The early cannon were made of bronze of a similar composition to that used for bells, and when iron was introduced the cannon of that material were made in the form of a tube composed of long iron bars, arranged like the staves of a barrel, bound round with iron bands. They were all breech-loaders, consisting of two separate parts, the barrel and the chamber; the latter being a short cylinder, usually detachable, in which the charge of gunpowder was placed, and which was then fastened into the base of the barrel by means of a stirrup or similar apparatus. Double-barrelled cannon appear to have been fairly common, as in 1401 eight single cannon and six double (duplices) were sent to Dover Castle, and the same numbers to Scotland.[347] An inventory of the artillery at Berwick-on-Tweed taken at the same time[348] distinguishes between guns 'imbedded in timber bound with iron' and 'naked' guns; it also mentions 'two small brass guns on wooden sticks, called handgonnes,' an early instance of small arms. The same inventory refers to 'quarells for gonnes'; and in the previous year Henry Robertes, serjeant, dwelling near the Guildhall, was paid £8, 8s. for twenty-four 'quarell gunnes,'[349] these being guns which threw quarrels, or bolts similar to those used with crossbows.[350] The usual projectiles employed in the larger guns were round stone balls, such as had been in use for mangonels and catapults since the days of the Romans, and these were supplied from the quarries of Maidstone and elsewhere down to the time of Henry VIII. Iron 'gunstones' do not seem to have been made much before the end of the fifteenth century, and the 'wooden balls for cannon,' of which there were 350 at Dover in 1387,[351] can hardly have proved successful, but lead was commonly employed for the smaller guns from an early date.
London was the chief centre of the manufacture of ordnance, but an iron cannon was made at Bristol in 1408,[352] and five years later John Stevenes of Bristol was ordered to supervise the making of another.[353] In 1408 'a certain great cannon newly invented by the king himself' was made;[354] this presumably was 'the great iron cannon called Kyngesdoughter,' which, shortly after its birth, was broken at the siege of 'Hardelagh.'[355] The 'Kyngesdoughter' was probably made at the Tower, as were three other iron cannon at the same time, four more being made in Southwark and two smaller ones by Anthony Gunner, possibly at Worcester as one of them was tested there and broke during the trial; of six bronze cannon made at the same time the largest, the 'Messager,' weighing 4480 lbs., and two small ones were broken at the siege of Aberystwyth. The life of a gun in those days seems to have been short, and that of a gunner precarious.[356] In 1496, when the government range was at Mile End, 13s. 4d. was given to Blase Ballard, gunner, 'towards his leche craft of his hands and face lately hurte at Myles ende by fortune shoting of a gunne,'[357] and this is not the only hint we have that these weapons were sometimes as dangerous to their users as to the enemy.
The Germans and Dutch were particularly expert in the manufacture of guns, and we find Matthew de Vlenk 'gonnemaker' in the service of Richard II.,[358] while Godfrey Goykyn, one of four 'gunnemeystres' from Germany, who were serving Henry V. during the last years of his reign,[359] was employed in 1433 to finish off three great iron cannon which Walter Thomasson had begun to make.[360] These cannon threw balls of fourteen, sixteen, and eighteen inches diameter, respectively, so that presumably they were 'bombards' or mortars, and probably similar in type to one found in the moat of Bodiam Castle, and now at Woolwich;[361] the core of this specimen, which is of 15-inch calibre, is of cast-iron, the outer casing being formed of a series of bands of wrought iron, and it was probably made in Sussex. It was in this county, at Newbridge in Ashdown Forest, that Simon Ballard in 1497 cast large quantities of iron shot,[362] those for 'bombardells' weighing as much as 225 lbs. each, so that they had to be placed in the guns by means of 'shotting cradles':[363] for 'curtows' the shot weighed 77 lbs., for 'demi-curtows' 39 lbs., for 'great serpentines' 19 lbs., and for ordinary 'serpentines' 5 lbs. This same Simon Ballard was enrolled amongst the gunners at the time of the Cornish rising under Perkin Warbeck.[364] In the same way we find 'Pieter Robard alias Graunte Pierre,' ironfounder of Hartfield,[365] described as a 'gonner,' and casting 'pellettes' at 6d. a day in 1497.[366] In this same year ten 'faucons' (small guns which fired balls of about 2 lbs.) were made by William Frese,[367] founder, at 10s. the hundredweight, and eight faucons of brass were made by William Newport,[368] who was a London bell-founder,[369] while John Crowchard repaired an old serpentyne that John de Chalowne made and provided '10 claspis for the touche holes of diverse gonnes with 5 oliettes and fourteen staples,' weighing 53 lbs. at 2d. the pound, and also '7 bandes of yren made for the great gonnes mouthes.'[370] Cornelys Arnoldson at the same time was paid for mending five great serpentynes and making two new chambers to them, for '5 forelocks with cheynes to the said gonnes,' for 'handills made to the chambres,' and for 'vernysshing and dressing' the guns.[371]
