ENGLISH INDUSTRIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES
ENGLISH INDUSTRIES
OF THE MIDDLE AGES
Being an Introduction to the Industrial History
of Medieval England
BY
L. F. SALZMANN B.A. F.S.A.
AUTHOR OF 'MEDIEVAL BYWAYS'
LONDON
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD.
1913
PREFACE
The title of this book indicates at once its aim and its limitations.
It makes no pretence to be a complete history of the early industrial
life of England, but at the same time it does claim to be an
introduction to the study of that subject. It is my hope, and indeed
my belief, that from it the general reader, equipped with interest in
the history of his country rather than with technical knowledge, will
obtain something more than a bare outline of industrial conditions in
pre-Elizabethan days. The student who is anxious to go more deeply
into the subjects here treated may use this book as a road map and the
footnotes as finger-posts to guide him to the heights of completer
knowledge.
From the nature of my subject it was inevitable that the book should
be full of technicalities, figures, and statistics, but it has been my
endeavour to render the technicalities intelligible, and to prevent
the significance of the statistics being obscured by an excess of
detail. The scheme which I have adopted is to treat the leading
medieval industries one by one, showing as far as possible their chief
centres, their chronological development, the conditions and the
methods of working. With the disposal of the finished products through
intermediaries, merchants, or shopkeepers, I have not concerned myself,
deeming such matters rather to belong to the realms of trade and
commerce than of industry; and for this same reason, and also because
it has been dealt with by other writers, I have not dealt with the
great source of England's wealth—wool. Agriculture, also, and fishing I
have excluded from my definition of industry. A more culpable omission,
which I think calls for a word of explanation, is shown in the case
of building. This, however, is not omitted by an oversight, nor yet
through any desire to save myself trouble. I had collected a great
mass of material for an intended section on the Building Industry,
but after careful consideration I came to the conclusion that the
material available was so exceedingly technical, and the obscurity of
the details so greatly in excess of their value when elucidated, as to
render such a section rather a weariness and a stumbling-block to the
student than a help. The subjects treated in the several sections are
thoroughly representative, if not completely exhaustive, of English
industrial life, and a general survey of the subject is contained in
my last chapter, where I have outlined as broadly as possible the
general principles that governed the Control of Industry—the typical
regulations made by, or for, the craftsmen in the interest of the
employer, the workman, or the consumer. This last section might, of
course, easily have been extended to cover more pages than this whole
volume, but it is questionable whether multiplicity of detail tends to
ease of assimilation. A single typical instance of a prevalent custom
or regulation is as significant as a list of a dozen local variations,
and far easier to remember. A rule is more easily remembered by
one example than by a score, and with such a wealth of material as
exists the risk of obscurity is greater from amplification than from
concentration.
As to defining what is meant by the medieval period, it is not easy to
lay down any hard and fast rule, for the change from old methods or
conditions to new, which practically constitutes the division between
the medieval and the modern periods, occurred at a different date in
each industry. The crucial point in gunfounding was the invention of
solid boring in the time of Henry VIII.; in the cloth industry it was
the introduction of the 'new draperies' by Protestant refugees in
the reign of Elizabeth; for iron mining it was the adoption of pit
coal for smelting in the seventeenth century; for coal mining, the
application of steam power to solve the problems of drainage at great
depths early in the eighteenth century. Yet, taking one thing with
another, the sixteenth century may be considered to be the period of
transition. The rise of the capitalist and the monopolist, the social
revolution of the Reformation, with the abolition of the monastic
houses and the beginnings of the Poor-Law system constituted a new
era for the working classes even when unaccompanied by any startling
change in methods or mechanical media. Moreover, from the middle of
the sixteenth century documents and records relating to industrial
matters become more numerous and more accessible, and this is therefore
the usual starting-point for those who write upon these subjects. For
these reasons my accounts of the various selected industries will be
found to end at such dates within the sixteenth century as have seemed
convenient, though I have not slavishly refrained from taking out of
the seventeenth century occasional details applicable to the earlier
period.
