146 



The Merchants of the Staple, fyc. 



of the Staple never had a " Hall " or particular office of their own, 

 as was always the case with other large companies. 1 Some of their 

 warehouses were, in olden times, situated in Holborn and from 

 this circumstance the Inn of Chancery, called Staples Inn, derives 

 its name. 



The great object, as has been already intimated, of an establish- 

 ment of a " staple " was the collection with greater facility of the 

 customs due to the Crown. The royal revenues were derived 

 anciently from duties levied upon exports. Sir W. Blackstoue's 

 account of these duties is as follows : — that they were deemed the 

 hereditary customs of the Crown and were due on the exportation 

 of wool, wool-fels, and leather, which three articles were styled 

 staple commodities, because they were obliged to be brought to 

 those parts where the King's staple was established in order to be 

 first rated and then exported. "These dues," he says, "were 

 denominated in the barbarous Latin of our ancient records, ' cus- 

 tuma ' and not ' consuetu dines ' which is the language of our law, 

 whenever it means merely usages. The export duties on wool, 

 wool-fels, and leather were called ' custuma antiqua sive magna,' and 

 were payable by every merchant, as well native as stranger, with 

 this difference, that merchant strangers paid an additional toll, 

 viz., half as much again as was paid by natives. The 'custuma 

 parva et nova ' were an impost of 3d. in the pound, due from mer- 

 chant strangers only." It was not indeed without difficulty that 

 the Crown was able in these early days to establish a prescriptive 

 right to these "customs." The first formal grant of them by 

 Parliament was made in 1274 (3 Edw. I.), at the rate of half a 

 mark, or 6s. 8d., for every sack of wool of 26 stone weight, and of 

 a whole mark, or 13s. 4d. for every last of leather. When however 

 in 1296, some twenty years subsequently, the King, then in need 

 of money for prosecuting his wars with France and Scotland, by 

 his own authority set a new toll of 40s. on each sack of wool, the 



1 Thus Sir John Crosby the builder of a beautiful hall which still remains in 

 Bishopsgate Street, London, is in deeds commonly styled "Alderman and 

 Grocer:" his business however was that of a "Wool-Merchant;" in other 

 words he was a " Merchant of the Staple." 



