CLOTHMAKING
Important as was the wool trade, for centuries the main source of
England's wealth, its history, pertaining to the realms of commerce
rather than of industry, does not concern us here, and we may ignore
the raw material to deal with the manufactured article. To treat at
all adequately the vast and complicated history of clothmaking would
require a volume as large as this book, even if the line be drawn at
the introduction of the New Draperies by Protestant refugees in the
time of Elizabeth, and all that is possible here is briefly to outline
that history.
The weaving of cloth is of prehistoric antiquity, implements employed
therein having been found in numbers in the ancient lake-village of
Glastonbury, and on other earlier sites, but documentary evidence
may be said to begin with the twelfth century. By the middle of that
century the industry had so far developed in certain centres that
the weavers of London, Winchester, Lincoln, Oxford, Huntingdon, and
Nottingham, and the fullers of Winchester, had formed themselves
into gilds, which were sufficiently wealthy to pay from 40s. to £12
yearly to the king for various privileges which practically amounted
to the monopoly of cloth-working in their several districts.[453]
If these were the principal they were by no means the only centres
of the industry. Stamford,[454] on the borders of Lincolnshire and
Northants., was another; and Gloucester,[455] while dyers are found at
Worcester[456] in 1173, and at Darlington[457] ten years later.
To the twelfth century also belong the remarkable 'laws of the weavers
and fullers' of Winchester, Marlborough, Oxford, and Beverley.[458]
These, which all closely resemble one another, and were either based
upon, or intimately related to the regulations in force in London, show
the clothworkers in a state of subjection for which it is difficult to
account. Briefly summarised, they lay down that no weaver or fuller
may traffic in cloth or sell it to any one except to the merchants of
the town, and that if any became prosperous and wished to become a
freeman of the town, he must first abandon his trade and get rid of all
the implements connected with it, and then satisfy the town officials
of his ability to keep up his new position without working at his
old trade. But the most singular provision, found in all these laws,
was that no fuller or weaver could attaint or bear witness against a
'free man.' Here it is clear that 'free man' is used not as opposed
to a villein,[459] but as implying one possessing the full franchise
of his town, in other words, a member of the governing merchant gild,
or equivalent body. Probably the English cloth trade, which was very
extensive during the twelfth century, was entirely in the hands of the
capitalist merchant clothiers, at any rate so far as the great towns
here in question were concerned, and they had combined to prevent
members of the handicraft gilds of clothworkers from obtaining access
to the merchant gilds. As the charter granted to the London weavers by
Henry II. early in his reign confirms to them the rights and privileges
which they had in the time of Henry I., and orders that no one shall
dare to do them any injury or despite,[460] it may be suggested that
these restrictive regulations were drawn up in the time of Stephen. For
the date at which they were collected, evidently as precedents for use
in London, we may hazard 1202, in which year the citizens of London
paid sixty marks to King John to abolish the weavers' gilds.[461]
It is curious that most modern writers assume the English cloth trade
to have practically started with the introduction of Flemish weavers
by Edward III. It is constantly asserted[462] that prior to this the
cloth made in England was of a very poor quality and entirely for home
consumption. Both statements are incorrect. A very large proportion
of the native cloth was certainly coarse 'burel,' such as that of
which 2000 ells were bought at Winchester in 1172 for the soldiers
in Ireland,[463] or the still coarser and cheaper Cornish burels
which were distributed to the poor by the royal almoner about this
time.[464] At the other end of the scale were the scarlet cloths for
which Lincoln and Stamford early attained fame. Scarlet cloth, dyed if
not actually made on the spot, was bought in Lincoln for the king in
1182 at the prodigious price of 6s. 8d. the ell, about £7 in modern
money. At the same time 'blanket' cloth and green say cost 3s. the
ell, and grey say 1s. 8d.[465] Thirty years later the importance of
the trade is indicated by the inclusion in Magna Carta of a section
fixing the breadth of 'dyed cloths, russets, and halbergetts' at two
ells 'within the lists.'[466] Infringements of the 'assize of cloth'
were of constant occurrence, and were amongst the matters inquired
into by the justices holding 'pleas of the Crown'; for instance, in
Kent, in 1226, some thirty merchants and clothiers are presented as
offenders in this respect,[467] Henry III. at the beginning of his
reign, in May 1218, had ordered that any cloths of less than two ells
breadth exposed for sale should be forfeited,[468] but this order was
not to take effect before Christmas so far as burels made by the men
of London, Marlborough, and Bedwin (Wilts.) were concerned, and in
1225 the citizens of London were exempted from keeping the assize,
provided their burels were not made narrower than they used to be.[469]
In 1246 the sheriff of London was ordered to buy one thousand ells of
cheap burel to give to the poor;[470] and in 1250 we find the king
discharging an outstanding bill of £155 due to a number of London
burellers, whose names are recorded;[471] amongst them was one Gerard
le Flemeng, but otherwise they appear to have been native workmen. The
burellers seem to have already separated off from the weavers, and had
certainly done so some time before 1300, at which date disputes between
the two classes of clothmakers were common.[472]
Apart from the burels, which were probably very similar wherever made,
the cloths made at different centres usually possessed distinctive
characteristics. In the list of customs paid at Venice on imported
goods in 1265,[473] we find mention of 'English Stamfords,' 'dyed
Stamfords,' and of 'Milanese Stamfords of Monza,' showing that
this particular class of English cloth was sufficiently good to
be copied abroad. It is rather a noticeable feature of the cloth
trade that so many of the trade terms were taken from the names of
the places in which the particular wares originated. A prominent
instance of this occurs in the case of 'chalons,' which derived
their name from Chalons-sur-Marne, but were made in England from an
early date. 'Chalons of Guildford' were bought for the king's use at
Winchester Fair in 1252.[474] Winchester itself was an early centre
of the manufacture of chalons, which were rugs used for coverlets
or counterpanes, and in the consuetudinary of the city,[475] which
dates back at least to the early years of the thirteenth century, the
looms are divided into two classes, the 'great looms' used for burel
weaving paying 5s. a year, and the 'little looms' for chalons paying
6d. or 12d., according to their size. The chalons were to be of fixed
dimensions, those 4 ells long being 2 yards in breadth (_devant li
tapener_), those of 3½ yards 1¾ yards wide, and those of 3 ells long
1½ ells wide. Coverlets formed also an important branch of the Norfolk
worsted[476] industry; in this case the ancient measurements were said
in 1327 to have been 6 ells by 5, 5 by 4, or 4 by 3.[477] At a later
date, in 1442, we find worsted 'beddes' of much greater dimensions, the
three 'assizes' being 14 yards by 4, 12 by 3, or 10 by 2½,[478] but
presumably these were complete sets of coverlet, tester and curtains,
such as those of which a number are valued at from 6s. 8d. to 20s.