Such, then, are the lines upon which I have built my book. If any
critic considers that the subject should have been dealt with on
another plan, he is at liberty to prove his contention by so treating
it himself.
As to the sources from which my information is taken: I believe
that every statement will be found to be buttressed by at least
one reference, and I may add that the reference is invariably to
the actual source from which I obtained my information. Of printed
sources much the most valuable have been the series of articles on
local industries printed in the _Victoria County Histories_, those
on mining and kindred subjects by Mr. C. H. Vellacott being of
exceptional importance. In very few cases have I found any published
history of any industry dealing at all fully with the early period:
the one conspicuous exception was Mr. G. Randall Lewis's book on _The
Stannaries_, second to which may be put Mr. Galloway's _Annals of Coal
Mining_. The various volumes of municipal records published by, or with
the consent of, the public-spirited authorities of some of our ancient
boroughs, notably those of Norwich, Bristol, Coventry, and Leicester,
have been of great value to me, as have Mr. Riley's _Memorials of
London_ and his editions of the _Liber Albus_ and _Liber Custumarum_.
To such other printed works as I have drawn upon, acknowledgment is
made in the footnotes, but so far as possible I have made use of
unpublished manuscript material at the British Museum and still more at
the Record Office. Needless to say, I collected far more material than
it was possible to use, and I can only hope that my selection has been
wise, as it certainly was careful, and that I have not overlooked or
omitted any evidence of essential importance. It had originally been my
intention to compile a series of transcripts of industrial records on
lines similar to the _Documents relatifs à l'Industrie_ of M. Fagniez,
but the enormous mass of material available for such a work, coupled
with the fact that in England such original research has to be carried
out at the sole expense of the unfortunate researcher, put an end to
the project, and deprived this work of what would have been a valuable,
if formidable, companion volume.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. MINING—COAL 1
II. " IRON 20
III. " LEAD AND SILVER 38
IV. " TIN 62
V. QUARRYING—STONE, MARBLE, ALABASTER, CHALK 76
VI. METAL-WORKING 92
VII. POTTERY—TILES, BRICKS 114
VIII. CLOTHMAKING 133
IX. LEATHER WORKING 171
X. BREWING—ALE, BEER, CIDER 184
XI. THE CONTROL OF INDUSTRY 200
INDEX 241
CHAPTER I
MINING—COAL
Coal is so intimately connected with all that is essentially
modern—machinery, steam, and the black pall that overhangs our great
towns and manufacturing districts—that it comes almost as a surprise
to find it in use in Britain at the beginning of the Christian era.
Yet excavation has proved beyond all doubt that coal was used by the
Romans, ashes and stores of the unburnt mineral being found all along
the Wall, at Lanchester and Ebchester in Durham,[1] at Wroxeter[2]
in Shropshire and elsewhere. For the most part it appears to have
been used for working iron, but it was possibly also used for heating
hypocausts, and there seems good reason to believe that it formed the
fuel of the sacred fire in the temple of Minerva at Bath, as Solinus,
writing about the end of the third century, comments on the 'stony
balls' which were left as ashes by this sacred fire.[3] That such coal
as was used by the Romans was obtained from outcrops, where the seams
came to the surface, is more than probable. There appears to be no
certain evidence of any regular mining at this period.
With the departure of the Romans from Britain coal went out of use, and
no trace of its employment can be found prior to the Norman Conquest,
or indeed for more than a century after that date. It was not until
quite the end of the twelfth century that coal was rediscovered,
and the history of its use in England may be said for all practical
purposes to begin with the reign of Henry III. (1216). In the 'Boldon
Book'[4] survey of the see of Durham, compiled in 1183, there are
several references to smiths who were bound to make ploughshares
and to 'find the coal' therefor, but unfortunately the Latin word
_invenire_ bears the same double meaning as its English equivalent 'to
find,' and may imply either discovery or simple provision. In view of
the fact that the word used for coal (_carbonem_) in this passage is
unqualified, and that _carbo_, as also the English 'cole,' practically
always implies charcoal, it would be unsafe to conclude that mineral
coal is here referred to. The latter is almost invariably given a
distinguishing adjective, appearing as earth coal, subterranean coal,
stone coal, quarry coal, etc., but far most frequently as 'sea coal.'