At the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII. large purchases of cannon were made abroad, from Hans Popenreuter and Lewis de la Fava of Mechlin, from Stephen of St. Iago, from Fortuno de Catalengo, and from John Cavalcante of Florence, who also, in return for a grant of alum, agreed to import saltpetre to the value of £2400.[372] But the English foundries were not idle: Humphrey Walker, a London gunfounder, supplied fifty pieces of ordnance, at 12s. the pound, as well as much shot,[373] while Cornelys Johnson 'gonnemaker,' made and repaired ordnance for the navy.[374] John Atkynson, another founder, in 1514 was paid 2s. 'for 8 lodes of clay to make molds for a great gun chamber' and a further 8d. for 5 lbs. of hair 'to temper the clay withall'; he was also supplied with latten and iron wire, and John Dowson made certain iron work, including 'a rounde plate for the bottom of the chambre, in length 4½ feet, with 10 rounde hookes; a rounde plate with a crosse for the mouthe of the chambre; 36 bandes of 4 foot in length for to wrapp the chambre in; ... 6 pynnes of hardyron, 2 hokes, a stamme, a quespile,' etc.[375]
The medieval period of gunfounding came to an end with the discovery, about 1543, of a method of casting iron cannon in the entire piece—then boring them. This discovery is usually attributed to Ralph Hogge of Buxted and Peter Baude, his French assistant, and resulted in the ironmaking districts of the Weald of Sussex and Kent becoming the chief centre of the manufacture of ordnance.[376]
CHAPTER VII
POTTERY—TILES, BRICKS
The manufacture of earthen vessels was one of the earliest, as it was one of the most widespread industries. From the end of the Stone Age onwards wherever suitable clay was to be found, the potter plied his trade. The Romans, who had brought the art of potting to a high pitch of excellence, introduced improved methods into Britain, where numerous remains of kilns and innumerable fragments of pottery testify to the industry and the individuality of the Romano-British potters. Several quite distinct types of pottery have been identified and are assignable to definite localities. Great quantities of black and grey wares, consisting of articles of common domestic use, ornamented for the most part only with broad bands of darker or lighter shading, were made in Kent near the Medway, the finer specimens being associated with Upchurch. From the potteries in the New Forest[377] came vases of greater ornamental and artistic execution, but it was the neighbourhood of Castor in Northamptonshire that occupied in Roman times the place held in recent times by Staffordshire. Round Castor numbers of kilns have been found,[378] and the peculiar dark ware, with its self-coloured slip decoration, occurs all over England, and also on the Continent.
Romano-British kilns have been found in a great number of places, some of the best preserved being at Castor,[379] in London,[380] at Colchester,[381] Radlett (Herts.),[382] and Shepton Mallet (Somerset).[383] Speaking generally they consisted of a circular pit, about 4 to 6 feet in diameter, dug out to a depth of about 4 feet: in this was a flat clay floor raised some 2 feet from the bottom of the pit by a central pedestal. Into the space between this floor, or table, and the bottom of the pit came the hot air and smoke from a small furnace built at one side of the pit, or kiln proper. On the clay table, which was pierced with holes for the passage of the heat and smoke, were ranged the clay vessels to be baked, and these were built up in layers of diminishing diameter into a domed or conical structure, the layers being separated by grass covered with clay, the whole was then covered in with clay, leaving only an aperture in the centre at the top,[384] and the furnace lighted.
The early medieval kilns appear to have been very similar in construction to those just described, or of even simpler construction. If we may take literally the statement that a potter at Skipton paid 6s. 8d. in 1323 'for dead wood and undergrowth to burn round his pots'[385] it would seem that here a primitive combination of furnace and kiln in one was in use. At a later date the usual construction was probably something similar to those found at Ringmer, in Sussex,[386] which seem to belong to the fifteenth century. Here the kilns were built of bricks or blocks of clay cemented by a sandy loam which vitrified under the influence of the heat to which it was subjected. The beds of the kilns enclosed longitudinal passages covered in with narrow arches, the spaces between which served to transmit the hot air to the superimposed clay vessels. The hearths were charged through arched openings at their ends with charcoal fuel.