a piece in the inventory of the goods of the late King Henry V. in
1423.[479] Besides bedclothes the worsted weavers made piece cloth,
and amongst the exports from Boston in 1302 figure worsted cloths and
worsted seys.[480] Boston, as we might expect from its nearness to
Lincoln, exported a good deal of scarlet cloth, while the amount of
'English cloth' sent out is proof of a demand for this material abroad:
a ship from Lubeck took 'English cloth' worth £250 for one merchant,
Tideman de Lippe, and two other ships carried cargoes of the same
material worth more than £200. 'Beverley cloths' are also represented
amongst these exports, and coloured cloths of Lincoln and Beverley
are found about this time at Ipswich paying the same tolls as foreign
cloths.[481] At Ipswich also cloths of Cogsall, Maldon, Colchester,
and Sudbury are mentioned as typical 'clothes of Ynglond' exported[482]
and are classified as 'of doubele warke that men clepeth tomannyshete,'
and a smaller kind 'of longe webbe that they call omannesete,'[483] or
'oon mannys hete.' The origin of these terms appears to be unknown, but
as these were probably the narrow cloths afterwards known as 'Essex
straits,' there was possibly some connection with the narrow 'Osetes'
of Bristol.[484]
So far as London is concerned, the skill of the weavers at the end
of the thirteenth century is shown by the variety of types of cloth
which are referred to in the regulations of 1300.[485] Here we find
mention of cloths called andly, porreye, menuet, virli, lumbard,
marbled ground with vetch-blossom, hawes, bissets, etc. But it would
seem that the English cloth makers failed to keep pace[486] with their
Continental rivals, and instead of improving the quality of their
goods endeavoured to keep up prices by restricting their output.[487]
Edward III., seeing the need for new blood, took measures to attract
foreign clothworkers[488] to England, and at the same time, in 1337,
absolutely prohibited the use or importation of foreign cloth.[489] In
order to stimulate the output he even withdrew all restrictions as to
measures, and licensed the making of cloths of any length and breadth;
but this excess of freedom soon proved unworkable. The newcomers were
not very popular with the native weavers, and in 1340 the king had to
send orders to the Mayor of Bristol to cease from interfering with
Thomas Blanket and others who had set up machines for making cloth, and
had brought over workmen.[490] The vexation against which Blanket had
appealed seems to have been the regulation that every new weaving loom
was to pay 5s. 1d. to the Mayor, and 40d. to the aldermen; this rule
was confirmed in 1346, but annulled in 1355.[491]
Before dealing with the various ordinances by which the manufacture
of cloth was controlled, it may be as well to consider the processes
through which the wool passed before it reached the market, for
'Cloth that cometh from the weaving is not comely to wear
Till it be fulled under foot or in fulling stocks;
Washen well with water, and with teasels cratched,
Towked and teynted and under tailor's hands.'[492]
Having dropped into verse, we may perhaps continue in that medium, and
set out the various stages of the manufacture in a poem,[493] written
in 1641, but equally applicable to earlier times:—
'1. First the Parter, that doth neatly cull
The finer from the courser sort of wool.[494]
2. The Dyer then in order next doth stand,
With sweating brow and a laborious hand.
3. With oil they then asperge it, which being done,
4. The careful hand of Mixers round it runne.
5. The Stockcarder his arms doth hard imploy
(Remembring Friday is our Market day).
6. The Knee-carder doth (without controule)
Quickly convert it to a lesser roule.
7. Which done, the Spinster doth in hand it take
And of two hundred roules one threed doth make.
