at the coronation of King John,' and since the year 1444 he was a Justice of the Peace for the City. The office of Mayor, like all the unpaid ones, had to be accepted, and refusal to do so entailed a fine. But by an ordinance of 1435 no one was to be called to the office more than twice. By an ordinance of the reign of Edward I no Mayor, Sheriff, or Alderman or other City officer was allowed to brew or keep oven or wine tavern, or to carry on any trade to which a low estimate was attached, or to be a victualler or sell such victuals by retail during his time of office.3 The Mayor's Court was presided over by the Recorder. But the Lord Mayor and Aldermen and Sheriffs might sit as Judges with him. The Court tried all manner of actions.

In spite of fluctuations the authority of the Mayor grew from Powers of the fourteenth century onwards until the reign of James I, when the Mayor the Mayor claimed to be the Master of all the Companies.

over the

1. He and the Common Council had extensive authority Companies. over the regulation of trade and over matters of civic

administration.

2. In cases of disputes between the rival companies the final appeal lay with him.

3. He claimed the right to revise their ordinances until the Act 19 Hen. VIII, c. 7 (1503), which transformed this right to the Chancellor, the Treasurer, and the Chief Justices of either Branch. Even then his licence had to be obtained before a Royal Charter could be sued for. 4. Recalcitrant members were in the last resort handed over to him for imprisonment in the Counter and other City prisons.

5. His regulations and orders were enforced by precepts, which
were of two kinds :

(1) Precepts issued on his own authority for civic purposes.
(2) Precepts issued by order of the Crown. These became

more common in Tudor times, when the Mayor became
the agent of the royal autocracy and dealt especially with
the demands for loans and for military levies, and provided
work for the poor.

I

Sharpe, London, i. 69.

2 Letter Book K, p. 237.

3 Ordinance of 1399, Liber Cust., fo. cciv; Liber Albus, i. 272.

CHAPTER I

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE CLOTH TRADE UP
TO THE END OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE DRAPER.

H

(1)

Trade.

S for your original,' says Elkanah Early im-
Settle in the Preface to his portance of
Pageant for Sir Thomas Stamp, the Wool
a Draper, who was Lord Mayor
in 1691, 'drapery is unquestion-
ably so ancient as to have the
honour of being the immediate
successor of the fig leaves. And
though we are not quite certain
that our great first father began
it within his fair Eden, yet we
are assured that Eve's spinstrey
and Adam's spade set to work
together.' '

Although the Leathersellers or Skinners might dispute this claim, since our first parents used skins to hide their nakedness before Eve had learnt to spin, and the Drapers were, as we shall see, a somewhat late development, at least in England, there is no doubt that the spinning and weaving of wool were two of the most primitive industries. In

2 Elkanah Settle, Triumphs of London, 1691. Many other Gilds claim a scriptural origin. Thus the Founders claim to descend from Tubal-cain, the first artificer in brass and iron; the Weavers from Naamah his sister; while the Taylors or Linen Armourers declare that their original founders drove Pride and the Devil himself from Birchin Lane with their needles. Hazlitt, Livery Companies, pp. 263, 660.

The
Weavers.

I

England, as in Western Europe, they were of equal importance. With that of baking the weaving industry was one of the earliest to take the form of the Gild. It also was one of the earliest to break through its limits and supplies the most striking and detailed example of the influence of economic development on the mutual relations of handicraft organizations'.

From the Great Roll of the Exchequer of 1130 we learn that there existed Gilds of Weavers in Lincoln and London as early as the reign of Henry I. They made an annual payment in return for royal recognition, and there are evidences of their existence in the twelfth century at Winchester, at Marlborough, at York, and at Oxford.3

In the reign of Henry II the Cloth-finishers were among the adulterine Gilds, which were condemned because they had received no royal authorization. In the same reign, however, the Weavers of Londons received their first Charter, in which they were confirmed in the liberties which they had enjoyed under Henry I. They were granted a Court of their own, and no one was allowed to engage in their handicraft in the City, Southwark, or other suburbs, unless they belonged to their Gild. These privileges were, however, much disliked, partly we may guess by those who pursued weaving as a by-industry in their homes,

The Bakers' Gild is mentioned in the Great Roll of the Exchequer, 1155; Madox, Exchequer, 231. Their first Charter is of the date of Edward II.

