294 Textiles mid Textile Materials Trades 



early as 1389 the importance of good quality of cloth in the export 

 trade had received legislative attention/ but the regulation was, for 

 the most part, left to the discretion of and execution by the towns' 

 gilds. 



In the midst of the fifteenth century one expression of the growing 

 nationalism was the substitution of a system of national regulation 

 and supervision of the cloth industr}- for the old local gild system. - 

 This national interference was progressive, and affected the clothiers 

 directly. For instance, in 1586, the poor spinners, carders and 

 winders of Somerset petitioned the Privy Council for relief from dis- 

 tress, and the Council responded by requiring the clothiers to assemble 

 and take immediate steps for setting the poor to work.^ This became 

 a common method of public relief in times of dearth; the hard times 

 1619-23 were so provided against.'* The London merchants were 

 ordered to buy up cloth as much as possible from the clothiers, so that 

 the clothiers could give relief to the dependent poor; it was held un- 

 fitting that the clothiers should at their pleasure dismiss their work- 

 people and deprive them of their Uvelihood and provoke public dis- 

 order. The public good was to be served even at their private loss 

 "till the decay of the trade be remedied."^ On the other hand the 

 clothiers were active in opposition to such arbitrary interference on 

 the part of the government. Jack of Newberry summoned two repre- 

 sentatives each from fifty-six clothing towns to Blackwell Hall and 

 they there prepared a petition against Woolsey's foreign policy, which 

 was ruining the cloth manufacture and trade; this effort succeeded 

 and free trade with Flanders and France was maintained; the Car- 

 dinal's threats and efforts to force merchants and clothiers to do busi- 

 ness at a loss were frustrated.'"' This sort of legislation was less 

 common after the Restoration. 



Summary and Comparisons. 



Effort has been made under the caption "Clothier" to analyze the 

 organization of the manufactiire and sale of cloth as shown in the 

 three somewhat distinctive cloth manufacturing sections of England. 

 It was found that in the west of the island the "clothier" was 



1 13 Rich. II, St. I, Cap. 11. 



2 See treatment in Cunningham, Growth, I, 436. 



3 Acts of P. C, 1586-7, p. 93; V. C. H., Somers, II, 411. 



" V. C. H., Berks, I, 391; Reading Records, I, 407; V. C. H., Somers, II, 312. 



5 Cal. S. P. Dom., 1619-23, 343. 



« Deloney, J. Winch, 79-81; cf. V. C. H., Berks, I, 389. 



