A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



commodity, until Queen Philippa's introduction of Flemish weavers. In 

 the development of the manufacture of cloth in England Bristol again played 

 a representative part. Within two years of the law (passed 1337) protecting 

 foreigners, some of them were being employed by Thomas Blanket at 

 Bristol. Whether Blanket was himself a foreigner is not clear, though he 

 certainly was not, as is asserted, the originator of the material called by his 

 name, for that existed in England long before his arrival. Either by his 

 nationality or by his neglect of guild rules, 1 he excited the jealousy of the 

 townsmen, for in 1339 a writ had to be issued for the protection of ' Thomas 

 Blanket and other citizens, who had caused instruments for the making of 

 cloth to be set up in their own houses, and had caused weavers and other crafts- 

 men to be hired,' 3 and had therefore been heavily fined by the mayor and 

 bailiffs. Two years later, however, Blanket had acquired sufficient popu- 

 larity to be elected bailiff himself, and from the time of his coming Bristol 

 certainly throve. In 1353 a staple of wool was settled there 8 and evidently 

 helped on the cloth manufacture, for from this time we find abundant 

 ordinances for its regulation among the records of the Fullers', Dyers', and 

 Weavers' Guilds. True, there is an anxiety about the reiteration of guild 

 rules at this time, which indicates that the guilds were somewhat strained 

 in the effort to receive, firstly, the workers from abroad, and secondly, the 

 villein element which flooded in after the Black Death, to fill the gaps in the 

 city population. Weavers had to be reminded (1346) that they must 

 become burgesses of the city before they could ply their craft there. The 

 width and quality of the cloth were again minutely prescribed, and a foreign 

 instrument called a ' webanlam' was only permitted to be set up on pay- 

 ment of a fee to the mayor and aldermen. Another called ' Osetes ' was 

 forbidden, except to five men, because fraudulent cloth was made thereby.* 

 The practice of new and unlawful methods was guarded against by the order 

 that weavers' instruments must stand neither in solars nor in cellars, but only 

 in halls and shops next the road, in sight of the people. No weaver was to 

 work by night. Fullers, dyers, and weavers were warned not to deal with 

 persons outside the craft. The town weaver must spin his thread at home, 

 and not buy from any stranger. Cloth must not be sent outside the town to 

 be fulled, nor wool to be woven, spun, or combed, without special permission 

 from the aldermen. 6 Roving dyers who do not attend properly to their 

 work are warned. 6 Prices were controlled too by ordinances limiting the sale 

 of cloth to certain times and places (1370 and Ric. II). But the masters were 

 in their turn assisted by the municipality in controlling the rate of wages, guild 

 law having evidently proved an ineffective barrier to the general tendency of 

 the times. Rates of wages were prescribed under severe penalties. In 1346 

 a woman called a ' Wedestere ' had to be content with a penny a day, and a 

 man engaged in fulling with fourpence a day. (This last, however, had, as 

 is shown by an erasure, to be raised to bd.} 1 In 1389 the master weavers 

 were forbidden to pay their covenant servants more than a third part of 

 the cloth made. 8 In 1406 the master fullers were again authorized to pay 

 their labourers \d. in the summer and 3^. in the winter, and four good men 



1 He appears to have collected his workmen in one building like a small factory ; Ashley, Econ. Hist. 

 pt. i, 202. 3 Rhymer, Foedera, ii, 1098 ; Ashley, ibid. 



* S. Seyer, Memoirs of Bristol, 139 * Little Red Book, ii, 40. 6 Ibid. 2-9. 



6 Ibid. 39. ' Ibid. 12. " Ibid. 59. 



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