western Blankett of Vyse (Wilts.) and Bekinton.'[594] Blanket is found in 1395 as made at Maldon and, on the other side of England, at Hereford, while at an earlier date, in 1360, Guildford blanket was bought for the royal household.[595] As Norwich had its 'monk's cloth' and 'canon cloth,' presumably so called from its suitability for monastic and canonical habits, unlike the fine cloth of Worcester, which, we are told, was forbidden to Benedictines,[596] so we find that the newly made knight of the Bath had to vest himself in 'hermit's array' of Colchester russet.[597] Most of the cloths made in Essex were 'streits,' or narrow cloths, of rather a poor quality, being often coupled with the inferior cloths such as cogware and Kendal cloth. Of the latter a writer of the time of Henry VIII. says, 'I knowe when a servynge manne was content to goo in a Kendall cote in sommer and a frysecote in winter, and with playne white hose made meete for his bodye.... Now he will looke to have at the leaste for Somere a cote of finest clothe that may be gotten for money and his hosen of the finest kerseye, and that of some straunge dye, as Flaunders dye or Frenche puke, that a prynce or a greate lorde canne were no better if he were [wear] clothe.'[598]

By the sumptuary law of 1363 farm labourers and others having less than 40s. in goods were to wear blanket and russet costing not more than 12d. the ell.[599] In a list of purchases of cloth in 1409, narrow russet figures at 12d. the ell, while of the other cheap varieties short blanket, short coloured cloth, rays, motleys and friezes varied from 2s. to 2s. 4d. the ell.[600] Of friezes the two chief types in use were those of Coventry and Irish friezes, which might either be made in Ireland or of Irish wool: these seem to have come into use about the middle of the fourteenth century, as in 1376 Irish 'Frysseware' was exempted from ulnage,[601] and about the same time purchases of Irish frieze for the royal household become more common, as much as nearly 3000 ells of this material being bought in 1399.[602]

With such local varieties as Manchester cottons, Tauntons, Tavistocks, Barnstaple whites, Mendips, 'Stoke Gomers alias thromme clothes,'[603] and so forth, space does not permit of our dealing, while by the limitation which we have set ourselves the 'new draperies' are excluded, and we may thankfully leave on one side 'arras, bays, bewpers, boulters, boratoes, buffins, bustyans, bombacyes, blankets, callimancoes, carrells, chambletts, cruell, dornicks, duraunce, damask, frisadoes, fringe, fustyans, felts, flanells, grograines, garterings, girdlings, linsey woolseyes, mockadoes, minikins, mountaines, makerells, oliotts, pomettes, plumettes, perpetuanas, perpicuanas, rashes, rugges, russells, sattins, serges, syettes, sayes, stamells, stamines, scallops, tukes, tamettes, tobines, and valures.'[604]