To render the pottery non-porous, it was necessary to glaze it,[387] and from an early period lead has been used for this purpose. A twelfth-century description of the process says[388] that the surface of the vase is first to be moistened with water in which flour has been boiled, and then powdered with lead: it is then placed inside a larger vessel and baked at a gentle heat. This process gives a yellow glaze, but if green is required—and green was the colour most often used in England in the medieval period—copper or bronze was to be added to the lead. The same authority gives a recipe for a leadless glaze: baked potter's earth is powdered and washed and then mixed with half its weight of unbaked earth, containing no sand; this is then worked up with oil and painted over the surface of the vase.
Potters are mentioned at Bladon (Oxon.), Hasfield (Gloucs.), and Westbury (Wilts.), in Domesday,[389] but apart from casual references in place names[390] and in descriptions of individuals[391] the documentary history of early English pottery is scanty. Kingston on Thames may have been an early centre of the trade, as in 1260 the bailiffs of that town were ordered to send a thousand pitchers to the king's butler at Westminster.[392] At Graffham, in Sussex, in 1341, one of the sources of the vicar's income was 'a composition from the men who made clay pots, which is worth 12d.,'[393] but the most common form of entry is a record of sums paid by potters for leave to dig clay. Thus at Cowick in Yorkshire,[394] in 1374, as much as £4, 16s. was 'received from potters making earthen vessels, for clay and sand taken in the moor of Cowick.' Similar entries occur here every year for about a century, while at Ringmer, in Sussex, small dues of 9d. a head were paid yearly by some half a dozen potters for a period of well over two hundred years.[395] Still earlier, in 1283, a rent of 36s. 8d., called 'Potteresgavel,' was paid to the lord of the manor of Midhurst.[396]
The type of pottery produced does not seem to have varied to any great extent in the different districts.[397] At Lincoln it seems to have been the custom to decorate some of the vessels by means of stamps: some of these stamps, in the form of heads, may be seen in the British Museum. But the use of stamps for decorating pottery is found also at Hastings. One distinctive variety of earthenware, however, arose about the beginning of the sixteenth century: it is a thin hard pottery, dark brown in colour, well glazed, and usually decorated with elaborate patterns in white slip. From its being found in large quantities in the Cistercian abbeys of Yorkshire—Kirkstall, Jervaulx, and Fountains—it has received the name of 'Cistercian ware,' but there is at present no direct evidence of its place of manufacture.[398]
Closely connected with pottery is the manufacture of Tiles, the material being in each case clay, and the kilns used being practically identical. At what period the manufacture of tiles, which had ceased with the Roman occupation, was resumed in England is not certain, but from the beginning of the thirteenth century they play an increasing part in the records of building operations. The frequency and devastating effect of fires, where thatched roofs were in use, soon led to the use of tiles for roofing purposes in towns even when the authorities did not make their use compulsory, as was done in London in 1212, and at a much later date, in 1509, at Norwich.[399] The importance, for the safety of the town, of having a large supply of tiles accessible at a low price was recognised, and in 1350, after the Black Death had sent the prices of labour and of manufactured goods up very high, the City Council of London fixed the maximum price of tiles at 5s. the thousand,[400] and in 1362, when a great tempest had unroofed numbers of houses and created a great demand for tiles, they ordered that the price of tiles should not be raised, and that the manufacturers should continue to make tiles as usual and expose them for sale, not keeping them back to enhance the price.[401] It was probably the same appreciation of the public advantage that led the authorities at Worcester in the fifteenth century to forbid the tilers to form any gild, or trade union, to restrain strangers from working in the city, or to fix a rate of wages.[402]