The origin of this term may perhaps be indicated by a passage in a
sixteenth-century account of the salt works in the county of Durham:[5]
'As the tide comes in it bringeth a small wash sea coal which is
employed to the making of salt and the fuel of the poor fisher towns
adjoining.' It is most probable that the first coal used was that thus
washed up by the sea and such as could be quarried from the face of
the cliffs where the seams were exposed by the action of the waves.
The term was next applied, for convenience, to similar coal obtained
inland, and as an export trade grew up it acquired the secondary
significance of sea-borne coal.
No references to purchases of sea coal occur in the Pipe Rolls of Henry
II., nor, so far as I am aware, in those of Richard I. and John, but it
would seem that its existence was known before the end of the twelfth
century, as Alexander Neckam in his treatise, _De Naturis Rerum_,[6]
has a curious and puzzling section, '_De Carbone_,' at the beginning
of his discourse on minerals, parts of which seem applicable to sea
coal, though other parts appear to refer to charcoal. So far as can be
gathered, he considered sea coal to be charcoal found in the earth;
he comments on the extreme durability of coal and its resistance to
the effects of wet and the lapse of time, and makes the interesting
statement that when men were setting up boundary stones they dug in
below them a quantity of coal, and that in the event of a dispute as
to the position of the stone in later years the presence of this coal
was the determining factor. Whether there is any corroborative evidence
of this alleged custom I have not been able to ascertain, but it is
at least a proof that mineral coal was known, though evidently not
extensively used for fuel at this period. Coal was apparently worked
in Scotland about 1200,[7] and it would seem that about a quarter of a
century later it was being imported into London, as a mention of Sea
Coal Lane, just outside the walls of the city, near Ludgate, occurs in
1228.[8] As property in this lane belonged to William 'de Plessetis,'
it is probable that the coal was brought from Plessey, near Blyth, in
which neighbourhood the monks of Newminster were given the right to
take coal along the shore about 1236.[9] The monks also obtained leave
from Nicholas de Aketon about the same time to take sea coals in his
wood of Middlewood for use at their forge of Stretton, near Alnwick.
It may be remarked that at this time, and for the greater part of the
next three centuries, the use of coal was restricted to iron-working
and lime-burning, the absence of chimneys rendering it unsuitable for
fuel in ordinary living rooms. So particularly was it associated with
lime-burning that we find Sea Coal Lane also known as Lime-burners
Lane, and references in building accounts to purchases of sea coal for
the burning of lime are innumerable.
