SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



for a messuage and yardland, 1 and from zs. to 9*. for a cottage and garden. 

 At Cheltenham * a messuage and half-yardland were rented for about \s. 8</. 

 At Longney a messuage and yardland were iu., with relief, heriot and suit 

 of court. 8 But leases, of course, were sometimes given. As far back as 

 1 270 two holdings were let ' at farm ' for a term of ten years at Duntis- 

 bourne, 4 and in 1359 one brother leased to another at Temple Guiting two 

 yardlands for a term of seven years. 1 Another case could be quoted of about 

 the same date at Cheltenham.' Tithes were also occasionally let out at farm 

 in the fifteenth century, 7 and so were whole manors. 8 But it was not till about 

 1512 that twelve-years leases between tenants became common at Cheltenham. 

 The lessee generally undertook all services to the lord, and was allowed to lop 

 and shroud, but not to top the trees. 9 



Towards the end of Henry VI's reign, however, a new and very 

 significant form of short lease did begin to appear at Stroud and Bisley. 

 This was the grant, for three or four lives, of mill-streams 10 a sign that the 

 industrial value of the water-power of that valley was beginning to be 

 realized. It is, indeed, at this period that the greater frequency with which 

 fulling-mills are mentioned reminds us that we are approaching the 

 greatest period of Gloucestershire's prosperity that of her upland woollen 

 trade. But before discussing this, some retrospect of the preceding history 

 of the great towns, where the industry was born and nursed, is necessary. 



Among these, Gloucester and Bristol naturally take the first place, the 

 first owing its existence mainly to political, the second to commercial, causes. 

 In constitutional ways the capital town led the way. It was the first to 

 obtain a charter of trading privileges in 1 155 ;" in 1 192 it had a guildhall," 

 and in 1 200, when a more extended charter was granted to it by John, it 

 already possessed a merchant guild. 18 But Bristol, though it obtained no 

 charter till the reign of John, and had no merchant guild till 1242 (Inq. of 

 46 Edw. Ill, quoted by Mr. Bickley, Introd. to Little Red Book], soon out- 

 stripped Gloucester in wealth and commercial activity. Foreign trade went 

 hand in hand with home industry, and by the fourteenth century there had 

 sprung up a number of craft-guilds, ousting the guild-merchant, of which 

 we hear little beyond its name. In Bristol, accordingly, we get the fullest 

 accounts of the woollen industry in its first stage, when it was urban and 

 guild-controlled. 



Wool had played an important part in English history from the twelfth 

 century, mainly as an item in the royal revenue ; and when in 1297 Edward I 

 raised his famous custom of half a mark on every sack of wool, Bristol's 

 share in the export trade had been attested by a ' customer ' of her own. 1 * 

 Despite various spasmodic efforts of the government to promote the con- 

 sumption of English wool at home, Bristol " and other English seaports 

 continued to be thronged by foreign merchants exporting the precious 



Ct. R. portf. 175, Nos. 52 and 53. ' Rentals and Surv. R. 216. 



C. C. C. Bunary Bocks, ^^, p. 497. ' Ibid. p. 151. 



Ibid. 21, p. 151. ' Ct. R. portf. 175, No. 25, m. 3. 



Ibid. No. 52. 



See Hawkesbury Ct. R. port 175, No. 50, m. 7 ; also Cheltenham Minj. Accts. bdle. 853, No. 1 1. 



Ct. R. portf. 175, No. 27. '" Mins. Accts. bdle. 850, Nos. 26, 29. 



" Glouc. Cal. No. i. " Pipe R. 4 Ric. I, m. 10. 



" Glouc. Cal. No. 5. w Smith, Mem. of Wool, 14. 

 14 See Hund. R. 4 Edw. I, Rot. Extr. com. Glouc. No. 3, m. 1 8. 



