Middlemen in English Business 265 



evil of ingrossing. The court records of the English counties contain 

 many a case where wool-ingrossers were tried. ^ In spite of all inter- 

 ference the woolman's business continued, grew, and won its legiti- 

 mate place in business, law and public opinion. Woolmen were the 

 first middlemen in the trade. During the centuries before England 

 took to manufacturing woolens she supplied Flanders with wool.^ 

 This export trade necessitated the wool-buyer and the wool merchant. 

 Both are commonly mentioned in the thirteenth and fourteenth 

 centuries in the records of the various counties. For instance, in 

 Sussex, Chichester in 1353 and Lewes in 1363 were appointed ports for 

 shipping wool;^ there were reported shortly afterward in this latter 

 town five wool-broggers, six cloth-merchants, one wool-merchant, 

 and one wool-packer."* In Essex "woolmen," Thomas Roos and Wil- 

 liam Prentys, were mentioned in 149P as connected with the export 

 trade at Billericay. The letter books of the Cely family are the best 

 possible data sho^\^ng the operations of the wool-merchant and wool- 

 buyer. The Celys bought most of their wool from a great woolman 

 named Midwinter, in Northleach, Gloucesteshire ; they also bought 

 from one John Busshe of Northleach. The wool was carried to Lon- 

 don by horse-pack and dispatched to Calais. Cely cared for packing 

 it at Northleach. Midwinter allowed Cely credit for nearly a year's 

 length.^ Cely sometimes rode out in person to buy from Midwinter 

 and someti*mes sent agents to buy for him. When woolen manufac- 

 turing gained the ascendancy over the wool export business the capi- 

 talistic services of the wool-buyer became increasingly indispensable 

 to the clothier and the wool-buyers therefore grew apace.'' 



Broggcrs. 



The operations of the various wool-buyers were so Uttle dift'ercn- 

 tiated, each one performing at different times the same business as 

 the others, that a rigid classification is quite impossible. And it is to 

 be understood in the following treatment that clear-cut distinctions 

 did not exist among the various buyers of wool. 



1 See V. C. H., Worces. II, 283, 289, and the citations there given. 

 * V. C. H., Essex, II, 381, gives the state of this trade and the effects of Edward 

 Ill's policy. 



3 Sussex, Arch. Coll. X, 70-1. 



^ V. C. H., Sussex, II, 256. 



*Benham, 97-8; V. C. H., Essex, II, 381-2. 



6 Cely Papers, pp. 11, 21, 27, 28, 32, etc. 



^Cf. V. C. H., SufTolk, II, 257. 