It is in 1243 that we get our first dated reference to an actual
coal working. In that year Ralf, son of Roger Wlger, was recorded
to have been drowned 'in a delf of sea coals' (_in fossato carbonum
maris_).[10] The use of the word _fossatum_ is interesting, as clearly
indicating an 'open cast working,' that is to say, a comparatively
shallow trench carried along the seam where it comes close to the
surface, a step intermediate between the mere quarrying of outcrop
and the sinking of regular pits. An indication of the spread of coal
mining is to be found in one of the articles of inquiry for the Forest
Assize of 1244, which relates to 'sea coal found within the forest,
and whether any one has taken money for the digging of the same.'[11]
It is probable that special reference was intended to the Forest of
Dean, coal being worked about this time at Blakeney, Stainton, and
Abinghall; from the last named place a penny on every horse-load of
coal was paid to the Constable of St. Briavels, as warden of the
Forest.[12] By 1255 the issues of the Forest of Dean included payments
for digging sea coals, and customs on all sea coal brought down the
Severn.[13] Some of this latter may have been quarried in Shropshire,
as about 1260 Walter de Clifford licensed Sir John de Halston to dig
for coals in the forest of Clee,[14] and there are other indications of
the early exploitation of the Shropshire coal-field. The Midland field
of Derbyshire and Notts was also working, coal being got in Duffield
Frith in 1257,[15] the year in which Queen Eleanor was driven from
Nottingham Castle by the unpleasant fumes of the sea coal used in the
busy town below,[16] a singularly early instance of the smoke nuisance
which we are apt to consider a modern evil. Half a century later, in
1307, the growing use of coal by lime-burners in London became so
great a nuisance that its use was rigorously prohibited, but whether
successfully may be questioned.[17]
By the end of the thirteenth century it would seem that practically
all the English coal-fields were being worked to some extent. In
Northumberland so numerous were the diggings round Newcastle that
it was dangerous to approach the town in the dark, and the monks of
Tynemouth also were making good use of their mineral wealth;[18] in
Yorkshire coal was being got at Shippen at least as early as 1262,[19]
and in Warwickshire and at Chilvers Coton in 1275.[20] The small
Somerset field near Stratton on Fosse and the Staffordshire coal
measures may be possible exceptions, but in the latter county coal was
dug at Bradley in 1315 and at Amblecote during the reign of Edward
III.[21] The diggings were still for the most part open-cast works, but
pits were beginning to come in. These 'bell pits,' of which numbers
remained until recently in the neighbourhood of Leeds,[22] at Oldham in
Lancashire,[23] and elsewhere, were narrow shafts sunk down to the coal
and then enlarged at the bottom, and widened as far as was safe—and
sometimes farther, if we may judge from a number of instances in
Derbyshire in which miners were killed by the fall of their pits.[24]
When as much coal as could safely be removed had been obtained, the
pit was abandoned and a fresh pit sunk as near to it as possible. As a
rule the old pit had to be filled up, and at Nuneaton we find this very
properly enforced by the bailiff in 1343,[25] and at later dates. Open
coal delfs were a source of considerable danger to men and animals,
especially when water had accumulated in them, and a number of cattle
were drowned at Morley in Derbyshire in 1372,[26] while it was probably
in an abandoned working at Wingerworth that a beggar woman, Maud
Webster, was killed in 1313 by a mass of soil falling on her as she
was picking up coal.[27] From the pits the coal was raised in corves,
or large baskets, and as early as 1291 we have a case of a man being
killed at Denby in a 'colpyt' by one of these loaded corves falling
upon his head.[28]
A case of some interest is recorded in Derbyshire in 1322, when Emma,
daughter of William Culhare, while drawing water from the 'colepyt' at
Morley was killed by 'le Damp,' _i.e._ choke damp.[29] This is one of
the very few early references to choke damp, or 'stithe,' as it was
often called, and the case is also interesting because, as water from a
coal pit could hardly be good for either drinking or washing purposes,
she must have been engaged in draining the pit, and this suggests a
pit of rather exceptional dimensions. A more certain indication of a
considerable depth having been attained is given forty years later in
the case of another pit at Morley Park, said to have been drowned, or
flooded, 'for lack of a gutter.'[30] This may only refer to a surface
drain, but there is abundant proof that regular drainage by watergates,
soughs, or adits had already come into use, and that coal-mining had
reached the 'pit and adit' stage. In this system of working, the
water, always the most troublesome enemy of the miner, was drawn off
by a subterranean drain leading from the bottom of the pit. It need
hardly be pointed out that the system was only practicable on fairly
high ground, where the bottom of the pit was above the level of free
drainage: in such a case a horizontal gallery, or adit, could be
driven from a suitable point on the face of the hill slightly below
the bottom of the pit to strike the latter, and a wooden sough,[31] or
drain, of which the sections were known in Warwickshire as 'dearns,'
could be laid to carry the water from the pit to a convenient point
of discharge. In 1354 the monks of Durham, when obtaining a lease of
coal mines in Ferry, had leave to place pits and watergates where
suitable,[32] and ten years later a lease of a mine at Gateshead
stipulated for provision of timber for the pits and water-gate.[33]
During the next century a certain number of pits were sunk in lower
ground, or to a greater depth, below the level of free drainage, and in
1486 we find the monks of Finchale, active exploiters of the northern
coal measures, erecting a pump worked by horse power at Moorhouse,[34]
but it is not until the second half of the sixteenth century, nearly
at the end of the medieval period, that we find such pumps, 'gins,' or
baling engines, and similar machines in common use.