2 Ashley, Econ. History, Book II, c. iii, p. 192; Unwin, Industrial Organization, p. 26.

3 A. D. 1180. Liber Custum., lxi. 131, 132; Pipe Roll Society Publications, 11 Hen. II, &c.

* Gilda Parariorum. This may mean Shearmen. Cf. Liber Cust., Rolls Series, PP. 33, 418 ff. Henry II also granted a Charter to the Weavers of York, 1154. This is the earliest Charter to a Craft Gild that is known. In 1175 the Cordwainers of Oxford obtained one. Ballard, British Borough Charters, p. 208.

5 From a notice in Letter Book K, fos. 119, 119 b of the date of 1432 (or thereabouts), we learn that there had always been' three distinct Mysteries of native clothworkers, viz. native weavers of woollen cloth for tapestry, native weavers of woollen cloth for drapery, native weavers of woollen cloth for napery, and that of these three only the second had always had a Gild of their own. We find, however, notices of the Tapicers as having a Mystery by the licence of the Mayor in the fourteenth century. Letter Book E, fo. 210; G, fo. 168b. Stow speaks of weavers of draperie or taperie and naperie existing in the time of Edward III. Ed. Kingsford, i. 218.

partly by other Crafts interested in the cloth trade, especially as these Weavers were originally many of them foreigners. So unpopular were they that the Londoners paid sixty marks to King John on condition that he would abolish the Gild.' John, however, soon after reinstated it. The Charter was renewed by Edward I, and in the reign of Edward II the privileges were confirmed, although the Weavers were condemned for exceeding the terms of their Charter in some respects, more especially in their treatment of the Burellers. The position of the Weavers from the twelfth to the fourteenth century is a perplexing one. On the one hand, the fact that they were one of the earliest to obtain a Charter and that their 'ferm' of £12 was double that of the Bakers would lead one to believe that they were men of some influence and wealth; on the other hand, the language of the Charter of Henry II, which forbade any one to do them injury, or treat them with contumely, as they were certainly treated in other towns, seems to support the view that the industry was considered a very humble one, and that they were at once disliked and despised. The probable explanation of this apparent contradiction is that the original Craft was composed of foreigners.

The cloth trade was, however, as yet in its infancy. England was an agricultural country; wool, the raw material, not cloth, was her chief export.3 The better kinds of cloth came to her from abroad, more especially from the Low Countries, which looked to England for her wool, then considered of superior excellence, and where the manufacture of cloth was an established industry as early as the eleventh century. If England provided 1 Madox, Exchequer. Cives Londoniae debent LX marcas pro Gilda Telaria delenda.' Liber Cust., p. 33.

2 Liber Cust., lxv. 416-24. For position of Weavers in York and Beverley, cf. Leach, Selden Soc., vol. xiv, pp. xliv, 134; Engl. Hist. Review, xvi. 565; Victoria County Hist., Yorks.

3 The value of wool exported in one year, 1273, was about £1,000,000. Die Wollausfuhr Englands; Vierteljahr-Schrift f. Soc.- und Wirthschaftsgeschichte, vi. 176-8; cf. Cunningham, 1910, i. 628. Some 200 monasteries were sending wool to Flanders in 1284. Cf. also Patent Rolls, 1273, p. 13, which tells us of foreign merchants from Paris, Arras, Amiens, Bec, Rouen, St. Omer, Brabant, Brussels, Louvain, Lubeck, Cologne, Florence, Lucca, Placentia, and Spain, who are exporting wool.

Cf. Pirenne, 'Draps de Frise, draps de Flandre,' Siffer, Gand, 1909.