368 Dr. Parry's Essay on the Nature, Produce, Origin^ 



and ten-pence on every Lit, or dyed cloth, exported by native merchants ; and 

 twenty- one-pence and fifteen-pence respectively, by strangers. The plea for this 

 impost was to maintain the revenue from wool in every form ; " rateable the cloth 

 " as the sack."* 



In the next year, Edward the Third made Calais, then in our possession, the 

 staple or market for wool and other exported English wares; and also for worsteds, 

 stuffs, and other cloths, brought from other countries. Worsteds seem to have been 

 at that time but recently spoken of;t and it was probably the introduction of that 

 manufacture from the continent, which then began to make the Lincoln wool equal 

 in value to the Shropshire. 



In the year 1354, the 28th of Edward III. a subsidy was granted him for six 

 years on all the wool sold in the kingdom; or, according to Sir Walter Raleigh, 

 on all exported wool. This subsidy, at 50 shillings per sack, is said to have 

 amounted to 850,000 marks per annum ; which makes the quantity of wool 

 93>333 sacks, or 141,555 packs of 24olbs. each.J 



From an account said to have been delivered to the Exchequer in the same 

 year, it appears, that the quantity of cloth exported was 4774-|^ pieces, at 40 shil- 

 lings value per cloth; and the quantity imported 1832 cloths, at £6. value each. f 

 This comparison is not very creditable either to our wool or manufacture. 



In 1380, the 4th of Richard the Second, a riot at Louvain caused many of its 

 manufacturers to settle in Holland and England. || 



In 1390, the 14th of Richard the Second, the quantity of exported wool was 



* Anderson, anno citato. Smith, I. 25. 



t Rymer's Fcedera, V. 618. Worsteds were called by the Flemings, " Ostades ;" and as that 

 manufacture was in their hands long before it was introduced into England, it is probable that 

 our ap^^cllation is a corruption of theirs. Ostade was long ago a common surname in Flanders; 

 and perhaps was that of some person famous for this particular branch of the woollen trade, 

 which afterwards was appropriated to an establishment of similar manufacturers in Norfolk. So 

 the word " Blanket," which meant a particular kind of white, coarse, undressed cloth, was per- 

 haps derived from Thomas Blanket of Bristol, who is recorded as being, in the year 1339, one of 

 the first who set up the manufacture of cloth in their own houses, when the exportation of wool 

 was for temporary purposes prohibited. " Grogiam" is nothing more than " Gros grain;" 

 " Camclot a gros grains," or coarse grained camblct, in opposition to another sort called " Fin- 

 " grin ;" or fine-grained. 



X Smith, I. 32. ^ Ibidem, I. 31. Anderson, 1354. U Ibidem, 1380. 