Piecing together information afforded by scattered entries, we can
obtain some idea of the working of a coal pit about the end of the
fifteenth century. After the overseer, or a body of miners, had
inspected the ground and chosen a likely place, a space was marked out,
and a small sum distributed among the workers as earnest money. The
pit was then sunk at such charge as might be agreed upon: at Heworth
in 1376 the charge was six shillings the fathom,[35] at Griff in 1603
six shillings the ell.[36] A small 'reward' was paid when the vein
of coal was struck, the pit was then cleaned up and timbered, and a
water-gate or adit driven to afford drainage and ventilation. Over the
mouth of the pit was erected a thatched 'hovel' with wattled sides to
keep the wind and rain from the pit, and in this was a windlass for
raising the corves. The workmen consisted of hewers, who cut the coal,
and bearers who carried it to the bottom of the pit and filled the
corves: they were under the control of the 'viewer,' whose duty it was
'to see under the ground that the work was orderly wrought,' and the
'overman,' who had 'to see such work as come up at every pit to be for
the coal owner's profit.'[37] Their wages do not appear to have been
much, if at all, above those of the ordinary labourer or unskilled
artisan. Owing no doubt to the comparatively late rise of the industry
and the simplicity of the work, no refining or skilled manipulation
being required as in the case of metallic ores, the coal miners
never acquired the privileged position of the 'free miners' of Dean,
Derbyshire, Cumberland, and Cornwall.[38] The work was not attractive,
and the supply of labour seems occasionally to have run dry. So
much was this the case after the Black Death in 1350 and the second
epidemic of 1366 that the lessees of the great mines at Whickham and
Gateshead had to resort to forced labour, and obtained leave to impress
workmen.[39] Much later, about 1580, the Winlaton pits were hampered
by lack of workmen and the owners, having sent into Scotland for
more hands with little success, had to hire women and even then were
short-handed, to say nothing of being troubled with incompetent men who
for their negligence and false work had to be 'laid in the stocks,' and
even 'expulsed oute of their worke.'[40]
The question of mineral rights as regards coal is complicated by the
variety of local customs. In some cases, as at Bolsover,[41] the
manorial tenants had the right to dig sea coal in the waste and forest
land for their own use; but it was probably usual to charge a fee for
licence to dig, and this was clearly the practice at Wakefield.[42] So
far as copyhold lands were concerned the lord of the manor, or his
farmer, appears as a rule to have had the power to dig without paying
the tenant compensation. This was certainly being done at Houghton,
in Yorkshire, and in the adjacent manor of Kipax in 1578, and the
undoubted injury to the copyholders was held to be counterbalanced by
the advantage to the neighbourhood of a cheap supply of coal.[43] The
uncertainty of the law and the conflicting claims of ground landlords,
tenants, and prospectors led to a plentiful crop of legal actions. For
the most part these were actions for trespass in digging coal without
leave, occasionally complicated by counter appeals.[44] In the first
half of the sixteenth century, for instance, Nicholas Strelley, being
impleaded for trespass by Sir John Willoughby, set forth that he had a
pit in Strelley from which he obtained much coal, to the advantage of
the neighbourhood and of 'the schyres of Leicestre and Lincoln, being
very baren and scarce contres of all maner of fuell'; and no doubt,
though he omitted to say so, to his own advantage; now, owing to the
deepness of the mine and the amount of water, the old pit could only be
worked if a sough or drain were constructed at an unreasonable expense;
he had therefore dug a fresh pit on the borders of Strelly close to
Sir John's manor of Wollaton, purposing to use an old sough running
through Sir John's ground. Sir John had promptly blocked the sough
with a 'counter-mure' and brought actions for trespass, and Nicholas
Strelley, much aggrieved, invoked the aid of the Star Chamber.[45]
The same court was also invoked a few years later by William Bolles,
who complained that by the procurement of Sir William Hussey certain
persons came to Newthorpe Mere in Gresley and 'most cruelly and
maliciously cutt in peaces brake and caste downe dyvers frames of
tymbre made upon and in one pitte made and sonken to gett cooles, and
