Middlemen in English Business 279 



carried unfinished cloths to Coventry in Warwick where they were 

 sold and finished.^ 



But the total volume of cloths marketed at the above points was 

 insignificant in comparison with that carried to London. The clothiers 

 of all England sold mostly through London. Mention has been made 

 of the practice of interchanging sorts of cloth among the various sec- 

 tions of England by way of London, and the centralized organization 

 of trade that resulted. The great London market for cloth had been 

 for many centuries at Blackwell Hall.- The non-resident clothiers 

 were constrained to bring their woolens for display and sale to this 

 market, and an elaborate set of rules were adhered to in the business 

 transacted. The market did not open until Thursday so as to give 

 the clothiers from remote parts ample time to come to London after 

 Sunday. It was open from 8.00 to ILOO a.m. and from 2.00 till 

 4.00 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. A slight charge was 

 made for entering the goods. What goods were not sold by the 

 clothier during these market days were stored away in the Hall till 

 some future market when he could return or were instrusted to some 

 other clothier who sold them for him. Non-resident clothiers could 

 sell only to the freemen of the City and these freemen were prohibited 

 from selling any goods there; and this was to be the common place 

 where clothiers met the drapers and merchants, their buyers.^ Such 

 were the rules and methods of marketing prevaihng about 1660. 



The management and rules were changed somewhat in 1678.^ By 

 this date a class of factors had arisen at the Hall and the regulations 

 laid recognized them. The supervision of the Hall was bestowed 

 upon a hallkeeper, clerks and master porters, who were in turn sub- 



' Cal. S. P. Dom., 1619-23. 413; Ibid., 1627-8, 203; V. C. H., Warw. II, 255. 



-For the early history of the Hall, see Stow, A Survey of London, 277-9; 

 Maitland, London, IT, 789; Hazlitt, Liv. Com., 204; Wheatley and Cunningham, 

 London, I, 92; Hatton, New View, 599. It had a traditional history from the time 

 of the Norman conquest, but its peculiai relation to the wool and woolens trade 

 dated from the twentieth year of Richard II. At this time it was transferred from 

 private hands and became the propert)^ of the city and henceforth was chiefl\ 

 "employed as a weekly Market Place for Woolen Clothes broad and narrow, 

 brought from all Parts of this Realm to be sold there." It was early under the con- 

 trol of the Drapers' Company who held the right (since 1405) of appointing the 

 Keeper and of warehousing their cloths there. By an Act of Common Council, 

 1516, it was made the exclusive market for woolens and none were to be sold except 

 in this Hall. It was rebuilt in 1588, destroyed in the Great Fire, 1666, and rc- 

 erected in 1672, and this building lasted until 1820. 



'"Clothiers Complaint," 3, 13. 



^A.ct of Common Council, June 20, 1678. The text is given in Maitland, 1, 

 462-7; the description given below is drawn from this Act. 



