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The Clothiers’ Century, 1450–1550

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2018

JOHN OLDLAND
JOHN OLDLAND*
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Abstract:

In the hundred years from 1450 to 1550, the great success enjoyed by the English woollen industry in continental markets was a result of clothiers organising the rural cloth industry in the West Country, Suffolk/Essex, the Kentish Weald and Newbury and its surrounds, to produce cloth that London merchants required. To do this they allocated extensive capital to cloth production: buying wools, sorting and dyeing them, organising their carding and spinning, putting the yarn out for weaving, and then in some cases owning the mills that fulled the cloth and finally shearing it in-house. The leading clothiers carried wool and cloth inventories, developed strong buying networks and offered merchants credit. Clothiers' control over production declined after 1550 as the government exercised greater control over cloth quality and clothiers' freedoms, and as price competition intensified from coarser cloths and new draperies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , April 2018 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

Notes

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55. If the cloth was foot fulled, burling was carried out after the cloth had been cleansed but before it was fulled. Mechanical fulling both cleansed and compressed the cloth, with burling after fulling.

56 The perch was a wooden bar, or frame of two parallel bars. If there were any unevenness in the fulling, then the cloth was probably beaten while on the perch. Wet shearing with teasels could probably be done either over the perch or when the cloth was on the tenter.

57. Bickley, ed., Little Red Book, pp. 10–16.

58. Carus-Wilson, ‘Evidences of industrial growth’, 189–205; Carus-Wilson, Woollen Industry before 1550, pp. 133–7; Pilgrim, J. E., ‘The Cloth Industry in East Anglia’, in Geraint Jenkins, J., ed., The Wool Textile Industry in Great Britain (London, 1972), p. 255 Google Scholar; Langdon, J., Mills in the Medieval Economy, England 1300–1540 (Oxford, 2004), p. 233 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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61. Several clothiers’ inventories include wool inventories: Robert Rychards of Dursley, Gloucester in 1480 (TNA PCC, Prob.2/9); John Reygnam of Nayland, Suffolk (TNA PCC, Prob.2/87); Walter Coopar of Boxford, Suffolk in 1497 (TNA PCC, Prob.2/94); John Scoten of Nayland, Suffolk in 1539 (TNA PCC, Prob.2/233); Robert Reynold of Glemsford, Suffolk in 1557 (TNA PCC, Prob.2/288).

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63. Muldrew, ‘Th’ ancient distaff’’, 502–4.

64. Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC), Manuscripts of Lord Kenyon,14th Report, Appendix Part 4 (1894), pp. 572–3.

65. C. Jackson, ed., Newbury Kendrick Workhouse Records 1627–1641, Berkshire Record Society, 8 (2004), pp. xxxiii–xxxiv, lx.

66. Kerridge assumes that all sixteenth-century West Country broadcloth was wheel spun. See Kerridge, Textile Manufactures, p. 14.

67. Chorley, ‘Evolution of the Woollen’, pp. 22–3.

68. Munro, ‘Medieval woollens: Textiles’, pp. 202–3.

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71. Issue discussed in John Munro's presentation at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, 2013.

72. TNA PCC, Prob. 2/10, 57, 97

73. TNA PCC, Prob. 2/525.

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78. Amor, From Wool to Cloth, pp. 142, 197.

79. TNA PCC, Prob. 2/333.

80. Ramsay, Wiltshire Woollen Industry, pp. 31–2; Kerridge, Textile Manufactures, p. 196; Jackson, ‘Boom-time freaks’, 149.

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83. Statutes, 2&3 Ph. & Mary, c. 11.

84. Mercers Hall, Thomas Gresham Day Book.

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86. Statutes, 27 Henry VIII, c. 12.

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92. Heaton refers to Yorkshire's poor weavers as clothiers, but their role seems to have been limited to weaving, rather than management of cloth production.

93. Statutes, 8 Elizabeth, c. 7.

94. Kerridge, Textile Manufactures, p. 177.

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100. Carus-Wilson, Woollen Industry before 1550, pp. 133–4.

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102. Langdon, Mills, p. 224; Tann, Wool and Water, p. 21.

103. Fines levied in London from 1550 to 1585 for faults under the cloth acts may be an indication of relative county production. There were 702 infractions from Wiltshire, 626 in Suffolk, 429 in Gloucestershire and 116 in Somerset.