cutt in peaces dyvers greate ropes loomes and tooles apperteyninge to
the said woorke at the said pitte,' the offenders being unidentified
as the outrage took place 'in the night tyme when every good trew and
faithful subjecte ought to take their reste.'[46]
Presuming an undisputed title, the owner of coal measures could exploit
them in a variety of ways. He might work them himself; the outlay would
be small, provided extensive drainage operations were not required,
for wages, as we have said, were low and the equipment of the mine,
consisting of a few picks, iron bars or wedges, wooden shovels shod
with iron and baskets, buckets, and ropes, inexpensive, and there was
a steady sale for the coal, though the price of coal varied so greatly
and was so much affected by cost of carriage that it is not possible
to give even an approximate average value for the medieval period; the
question being further complicated by the extraordinary variety of
measure employed. Coal is quoted in terms of the 'hundredweight,' the
'quarter' (valued at Colchester in 1296 at 6d.),[47] the 'seam' (or
horse-load), the 'load,' which may be either horse or wain load, the
'scope,' which appears to be equivalent to the 'corf,' or basket, the
'roke' or 'rowe,' the 'rod' or 'perch' (a measure apparently peculiar
to Warwickshire),[48] the 'butress' and the 'three-quarters' (of a
buttress), and most commonly in the Tyne district by the 'fother,'
'chalder,' or 'chaldron' and 'ten,' and also by the 'keel' or barge
load. Where the owner did not work the coals himself he could either
issue annual licences to dig coal or lease the mines for a term of
years.[49] The earliest leases give a vague general permission to dig
coal wherever found within the lands in question, but it soon became
usual to limit the output either by fixing the maximum amount to be
taken in one day, or more usually in early leases by restricting the
number of workmen to be employed. In 1326 Hugh of Scheynton granted to
Adam Peyeson land at Benthall with all quarries of sea coal, employing
four labourers to dig the same, and as many as he chose to carry the
coals to the Severn.[50] Slightly before this date we find that payment
was made at Belper according to the number of picks employed, the
royalty on one pick in 1315 being over £4.[51] In 1380 the prior of
Beauvale in leasing a mine of sea coal at Newthorpe to Robert Pascayl
and seven other partners,[52] stipulated that they should have only got
two men in the pit, a viewer (_servaunt de south la terre_), and three
men above ground. The lessees of a pit at Trillesden in 1447 were 'to
work and win coal every day overable [_i.e._ working day] with three
picks and ilk pick to win every day 60 scopes,'[53] and at Nuneaton,
in 1553, the lessees were not to employ more than six workmen at the
time.[54] In this latter case there was a further stipulation that the
pits when exhausted should be filled up with 'yearthe and slecke,'
while at Trillesden the pit was to be worked workmanlike and the miners
were to 'save the field standing,' pointing to a fairly elaborate
system of galleries and pillars liable to subsidence if not properly
planned.[55] But the most important lease was that of five mines in
Whickham, made in 1356 by Bishop Hatfield of Durham to Sir Thomas Gray
and the Rector of Whickham for the enormous rent of 500 marks (£333,
6s. 8d.).[56] In this case the lessees were limited to one keel (about
twenty tons) daily from each mine; but on the other hand the bishop
agreed never to take their workmen away, and not to open any fresh pits
in the district, and not to sell the coal from his existing pits at
Gateshead to ships. A century later Sir William Eure leased some of the
most important Durham coal mines, his daily output being restricted to
340 corves at Raly, 300 at Toftes, 600 at Hartkeld, and 20 at any other
mines, with the right of making up from one mine any deficiency in
another, and also of making up any deficiency caused by delays due to
'styth' or choke-damp, which appears to have been so troublesome in the
hot season as to cause a complete suspension of work. Under this lease
Sir William obtained at Raly in one week of 1460, some 1800 corves,
each of 2½ bushels, making rather over 140 chalders, paying 5d. a day
to each of the three hewers, the three barrowmen, who brought the coal
to the foot of the shaft, and the four drawers who raised and banked
it.[57]
In the Whickham lease of 1356 it will be noticed that the bishop
undertook not to allow coals from his own pits to be exported by sea.
