152 



The Merchants of the Staple, fyc. 



Staple, according to the " law-merchant." In the smaller Towns, 

 the Mayor of the Staple was somewhat similar in authority and 

 jurisdiction to the " Port-gerefa " or " Port Reeve, the chief officer 

 of some of the lesser and commercial Towns, a principal part of 

 whose office consisted in witnessing transactions by bargain and 

 sale. In the more important places, such as Westminster, (raised 

 it is said by the affect of this " Statute of the Staple " from a village 

 to a populous town) and Calais, the office conferred much honor 

 and was the object of much ambition. The post at Calais was held 

 by a succession of distinguished English merchants. Thus in 

 1442, John Thrusk, a merchant who dwelt in Hungate, in the city 

 of York, was both Mayor and Treasurer of the Staple at Calais. 

 Some twenty years afterwards the office was held by Sir Richard 

 Yorke who was also at the same time one of the Sheriffs of the 

 city of York. It was this last-named Knight that in the account 

 of Archbishop Neville's enthronization feast in 1466, contained in 

 an old roll cited in Leland's Collectanea, is represented, (in virtue 

 of his office, we may presume) as taking precedence of the " Mayor 

 of Yorke " and " all the worshipfull men of the said citie." May 

 we not regard this fact as an indirect testimony to the sense enter- 

 tained towards the close of the fifteenth century, that the true way 

 of increasing England's wealth and consolidating her power, was 

 not so much by the aggressive achievements of her armies, as by 

 the peaceful extension of her commerce. 



Of course our information concerning the staple is derived, from 

 the Statute Book and other public documents. When we see a 

 collection of various enactments concerning it, we are not a little 

 amused at their opposite, sometimes even contradictory character. 

 Taken by themselves they seem a strange jumble of inconsistency 

 some of them apparently the effect of simple caprice. At one time, 

 for example, we have a sweeping measure ordering all Staples to 

 cease ; six years afterwards the staple is at Antwerp ; in ten years 

 more no wool is permitted to be exported at all. No long time 

 elapses and a staple is fixed at Bruges ; seven years subsequently 

 at Calais. Then certain Towns and Calais are made simultaneously 

 the places of the Staple. And during those two centuries in which 