8. The Weaver next doth warp and weave the chain,
Whilst Puss his cat stands mewing for a skaine;
But he, laborious with his hands and heeles,
Forgets his Cat and cries, Come boy with queles.[495]
9. Being fill'd, the Brayer doth it mundifie
From oyle and dirt that in the same doth lie,
10. The Burler[496] then (yea, thousands in this place)
The thick-set weed with nimble hand doth chase.
11. The Fuller then close by his stock doth stand,
And will not once shake Morpheus by the hand.
12. The Rower next his armes lifts up on high,
13. And near him sings the Shearman merrily.
14. The Drawer last, that many faults doth hide
(Whom merchant nor the weaver can abide)
Yet is he one in most clothes stops more holes
Than there be stairs to the top of Paul's.'
The first process, then, was the sorting of the wool. The better
quality was used for the ordinary cloths, and the worst was made up
into coarse cloth known as cogware and Kendal cloth, three-quarters
of a yard broad, and worth from 40d. to 5s. the piece.[497] The term
cogware seems to have sprung from its being sold to cogmen, the crews
of the ships called cogs; but whether for their own use, or for export
is not quite clear. The alternative name of Kendal cloths was derived
from the district of Kendal in Westmoreland, a seat of the industry, at
least as early as 1256.[498] The mixing of different qualities of wool
in one cloth was prohibited; and as it was forbidden to mix English
wool with Spanish,[499] so was the use of flocks, or refuse wool, in
ordinary cloth,[500] except in the case of the cloth of Devonshire, in
which, owing to the coarseness of the wool, an admixture of flock was
necessary.[501]
In dyeing two mediums are required, the colouring matter and the
mordant which fixes the dye in the wool. The mordant most in use in
the Middle Ages was alum,[502] and at Bristol in 1346 we find that
only 'Spyralym, Glasalym, and Bokkan' might be used and that any one
using 'Bitterwos' or 'Alym de Wyght,' which must have derived its name
from the Isle of Wight, or even found with any in his possession, was
liable to be fined.[503] Far the commonest dye-stuff was the blue
woad, of which enormous quantities were used. The plant (_Isatis
tinctoria_) from which this was prepared is indigenous (the ancient
Britons, indeed, wore the dye without the intervention of cloth), but
practically all the woad used commercially in England was imported,
Southampton being one of the great centres of the trade.[504] In 1286
the authorities at Norwich came to an agreement with the woad merchants
of Amiens and Corby as to the size of the packages in which woad and
weld, a yellow dye in much demand, might be sold,[505] and at Bristol
some sixty years later elaborate regulations were drawn up for the
preparation of the woad, of which two varieties are mentioned, that of
Picardy and that of Toulouse.[506] The woad was imported in casks in
the form of dry balls; these had to be broken up small, moistened with
water, and then heaped up to ferment; after a few days the top layer
became so hot that it could hardly be touched with the hand; the heap
was then turned over to bring the bottom to the top, and left till this
in turn had fermented; a third turn usually sufficed to complete the
process.[507] In Bristol special 'porters' were appointed to undertake
and supervise this seasoning and the subsequent storing of the woad,
and a further regulation compelled the merchant to sell his woad within
forty days after it had been stored and assayed.[508] The setting of
the woad, that is to say its conversion into dye, was also an art in
itself, and it would seem that in Bristol it was the custom for dyers
to go to the houses of their customers and prepare the woad-vats.
Through undertaking more jobs than they could properly attend to,
much woad was spoilt, and in 1360 they were forbidden to take charge
of more than one lot of dye at one time.[509] Further abuses arose
through the ignorance and incapacity of many of the itinerant dyers,
and in 1407 it was enacted that only those dyers who held a certificate
of competency should ply their trade in the town.[510] At Coventry,
another great centre of the trade, complaints were made in 1415 that
the dyers had not only raised their prices, charging 6s. 8d. instead
of 5s. for a cloth, 30s. instead of 20s. for 60 lbs. of wool, and 6s.
instead of 4s. for 12 lbs. of the thread for which the town was famous,
but were in the habit of taking the best part (_la floure_) of the woad
and madder for their own cloths, and using only the weaker portion
for their customers' cloths. A petition was therefore made that two
drapers, a woader and a dyer, should be elected annually to supervise
the trade.[511] Some fifty years later we have at Coventry a notice of
what appears to have been a medieval instance of a quarrel between a
'trade union,' the Dyers Company, and 'blackleg' firms.[512] Thomas de
Fenby and ten other dyers of Coventry complained against John Egynton
and William Warde that they had assembled the members of their trade
and had compelled them to swear to various things contrary to the law
and their conscience, as that no one should buy any woad until it had
been viewed and appraised by six men chosen for the purpose by the
said Egynton and Warde, and that no dyer should make any scarlet dye
(_grene_) at less than 6s. (the vat?), or put any cloth into woad for
less than 4d. or 5d. Warde and Egynton had also adopted the medieval
form of picketing, by hiring Welshmen and Irishmen to waylay and kill
the complainants on their way to neighbouring markets.