The Worcester regulations also ordered that all tiles should be marked with the maker's sign, so that any defects in size or quality could be traced to the party responsible. Earlier in the same century, in 1425, there had been many complaints at Colchester of the lack of uniformity in the size of the tiles made there,[403] and at last it became necessary in 1477 to pass an Act of Parliament to regulate the manufacture.[404] By this Act it was provided that the clay to be used should be dug, or cast, by 1st November, that it should be stirred and turned before the beginning of February, and not made into tiles before March, so as to ensure its being properly seasoned. Care was to be taken to avoid any admixture of chalk or marl or stones. The standard for plain tiles should be 10½ inches by 6¼ inches with a thickness of at least ⅝ inch; ridge tiles or crests should be 13½ inches by 6¼, and gutter tiles 10½ inches long, and of sufficient thickness and depth. Searchers were to be appointed and paid a penny on every thousand plain tiles, a half-penny on every hundred crests, and a farthing for every hundred corner and gutter tiles examined. Infringement of the regulation entailed fines of 5s. the thousand plain, 6s. 8d. the hundred crest, and 2s. the hundred corner or gutter tiles sold. 'The size of the tiles is probably a declaration of the custom, the fine is the price at which each kind was ordinarily sold in the fifteenth century.'[405]
These regulations throw a certain amount of light upon the processes employed in tile-making, and further details are obtainable from the series of accounts relating to the great tileworks in the Kentish manor of Wye,[406] extending from 1330 to 1380. In 1355 the output of ten kilns (furni) was 98,500 plain, or flat, tiles, 500 'festeux'[407] (either ridge or gutter tiles), and 1000 'corners.' The digging of the clay and burning of the kilns was contracted for at 11s. the kiln, a thousand faggots were bought for fuel[408] at a cost of 45s., and another 10s. was spent on carriage of the clay and faggots. The total expenses were therefore £8, 5s., and as plain tiles sold here for 2s. 6d. the thousand, festeux at three farthings each, and corners at 1s. 8d. the hundred, the value of the output was about £14, 15s. In 1370, when thirteen kilns belonging to two tileries turned out 168,000 plain tiles, 650 festeux, and 900 corners, we have a more elaborate account. Wood was cut at the rate of 15d. for each kiln; clay for the six kilns of one tilery was 'cast' at 14d. the kiln and 'tempered' at the rate of 1s. 6d., but for the seven kilns of the other tilery payment was made in grain. The clay was carried to the six kilns for 4s., and prepared[409] for moulding into tiles for 7s.; the actual making and burning[410] of the tiles was paid for at 14s. the kiln, and an extra 12d. were given as gratuities to the tilers. Next year the output was considerably reduced, because in one tilery 'the upper course of the kilns (cursus furni) did not bake the tiles fully, nor will it bake them until extensive repairs are done,' and in the other tilery only four kilns were prepared, and one of these had to be left unburnt until the next year, owing to the lack of workmen. It was possibly for the defective kiln just mentioned that a 'new vault' was made in 1373 at a cost of 6s. 8d.—with a further 8d. for obtaining loam (limo) for the work. Two years later repairs were done to the buildings of a tilery, which had been blown down by the wind. But the chief blow was struck to the industry here by the increasing difficulty of obtaining workmen. The work may have been unhealthy, for it is noteworthy that the Ringmer potters were on more than one occasion wiped out by pestilence:[411] the effects of the Black Death in 1350 on the Wye tilers are not recorded, but in 1366 as a result, apparently, of the second pestilence two small tileries, one of three roods, and the other of 1½ acres, which had been leased for 7d. and 14d. respectively, lost their tenants, and in 1375 mention is made of the scarcity of workmen, 'who died in the pestilence at the time of tile making.' In 1377 Peter at Gate,[412] who for the past few years had hired a number of kilns at 20s. a piece, only answered for four kilns 'on account of hindrance to the workmen, who had been assigned to guard the sea coast, and on account of the great quantity of rain in the autumn, which did not allow him to burn more kilns.' In the same year, and also two years later, another tilery was unworked for lack of labour.
