A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



The facilities for the transport of grain did not lower the price in the 

 county. London drew it in and the London men came down and bought 

 the country market away from the country dealer. In 1595 the country 

 markets were ' so troubled with the higglers (or badgers) of Middlesex and 

 other purveyors for London ' that the shire was almost starved." The 

 brewers and bakers of London gave up their dealings with the country 

 badgers, whom they reduced to be mere carriers. They bought great 

 quantities and paid high prices, often privately, and were protected by their 

 freedom of London. Local badgers could not compete with them. The 

 badgers had to buy at such a price that they could sell profitably in London 

 at a reasonable rate. Moreover, they were bound by their licences to buy 

 only in the market. Nevertheless, the badgers survived to carry on 

 nefarious practices and to vex the justices of the county. In 1600 two 

 ' loders ' of Cheshunt bought corn in one market and sold in another, and 

 went from barn to barn buying at the doors, so that corn could not be had 

 in the market for ready money. ^"^ 



Farmers and millers were buying up for resale and no orders would 

 prevent them.^ The millers were protected by their landlords, for if they 

 could grind and carry much meal to London they would pay rack-rents. 

 The country was stocked beyond its needs with mills working for London.' 

 In one instance a London capitalist built a mill near St. Albans.' 



The noticeable points are, of course, the development of sale outside the 

 markets, the appearance of the capitalist employer of labour and the 

 capitalist merchant, especially the Londoner, and the development of com- 

 petition in the breaking of the corn ring. 



The cloth-making industry in Hertfordshire is just traceable from time 

 to time and no more. At the beginning of the 15th century it was carried 

 on at Ashwell, Berkhampstead, Hunsdon, Royston (which seems to have 

 been a centre), Baldock, Knebworth, Hitchin, Codicote, Bishop's Stortford, 

 Hertford and Ware.* But the output was very small. Presumably the 

 domestic system crept in by degrees, for there were clothiers in St. Albans 

 in the i6th century.' But, as has been already mentioned, no craft gild 

 existed save at St. Albans. By 1554 the victuallers, mercers, shoemakers 

 and innholders' had become pre-eminent. This list shows incidentally that 

 St. Albans was much more a thoroughfare than an industrial centre. The 

 bakers' and brewers' companies survived until after 1586.'' But by the 

 middle of the 17th century all the crafts were grouped under one or other 

 of these four.* Clearly the crafts had no very strong organization. In 

 1563 the Statute of Artificers, in enforcing seven years of apprenticeship, 

 permitted merchants of corporate towns to take boys with a smaller property 

 qualification than those of market towns.' In Hertfordshire, where there 

 were so few boroughs and so many market towns, this must have worked on 

 the whole disadvantageously. 



In the 1 6th century the decay of the towns gave a corresponding 

 benefit to the rural districts. The hundred of Edwinstree affords some 



99 Cal. S. P. Don. 1595-7, pp. 107-8, 126. i** Sess. R. (Herts. Co. Rec), i, 3°- 



1 Lansdowne MS. 76, no. 39. ^ Qal. S. P. Dom. 1595-7, P- 336. ' F.C.H. Herts, ii, 393. 



* Exch. Accts. bdle. 342, no. 11, 12. ' Gibbs, Hist. Rec. of St. Albans, 17. « Ibid. 



' Ibid. 15. * Ibid. 78. ' Prothero, Stat, and Doc. 1558-1625, p. 507. 



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