A list of cloths made in York in 1395-6[513] gives some idea of the
colours in general use. For the first three months, September-December,
blue largely predominated, but for some unexplained reason this
colour almost disappeared from January to May, its place being taken
by russet. Red, sanguine, morrey (or orange), plunket,[514] green,
and motleys, white, blue, and green occur; also 'paly,' which was
presumably some striped material, and in a very few cases black. By the
regulations drawn up in London in 1298,[515] no dyer who dyed burnets
blue[516] or other colours might dye 'blecche' or tawny: the reason
does not appear, but this uncertain tint, 'blecche,' occurs again as
reserved specially for Spanish wool.[517] For blue, as we have seen,
woad was used, and for yellow weld, a combination of the two yielding
green; scarlet was derived from the grain (_greyne_),[518] and reds
and russets from madder, which was imported in large quantities.
Several varieties of lichen were probably included under the head of
'orchal,' and afforded shades of brown and red. Fancy shades were
formed by double dyeing, and apparently were not always reliable, as a
statute[519] passed in 1533 ordered that none should dye woollen cloth
'as browne blewes, pewkes, tawnyes, or vyolettes,' unless they were
'perfectly boyled, greyned, or madered upon the wode, and shotte with
good and sufficient corke or orchall.' At this time brazil, or logwood,
was being adopted as a dye, and its use was absolutely forbidden.
Carding, or combing, and spinning are processes which need not detain
us long. They were both home industries, and spinning, in particular,
was the staple employment of the women, and accordingly regulations
were not infrequently made to ensure a good supply of wool for their
use. At Bristol, in 1346, no oiled wool ready for carding and spinning
might be sent out of the town until the carders and spinners had had
a chance of applying for it; moreover, it might only be exposed for
sale on a Friday, and no middleman might buy it.[520] Similarly at
Norwich, in 1532, the butchers were ordered to bring their woolfells
into the market and offer them for sale to the poor women who lived by
spinning.[521] When the clothmaking trade got into the hands of the big
capitalist clothiers, who gave out their wool to be carded and spun, it
became necessary to pass laws[522] to ensure on the one hand that the
workers should do their work faithfully, and not abstract any of the
wool,[523] and on the other, that the masters should not defraud the
carders and spinners by paying them in food or goods[524] instead of
in money, or by the use of false weights, making women, for instance,
comb 7½ lbs. of wool as a 'combing stone,' which should only contain 5
lbs.[525]
Weaving was, of course, the most important of all the processes in
clothmaking. Reduced to its simplest form, the weaver's loom consists
of a horizontal frame, to the ends of which the warp threads, which
run longitudinally through the cloth, are fastened in such manner that
they can be raised and depressed by heddles, or looped threads, in
alternate series, leaving room between the two layers of warp for the
passage of the shuttle, charged with the woof.[526] The shuttle, flying
from side to side across the alternating warp threads, covers them
with woof, which is packed close by a vertical frame of rods, the lay
or batten, swinging between the warp threads. To weave tight and close
required considerable strength, and at Norwich women were forbidden to
weave worsteds because they were 'not of sufficient power' to work them
properly.[527] The cloth as it was woven was wound on a roll, bringing
a fresh portion of the warp within the weaver's reach, but while its
length was thus limited merely by custom or convenience, its breadth
was obviously controlled by the width of the loom, and when Henry IV.,
in 1406, ordered that cloth of ray should be made six-quarters of a
yard broad instead of five-quarters, as had always been the custom,
the order had to be revoked as it would have necessitated all the ray
weavers obtaining new looms.[528] For the right to use looms payments
had often to be made to authorities of the town. At Winchester in
the thirteenth century, every burel loom paid 5s. yearly, the only
exceptions being that the mayor, the hospital, and the town clerk might
each work one loom free of charge.[529] Nottingham was another town
where duties were paid on looms,[530] and at Bristol, as we have seen,
prior to 1355, the erection of a 'webanlam' entailed payments of 8s.
5d. in all.
To guard against false working, it was the rule at Bristol that all
looms must stand in shops and rooms adjoining the road, and in sight
of the people, and the erection of a loom in a cellar or upstair
room entailed a fine.[531] It was possibly for the same reason that
weavers were forbidden to work at night,[532] though an exception
was made at Winchester in favour of the period immediately preceding
Christmas.[533] On the other hand, the London jurors in 1320 coupled
this ordinance against working by candle light with the enforced
holiday which the weavers' gild compelled its members to take between
Christmas and the Purification (2nd February)[534] as measures
prejudicial to the commonalty, and intended to restrict the supply
and so maintain the price of cloth.[535] A further device for the
same purpose was the rule that no cloth of Candlewick Street was to
be worked in less than four days, though they might easily be made in
two or three days.[536] Thanks to these methods, and to the way in
which admission to the gild was limited, the looms in the city had
been reduced in thirty years or so from 380 to 80, and the price of
cloth had risen accordingly. The authorities throughout the country
were constantly in the dilemma of having on the one hand to permit the
restriction of the numbers of the weavers, with a consequent rise in
the cost of their wares, or, on the other hand, running the risk of
inferior workmanship 'to the grete infamie and disclaundre of their
