L. F. Salzman

“ The crucial point in gunfounding was the invention of solid boring in the time of Henry VIII.; in the cloth industry it was the introduction of the 'new draperies' by Protestant refugees in the reign of Elizabeth; for iron mining it was the adoption of pit coal for smelting in the seventeenth century; for coal mining, the application of steam power to solve the problems of drainage at great depths early in the eighteenth century. Yet, taking one thing with another, the sixteenth century may be considered to be the period of transition. ”

“ The economists of that period had not grasped the fact that the cleverness shown in buying an article cheap and selling the same thing, without any further expenditure of labour, dear, if done on a sufficiently large scale, justifies the bestowal of the honour of knighthood or a peerage. In the case of manufactured food stuffs, such as bread and ale, the price was automatically fixed by the price of the raw material, and in general prices of manufactures were regulated by the cost of the materials. ”

“ Though this was legislation in favour of the employer, it was not exactly a case of favouring the wealthy, for by imposing a penalty on the giver of excessive wages as well as upon the receiver, an attempt was made to prevent the small employer being deprived of his workmen by richer rivals. The Act was, so far as we can judge, inspired partly by fear that the capitalist might control the sources of labour, and partly by fear that those sources might get beyond control. ”

“ I have seen the first piece of lead smelted there, of great size and weight, which when it is struck rings almost like silver, wherefore I agree with the others that if it is faithfully worked the business should prove of immense value to yourself and to the neighbourhood, and if a reliable workman is obtained I think that it would be expedient to smelt the ore where it is dug, on account of the labour of carrying so heavy material such a distance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is certainly strange, if an ancient and well-established trade in tin really existed in Britain when the Romans came over, that that race, with its keen eye for metallic wealth, should have made no use of the tin mines of Cornwall. ”

“ QUARRYING—STONE, MARBLE, ALABASTER, CHALK
Stone-quarrying is an industry to which the references in medieval records are more numerous than enlightening. It would be easy to fill pages with a list of casual references to the working of quarries in all parts of England, and after struggling through the list the reader would know that stone was dug in quite a lot of places at different times, which he might have assumed without the documentary evidence. ”

“ The growth of the towns and the rise of a wealthy merchant class during the reign of Henry III. brought about the birth of Parliament, and naturally led to a certain amount of trade legislation. But with trade—the distribution of finished products by persons other than the producers—we are not concerned. Edward III., thanks perhaps to his queen Philippa, from the cloth land of Hainault, realised the possibilities of the English cloth manufacture, and endeavoured to foster it by a series of statutes to which reference has been made above. ”

“ The principle that the craftsman should be content with a reasonable profit, and not turn [210] the casual needs of his neighbours to his own benefit is constantly brought out in local regulations, as, for instance, in London in 1362, when in consequence of the damage wrought by a great storm tiles were in great demand, and the tilers were ordered to go on making tiles and selling them at the usual prices. [731]
The question of prices, which were thus so largely composed of a varying sum for material, and a fixed sum for workmanship, is very intimately connected with the question of wages. ”

“ Broadly speaking, the Control of Industry may be said to be either External, by parliamentary or municipal legislation, or Internal, by means of craft gilds. These two sections again admit of subdivision according as their objects are the protection of the consumer, the employer or the workman. Nor can we entirely ignore legislation for purposes of revenue—subsidies, customs, and octroi dues. ”

“ The demand for bells could hardly have been large enough to enable a craftsman to specialise entirely in that branch, and a bell-maker would always have been primarily a founder, and according as the main portion of his trade lay in casting buckles and other fittings for belts, or pots or bells, he would be known as a girdler, a potter, or a bell-founder. ”

“ The success of the London saddlers in forcing wages up is a remarkable tribute to the power of union; and we find that during the fourteenth century the strike was well known, and when a master would not agree with his workmen the other workmen of the craft would come out and cease work until the dispute was settled. ”

“ A single typical instance of a prevalent custom or regulation is as significant as a list of a dozen local variations, and far easier to remember. A rule is more easily remembered by one example than by a score, and with such a wealth of material as exists the risk of obscurity is greater from amplification than from concentration. ”

“ In the western counties, Somerset, Gloucester, and Dorset, fraudulent makers were in the habit of so tacking and folding their cloths that defects in length or quality could not be seen, with the result that merchants who bought them in good faith and took them to foreign countries were beaten, imprisoned and even slain by their angry customers 'to the great dishonour of the realm.' It was therefore ordered in 1390 that no cloth should be sold, tacked, and folded, but open. ”

