702 A. D. 1484. 



other refufe at home, being found prejudicial to the finer branches of 

 the manufadare, was prohibited ; and the exporters were obliged to 

 take the whole fleece as it was clipped. No orchel or cork of the kind 

 called jarecork fhould be ufed in dying woollen cloths ; but woaded wool 

 and cloth made of wool only, if they were perfedly boiled and mad- 

 dered, might be dyed with Englifh cork. The pradice of faflening 

 ruflies upon the lift, in order to make cloth dyed in the piece appear. as 

 if dyed in the wool, was prohibited. To all thefe prohibitions fuitable 



penalties were attached From the operation of the ad: the parliament 



exempted cloths called ray^ and cloths made in Winchefter and Salifbury 

 ufually joined with ray ; cloths called vervife,ploiikef.s, turkins, or cekftrines, 

 with broad lifts; packing tvhites ; veffes ; cogzvare ; wotjleds ; floretices 

 with cremil lifts, broad lifts, or fmall lifts; bajiards ; kendals ; dtXidfrife 

 ware*. [ABs i Ric. Ill, c. 8.] 



The merchants of Italy, including the Catalans f, were accufed of 

 keeping houfes, warehoufes, and cellars, in London and other places, in 

 which they packed and mixed their goods, and kept them till they got 

 great prices for them ;' they fold by retail ; they bought Engllfti com- 

 modities, and fold them again in England ; and they fent part of the 

 money arifing from their fales to their own country by exchange ; they 

 received other foreigners to lodge in their houfes, and made fecret bar- 

 gains with them ; they bought up wool, and fold part of it again to the 

 king's fubjeds, and employed people to make part of it into cloth on 

 their account ; foreign artificers with their families reforted to London 

 and other parts of England in greater numbers than formerly, and they 

 engaged in the manufadure of cloth and other eafy handicraft occupa- 

 tions, and alfo in the bufinefs of importing foreign goods and felling 

 them by retail in fairs and markets ; but they declined the more labor- 

 ious occupations of ploughing and carting:}: ; they employed none but 

 their own country people as workmen and fervants, whereby the king's 

 fubjeds were driven into idlenefs, beggary, and vice ; and, after making 

 fortunes in England, they retired to other countries to enjoy them — In 

 order to remedy thofe evils, the parliament enaded, that all Italian 

 merchants, including Catalans, not being denizens, ftiould fell the goods 

 they had now in England, and inveft the whole proceeds, their reafon- 

 able expenfes excepted, in Englifli commodities, before the 1'' of May 

 1485 ; all goods arriving after Eafter 1484 fliould be fold within eight 



» Tlicre was an ordinance for ilic lengtl\ and the people bordering on the Mediterranean under 



breadth of clotlis during the fliort rci;rn of Ed- the name of Itah'ans. 



ward V, IRymer's MS. rnords, Eihv. V"\, which % To forci;rners England is indebted for the de- 

 was probably the foundation of this adt. The grce of perfection, whicli the boallcd woollen ma- 

 enumcration of names in it, now moftiy obfolete, nufafture has attained. Several protedions for 

 will not be thought ufelefs by thofe who with to foreign woollen nianufacliirers had been given by 

 trace the progrefs of the manufaftnre, and may Edward IV. Surely, if ploughmen or carters had 

 afford fomc allillancc to antiquarian refearch. come from the continent, there would liave been 



\ The Engliflj ia thofe days ufed to include all as much rcafon for an outcry againlt them. 



