A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



The fullers and sheremen were granted in 

 1585 a new constitution by the assembly — 



' For the better ordering of the Master and house- 

 holders of that occupation, and for the due diligent 

 and lawful using of their fellow townsmen and 

 neighbours who had woollen cloth to be wrought.' 



Some of the principal provisions of this new 

 constitution were as follows : 



' No fuller was to carrj- out of the town or bring in 

 any kind of work on the Sabbath day. 



' If any of the company work any of the cloth to 

 proof and do not send for the searcher to search and 

 view the same before it be delivered to the owner, he 

 be fined 6s. 8 J. 



'That no stranger take any work to do within the 

 town under pain ot 6/. Sd. 



' That if any of the company hire any man's 

 journeyman without the consent of his master, to be 

 fined 6/. Sd. 



' That if any man of the county desire to be received 

 into the town and to be free of the company he shall 

 at his entrance make to the whole company of fullers 

 and sheremen a dinner at his own cost and pay the 

 company I 3/. 4a'. 



' That if any one of the company of fullers and 

 sheremen do misbehave contrary to law by picking, 

 stealing, or fetching men's goods wrongfully, or do rob 

 any ' teyntors ' or fulling mills, the same being attainted 

 by law, he shall be expelled out of the town from 

 working any more therein. 



' That no fuller nor shereman shall work with no 

 other manner of stuffs than is appointed by the statute 

 under pain of 6s. Sd. 



' That all fines be divided between the mayor and 

 the company.' 



There were ordinances made for the fullers' 

 craft in 1452, 1464, 1511, and 1516. Accord- 

 ing to the earliest they were to meet every year 

 on St. Thomas's Day at the house of the Black 

 Friars, which was situated in the Horsemarket. 

 At this meeting they were to choose searchers 

 for the following year. The duties of these 

 searchers were to search three days or two at 

 the least every week through the said craft. The 

 oath of the searchers of textiles ran as follows : 



' Ye shall duly and truly search every week as often as 

 it needeth every householder of your occupation 

 within the franchise of this town. That they weave 

 no manner of cloth within this town or franchise that 

 shall be put to sale, but such as is sufficient and true 



drapery, and that the warp and the woof be like to one 

 colour, and sufficient stuff for the weight and breadth 

 shall be laid for. And if ye find any cloth, clothes, 

 or blankets that shall be put to sale that is not sufficient 

 colour, stuff, and workmanship in any point that 

 belongeth to the occupation, then ye shall forthwith 

 give relation to the Mayor the names of the owner, 

 and of the workmen of such cloth, clothes, or blankets, 

 without any longer concealing the same upon the pain 

 that is ordained thereof by act of Assembly be admitted 

 by assent of all the town. Ye shall not let this to do 

 for lose or promise that ye owe to do. So help you 

 God and all Saints.' ' 



Scarlet Well situated on the north-west side 

 of the old borough lies between the site of the 

 castle and St. Andrew's Priory ; it was of some 

 reputation in the beginning of the reign of 

 Henry III, the street which leads down to it 

 from the mayorholJ is called Scarlet Well Street, 

 and is mentioned in a charter of 1239.' There 

 is an old tradition that this well obtained its name 

 from the excellent quality of the water for scarlet 

 dyeing. In Morton's time cloth was sent to 

 Northampton from London to be dyed scarlet. 

 In the fifteenth century some bales of cloth 

 which had been sent to Nottingham to be dyed 

 scarlet came out of the vat a muddy-red colour 

 and were then sent on to Northampton to gain a 

 better hue. There was in Northamptom a dyer's 

 gild as early as 1274. In chapter 51 of the Liber 

 Custumarum it was ordained and provided that 

 ' if any dyster dyes the cloth of any man wikked- 

 liche and thereof be overtaken he was to lose 

 his work and be in the mercy of the Town Bailiffs 

 twelve pence for his trespass.' An early chancery 

 bill * addressed to the bishop of Bath and Wells 

 voices the lamentable complaint of Thomas 

 Wiseman of Northampton, ' deister,' that whereas 

 one ' William Belvys of the seid town mercer 

 was boundeyn by his iij Sevcrall obligacions 

 where of two were either of them of the somme 

 of c li for cloth boght by the same William of 

 the seid Thomas and the thurde of xxxiij li which 

 was for diyng and colyryngof woll,' he had never- 

 theless proved a defaulter from which sundry 

 variances had arisen. The name of the mayor, 

 William May, himself a mercer, which was 

 mentioned during the suit, helps us to assign, 

 with some probability, the bill to the end of the 

 sixth decade of the fifteenth century. 



LACE 



It is possible that a certain amount of coarse 

 lace was made in Northamptonshire as elsewhere 

 in England even before the seventeenth century, 

 but the earliest work of any artistic value which 

 has been preserved is not only comparatively 

 modern in date but plainly copied from Flemish 

 patterns, the designs of Brussels, Lille, and Valen- 

 ciennes.' Indeed, the development of the industry 



' Jackson, Hist, of Hani-made Lace, 1 84 ; Palliser 

 (ed. Jourdain and Dryden), Hist, of Lace, 384. 



in our county was certainly less extensive than 

 its progress at an early period in Buckinghamshire 

 and Bedfordshire. The improvement in design * 



' Northampton Bon. Rec. i, 369 et seq. 

 ' Ibid, ii, 256. 



* Early Chan. Proc. ^ (P.R.O.). May was mayor 

 in 1468 and the bishop of Bath and Wells chancellor 

 in this and the years closely following. 



* An early example of the Brussels pattern made in 

 Northants is figured in Palliser, op. cit. 385. 



336 



