82 A. D. 1536. 



poor, and Impotent perfon, who fhoiild have dwelt three years in any 

 place, by way of voluntary alms, with fuch convenient alms as fliould 

 be thought meet by their difcretion, fo as none of them fliould be obli- 

 ged to beg openly ; and to compell flurdy vagabonds to work. Alfo that 

 children under fourteen years of age and above five, who lived in idle- 

 nefs, and were found begging, fhould be put to fervice. No perfon was 

 allowed to make any open or common dole, or give any money in alms, 

 but to the common boxes and common gatherings in every panfh. 

 l2y t/jHefi. Vlllc 25.} 



This was the firft law made in England that feemed to make any pro- 

 vifion for aged poor, yet being merely voluntary, it will appear from 

 fucceeding ones that it did not prove by any means effedlual. Thofe 

 open doles were made by perfons of wealth, and of a charitable difpofi- 

 tion, at the gates of their houfes on certain fixed times, whither the 

 poor of the neighbourhood came, at a known hour, to have money or 

 provifions dealt out to them. The fame practice is ftill retained in many 

 parts of Scotland. 



1537 An Englifh adl of parliament having directed of what length 



and breadth the linen cloths called lockrams and dowlas, made in and 

 imported from Britany, fliould be, (a thing indeed fomewhat extraordi- 

 nary, to dired another nation concerning their own manufactures !) the 

 French refufed to be regulated by it ; and as thofe linens were ufually 

 paid for in Englifli woollen cloths exported to Britany, whereby great 

 numbers of weavers, tuckers, fpinners, dyers, wool-pickers, &c. were 

 confl;antly employed, and all thofe trades were now at a ftand, that ex- 

 traordinary ftatute was this year repealed. [28/^ He7i. VIIl, c. 4.] 



About this time (according to Camden in his Britannia *) the wool- 

 len nianufadure was introduced at Halifax in Yorkfliire. He lays, that 

 bdlde-i the largenefs of its parifh, which contained eleven cliapels and 

 about i2,ooD people, nothing is fo admirable in this town as the induf- 

 try of the inhabiiunts, who, notwithftanding an unprofitably-barreo^ 

 foil, have fo flouriOied by the cloth trade that they are become very 

 rich, and have gained a reputation for this above their neighbours ; 

 and this confirms the truth of the obfervation, that a barren country is 

 a great whet to the :nduftry of its natives ; v/hereby alone we find Nu- 

 renberg in Germany, Venice and Genoa in Italy, and Limoges in France, 

 in fpite of their fituation on a barren foil, have long been flourifliing ci^ 

 ties. 



1538. — Solyman the Magnificent, the Turkifli eniperor, feeling the 

 great lofs his fubjeds fuftained by being deprived of fupplying Europe 

 with fpices and other Indian merchandize from the port of Alexandria, 



* Camden {djs /evenly years ago; and the num- years before 1607, the date of tlic /qjl edition, 

 ber (lands the fame, I beh'evc, in all the editions : above twenty years may be added to the antiquity 

 >io tUat, as Mr. And^rfon. has reckoned feventy of the clothing trade at Halifax. M- 



