The Disposal of Farm Produce. 231 



exercised their powers in this direction when funds were re- 

 quired for private purposes. In 1245 and 1249 Henry III. 

 shut up all the London shops, and for fifteen days proclaimed 

 a fair at Westminster. Though he drew a large revenue from 

 the market tolls there were but few buyers, the goods were all 

 spoiled, and their vendors ruined in health by the incessant 

 rains. What was constitutional in isolated cases like this was 

 was of course constitutional in a case where the whole nation 

 was concerned. The sovereign therefore found no legalised 

 opposition when he determined to make wool, sheepskins, and 

 leather the staple goods, and to bind their merchants to bring 

 all such wares to his port to be weighed and measured before 

 exportation. The site of the staple was constantly shifted, 

 from abroad to at home, or from Antwerp to Calais, or from 

 one market to half-a-dozen, until, for a few months in the reign 

 of Richard II., the unfortunate merchants of the staple had to 

 run the gauntlet of the customs on both sides of the Channel. 

 Attempts were periodically made to remove the legislative re- 

 strictions on trade ; but this was an epoch when statutes were 

 made in much the same spirit as a fickle lover's vows — " only 

 to be broken." 



Notwithstanding all these drawbacks, one-tenth of the year's 

 exports in 1354 was wool, contained in thirty-two thousand 

 sacks, valued at £138,000, and, if we may credit Robert of 

 Avesbury, the exports in 1356 reached the enormous total of 

 100,000 sacks, which at only 50s. per sack produced a revenue 

 of £250,000.^ In the reign of Edward II. Flemish weavers 

 had been invited to come over and establish a native cloth 

 industry, but this did not seem to affect the export trade. 

 In 1390 Richard II. passed a statute prohibiting any person 

 residing in England from purchasing wool except from the 

 flockmaster, and then only for his own use, the eflfect of which 

 was to hand over the entire export trade to the foreign 

 merchant. The Genoese, the Lombards, and the Venetians 



' Professor Eogers, however, values the greatest wool grant (that in 

 1310, mentioned over leaf) at only £138,000.— .S'^■x Centuries of Work and 

 Wages, p. 205. Comp. also Craig and McFarlane, Hist, of Engl, Bk. IV., 

 ch. iv., and Bk. V., ch. v. 