“ We have seen that by the end of the thirteenth century worsted weaving was well [165] established in Norfolk, and particularly in Norwich, and that worsted serges and says were articles of export, while a century later the forms in which these cloths were made up were very varied. Norwich continued to hold the monopoly of searching and sealing worsteds, wherever made, until 1523, when the industry had grown to such an extent in Yarmouth that the weavers of that town were licensed to elect a warden of their own to seal their cloth ”

“ The growing attraction of town and craft life as compared with agriculture swelled the ranks of the craftsmen, and the gilds, whose management was in the hands of the masters, endeavoured to limit competition by raising their entrance fees and more especially by raising their 'upsets,' that is to say the fees which had to be paid by a craftsman upon setting up as a master. ”

“ Tin mining claims an antiquity unsurpassed by any other industry in this country, but with what degree of justice may well be doubted. The claim of the western promontory of Britain, later known as Cornwall and Devon, to be the Cassiterides or Tin Islands whence the Phœnicians obtained their stores of that metal at least five hundred years before the Christian era rests upon rather shadowy grounds. ”

“ The earliest and most primitive method of smelting iron was by setting a hearth of wood and charcoal on a wind-swept hill or in some other draughty position, heaping upon it alternate layers of ore and charcoal, and covering the whole with clay, to retain the heat, leaving vents at the base for the wind to enter and the iron to come out. ”

“ Curiously enough the chief trouble with the assize of kerseys, at least in the sixteenth century, was not short measure, but over long, the explanation being that kerseys paid export duty by the whole cloth, and it was therefore to the merchant's advantage to pay duty on a piece of 25 yards rather than to pay the same duty on 18 yards. [589] Kerseys were largely made for export, and a petition against restrictions tending to hamper foreign trade was presented, about 1537, by the kersey weavers of Berks., Oxford, Hants, Surrey, and Sussex, and Yorkshire. ”

“ Although lacking the completeness of organisation which rendered the tinners of Cornwall and Devon almost an independent race, the lead miners of Alston Moor, Derbyshire, and the Mendips, the three great mining camps of England, were more highly organised than the iron miners of Dean, who form the lowest class of privileged 'free miners.'
The lead mines of Britain were worked by the Romans from the earliest days of their occupation of the island, pigs of lead having been found in the Mendips stamped with the titles of Britannicus (A.D. 44-48) and Claudius (A.D. 49) . ”

“ Whatever may have been the methods in which craft gilds came into existence, we find them increasing in numbers and influence from the middle of the twelfth century onwards. Meanwhile, however, the capitalists and wealthy traders by means of 'merchant gilds' and similar bodies had so firmly established an oligarchic control over the towns and boroughs that they were able to keep the craft gilds in a subordinate position. ”

“ Prior to the middle of the sixteenth century parliamentary attention was mainly concentrated on the cloth trade, and the preambles to the various statutes show that those in authority, including the more responsible manufacturers, realised that honesty is the best policy in the end. ”

“ When the clothmaking trade got into the hands of the big capitalist clothiers, who gave out their wool to be carded and spun, it became necessary to pass laws [522] to ensure on the one hand that the workers should do their work faithfully, and not abstract any of the wool, [523] and on the other, that the masters should not defraud the carders and spinners by paying them in food or goods [524] instead of in money, or by the use of false weights, making women, for instance, comb 71⁄2 lbs. of wool as a 'combing stone,' which should only contain 5 lbs. ”

“ The lead-mining industry in England is important and interesting from its antiquity, the value of its produce, large quantities of silver being obtained from this source during the medieval period, and the organisation of its workers. ”

“ Skill and industry in the cloth trade had always been assured of a good return, and when combined with enterprise had often led to wealth; but there have always in all times and all places been men who would try the short cut to fortune through fraud ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is natural that when a castle, an abbey, a church, or other stone building is to be erected the stone, whose cost lies mainly in transport, should be obtained from the nearest possible source. Founders of monasteries frequently made grants either of existing quarries or of the right to dig stone for the monastic buildings, and the discovery of a bed of suitable stone close to the site selected for the Conqueror's votive abbey of Battle was so opportune as to be deemed a miracle. ”

“ In Worcester the instructions to the ale-conner were, 'You shall resort to every brewer's house within this city on their tunning day and there to taste their ale, whether it be good and wholesome for man's body, and whether they make it from time to time according to the prices fixed. So help you God.' [673] There seems reason for the pious ejaculation when we find that in Coventry in 1520 there were in a total population of 6600 men, women, and children, 60 public brewers. ”