Dyed in the Wool

Wool has been a part of the fabric of human society since before recorded history. Once ancient mankind began killing sheep to eat they soon discovered that the skin could keep them warm. Thus the relationship became a symbiotic in which Man got the best of it, unsurprisingly. The skin of dead sheep helped protect man from the elements, meat to feed him and fat made the light for his dwelling, and it was soon discovered that yarn made the fleece would provide the means to make cloth which was warm and water repellent and hardy even when wet. Even now, in the 21st century, we have never matched the qualities of wool for warmth and water resistance. There is no other material that has all its qualities although we have learned how to refine and improve wool cloth.

The first wool was rough and dark. It was plucked from the sheep and felted into hardy rough cloth. Gradually spinning and weaving were devised and the craft of cloth making began. Gradually the production of wool cloth became an essential to every household. Then an export trade started and the early economy of England was built on the trade in raw wool. And continued for many centuries, right up until the late 19th century.

The importance of wool is reflected in the presence of the Woolsack upon which the Lord Chancellor in Parliament sits. It was introduced by King Edward III (1327-77) and was stuffed with English wool as a reminder of England's traditional source of wealth - the wool trade - as a sign of prosperity.

The landscape of England we see, and love, now has been created by generation upon generation of human toil and ingenuity. Scarcely a mile of the entire land is untouched by the hand of man and in Devonshire, the high rainfall and warm climate made it a rich and fertile place.

Initially the settlements were on the high moorland and Dartmoor had a relatively high of population throughout Stone Age and Iron Age. As the millennia passed the climate changed and became harsher on the uplands, less habitable, so the population ventured down into the wooded valleys to form new settlements usually beside a water source.

When the Romans conquered they established their military garrisons and linked them with long straight military supply roads. At garrison of Isca-Exeter, wool and tin was traded, Dartmoor having large deposits of alluvial tin, and this made Isca-Exeter a bustling place. When the Romans left Britain centuries later the country slid into economic darkness as all that they had created gradually fragmented.

The Saxons began to raid along the east and south coast, and despite the efforts of local warlords such as Alfred the Great of Wessex, they invaded. They were farmers and they settled and began using the open field system imported from their homeland, the flat farmlands of Saxony. This was the beginning of the field rotation system, worked by serfs and villiens for hundreds of years and familiar from every history lesson on Medieval England. It was not, however a method of farming particularly suited to Devon with its steep sided hills and deep valleys. However, once sheep were introduced and the production of wool began, this soon began to become an important economic resource.

In 1066 Duke William of Normandy, with 500 Norman knights, overthrew his kinsman, King Harold. The Norman Conquest and subjugation of Saxon England eventually brought order and unity. By 1068 there is the first evidence of this order when William, now King William I, recorded and documented his new realm. The Domesday Book was a tax document, a recording of all property in William’s realm. It was a huge undertaking recording every acre of land, every building and animal, every serf and bondsman, every slave, lord and freeman, all were detailed. People were property as much as fields, animals, and buildings and Exeter has its own copy in the Exon Domesday Book.

To reward their loyalty to his cause the new King gave lands to his favourite knights. They quickly built castles to defend their new domain. In return for the gift of land, and privilege , the knights pledged their allegiance to the King with military service. Once these nobles were established as rural landowners an exclusive aristocracy emerged, with the resources to indulge whatever taste they wished. Most of them had a single ambition, to increase their wealth.

In the centuries that followed trade and export became inextricably linked with wool, with European textile markets heavily dependent upon the English raw wool. There were sheep farmers and cottagers, scattered all across England, each doing their small part in the greater whole. The English wool export trade became the mainstay of the economy and was based on a cottage industry. Wool trading quickly became a highly profitable means of making money, certainly more profitable than tilling the soil. Even a peasant might own a few sheep, and a great landowner would own thousands.

As trade developed, and a system of trackways developed , the Roman roads , established long before which came cross-country from Lincoln in the east to Exeter, via the Fosse Way is one such. Other long distance routes were well used, such as the Icknield Way, with is an ancient path that crosses England from Norfolk over the high ground of the Wessex downs westwards. England still is full of deep narrow lanes and moorland trackways, old byways criss-crossing the landscape. The laden packhorses of the wool merchants and other merchants , would have walked and ridden these routes. Trackways were treacherously rough, highly perilous routes and travel was slow. The wool merchant with his string on laden packhorses might make twenty miles a day, on a very good day.

