SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



and the weaving of hosiery appears to have been a Nottingham manufacture 

 in 1641, when Deering gives two framework knitters in the list of craftsmen 

 then living in Nottingham. 148 But neither machine-making nor stocking- 

 knitting seems at this period to have taken deep root in Nottinghamshire. 

 Cloth-making, on the other hand, had continued, and had probably spread 

 beyond Nottingham town itself, to judge from a petition of non-burgesses in 

 1605 for the right to weave. 149 An allusion to the industry appears in the 

 licence granted to the men of Nottingham in 1 640, to import forty chaldrons 

 of fullers' earth by sea from Rochester and Gainsborough. 160 



Another industry of which mention is made is the manufacture of 

 alabaster figures for tombs or images of saints. The best alabaster appears to 

 have been obtained from Chellaston in Derbyshire, and the trade seems to 

 have been vigorous for some time. Throughout the late I5th and i6th cen- 

 turies image-makers appear among the burgesses of Nottingham. In 1530 

 there was a dispute between two citizens concerning an alabaster head of 

 John the Baptist which required repainting. 1 " It appears that these heads 

 were usually coloured. The number of alabaster tombs in Nottinghamshire 

 churches of the I5th and i6th centuries show the prosperity of the industry 

 at this time. 



Of other trades, all those connected with leather seem to have flourished. 

 Glovers, tanners, and shoe-makers were plentiful in Nottingham in 1587, and 

 a bookbinder is also found there. 163 Bell-founding, too, seemed to be of 

 importance, and bone lace-making is mentioned in I597- 153 The importance 

 of these industries was probably small in comparison with agriculture, but 

 their existence serves to show that in Nottinghamshire, as in the rest of 

 England, there was a certain tendency towards expansion and luxury. 



Towards these developments, especially towards development in trade, the 

 political events of the i6th century may have tended. Though there seems 

 to have been much smothered sympathy in Nottinghamshire with the 

 * Pilgrimage of Grace,' the county as a whole took no part in the rising. 

 On the contrary, it was throughout held by the king's troops ; and though 

 their presence must have been exceedingly burdensome, yet it may have 

 drawn Nottingham into closer touch with the rest of England. Another and 

 more permanent cause tending in the same direction was the increased 

 importance of Anglo-Scottish relations during the i6th century. Newark, 

 Scrooby, and Tuxford were all stages on the road between London and 

 Berwick. The constant intercourse between England and Scotland during 

 the i 6th and lyth centuries resulted in Newark's becoming a post town ; a 

 circumstance which is alleged by the Newark burghers in their plea for 

 incorporation in 1626, as one cause of their growing prosperity and increasing 

 population.'" 



How far the workman shared in the prosperity which these circumstances 

 suggest is doubtful. Certainly, wages by no means increased in proportion 

 to prices, though, on the whole, the payment of the less skilled labourers 

 seems until 1560 to have been above the average. In 1501 labourers at 



148 Deering, fetus Nottinghamia, 95. '" Rec. of Borough ofNott. iv, 275. 



140 Cat. S.P. Dom. 1640, p. 532. '" Rec. of Borough ofNott. iii, 17, 82, 84, 181, 183, &c. 



1M S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxcviii, 57. la Rec. of Borough ofNott. iv, 244. 



154 S.P. Dom. Chas. I, xxvii, 42, 42 (i). 



285 