The sea-borne trade in coals from Newcastle and the Tyne was obtaining
considerable dimensions; ten years later, in 1366, a large purchase of
coal was made at Winlaton for the king's works at Windsor. The sheriff
of Northumberland accounted for £165, 5s. 2d. expended on the purchase
and carriage to London of 576 chalder of coals, reckoning by the
'great hundred' of six score, so that there were actually shipped 676
chalder, but of this 86 chalder had to be written off, partly through
some being jettisoned during a sudden storm at sea, and partly because
the London chalder was much bigger than that used in Northumberland,
the difference amounting to about five per cent.[58] The chalder,
or chaldron, seems to have been originally about eighteen to twenty
hundredweight, and from early times twenty of these made the load of a
keel, or coal barge, but in order to evade the export duty of 2d. on
every keel, or at least to compensate for it, it became the practice
to build keels of twenty-two or twenty-three chalder burden. This was
forbidden in 1385,[59] but the prohibition being evaded, an Act was
passed in 1421[60] by which the actual capacity of each keel had to
be marked upon it. This in turn was evaded by a rapid increase in the
size of the chalder, until by the time of Elizabeth it had doubled
its original weight, and the 'ten' (chalder) was the equivalent of
the keel of twenty tons.[61] Returning to the fourteenth century,
the customs accounts of the port of Newcastle[62] show that between
Michaelmas 1377 and Michaelmas 1378 as much as 7338 chalder of coal,
valued at 2s. the chalder, was exported to foreign countries. For the
most part this went to the Low Countries—Sluys, Bremerhaven, Flushing,
and Dunkirk being amongst the ports mentioned, though in a number of
cases ships of 'Lumbardye' occur, the average quantity taken by each
vessel being a little less than fifty chalder. Of the home trade for
this period no record is obtainable, and it is not until the time
of Elizabeth that we can compare the exports to home and foreign
ports. For the seven years 1591-7, the amount sent abroad was 95,558
chalder, rising from 10,000 in 1591 to 18,000 in 1593, and then falling
gradually back to 10,000, while the home trade amounted to 418,200
chalder, increasing steadily from 45,700 up to over 70,000.[63] The
supremacy of Newcastle is shown by a comparison of the amounts of coal
exported to foreign countries from the chief English ports in 1592.[64]
Newcastle comes first with 12,635 chalder, then Bristol with 580, Wales
with 464, and Liverpool with 448.
The expansion of the home trade noticed in the returns for 1591-7
is borne out by an abundance of corroborative evidence, and may be
largely attributed to the great increase at this period in the use of
chimneys. Practically the chimney was an Elizabethan invention so far
as the smaller houses were concerned, and 'the multitude of chimnies
lately erected' was one of the changes most remarked upon by Harrison's
old friends at the time that he wrote his _Description of England_,
published in 1577. The reign of Elizabeth, therefore, when the rapid
increase in the demand for house coal, coupled with a rise in the
price, resulted in a rapid expansion of the industry in all parts of
the country, marks the end of the medieval period of coal mining and
the initiation of a new epoch with which we are not concerned.