The two powers in the land in those days were the Crown and the Church. The monasteries were powerful in medieval England because religion ruled everyone's lives. The monasteries owned great tracts of land and Devon was no exception having numerous monasteries, attracting merchants into the area. The Cistercian farmer monks at monasteries such as Buckfast and Tavistock kept huge flocks of sheep. They dealt with the merchants to their own advantage making deals that sold their wool many years ahead. The three-year credit plan was a common way of trading in the 13th century.

There were 50 grades of wool with ‘Good Cots’ at the top. Cotswold wool was considered the softest, the best in England and was this that the Flemish and Italian wool merchants required to make their fine cloth. Devonshire wool was rather coarse and although it was generally used for the domestic market, it was also exported. It was made into rough coarse cloth such as serge, fustian, burrell or russet, woven and worn by the peasants. This rough cloth was favoured by Henry III who had his bed hangings made from russet, a fact mentioned in the records of the Court of St James. The archaic ceremony of making the King’s Bed had humble fustian as part of the bedding, along with the fine linen sheets and furred coverlets of ermine.

Anyone with a few acres could rear sheep and produce wool. Great landowners did it and so did yeoman farmers and peasants farmers. There were times when the demand for wool was so great, as were the accompanying profit, that great tracts of England were changed from arable use to sheep pasture. Poor people complained that their livelihoods were being eaten by sheep and the government made ineffective efforts to reduce this reliance of wool, but since taxes from wool were considerable this inadequacy was hardly surprising. The great landowners produced large quantities of best quality wool; peasant farmers produced small quantities of wool which were usually in poorer quality.

In Devon towns’ wool men, clothiers and dealers in wool rapidly became prosperous. These medieval men of business bought fleeces from the small farmers and carrying their cargo on a string of laden packhorses they made the rounds of the farms, finally taking their woolly load to one of the three markets held at the Staple of Exeter. It was there that local men would meet with merchant traders from across Europe. Merchants from France, Flanders, or Italy jostled shoulder to shoulder with local merchants. It would have been quite normal to hear foreign speech in counterpoise with the soft Devon burr in Exeter wool market. Many of the more influential Exeter wool merchants became Mayors of Exeter with their now names were recorded on the panelled walls of the Guildhall.

In 1297, the barons declared that the wool of England amounted to half the value of the whole land. The merchants in 1341 informed the king of his ‘rich treasure,’ and twelve years later the Ordinance of the Staple was created. This proved to be something everyone wanted a piece of. The result of was a compromise with the king in possession of a very high subsidy on wool, parliament in possession of control over taxation, and a body of English merchants, known as the Company of the Staple, in possession, of the monopoly that was the wool trade.

Prior to the end of the 13th century there was little in the way of an English cloth trade up until then it was raw wool , the fleece, that was exported. The first payments for cloth were recorded were in 1202. Exeter was Devon's earliest centre for cloth making. The Cricklepits, the mill close to the Quay, was established around that time, for the process of fulling. Numerous Acts of Parliament were passed affecting the wool trade, instigated no doubt by the wool merchant traders, who were a powerful group inclined towards protectionism, jealous of profits made by foreign merchants. In 1299 Edward I (1272-1307) relieved wool of taxes; but in 1306 it was forbidden to export wool out of the country; then foreign merchants could export the wool but Englishmen could not transport it for them.

Edward III (1327-1377) made many laws regulating the wool trade. He was intent on waging war with France and to do so he needed to fill his coffers. When he created a monopoly in the sale and export of wool the Staple Towns were formed, allowing the King to raise a considerable amount of revenue. Markets towns abounded at that time and a selected few were designated as places where wool had be taken for taxing before it was sold. The first Staple towns were London, Newcastle, York, Lincoln, Norwich, Winchester Shrewsbury and in the southwest Exeter, Barnstaple and Bristol. All wool taken to the Staple towns had, by law, to be offered for sale for 40 days it was only after that it could be sold for export. The idea seems to have been to prevent direct trade between the wool producers and the foreign merchants. The Staple Merchants exercised the monopoly and the King taxed their profits.