The tileries at Wye belonged to the Abbot of Battle, and there were tile kilns at Battle itself in the sixteenth century,[413] and probably much earlier, as in the adjoining parish of Ashburnham in 1362, there was a 'building called a Tylehous for baking (siccandis) tiles.'[414] Just about the same time, in 1363, we find 'a piece of land called Teghelerehelde' in Hackington,[415] close to Canterbury, granted to Christian Belsire, in whose family it remained for over a century, as in 1465 William Belsyre leased to John Appys and Edmund Helere of Canterbury 'a tyleoste with a workhouse' lying at Tylernehelde in Hackington for two years for a rent of 26s. 8d.[416] With the 'tyleoste' William Belsyre handed over 15,000 'tyle standardes'—worth 18d. the thousand, eighty 'palette bordes and three long bordys for the kelle walles.'[417] Various building accounts show that there were extensive tileries at Smithfield; for Guildford Castle the tiles came from Shalford, and for Windsor chiefly from 'la Penne.' In the north tiles were made before the end of the thirteenth century at Hull, amongst other places, but one of the chief centres was Beverley. About 1385 the monks of Meaux complained that 'certain workmen of Beverley who were called tilers, makers and burners of the slabs (laterum) with which many houses in Beverley and elsewhere are covered,' had trespassed on the abbey's lands at Waghen and Sutton, taking away clay between the banks and the stream of the river Hull without leave, to convert into tiles. The monks seized their tools, their oars, and finally one of their boats, but the Provost of Beverley, on whose fee the tileries were, supported the tilers in their claim to dig clay in any place covered by the waters of the Hull at its highest.[418] Some thirty years earlier, in 1359, the list of customary town dues at Beverley included 'from every tiler's furnace fired ½d.,'[419] and in 1370 Thomas Whyt, tiler, took a lease of the tilery of Aldebek from the town authorities for four years, at a rent of 6000 tiles.[420]
So far we have been dealing with roofing tiles, or 'thakketyles,' but from the middle of the fourteenth century onwards with increasing frequency, we find mention of 'waltyles' or bricks. For building a new chamber at Ely in 1335 some 18,000 wall tiles (tegularum muralium) were made at a cost of 12d. the thousand.[421] They seem to have been introduced from Flanders, and are frequently called 'Flaundrestiell,'[422] as, for instance, in 1357, when a thousand were bought for a fireplace at Westminster at 3s. 2d.[423] At Beverley, in 1391, three persons acquired from the gild of St. John the right to take earth at Groval Dyke, paying yearly therefor 3000 'waltyles,'[424] and in 1440 Robert Collard, tile-maker, took 'le Grovaldyke on the west side of le demmyng' at a rent of 1000 'waltyl.'[425] It was probably more particularly with regard to brick kilns than to ordinary tile kilns that the regulations drawn up in 1461[426] ordered that, 'on account of the stench, fouling the air and destruction of fruit trees, no one is to make a kiln to burn tile nearer the town than the kilns now are, under penalty of a fine of 100s.' The term 'brick' does not seem to have come into common use much before 1450, about which time the use of the material became general.
In addition to roof tiles and wall tiles, there were floor tiles. References to these occur in many building accounts. At Windsor, in 1368, 'paven-tyll' cost 4s. the thousand, and a large variety 2s. the hundred, while plain roof tiles were 2s. 6d. the thousand.[427] These were probably plain red tiles, but at Westminster in 1278 we have mention of the purchase of 'a quarter and a half of yellow tiles' for 7d.[428] Tiles with a plain yellow or green glazed surface are of common occurrence in medieval buildings, and in many churches and monastic ruins pavements of inlaid, so-called 'encaustic,' tiles remain more or less complete.[429] In the case of these inlaid tiles the pattern was impressed or incised before baking, and then filled in with white slip, the whole being usually glazed. Some of the patterns thus produced were of great beauty and elaboration, and it would seem that they were often designed, if not actually made, by members of monastic houses. The finest known series are those discovered at Chertsey Abbey, and it is possible that the remarkable examples in the chapter-house of Westminster Abbey,[430] which date from c. 1255, are by the same artist. In the case of the Abbey of Dale in Derbyshire,[431] and the priories of Repton and Malvern,[432] the kilns used for making these inlaid tiles have been discovered, and similar kilns, not associated, so far as is known, with any religious establishment, have also been found at Hastings.[433] The manufacture of these inlaid tiles in England gradually died out towards the end of the fifteenth century, and has only been revived in recent years.
