The History of Trading

Table of contents

1. Introduction

2. The Historical Background

3. The Trades
3.1. An Acte touching weavers
3.2. The Statute of Artificers

4. Conclusion

5. Bibliography

1. Introduction

When people exchanged some items for other ones the first time, trade had come into this world. As the relationship between the one who is in need of a certain thing and the one who can provide the required item proved quite profitable for the latter, people established particular professions like farmers, carpenters, fishermen, miners, etc. in order to be able to trade on a regular basis. An example of a series of connected professions might be a farmer, who specialized in growing wheat and giving it to a mill in return for money or, of course, flour. The miller could then sell the flour to a bakery where bread was baked and sold again. Regarding all the different trades it was nearly always the selling person who set the conditions as he could take advantage of the other one’s desire or need for the respective goods. Within the 11th and 12th century people in England began to gather in cooperative unions. The guilds, as they were called, always consisted of members of one special profession. They had several aims such as promoting the welfare of their members, preserving the craft tradition, holding a local monopoly and maintaining the standards of work and the level of wages and prices. The guilds were mostly only interested in trading within their direct vicinity in keeping with their traditions which left no room for changes, neither in the use of certain tools or the way of proceeding nor in the way apprentices were instructed.

Throughout the centuries the people dealt with several goods within villages and furthermore within counties and boroughs, and also beyond that: with other countries. England exported goods to the “continent” and imported other items which also came from manufacturers that belonged to guilds in e.g. France or today’s Germany. Different conditions in the country and law enforcement by the government influenced the trades again and again. Especially the Statute of Artificers, introduced during the reign of queen Elisabeth I, had a tremendous impact on the trades and on apprenticeship. There were several changes regarding the ways of producing goods as well as trading in them.

This paper wants to give a description of the changes in medieval England concerning the changes in the national economy. Special emphasis is put on the Statute of Artificers and on one of its so-called precursors: the Acte touching weavers.

2. The Historical Background

The period of time this paper refers to reaches from the last years of Mary Tudor’s reign to the end of the 16th century when Elisabeth I was queen of England. Before describing this period’s most important events I want to travel back through time a few decades to the reign of Henry VIII. This is meant to give the reader the opportunity of recalling his knowledge about this period and gain essential background information needed to understand the changes to their full extent.

Henry VIII

In 1509 Henry VIII ascended to the throne of England and married Catherine of Aragon, hoping she would “give” him a male heir to his throne. In fact she was only able to “produce” a daughter, namely the later Mary I. When the pope did not grant him an annulment due to political reasons^[1] Henry VIII broke up with Rome and the pope and had the archbishop of Canterbury carry out his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. All in all Henry VIII married five other women, from which only the last wife outlived him: Catherine Parr. Anne Boleyn bore him a daughter (Elisabeth I) but was beheaded later on and Jane Seymour gave birth to a son (Edward IV) but she died a few weeks later.

The reformation, induced by Henry VIII via the separation from the catholic church, brought about several changes to the economy of medieval England. The land that formerly belonged to the monasteries was now in the hand of the government as Henry VIII had also become the head of the church. The abbots and monks were dispossessed of their pastures and they were sold to everybody who could afford them. As there were still many vacancies in agriculture as a result of the mid 14th centuries plague wages had become quite high. It was fairly easy to buy land or to take out a lease, at least for those who had money. As it had been more usual to get paid in kind, that is in food or goods, than with money, the lower aristocracy or rich merchants had money at their disposal. This newly created market of properties set off an increasing interest in earning money among them and others like e.g. freeholders as they, quite understandably, wanted to increase their property.

At that time England was still dependent on subsistence economy – about 90% of the population lived in the country and were busy growing corn. As the population grew, the increasing demand for food resulted in an increment of prices and therefore inflation grew, too. It was the gentry, the free farmers and the leaseholders who made most profit from this because it was them, who had the food production in their hands.

Exports only played an important part in those days as far as the wool trade was concerned. From the middle ages on England supplied merchants on the continent with raw wool. Already in the 13th century Flemish weavers had come to England and established a national wool trade and international cloth exports. In the middle of the 16th century trading in cloth ran about 90% of England's income and thus held the most profit within international trades. As a consequence of this more and more farmers began to keep sheep in order to take part in this most profitable trade. Although this resulted in the need for food imports to a certain extent, sheep farming became increasingly famous among English farmers.

The reformation thus entailed first major changes in England's economy as far as landownership is concerned. Against this background I now want to describe the economical and also social situation in the mid 1550ies during the reign of Elisabeth I.

Elisabeth I

As we learned before, England was dependent on the cloth trade. The main market for England’s exports was situated in Antwerp, the most important international port at that time. Trading in goods which came from the Orient like silk, spice and precious stones was a thriving business as well as trading in rather European goods like metalware, glassware, salt, dye, fine fabrics and wine.^[2] London’s shares of the cloth market rose while other ports’ (like Bristol or Colchester) shares dwindled. In the middle of the 16th century, though, England had to face falling sales as a new sort of cloth, the new draperies, arrived on the international market. In contrast to the English old draperies, which were made of nothing else but sheep’s wool the new draperies also had cotton, linen or silk woven into them which made them softer and lighter. The latter were mainly produced in Northern France and in the Netherlands but the English weavers were able to quickly adapt the new craftsmanship, either.

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^[1] Catherine of Aragon was the aunt of Charles V of Spain who at that time besieged the pope. So it would have been very dangerous for the latter if he had granted Henry VIII the divorce.

^[2] Cf. Michael Maurer. Kleine Geschichte Englands. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. GmbH&Co., 2002, 89.