[99] See the series of statutes with which the reign of Edward the Fourth opens. 4, Ed. IV. c. 1-8. Schanz, i. 447.
[100] Ashley’s Wool. Ind. 81-2; expanded in his Economic History, part ii. Schanz, i. 445.
[101] Schanz, i. 446. “The caryage out of wolle to the Stapul ys a grete hurte to the pepul of Englond; though hyt be profitabul both to the prynce and to the marchant also.” (Starkey, England in the Reign of Henry the Eighth. Early English Text Society, p. 173.)
[102] Brinklow’s Complaynt, E. E. Text Soc. p. 11. Schanz, i. 479, note.
[103] The fellowship of the mercers and other merchants and adventurers living in London “by confederacy made among themselves of their uncharitable and inordinate covetous for their singular profit and lucre contrary to every Englishman’s liberty, and to the liberty of the Mart there” made an ordinance and constitution that every Englishman trading with the marts of Flanders or under the Archduke of Burgundy should first pay a fine to the Merchants’ Fellowship in London on pain of forfeiture of all their wares bought and sold. The fine was at first half an old noble, and demanded by a colour of a fraternity of S. Thomas at Canterbury, and “so by colour of such feigned holiness it hath been suffered to be taken for a few years past.” Finally, however, the London Fellowship raised the fine to £20, then the other merchants began to withdraw from the marts and the cloth trade to suffer. On the complaint of the merchant adventurers living outside London Parliament ordered that the fine should only be ten marks. (12 Henry VII., cap. 6.) For the complaint of the Hull traders against the merchant adventurers of London in 1622 see Lambert’s Gild Life, 171-2.
[108] Bacon’s History of Henry the Seventh, 38.
[109] The men of Cologne had a house in London as early as 1157.
[110] Founded before 1240 (Schanz, i. 291-3). Some interesting details are given in Mr. Hudson’s Notes on Norwich (Norfolk Archæology, xii. 25; see section on madder and woad.) For merchants of Lorraine, Denmark, &c., Liber Custumarum, Nunimenta Gildhallæ Londiniensis (Rolls Series), vol. ii. part 1, xxxiv. &c.
[111] In the beginning of the fourteenth century (Schanz, i. 113-8).
[112] See Keutgen, Die Beziehungen der Hanse zu England, 40.