worshipfull towne.' Not only were the unauthorised weavers often
ignorant of their art, not having served their apprenticeship, but
they used flock and other bad material, and bought stolen wool and
'thrummes.'[537] The latter were the unwoven warp threads left over
at the end of the cloth, and as there was no export duty on thrums,
the weavers contrived to cut them off as long as possible, and in
this way much woollen yarn was sent out of the country without paying
customs, until the practice was made illegal by an Act of Parliament in
1430.[538]
The cloth on leaving the loom was in the condition known as 'raw,' and
although not yet ready for use was marketable, and many of the smaller
clothmakers preferred to dispose of their products at this stage rather
than incur the expense of the further processes. This seems to have
been the case on the Welsh border, as Shrewsbury claimed to have had
a market for '_pannus crudus_' from the time of King John.[539] Much
raw cloth was also bought up by foreign merchants and sent out of the
country to be finished; and at the beginning of the sixteenth century
Parliament, with its usual terror of foreign trade, seeing only that
the finishing processes would be carried out by foreign workmen instead
of English, forbade the export of unfinished cloth. It had then to
be pointed out that, as most of these cloths were bought to be dyed
abroad, and as after dyeing all the finishing processes would have to
be repeated, the cost of the cheaper varieties would be so raised that
there would be no sale for them; cloths below the value of five marks
were therefore exempted.[540]
Raw cloth had next to be fulled, that is to say, scoured, cleansed,
and thickened by beating it in water. Originally this was always
done by men trampling upon it in a trough, and the process was known
as 'walking,' the fuller being called a 'walker' (whence the common
surname), but during the thirteenth century an instrument came into
general use called 'the stocks,' consisting of an upright, to which was
hinged the 'perch' or wooden bar with which the cloth was beaten. The
perch was often worked by water power and fulling, or walking, mills
soon became common. By the regulations of the fullers' gild of Lincoln
recorded in 1389,[541] no fuller was to 'work in the trough,' that is
to say to walk the cloth, and a further rule forbade any man to work
at the perch with a woman, unless she were the wife of a master or her
handmaid. Probably the intention of this last rule was to put a stop to
the employment of cheap female labour 'by the whiche many ... likkely
men to do the Kyng servis in his warris and in the defence of this his
lond, and sufficiently lorned in the seid crafte, gothe vagaraunt and
unoccupied and may not have thar labour to ther levyng.'[542] About
1297 a number of London fullers took to sending cloths to be fulled at
certain mills in Stratford, and as this was found to result in much
loss to the owners of the cloths, orders were given to stop all cloths
on their way to the mills, and only allow them to be sent on at the
express desire of the owners.[543] This seems to point to mill fulling
being inferior to manual labour, while possibly the fulling being
conducted outside the control of the city may have tended to bad work.
At Bristol in 1346, one of the rules for the fullers forbids any one
to send 'rauclothe' to the mill, and afterwards receive it back to be
finished,[544] and in 1406 the town fullers were forbidden to make good
the defects in cloths fulled by country workmen.[545]
For cleansing the cloth use was made of the peculiar absorbent earth
known as Fuller's earth, or 'walkerherth,'[546] as it was sometimes
called. Fuller's earth is only found in a few places, the largest
deposits being round Nutfield and Reigate,[547] and on account of its
rarity and importance its export was forbidden.
The cloth, having been fulled, had to be stretched on tenters to dry,
and references to the lease of tenter grounds are common in medieval
town records.[548] A certain amount of stretching was legitimate and
even necessary,[549] but where the cloth belonged to the fuller, and
it was a common practice for fullers to buy the raw cloth, there was a
temptation to 'stretch him out with ropes and rack him till the sinews
stretch again'[550] so as to gain several yards. As a result of this
practice, which greatly impaired the strength of the cloth, 'Guildford
cloths,' made in Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire, lost their reputation,
and in 1391 measures had to be taken to restore their good name by
forbidding fullers, or other persons, to buy the cloth in an unfinished
state.[551] Several other Acts were passed dealing with this offence,
and during the sixteenth century ordinances were issued against the
use of powerful racks with levers, winches, and ropes. Infringements
of these Acts were numerous,[552] and as an example of the extent
to which cloths were stretched we may quote a return from Reading in
1597, which mentions one cloth of thirty yards stretched with 'a gyn
and a leaver with a vice and a roape' to thirty-five yards, and another
stretched with a rope 'to the quantitye of three barrs length—every
barr contayneth about 2½ yards.'[553]
On leaving the fuller the cloth passed into the hands of the rower,
whose business it was to draw up from the body of the cloth all the
loose fibres with teazles. Teazles, the dried heads of the 'fuller's
thistle,' are mentioned amongst the goods of some of the Colchester
cloth-workers in 1301,[554] were used from the earliest times, and
have never been supplanted even in these days of machinery. Several
unsuccessful attempts have been made to invent substitutes, and in
1474 the use of iron cards, or combs, instead of teazles, had to be
forbidden.[555] The loose portions of the cloth thus raised by the
teazles were next cut off by the shearman, upon whose dexterity the
cloth depended for the finish of its surface, and, after the drawer had
skilfully repaired any small blemishes, the cloth was ready for sale.
