462 A, D. 1297. 



intolerable, and the colledion of it impradicable ; for the king, by ad- 

 -vice of his council, direded the colledors of the cufloms to remit the 

 new duties, and take only thofe formerly eftablifhed, already fpecified 

 under the year 1282. {Staiut. 25 Ediv. I. — Madox's Hlft. of the excheq. 

 f. 18, § 5, note{t).'\ 



1298 — The people of Hull ufed to pay certain duties to the city of 

 York, and were alfo in fome degree of fubjedion to the archbifhop, till 

 the twenty-fixth year of King Edward I, when, under the appellation of 

 the king's men of his town of Kingjlon upon Hull^ they petitioned the king, 

 that their town might be made a free burgh, independent of the fliirref, 

 and have a fair and markets, with exemptions from feveral tolls and 

 impofts (now obfolete) throughout all England. They paid 1 00 marks 

 to the king, and their petition was granted. About the fame time the 

 men of Ravenfrod, or Ravenfer, obtained a fimilar grant of privileges, 

 exemption from the jurifdidion of York, from tolls, &c. And, if we 

 are to judge by the fum they paid, which was ^^300 (or 45° marks) it 

 mufl have been then a much more confiderable place than Hull *, \Rot. 



pat. 51 Hen. Ill, m. 23. — Ryley's Plac.parl. p. 646 Madox's Hiji. c.ii, 



§ 2.] 



We find an officer appointed to meafure and infped cloths in the 

 fairs throughout all England, to levy fines upon thofe whofe cloths were 

 not according to the aflife, and to account for the fines to the exchequer. 

 This officer mufl have had deputies all-over the kingdom. The origin 

 of the office is not known f, the notice of it being occafioned by the 



* Camden was miftaken, though deriving his ciates when he went to claim the kingdom of Scot- 

 information ' from the facred archives of the king- land in the year 1332, for the landing of Henry 

 ' dom,' in faying that Edward built a town, which duke of Lancafter when he came to take poflef- 

 lie called Kingflon, upon a piece of ground called fion of the kingdom of England in 1399, and the 

 Wik, purchafed by him from the abbat of Meaux ; landing of King Edward IV when he came to rc- 

 though he is pretty correft in the privileges grant- claim the kingdom in 1471, but without having 

 cd. [£nVannw, /. 578.] The new name, and ever attained any great commercial importance, it 

 probably fome new buildings ercfted in confe- was entirely deftroyed by the encroachments of the 

 quence of the new privileges, have led him to fup- fea about the beginning of the fifteenth century 

 pofe a new foundation : and his authority, which (if not indeed before the landing of Henry) ; and 

 is defervedly great, has been implicitly followed. even the place where it ftood, which was on the 



Hull, if we may truft the reprefentation of the Humber, and near the point called the Spurn, is 



archbifliop of York, was a port of commerce in not cuaftly known. [_lVa//!njhijm, p. ^^^. — Fad- 



the reign of King Athclftan. \_Fsdera, V. iv, era, V. viii, p. Sg.—Sto'W, Ann. p. 703.] But 



/. 272.] But, to come upon furer ground, Hull Hull (for the additional name of Kingllon is now 



was evidently a port of fome note at leall a cen- generally omitted) has become one of the moft 



tury before tiiis time ; we have fcen that its cuf- confiderable ports on the eaft fide of England, 

 toms amounted to j^i,o86 in the year 1282 ; and f The oflice is probably co-oeval with the law 



in the year 1294 we find a merchant of that town for regulating the breadth and goodnefs of cloth, 



one of the two fuperintcndants of all the mer- which is at lead as old as the reign of Richard 1. 



cantile payments in England. [See above, pp. 358, There arc fome inflances (in Madox's H'ljl. c. 14, 



371, 437, 454.) I find no record of the trade of J 15) of people being fined in the reigns of John 



Kavenliod, nor indeed any mention of it whatever and Henry HI for their cloths being over-ftretch- 



before this time. After being noted in hillory for cd and under breadth. 

 4he embarkatiuu of Edward Balliol and his alFo- 