It is curious that although there is abundant circumstantial evidence of Glassmaking in England, during the medieval period, direct records of the manufacture are extremely scarce, and practically confined to a single district. From the early years of the thirteenth century, Chiddingfold and the neighbouring villages on the borders of Surrey and Sussex were turning out large quantities of glass. Laurence 'Vitrarius' (the glassman) occurs as a landed proprietor in Chiddingfold about 1225, and some fifty years later there is a casual reference to 'le Ovenhusfeld,' presumably the field in which was the oven or furnace house, of which the remains were uncovered some years since.[434] It is possible that in the case of glassmaking, as in the case of many other industries, improvements were introduced from abroad, for in 1352 we find John de Alemaygne[435] of Chiddingfold supplying large quantities of glass for St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster.[436] In one batch he sent up three hundred and three weys (pondera) of glass, the wey being 5 lbs., and the hundred consisting of twenty-four weys, being, that is to say, the 'long hundred' of 120 lbs. A little later he sent thirty-six weys, and soon after another sixty weys were bought at Chiddingfold, probably from the same maker. The price in each case was 6d. the wey, or 12s. the hundred, to which had to be added about 1d. the wey for carriage from the Weald to Westminster. In January 1355-6 four hundreds of glass were bought from the same maker for the windows of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, at 13s. 4d. the hundred.[437]
Towards the end of the fourteenth century the family of Sherterre, or Shorter, became prominent in the Chiddingfold district,[438] and on the death of John Sherterre in 1380 his widow engaged John Glasewryth, of Staffordshire, to work the glass-house for six years, receiving 20d. for every sheaf (sheu)[439] of 'brodeglass' (i.e. window glass), and 6d. for every hundred of glass vessels made. This is interesting as showing that glass vessels were made here; the evidence of inventories, however, seems to show that glass was as a whole very little used for table purposes, though a few pieces of the beautiful Italian glassware might be found in the houses of the wealthy. The family of Shorter were succeeded by the Ropleys, and they in turn by the Peytos, who carried on the trade during the whole of the sixteenth century, and as late as 1614, thus well overlapping the modern period of glassmaking, which began with the coming of the gentilshommes verriers from France early in the reign of Elizabeth.[440]
Glass must have been made in many other districts where fuel and sand, the chief requisites for the manufacture, were plentiful, but it is difficult to identify any sites of the industry. In 1352 John Geddyng, glazier, was sent into Kent and Essex to get glass for St. Stephen's, Westminster,[441] but where he went and whether he was successful, is not known. 'English glass' is found in use at Durham in 1397,[442] and at York in 1471.[443] For York Minster sixteen sheets (tabulae) of English glass were bought from Edmund Bordale of Bramley buttes for 14s. 8d. in 1478,[444] and at an earlier date, in 1418, we find three seams, three weys of white glass bought from John Glasman of Ruglay (Rugeley) at 20s. the seam of twenty-four weys,[445] but whether these men were glass makers, or merely glass merchants, cannot be determined. That the industry, so far at least as real stained glass is concerned, was not flourishing in England in the fifteenth century is shown by the fact that Henry VI., in 1449, brought over from Flanders John Utynam to make glass of all colours for Eton College and the College of St. Mary and St. Nicholas (i.e. King's) Cambridge. He was empowered to obtain workmen and materials at the King's cost, and full protection was granted to him and his family. He was also allowed to sell such glass as he made at his own expense, and 'because the said art has never been used in England, and the said John is to instruct divers in many other arts never used in the realm,' the King granted him a monopoly, no one else being allowed to use such arts for twenty years without his licence under a penalty of £200.[446] Most glass of which we have any account was bought through the glaziers of the larger towns; but to what extent they made their own glass we cannot say. A certain amount, especially of coloured glass, was imported, and the York accounts show 'glass of various colours' bought in 1457 from Peter Faudkent, 'Dochman' (i.e. German), at Hull,[447] 'Rennysshe' glass bought in 1530, Burgundy glass in 1536, and Normandy glass in 1537,[448] while in 1447 we find the executors of the Earl of Warwick stipulating that no English glass should be used in the windows of his chapel at Warwick.[449]
To any one who knows the beauty of English stained glass this stipulation may seem strange, but it must be borne in mind that our cathedral windows derive their glories not from the maker, but from the painter, and that the glass is but the medium carrying the designs of the artist. English glass as a rule, prior at any rate to the fifteenth century, was white and received its decoration after it had left the glass-house. The process may be gathered from the account of St. Stephen's in 1352. Here we find John of Chester and five other master glaziers employed at a shilling a day drawing designs for the windows on 'white tables,' presumably flat wooden tablets, which were washed with ale,[450] which served no doubt as a size or medium to prevent the colours running. About a dozen glaziers were employed at 7d. a day to paint the glass, and some fifteen, at 6d. a day, to cut or break the glass and join it,[451] which they apparently did by placing it over the painted designs, this being presumably done before it was painted. The glass thus cut into convenient shapes was held in place over the design by 'clozyngnailles,' and when it had been painted was joined up with leads, lard or grease being used to fill the joints. For the painting silver foil, gum arabick, jet (geet), and 'arnement' (a kind of ink) were provided.[452] Possibly the stronger colours were supplied by the use of pieces of stained glass, as purchases were made of ruby, azure, and sapphire glass.
CHAPTER VIII
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