620 A. D. 1408. 



The frequent fquabbles between the cities and villages of Flanders and 

 Brabant, refpedling the right of the villages to make woollen cloth, had 

 driven many of the manufadurers to take refuge in England and Hol- 

 land, and especially in the later, whereby the towns of that province 

 were greatly increafed in magnitude and population. The Hollanders 

 alfo engaged in maritime commerce : but their trade was much infeft- 

 ed by piratical veffels fitted out by their neighbours of Eaft Frifeland. 

 The earl and the barons, thinking themfelves not at all interefled in the 

 profperity of the commerce of their country, ufed to pay no attention 

 to thofe depredations ; and they went on with impunity, till the citizens 

 of Amfterdam and fome other places in North Holland, with the aflifl- 

 ance of thofe of Lubeck, Hamburgh, and Campen, cleared the fea of 

 thofe pirates *. 



1409, May — The magiftrates of Norwich were authorized to infpedl 

 and meafure all worfled fluffs made in their own city and in all Nor- 

 folk, and to affix their feal, without which they Ihould not be offered 

 for fale f . [Cotton's Abridgement, p. 474.] 



Augufl 23'' — King Henry granted permiflion to the nierchants of 

 Venice to bring their carracks, gallies, and other veffels, loaded with 

 merchandize, into the ports of England and his other dominions, to 

 tranfaft their bufinefs, to pafs over to Flanders, to return to his domi- 

 nions, to fell their goods without impediment or moleftation from his 

 officers, to load their veffels with wool, cloth, or other Englifli merch- 

 andize, and to return to their own country. [Fcedera, V. viii, p. 395.] 

 We find frequent renewals of this permiffion, with the fame routine of 

 the trade, in the fubfequent years. 



Odlober 10th — A negotiation and correfpondence were kept up dur- 

 ing feveral years for the purpofe of effecting an amicable compenfation 

 for the dam.ages fuftained by the fubjeds of England on the one fide, 

 and thofe of Pruflia and the Hanfe confederacy on the other, from the 

 freebooters of both fides. As the complaints brought forward on each 

 fide in the courfe of this bufinefs contain many curious fads illuftrative 

 of the nature of the trade between England and the Eafl country, a 

 brief enumeration of them will not, I truft, be deemed tedious. At the 

 lafl meeting, held at the Hague in Holland in Augufl 1407, the Eng- 

 lifli complained, that in the year 1394 a fliip of 200 tuns belonging to 

 Newcalllc, valued at ^^400, having onboard woollen cloth, wine, gold, 

 and money, to the value of ^^133 : 6 : 8, was taken. — An inhabitant of 

 Hull, being palfenger onboard a Pruffian vefl'el, was robbed of goods to 

 the amount of ^^53 : 6 : 8 In 1395 an Englifliman was robbed of 5 



* See Vojfn ylnnal. L. xv, />. 126, or De ll'^ill's contains all the terms, fabrics, and qUc-Hitities, of 



Inlerrft of Hullaiul, p. 161, and alfo/). 47, of Engl, the various kinds of worded ilufTs. Tiity are pro- 



tranjl. an<l Meycr'i /inn. FLinilr. fiajim. bably the fame as thofe which the reader may find 



f yir Robert Cotton obferves, that tlie grant under the year 1422. 