In view of the multiplicity of processes involved, it is obvious that
the manufacture of cloth must have afforded employment to an immense
number of persons. An account written in Suffolk just over the borders
of our medieval period, in 1618, reckons that the clothier who made
twenty broad cloths in a week would employ in one way and another
five hundred persons.[556] But even at that time, when the capitalist
clothier was firmly established, there were not very many with so large
an output as twenty cloths a week, and in earlier times there were
very few approaching such a total. The ulnager's accounts[557] of the
duties paid on cloths exist for most counties for the last few years of
Richard II., and throw considerable light on the state of the trade. In
the case of Suffolk for the year 1395, we have 733 broad cloths made
by about one hundred and twenty persons, of whom only seven or eight
return as many as twenty cloths; the chief output, however, was narrow
cloth, made in dozens (pieces of 12 yards, a 'whole cloth' being 24
yards); of these 300 makers turned out about 9200, fifteen of their
number making from 120 to 160 dozens each. In the case of Essex there
is more evidence for the capitalist clothier, as at Coggeshall the
1200 narrow cloths are assigned to only nine makers (the largest items
being 400, 250, and 200 dozens), while Braintree, with 2400 dozens had
only eight makers, of whom two pay subsidy on 600 dozens each and one
on 480. The great clothiers, however, at this time are found in the
west, at Barnstaple, where John Parman paid on 1080 dozen, and Richard
Burnard on 1005, other nine clothiers dividing some 1600 dozens between
them. For the rest of Devonshire, sixty-five makers account for 3565
dozens, or rather over fifty a piece. If Devon stood at one end of
the scale its next-door neighbour was at the other, for Cornwall's
total output was only ninety cloths, attributed to thirteen makers. At
Salisbury the year's output of 6600 whole cloths was divided between
158 persons, only seven of whom accounted for more than 150 each,
while at Winchester, where over 3000 cloths are returned, only three
clothiers exceeded the hundred, and men of such local prominence as
Robert Hall and 'Markays le Fayre'[558] had only eighty and forty to
their respective accounts. Throughout Yorkshire the average does not
seem to have been above ten cloths, and in Kent, a stronghold of the
broad cloth manufacture, only one clothier exceeded fifty dozens, and
only three others passed twenty-five. The whole evidence seems to limit
the spheres of influence of the capitalist clothiers to a few definite
towns prior to the beginning of the fifteenth century. But the latter
half of the fifteenth century saw the rise of the great clothiers such
as John Winchcombe,[559] the famous 'Jack of Newbury,' and the Springs
of Lavenham,[560] employers of labour on a scale which soon swamped
the small independent clothworkers, and drew them into a position of
dependence.
Skill and industry in the cloth trade had always been assured of a good
return, and when combined with enterprise had often led to wealth; but
there have always in all times and all places been men who would try
the short cut to fortune through fraud; and the openings for fraud
in the cloth trade were particularly numerous. 'Certayne townes in
England ... were wonte to make theyre clothes of certayne bredth and
length and to sette theyre seales to the same; while they kept the
rate trulye strangers dyd but looke over the seale and receyve theyre
wares, wherebye these townes had greate vente of theyre clothes and
consequently prospered verye welle. Afterwards some in those townes,
not content with reasonable gaynes but contynually desyrynge more,
devysed clothes of lesse length, bredthe and goodnes thanne they were
wonte to be, and yet by the comendacioun of the seale to have as myche
monye for the same as they had before for good clothes. And for a tyme
they gate myche and so abused the credythe of theyr predecessours to
theyre singulere lukere, whiche was recompensede with the losse of
theyre posterytye. For these clothes were founde fawltye for alle
theyre seale, they were not onelye never the better trustede but myche
lesse for theyre seale, yea although theyre clothes were well made. For
whanne theyr untruth and falshede was espyede than no manne wolde buye
theyre clothes untylle they were enforsede and unfoldede, regardynge
nothynge the seale.'[561]
This complaint, written in the time of Henry VIII., is borne out in
every detail by the records of Parliament and of municipalities.
Regulations were constantly laid down for ensuring uniformity, and
officials called ulnagers[562] were appointed to see that they were
obeyed, no cloth being allowed to be sold unless it bore the ulnager's
seal. The assize of cloth issued in 1328[563] fixed the measurements of
cloth of ray at 28 yards by 6 quarters, and those of coloured cloths
at 26 yards by 6½ quarters, in the raw state, each being 24 yards when
shrunk. The penalty for infringement of the assize was forfeiture.[564]
This assize, which was confirmed in 1406, repealed next year, but
reaffirmed in 1410,[565] applied only to broad cloths, but in 1432 it
was laid down[566] that narrow cloths called 'streits' should be 12
yards by 1 yard, when shrunk; if smaller they were not forfeited, but
the ulnager cut the list off one end, to show that it was not a whole
cloth, and it was sold as a 'remnant' according to its actual measure.
