The Wealth of England: The Medieval Wool Trade and Its Political Importance 1100-1600

239 Pages·2018·40.868 MB·English

by  Susan Rose

The Wealth of England
The Medieval Wool Trade and its Political Importance
1100–1600
by
Susan Rose
Oxford & Philadelphia
Published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by
OXBOW BOOKS
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© Oxbow Books and the individual contributors 2018
Hardback edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-736-0
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-737-7 (epub)
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017962123
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Front cover: July; sheep shearing near the Chateau du Clain in Poitiers F7V in Les très riches heures du Duc de
Berry. (Royal Library of Belgium Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0)
Back cover: Sheep going off to summer pastures from the Da Costa Hours (Morgan Library New York)
To Anne, Mimi and Sue, friends for life
The Renaissance view of the life of a shepherd; engraving by Agostino Verrazano, 1490–1540 (Warburg
Institute)
Contents
List of Figures vii
List of Maps and Tables ix
Preface xi
Introduction xv
Part 1. Production 1
1. The Good Shepherd and His Flock; the Approach to Sheep-Farming
1100–1600 3
2. Estate Accounts; Monasteries and the Production of Wool 23
Part 2. Trade 45
3. Producers and Traders c.1250–c.1350 47
4. The Direct Intervention of the Crown 63
5. Prices and Quantities 79
6. Merchants and Clothiers c.1400–c.1560 89
Part 3. The Crown and the Wool Trade 129
7. The Crown’s Attitude to Trade 131
8. The Wool Trade and Royal Finances 135
9. The Crown and the Company of the Staple, 1399–1558 145
10. The Wool Trade’s Increasing Diffi culties 157
Part 4. Decline 165
11. Excessive Numbers of Sheep? 167
12. The Activities of Broggers and a ‘Disorderly’ Market in Wool 175
13. Did the Wool Trade Make England Rich? 181
Bibliography 205
Index 215

List of Figures
Frontispiece. The Renaissance view of the life of a shepherd; engraving
by Agostino Verrazano, 1490–1540 iv
Figure 1. Milking folded sheep 6
Figure 2. Woodcut of two shepherds; from Le compost et calendrier
des bergères, 1499 7
Figure 3. Image of shepherds and their sheep from a fi fteenth
century edition of Vergil’s Bucolica 8
Figure 4. Modern sheep of the Cotswold breed 13
Figure 5. Image for February from Les très riches heures du Duc de
Berry, showing a sheepcote 14
Figure 6. Sheep emerging from their fold and going off to the
summer pastures from the Da Costa Hours 15
Figure 7. Modern sheep of the Soay breed 17
Figure 8. Winchester Pipe Roll; draft account for the manor of Droxford 27
Figure 9. Ruins of Croyland Abbey 31
Figure 10. Rievaulx Abbey seen through trees 34
Figure 11. Fountains Abbey 35
Figure 12. Sevenhampton Church 38
Figure 13. Fields near Burton Dassett in the snow 41
Figure 14. The tomb of John Hopton in Blythburgh Church 43
Figure 15. Folio of the Southampton Port Book for 1440 50
Figure 16. The Wool House or store in Southampton 51
Figure 17. A medieval weight used for weighing wool 52
Figure 18. Scene of merchants at the quayside from the Hamburg State Book 65
Figure 19. Bruges; the centre of the medieval wool trade in Flanders 73
Figure 20. View of Calais from the sea in the early sixteenth century 76
Figure 21. Selling woollen clothing; a late medieval shop 85
Figure 22. A letter to a customer from Francesco Datini with a
sample of cloth attached 90
Figure 23. A statue of Francesco Datini in Prato, his birthplace 91
Figure 24. St Olave’s, Hart Street, London, the church attended by
the Cely family 102
Figure 25. Chapel of Stonor House, the house and the estate 104
Figure 26. Glapthorn Church, Northamptonshire 116
Figure 27. Title page of Jack of Newbury alias John of Winchcomb 125
viii The Wealth of England
Figure 28. The Woolsack, the House of Lords; by tradition the seat of
the Lord Chancellor 126
Figure 29. Tomb of Cardinal Beaufort, Winchester Cathedral 142
Figure 30. Groat (8d piece) struck at the Calais Mint 1427–1430 146
Figure 31. The Day Watch Tower at Calais 148
Figure 32. Engraving of the fall of Calais to the French in 1558 156
Figure 33. Modern Spanish Mesta fl ock enforcing its rights in Madrid
led by a bell wether 163
Figure 34. Cawston Church exterior 184
Figure 35. Cawston Church interior; painting of St Agnes 185
Figure 36. Stokesay Castle 186
Figure 37. Cirencester church and South Porch 186
Figure 38. Garstang Chantry in Cirencester Church 187
Figure 39. Merchant’s mark of a donor on a nave pillar, Cirencester Church 188
Figure 40. Chipping Campden; brass of William Grevel in the church 189
Figure 41. The transfi guration of the Virgin from the altar frontal
(c. 1400), Chipping Campden 190
Figure 42. Grevel’s House 191
Figure 43. The Wool Staplers’ Hall in Chipping Campden 192
Figure 44. Exterior of Northleach Church 192
Figure 45. Northleach; brass of John Fortey 193
Figure 46. Brass of Thomas Busshe 195
Figure 47. Brass of John Midwinter 196
Figure 48. Fairford Church exterior 197
Figure 49. Head of John Tame of Fairford from his brass 198
Figure 50. Lavenham Church; much of the building work in the
1490s and early 1500s was funded by the Spring family of
wealthy clothiers 199
Figure 51. Lavenham Guildhall 200
Figure 52. Lavenham, merchant’s house and market square 201
Figure 53. Long Melford Church 202
Figure 54. Paycocke’s House, Coggeshall, the rear showing possible wool store 203
Figure 55. Baconsthorpe Castle: gatehouse and cloth making range 204
List of Maps and Tables
Map 1. The major wool producing areas and markets in England c.1250–c.1550 xii
Map 2. The manors of the Bishop of Winchester and Winchester
Priory, which were major wool producers xiii
Table 1. Wool prices in in shillings per stone a) in 1379; b) in 1459 (data
for North Bucks and Oxon unavailable for this year) c) in 1496
(data for Cotswolds unavailable for this year). Data from T.H.
Lloyd, The Movement of Wool Prices in Medieval England, 1973. 81
Table 2. Wool and cloth exports with combined totals in broadcloth
equivalents, 1340–1550. Data from J.H. Munro, ‘Medieval
Woollens: The Western European Woollen Industries and
their Struggle for International Markets, c.1000–1500,’ in The
Cambridge History of Western Textiles, 2003. 87