By the Rev. W. H. Jones. 



143 



Our principal concern, as Wiltshire archaeologists, is with the 

 second of these classes of traders, — the "Merchants of the Staple," 

 many of whom flourished in our County, and have left behind 

 them tokens not only of their worldly abundance, but of their 

 willingness to devote it to good and noble purposes. Of the origin 

 of the word from which they derived their distinctive appellation, 

 there are several opinions. Sir Edward Coke, no mean authority, 

 who wrote 250 years ago, says: — "The word 'staple' anciently 

 written ' estaple ' cometh of the French word ' estape,' which signi- 

 fied a mart or market." Jacob, in his Law Dictionary, after 

 giving the same derivation, quotes as an indirect testimony in its 

 favour from an old French book, " a Calais estape de la laine : " he 

 suggests, however, a derivation from the German word " stapulen" 

 which signifies to gather or heap anything together : referring to 

 the store of merchandise collected at such markets or staples. 

 Anderson, in his " History of Commerce " suggests its derivation 

 from the Latin, — "staple" he says, is in the civil law Latin of the 

 times termed " stabile emporium " i.e. a fixed port or mart for im- 

 porting of merchandise. Mr. Duke has an ingenious hypothesis 

 that it is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word " stapel," which he 

 conceives may signify " a loop of iron, to receive a hasp or bolt ; " 

 or, in short, a padlock. He conjectures that the merchandise on 

 which duty was payable to the Crown, was bonded and secured in 

 r warehouses under the regal fastening, perhaps peculiarly marked, 

 under the lock and key, secured by what might be called em- 

 phatically the staple — the king's staple." I cannot find, however, 

 that he is justified in giving such a meaning to the Anglo-Saxon 

 word as he would wish. 1 But after all the simplest explanation of 

 the term, which, used in reference to the traders in wool, is 



1 Mr. Duke points out that in one form of the " merchant's mark" of John 

 Halle of Salisbury there is something which seems like a hasp or fastening 

 represented. This however would prove no more than that it was a "pleasant 

 conceit " of his respectable yet somewhat litigious friend. To me the device in 

 question would seem rather like a rude outline of the initial letter in his sur- 

 name. In the other form of his " mark" as seen in the stained glass of the 

 hall of John Halle at Salisbury the lower part is clearly a monogram of the 

 initials "J. H." 



