

INDUSTRIES 



of Nottingham presented by the Newark jury in 

 1339 for receiving the wool of the county by 

 stones of 1 5 lb., and making acquittance for 

 14 lb. only; whilst Richard de Caldewell, 

 another collector, took one sack from Hugh de 

 Landford at Newark, the said Hugh having paid 

 5*. per stone for the same, and being compelled 

 to sell it to Caldewell for 2s., or go without any 

 price. 32 Caldewell further took strangers to the 

 house of the vicar of Scarle, where he took 

 wool for the king's use, and 2OJ. for himself, by 

 extortion. 83 



The names of many of the Brabant and other 

 foreign merchants trading with Nottinghamshire 

 in the 1 4th century are recorded for us in ancient 

 documents. In 1338 we find Reynere de 

 Evelane and Godefroy Kirkhere, merchants of 

 Brabant, complaining that, when they had 

 brought 12 sacks of wool of that county and 

 placed the same in the house of William Durant 

 of Newark, and delivered to him the key of the 

 said house, Stephen le Heyr, who held the king's 

 commission to take into his hands the goods, 

 lands, and chattels of aliens, took such wool from 

 Durant, and committed it to Robert Stuffyn, who 

 was by the king's order commanded to deliver 

 the same to the merchants, the king desiring 

 to be in friendship with the Duke of Bra- 

 bant. 34 



Similar complaint was lodged by Godekin le 

 Calkier, also of Brabant, the wool in this case 

 having been taken by Stephen le Heyr, who had 

 delivered the same to Stuffyn. The treasurer 

 and barons of the Exchequer however ordered 

 Stuffyn to come before them to answer for the 

 said wool or for the price thereof, the wool to be 

 restored to Godekin, because the king did not 

 wish the goods of the merchants of Brabant to 

 be so taken into his hands. 35 



Godekin de Revel and Hildebrand Suder- 

 man again, both merchants of Almain, trafficked 

 in wool of the county at this time. Orders 

 were given to the collectors of the customs on 

 wool, hides, and wool-fels in the port of Boston 

 to allow these merchants to load 200 sacks of 

 wool in that port, and to take the same to 

 Antwerp, according to the king's grant of 400. 36 

 Later, we hear of their having paid custom and 

 subsidy on the wool in question to William de 

 Northwell, keeper of the wardrobe. 37 



" Brown, Hist. Newark, \, 1 84. 



"Ibid. 121. 



M Rot. Par/, ii, \oza, b. 



" Cal. Close, 1337-9, P- 3'4-'S- 



** Ibid. 504. 



" Ibid. 575. 



Much of the wool which found its way from 

 the Midlands in the I5th century to the Flemish 

 ports should legally have been carried to the 

 staple at Calais, an economic irregularity to 

 which legislation was promptly directed in 1474, 

 when it was stated in a statute 38 that ' a great 

 multitude of wool, woolfels and fells called mor- 

 ling and shorling, growing in ... the county of 

 Lincoln, Nottingham, and Derby, and in other 

 counties . . . under the colour of the exception 

 before rehearsed in the same North parts, be 

 carried out of this realm of England unto 

 Flanders, Holland, Zealand, Brabant, and other 

 divers places.' All wool was thereby ordered 

 to be sent to Calais, whether northern or 

 otherwise. 



It may be gathered from the evidence of the 

 records of the I5th century that the wool trade, 

 in relation to that of cloth, itself at that time a 

 slight industry of the county, was inconsiderable. 

 Records of prices throughout the 1 6th and iyth 

 centuries are of the scantiest, 39 although the 

 archives of Bruges furnish evidence that in 1567 

 there was still surviving in that mediaeval ' first 

 mart of the Low Countries,' 40 if not a Notting- 

 hamshire colony of wool-merchants, at least a 

 market for the freight of certain ships from 

 Boston, in which the wool of Newark may well 

 have figured as of old. 41 



With the advent of the stocking-making 

 industry, the wool-producer in the county was 

 provided with a new market, 42 whilst the 

 numerous worsted mills which grew up at a 

 somewhat later date created a further demand 

 for this commodity. 



118 Stat. 14 Edw. IV, cap. 3. The Halifax weight 

 was occasionally used in wool transactions at this date. 

 On 1 6 Feb. 1495, Edward Jackson and William 

 Wilson, tailors, lodged a complaint with the authori- 

 ties at Nottingham against Thomas Gregg, glover, of 

 whom they had bought loo stones of fleece wool and 

 skins, paying by the weight above mentioned ^s, 8</. 

 per stone. Out of this amount they had only received 

 10 stones of fleece wool and 22 stones of skin wool, 

 and none of the remainder ; Ref. Bon. Nott. iii, 43. 



33 From 1591 to 1601, wool at Worksop averaged 

 l8/. j.W. per tod, black wool being priced higher than 

 white ; Rogers, Agric. and Prices, v, 409. 



40 Armstrong, ' Treatise on the Staple," in Pauli, 

 Denkschriften, 176. 



" Gilliodts van Severen, Bruges fort de mer, 216. 



" Henson, writing from the point of view of the 

 practical hosier, states that ' the Forest of Sherwood 

 produced a peculiar breed of sheep, small in size, 

 covered with a fleece having a wool whose staple was 

 equal to any in Europe for fineness ' ; Hist, framework 

 Knitters, 57. 



343 