In the case of the worsteds or serges of Norfolk, four different
assizes were said in 1327 to have been used from time immemorial,
namely, 50, 40, 30, and 24 ells in length;[567] but as early as 1315
merchants complained that the cloths of Worsted and Aylesham did not
keep their assize, 20 ells being sold as 24, 25 ells as 30, and so
on.[568] In the western counties, Somerset, Gloucester, and Dorset,
fraudulent makers were in the habit of so tacking and folding their
cloths that defects in length or quality could not be seen, with the
result that merchants who bought them in good faith and took them to
foreign countries were beaten, imprisoned and even slain by their angry
customers 'to the great dishonour of the realm.' It was therefore
ordered in 1390 that no cloth should be sold, tacked, and folded, but
open.[569] The frauds in connection with stretching Guildford cloths
have already been referred to, and in 1410 we find that worsteds which
had formerly been in great demand abroad were now so deceitfully made
that the Flemish merchants were talking of searching, or examining, all
the worsted cloths at the ports of entry. To remedy this 'great slander
of the country,' the mayor and his deputies were given the power to
search and seal all worsteds brought to the worsted seld, or cloth
market, and regulations were made as to the size of 'thretty elnys
streites' (30 ells by 2 quarters), 'thretty elnys brodes' (30 ells by
3 quarters), 'mantelles, sengles, doubles et demy doubles, si bien les
motles, paules, chekeres, raies, flores, pleynes, monkes-clothes et
autres mantelles' (from 6 to 10 ells by 1¼ ell), and 'chanon-clothes,
sengles, demy doubles et doubles' (5 ells by 1¾), the variety of trade
terms showing the extent of the industry.[570] A similar complaint of
the decay in the foreign demand for worsteds owing to the malpractices
of the makers was met in 1442 by causing the worsted weavers of Norwich
to elect annually four wardens for the city, and two for the county to
oversee the trade.[571] Half a century later, in 1473, English cloth
in general had fallen into disrepute abroad, and even at home, much
foreign cloth being imported: to remedy this general orders were issued
for the proper working of cloth, the maintenance of the old assize, and
the indication of defects, a seal being attached to the lower edge of
any cloth where there was any 'raw, skaw, cokel or fagge.'[572]
The last-mentioned statutes of 1473 give the measurements of the cloths
as by the 'yard and inch.' Originally it would seem to have been
customary when measuring cloth to mark the end of each yard by placing
the thumb on the cloth at the end of the clothyard, and starting again
on the other side of the thumb. Readers of George Eliot will remember
that the pedlar, Bob Salt, made ingenious use of his broad thumb in
measuring, to the detriment of his customers; and the London drapers in
the fifteenth century claimed to buy by the 'yard and a hand,' marking
the yards with the hand instead of with the thumb, and thereby scoring
two yards in every twenty-four.[573] Although this was forbidden in
1440, the use being ordered of a measuring line of silk, 12 yards and
12 inches long, the end of each yard being marked an inch, it evidently
continued in practice, as the 'yarde and handfull' was known as London
measure at the end of the sixteenth century.[574]
The last years of the medieval period of the woollen industry, which
we take as terminating with the introduction of the 'New Draperies' by
foreign refugees early in the reign of Elizabeth, are chiefly concerned
with the rise of the town clothiers at the expense of the small country
cloth workers, assisted by Acts which restricted, or at least aimed at
restricting, the industry to corporate boroughs and market towns, and
prohibited any from setting up in trade without having passed a seven
years' apprenticeship.[575] Infringements of these laws were frequent,
and, thanks to the system of granting a portion of the fines inflicted
to the informer, accusations were constantly levelled against clothiers
for breaking the various regulations with which the trade was hedged
about.[576] Many of the charges fell through, and in some cases they
look like blackmail, but that offences were sufficiently plentiful is
clear. For the one year, 1562, as many as sixty clothiers from Kent
alone, mostly from the neighbourhood of Cranbrook and Benenden, were
fined for sending up to London for sale cloths deficient in size,
weight, quality, or colour.[577] An absolute fulfilment of all the
regulations was possibly no easy thing, for although cloths which had
been sealed by the ulnager in the district where they were made were
not supposed to pay ulnage in London the makers preferred as a rule to
pay a halfpenny on each cloth to the London searchers rather than risk
the results of too close a scrutiny.[578]
Of the many local varieties of cloth made in England that which derived
its name from the village of Worsted in Norfolk was, on the whole, the
most important. We have seen that by the end of the thirteenth century
worsted weaving was well established in Norfolk, and particularly in
Norwich, and that worsted serges and says were articles of export,
while a century later the forms in which these cloths were made up
were very varied. Norwich continued to hold the monopoly of searching
and sealing worsteds, wherever made, until 1523, when the industry
had grown to such an extent in Yarmouth that the weavers of that town
were licensed to elect a warden of their own to seal their cloth; the
same privilege was granted to Lynne, provided there were at least ten
householders exercising the trade there; but in all cases the cloths
were to be shorn, dyed, coloured, and calendered in Norwich.[579] When
the art of calendering worsteds, that is to say giving them a smooth
finish by pressing, was introduced in Norwich is uncertain, but in
the second half of the fifteenth century the 'fete and misterie of
calendryng of worstedes' in London was known only to certain Frenchmen.
