Middlemen in English Business 275 



on the names of Jack of Newberry, Thomas Dolman, and John Ken- 

 drick; Oxford had the great Sylvester family; Somerset produced the 

 Cogan family of Chard, the Sharlands of Mells, the Mandelyns of 

 Croscombe, the Norths, Chorleys and Featherstones of Wiveliscombe, 

 the Styles, Kents and Chapmans of Bath; and so forth. ^ 



The clothier was a resident of one of the larger towns of this dis- 

 trict, — Cirencester, Tedbury, Gillingham, Malmesbury, Devizes, 

 Bradford, Frome, Banbury, Burford, Horseley, Stroud, and others. 

 The region stretched along the great western highways toward Bristol 

 and Bath. Stroud was "a sort of capital to the clothing villages."^ 

 Apart from this immediate center were many great clothing towns in 

 Worcester, Devon, and Hants. Being employers of labor the clothiers 

 thrived best in towns where laborers were concentrated. Those who 

 lived in the country raised their own wool in whole or part.^ The con- 

 test that long prevailed between the craft gilds of the towns and the 

 country craftsmen, and the severe town protectionist policy that led 

 the city masters to migrate to the country were concomitant causes 

 for this self-sufficiency of the country clothiers as to raw material. 

 Those who lived in the towns usually bought their wool from the 

 wool "embroggers."^ As the business increased in volume the popu- 

 lation became more and more engrossed in the cloth making; there was 

 a "great neglect of tillage upon many great farms, "^ much arable land 

 was converted into pasture, and the population was "mostly clothiers, 

 weavers, and spinners."^ 



Having, then, raised his wool, or bought it at the Cirencester or 

 London or other markets, or having dispatched broggers into the 

 country to buy, the clothier delivered it out weekly among the spin- 

 ners who lived in the vicinity of these clothing towns, in the country 

 and the hamlets. The spinners were paid for their work and the yarn 

 was then carried to a weaver, who was likewise paid by the clothier. 

 The yarn dealer sometimes intervened and reHeved the clothier of 

 these earlier parts of the business. And so successively through the 

 remaining processes of the manufacture — milling, dyeing, shearing, 



1 V. C. H., Berks, I, 388-9, 91; Oxford, TI, 244-5; Somerset, II, 413. 



- Pococke, II, 269. 



' V. C. H., Worces. II, 290. 



* For example, in the Prattinton MS. there were named in 1589 more than a 

 score of the clothier citizens of Worcester town who depended on the wool-buyers; 

 V. C. H., Worces. II, 290. 



' S. P. Dom., Jas. I, CXLIV, 24. 



■^S. P. Dom., Chas. I. CLXXVI, 29-40; CLXXXV, 40; CCIV, 112; CLXXVI. 

 29; V. C. H., Somers, II, 308. 



