INDUSTRIES 



support ot the view that there must early 

 have been a considerable tanning industry in 

 Southwark and Bermondsey is the importance 

 assigned to the leather market in the borough 

 by tanners and leather merchants not only of 

 Surrey but of the adjacent counties, as witnessed 

 by the outcry made against an attempted in- 

 vasion of their privileges about this time. 



The principle of placing the control of the 

 whole leather trade within a three-mile circuit 

 of London in the hands of the city authorities 

 seems to be implied as early as 1464-5, when 

 it was enacted that no shoemaker in London 

 and three miles round should make shoes with 

 pikes longer than two inches.* But the prin- 

 ciple was clearly enunciated in the 'Act 

 concerning true tanning and currying of 

 leather' of 153 2-3.* The second section of 

 this Act ordered that no tanned leather should 

 be sold in or within three miles of London, 

 except at the market of Leadenhall or else in 

 the fairs holden within the said city, or else- 

 where without the city within the said three 

 miles, nor elsewhere except in open market. 

 All tanned leather put to sale within this 

 three-mile compass of the city had first to be 

 searched and viewed by the wardens of the 

 Cordwainers', Curriers', Girdlers' and Saddlers' 

 Companies. 



We have not to wait long before we find 

 the efiFect of this piece of legislation upon the 

 Southwark market. In 1534, the year after 

 which the new Act came into force, four 

 Kentish tanners were summoned to the Ex- 

 chequer to answer for putting to sale in the 

 borough on days when there was no fair there 

 a large quantity of hides and calves' skins 

 which had not been first brought to Leaden- 

 hall. One of them, of whom we are shortly 

 to hear more, Ralph Assheton of Chidding- 

 stone, was promptly fined 40^., one half of 

 which sum went to the informer, George 

 Brigges, or Bridges, a London leather-seller.^ 

 Of the result of the case against the other 

 three we are left in doubt. They pleaded 

 that under the Act the lords of fairs and 

 markets had power to name two expert men 

 of the art or mistery of cordwainers or curriers 

 to search and examine all tanned leather 

 brought to sale in their fairs or markets, and 

 that the Archbishop of Canterbury, within 

 whose franchise in the borough there had 

 been time out of mind a market on every 

 Monday, Wednesday and Friday throughout 

 the year, had already complied with this 

 regulation by appointing two curriers, John 



Paynter and Robert Mymmys, to examine 

 the leather brought to his market.* By these 

 two duly qualified examiners they pleaded 

 that all their leather had been properly sealed. 

 The cases against them were adjourned, and 

 we lose sight of them. 



Not so with Ralph Assheton. The feelings 

 of his friends in the borough market against 

 the informer who had thus obtained judgment 

 against him found expression in some acts of 

 violence against the latter's person, which are 

 related with pathetic detail in a Bill addressed 

 to the king in his Star Chamber.^ 



Bridges begins by relating the circumstances 

 attending his information against Assheton in 

 the Exchequer. Notwithstanding the result 

 of this prosecution, ' divers tanners disregard 

 the said statute wickedly using to put to sale 

 within the said Borough of Southwark much 

 tanned leather contrary to the tenor of the 

 Act and also do make very much leather 

 deceivable and insufficiently tanned.' On 

 account of the informer's labours during the 

 past twelve months to note in writing such 

 defaults, he was committed to the King's 

 Bench prison in Southwark by one William 

 Cawsye, saddler. His witnesses and the mes- 

 senger sent to him while in prison from the 

 recorder of London were also imprisoned, 

 and at Cawsye's request they were all put in 

 irons. In this condition the complainant was 

 visited by Cawsye, who demanded from him 

 a certain bill or writing of tanners' names, 

 which was refused. Thereupon Cawsye, with 

 many forcible expressions, saying he would 

 have the bill ere he went, ' accompanied with 

 one William Tayllour, Christopher Hampton 

 and others to the number of seven or eight 

 persons then and there with force, that is to 

 say, the said Cawsye holding one arm of your 

 said poor subject and the said Christopher 

 Hampton another arm, in forcible manner 

 took from your said poor subject a certain 

 paper book wherein was contained the names 

 of divers tanners offending the said statute 

 amongst other remembrances therein con- 

 tained but also the parcels of such leather 

 by them sold contrary to the form of the 

 said statute, all which parcels of leather 

 amounted to the sum of five or six score 

 pounds to your most gracious advantage,' and 

 it may be added, with the result of the inform- 

 ation against Assheton in view — to that of 

 poor George Bridges to boot. With due 

 allowance for the ex parte nature of the above 

 recital, we may safely conclude that the 



1 Stat. 4 Edwr. IV. cap. 7. Mbid. 21, 22 



2 Stat. 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 23. ' Star Cham. Proc. Hen. VIII. bdle. 6, No. 



3 Exch.K. R. Mem. R. Trin. z6 Hen. VIII. 23. 260. 



331 