104. The catalyst for growth was both the increase in London tailoring and drapery, and the growth in the Spanish trade, as Spanish merchants were taxed as denizens between 1466 and 1489.

105. Amor, From Wool to Cloth, p. 179.

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108. In the 1552 act short Suffolks were 23–5 yards long and weighed 1.48 lb/per sq. yd, compared with Wiltshire whites at 26–8 yards and weighed 1.32 lb/sq. yd, but they both weighed 64 lb; see Statutes, 5&6 Edward VI, c. 6.

109. Drapers Hall, Thomas Howell ledger; Brett, ‘Thomas Kytson and Wiltshire clothmen’, 42.

110. Statutes, 8 Eliz. c. 6.

111. BL, Cotton Ms. Titus B V, fol. 314; Unwin, ‘Woollen Cloth’, p. 279.

112. Kerridge, Textile Manufactures, p. 17. The 1483 cloth act specifically excluded all cloths valued at forty shillings or less, including vesses, and were therefore not subject to the same finishing standards set for quality broadcloth and kersey. In 1522, Suffolk vesses were specifically exempted from the 1514 law that finished broadcloth was not to shrink more than a yard. In 1535, vesses were exempted from the law that required weavers to weave their mark into the cloth.

113. Pilgrim, ‘East Anglia’, p. 255; Statutes, 4&5 Ph. & Mary, c. 5.

114. Brett, ‘Thomas Kytson and Wiltshire clothmen’, 42; TNA, Prob. 2/525. In 1548, Thomas Gresham was buying long, white Worcesters for between £6 and £10 in 1548; see Mercers Hall, London, Thomas Gresham Day Book.

115. Ibid., p. 163. There were twenty-one colour shades approved in the 1552 act; see Statutes, 5&6 Ed. VI, c. 6.

116. Zell, Industry in the Countryside, p. 158. John Broke, the London mercer's 1532 inventory included fine, dyed Kent cloths at Antwerp; see Devon Record Office, 312M, FY/64.

117. Zell, Industry in the Countryside, pp. 165, 209.

118. Statutes, 3&4 Ed. VI, c. 2; TNA E 159/329, 330, 331, 335, 337, 338, 339, 350, 355, 357, 359, 360, 361, 363, 366, 368, 370, 371, 375, 376, 378, 380, 381, 384, 387, 389, 390.

119. Zell, Industry in the Countryside, pp. 179–81.

120. Ibid., pp. 182–3.

121. Newbury had been an important clothmaking town producing dyed kersey from at least 1460s, and some of its most important citizens were involved in clothmaking. See Yates, M., Town and Countryside in Western Berkshire, c. 1327–c. 1600 (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 83–7Google Scholar. There were a small interwoven group of clothiers, fullers and dyers that supervised others’ wills, and their apprentices became clothiers when their masters died.

122. Ibid., p. 91.

123. Peacock, ‘Winchcombe Family’, p. 26.

124. Ibid., pp. 29–68, 91, 151–85.

125. TNA SP/1, p. 143.

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128. Statutes, 2&3 Ph. & Mary, c. 13; Heaton, Yorkshire, pp. 93–101; Lee, ‘Crises’, pp. 333–4.

129. Heaton, Yorkshire, pp. 146–8.

130. Ibid., pp. 97–8.

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133. Zell, Industry in the Countryside, pp. 169, 183–8.

134. C. Jackson, ‘The Berkshire Woollen Industry, 1500–1650’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading, 1993), pp. 40–1; Dyer, Worcester, pp. 99–100.

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137. TNA PCC, Prob. 2/174.

138. Britnell, Growth and Decline in Colchester, pp. 184–5.

139. Statutes, 3 Henry VIII, c. 6; Statutes, 6 Henry VIII, c. 9.

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142. L&P, Vol. IV, pt. 2, #, 4239.

143. L&P, Vol. XI, # 520; BL, Cotton Ms. Titus B 1, fol. 197.

144. Statutes, 5&6 Ed. VI, c. 6.

145. Statutes, 5&6 Ed. VI, c. 8. This was repealed early in Mary's reign, Statutes, 1 Mary, c. 7.

146. Statutes, 1 Mary, c. 7.

147. Statutes, 2&3 Ph. & Mary, c. 11.

148. Ramsay, Wiltshire Woollen Industry, pp. 24–5.

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