"Within this hall neither rich nor yett poore
Wold do for me ought although I shold dye.
Which seeing, I gat me out of the doore,
Where _Flemynges_ began on me for to cry,
'Master, what will you copen or by?
Fyne felt hattes, or spectacles to reede?
Lay down your silver, and here you may speede'"
_Minor Poems_ of Lydgate [1420]. London,
Lackpenny. Ed. Per. Soc. 1840, p. 105.
This is curious, as indicating that the word "Fleming," in the fifteenth
century, had become almost synonymous with "trader."