An enterprising merchant, William Halingbury, brought over from Paris
one Toisaunts Burges, to teach the art to English workers, and, in
revenge, one of the London French calenders endeavoured to have
Halingbury arrested on his next visit to Paris.[580] At the beginning
of the sixteenth century a process of dry calendering with 'gommes,
oyles and presses' was introduced, by which inferior worsteds were made
to look like the best quality, but if touched with wet they at once
spotted and spoiled. The process was therefore prohibited in 1514, and
at the same time the practice of wet calendering was confined to those
who had served seven years' apprenticeship, and had been admitted to
the craft by the mayor of Norwich or the wardens of the craft in the
county of Norfolk.[581]
In 1315 cloths of Aylsham (in Norfolk) are coupled with those of
Worsted as not conforming to the old assize,[582] and at the coronation
of Edward III. some 3500 ells of 'Ayllesham' was used for lining
armour, covering cushions and making 1860 pennons with the arms of
St. George.[583] But as Buckram and Aylsham are constantly bracketed
together,[584] being used, for instance, in 1333 for making hobby
horses (_hobihors_) for the king's games,[585] presumably at Christmas,
it would seem that Aylshams were linen and not woollen, especially as
'lynge teille de Eylesham' was famous in the fourteenth century.[586]
In the adjacent county of Suffolk the village of Kersey was an early
centre of clothmaking, and gave its name to a type of cloth which
was afterwards made in a great number of districts. The kerseys of
Suffolk and Essex were exempted in 1376, with other narrow cloths, from
keeping the assize of coloured cloths,[587] and just a century later
the measurement for kerseys was set out as 18 yards by 1 yard.[588]
Curiously enough the chief trouble with the assize of kerseys, at least
in the sixteenth century, was not short measure, but over long, the
explanation being that kerseys paid export duty by the whole cloth,
and it was therefore to the merchant's advantage to pay duty on a
piece of 25 yards rather than to pay the same duty on 18 yards.[589]
Kerseys were largely made for export, and a petition against
restrictions tending to hamper foreign trade was presented, about 1537,
by the kersey weavers of Berks., Oxford, Hants, Surrey, and Sussex,
and Yorkshire.[590] These counties were the chief centres of the
manufacture, though Devonshire kerseys were also made; in Berkshire,
Newbury was then the great seat of the industry, and the kerseys of
John Winchcombe ('Jack of Newbury') in particular had a more than local
fame. Hampshire kerseys was the generic name applied to these made in
Hampshire, Sussex, and Surrey, but in earlier times the Isle of Wight
had almost a monopoly of the manufacture in the district. The ulnage
accounts for Hampshire in 1394-5 give ninety names of clothiers for the
Isle of Wight,[591] who made 600 kerseys, and no other kind of cloth,
and about a century later we find a draper complaining that when he had
bargained with a London merchant for a certain number of 'kersys of
Wyght' worth £6 he had been put off with Welsh kerseys worth only £4,
13s. 4d.[592]
Suffolk did a considerable trade in a cheap, coarse variety of cloth
known as 'Vesses or set cloths' for export to the East; and, as it
was the recognised custom to stretch these to the utmost, and they
were bought as unshrunk, this class of cloth was exempted in 1523
from the regulations as to stretching cloth.[593] Possibly these
Vesses were connected with the 'Western Blankett of Vyse (Wilts.) and
Bekinton.'[594] Blanket is found in 1395 as made at Maldon and, on the
other side of England, at Hereford, while at an earlier date, in 1360,
Guildford blanket was bought for the royal household.[595] As Norwich
had its 'monk's cloth' and 'canon cloth,' presumably so called from its
suitability for monastic and canonical habits, unlike the fine cloth
of Worcester, which, we are told, was forbidden to Benedictines,[596]
so we find that the newly made knight of the Bath had to vest himself
in 'hermit's array' of Colchester russet.[597] Most of the cloths made
in Essex were 'streits,' or narrow cloths, of rather a poor quality,
being often coupled with the inferior cloths such as cogware and
Kendal cloth. Of the latter a writer of the time of Henry VIII. says,
'I knowe when a servynge manne was content to goo in a Kendall cote in
sommer and a frysecote in winter, and with playne white hose made meete
for his bodye.... Now he will looke to have at the leaste for Somere
a cote of finest clothe that may be gotten for money and his hosen of
the finest kerseye, and that of some straunge dye, as Flaunders dye or
Frenche puke, that a prynce or a greate lorde canne were no better if
he were [wear] clothe.'[598]
By the sumptuary law of 1363 farm labourers and others having less than
40s. in goods were to wear blanket and russet costing not more than
12d. the ell.[599] In a list of purchases of cloth in 1409, narrow
russet figures at 12d. the ell, while of the other cheap varieties
short blanket, short coloured cloth, rays, motleys and friezes varied
from 2s. to 2s. 4d. the ell.[600] Of friezes the two chief types in use
were those of Coventry and Irish friezes, which might either be made in
Ireland or of Irish wool: these seem to have come into use about the
middle of the fourteenth century, as in 1376 Irish 'Frysseware' was
exempted from ulnage,[601] and about the same time purchases of Irish
frieze for the royal household become more common, as much as nearly
3000 ells of this material being bought in 1399.[602]
With such local varieties as Manchester cottons, Tauntons, Tavistocks,
Barnstaple whites, Mendips, 'Stoke Gomers alias thromme clothes,'[603]
and so forth, space does not permit of our dealing, while by the
limitation which we have set ourselves the 'new draperies' are
excluded, and we may thankfully leave on one side 'arras, bays,
bewpers, boulters, boratoes, buffins, bustyans, bombacyes, blankets,
callimancoes, carrells, chambletts, cruell, dornicks, duraunce, damask,
frisadoes, fringe, fustyans, felts, flanells, grograines, garterings,
girdlings, linsey woolseyes, mockadoes, minikins, mountaines,
makerells, oliotts, pomettes, plumettes, perpetuanas, perpicuanas,
rashes, rugges, russells, sattins, serges, syettes, sayes, stamells,
stamines, scallops, tukes, tamettes, tobines, and valures.'[604]