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Updated: May 28, 2025
His lands be in statutes: you merchants were wont to be merchant staplers; but now gentlemen have gotten up the trade; for there is not one gentleman amongst twenty but his lands be engaged in twenty statutes staple." Act i. Sc. 3.
The brasses also, like the houses, bear witness to the prosperity of the middle class, for in the fourteenth century when merchants began to build themselves fine houses they began also to bury themselves under splendid brasses. Finest of all, perhaps, are the brasses of the wool staplers, with feet resting on woolpack or sheep; but there are many other merchants too.
And remember too, dear Lady Disdain, that in these times of change and upheaval it boots not to speak thus scornfully of honest city folks, be they wool staplers or what you will, who gain their wealth by trading on the high seas and with foreign lands.
The English traders were commonly reputed to be the best sellers and customers at the fairs of Flanders and Brabant, though the Flemings sometimes complained of them, and said that the staplers made regulations forbidding their merchants to buy except on the last day, when the Flemish sellers, anxious to pack and be off, let their goods go at insufficient prices.
Thus conditions on the Continent were strikingly favorable to the growing commercial enterprise of England. The Merchants Adventurers.* English merchants who exported and imported goods in their own vessels were, with the exception of the staplers or exporters of wool and other staple articles, usually spoken of as "adventurers," "venturers," or "merchants adventurers."
It was customary for the staplers to pay for their wool by bills due, as a rule, at six months, and Thomas Betson would be hard put to meet them if the foreign buyers delayed to pay him. Moreover, his difficulties were inconceivably complicated by the exchanges.
Take these visitors through the factory, Mac, show them everything, and bring them back here. Now if you are ready, Mr. Clark, we will join Mr. Bailey." Donald and Thornton moved away, following their guide into a building just across the yard. Here wool was being sorted by staplers who were expert in judging its quality.
So Thomas Betson rides off to Gloucestershire in the soft spring weather, his good sorrel between his knees, and the scent of the hawthorn blowing round him as he goes. May is the great month for purchases, and Northleach the great meeting-place of staplers and wool dealers.
These English merchants, trading to the Netherlands in other articles than those controlled by the Staplers, apparently received privileges of trade from the duke of Brabant as early as the thirteenth century, and the right of settling their own disputes before their own "consul" in the fourteenth.
But for our purposes the most interesting are two other collections, to wit, the correspondence of the Stonors, whose estates lay chiefly in Oxfordshire and the neighbouring counties; and the Cely papers, kept by a family of Merchants of the Staple. These two collections give us a vivid picture of wool staplers in their public and private lives.
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