THE BEGINNING OF TRADE 



The Extension of Trade under Edward IV. 



Edward IV's care of trade showed its effect principally in the 

 reciprocal treaties that he made with his most powerful neighbours 

 which enabled British ships to navigate the seas with tolerable safety and 

 which sent them much further afield than they had been before. 

 Voyages to the Mediterranean, which had hitherto been a great adven- 

 ture, now became quite usual and in Richard Ill's time it was con- 

 sidered to be worth our while to establish our first consulate in Italy. 

 It was a very valuable added market for our wool and laid the founda- 

 tions of the trade expansions under the Tudors. 



The Icelandic Fisheries. 



Iceland was certainly in active communication with England in the 

 early days of the fifteenth century, but the first definite account of an 

 English fishing boat operating on the coast is in 1412, when the five men 

 of her crew landed and wandered on the island. Next year thirty 

 English fishing boats came with a cargo ship freighted with wares for 

 barter, but on this occasion it seems that the fishermen behaved badly 

 and were unpopular. In 1414 no fewer than five cargo ships came, in 

 the next year six, and in 1419 as many as twenty-five English ships were 

 wrecked in a single gale. A large part of the trade at this time was 

 stock-fish, apparently caught by the islanders. As early as 1415 King 

 Henry V speaks of " ancient custom " in these waters, but the bad 

 behaviour of the British appears to have gone on. Efforts were made 

 to prohibit British ships from entering into the trade but it went on, 

 especially from the port of Bristol which by the sixteenth century was 

 sending out quite a fleet, both of fishing and cargo boats. 



The Pilgrim Trade. 



In the early days the Pilgrim trade was one of the most important 

 branches of commerce and was established as early as Offa's day, 

 although then the route to the tombs of the Saints was generally over- 

 land and the pilgrims received the special protection of Charlemagne. 

 Later it developed as far as the Holy Land, sometimes overland for the 

 greater part of the way, sometimes by sea across the Mediterranean. 

 In the reign of Henry VI and before, the great centre was the shrine of 

 Santiago de Compostela in the North of Spain and there is in existence 

 a tolerably complete picture of the passage in those days which shows 

 that the pilgrims must have been very uncomfortable. A number of 

 cabins were erected, apparently something of a makeshift for each 

 voyage, and also some open bunks, but a large number of passengers 

 had to sleep on straw on the decks wrapped up in their cloaks. The 

 bilges were unutterably foul and their appeal to the nostrils is described 

 in fifteenth-century Anglo-Saxon. Sandwich, Winchelsea and Bristol 

 were the principal terminals of this pilgrim trade, but other ports cer- 

 tainly had a part in it. Travellers had to obtain a licence and in 1445 

 no fewer than 2,100 permits were issued for this one shrine alone, some 

 of the pilgrims even travelling in the winter months. 



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