As trade increased numerous contradictory laws were passed. Many of them seemed to inhibit the very trade they were trying to improve. At this time English merchants were not allow to use money to pay for foreign good they bought. They had to barter with wool , cheese or any other home produce that might take the foreigners fancy. This caused problems. Not using currency as a means of foreign exchange was a regulation that was persistently renewed. It seriously impeded trade and English merchants found themselves beaten and imprisoned in foreign parts. They sent back beseeching messages to the English Parliament however these pleas were largely ignored because the view was that these laws protected the realm. Impeded and protected by turn, the trade carried on growing by common inclination. Despite prejudice and tight regulations the wool trade thrived, vigorously, all across England.

It was Edward III who created the Order of the Garter after the sister of the Bishop Grandison of Exeter dropped her garter. He was also the king who created the Duchy of Cornwall for his son, the Black Prince and it was he who began the Hundred Years War by invading France. He won the Battle of Crecy in 1356 but under the Treaty of Bruges in 1375 he lost what he had gained, being left with just Calais and a limited area around Bordeaux.

Calais, on the English Channel, became one of the most important of the Staple towns. The wool exported from England went through the Staple of Calais, where port duties were levied and taxes pa id. During the 14 century raw wool was exported to Flanders or Italy for weaving. It was later imported back into England as cloth. In 1335 foreign merchants were allowed to trade in England unhindered, but foreign cloth could not be imported into England. The intention was to keep growing revenue within the realm, and the taxes thereof for the King. Edward offered Flemish fullers and weavers his protection as an inducement to encourage them to settle and practice their craft in England.

In 1340 Edward III was granted a subsidy on all fleeces produced in England. This revenue allowed him to continue the war with France. The King’s tithe was one ninth of lamb and one ninth of fleeces. He also took a 40-shilling tax on every sack of wool that was exported.

The Hundreds Year War (1337-1453) affected trade across Europe. Times became so hard in England that many little towns vanished from the landscape forever. In Devon some small towns were more fortunate. The Stannaries, tin towns, of Chagford, Plympton, Tiverton and Ashburton, with their dual attributes of wool and tin escaped the worst effects of the economic downturn.

Wool production was not a flexible commodity. Supply could not instantly meet demand and gradually the trade in raw wool declined. Between 1349 &1542, the exact opposite occurred in the cloth trade as the production of wool cloth increased. A medieval industrial revolution resulted. Mills were built to facilitate the washing, carding, combing, and drying the raw wool; with waterways or leats were constructed to divert the water for washing the wool. After this it was hand spun and then woven and spinners and weavers soon abounded.

Around 1346 the Weavers organised the first Guilds. To practice any craft one had to be a guild member. These guilds were strict Unions with largely benevolent intentions, governing not only the quality of the cloth but also the ethical behaviour on their members. The quality, width and length of all cloth were strictly monitored. The cloth had to be exactly one yard wide (36 inches, or slightly less than a metre or the width of a mans’ reach.) and twelve yards long. Wool Searchers were appointed in every town. Any cloth that was not up to their stringent standards was destroyed. Sometimes the loom was destroyed as well. Obviously this was a disaster for the weaver. In Exeter Tuckers Hall was built in 1471 by The Guild of Weavers, Fullers and Shearmen and can be visited in Fore Street. Guild of Weavers, Tuckers and Shearmen since 1471, but the earliest record of a Guild of Clothworkers in Exeter is 1459

The Black Death, Bubonic Plague, arrived from Europe in 1348 and 1349 decimating the population of England. Almost half the inhabitants of England died. Devon, with its dense agricultural based population, suffered more than any other county. In 2 years 17 churches lost 86 clergy to the pestilence. Exeter lost half its population in the first outbreak. Of those who survived a further quarter perished in the second outbreak. It must have been a terrible and terrifying time for everyone.

The great loss of population, both rich and poor, brought about a profound social change. It was the death knell of the feudal system. A shortage of labour was an advantage to the former serfs, for the first time they could charge for their labour. The landowners, having lost their serf and bondmen, needed men to work their land. Where once a rich man owned many poor men and their families, England was transformed into a land in which a man was free to offer his labour for payment. In 1444 Parliament passed the Statute of Labourers the first laws that set limits on labourers wages. This fixed the maximum wage, although both parties were free to negotiate. Artisans were paid by the day, earning more in summer. Summer working began at 5 in the morning and ended at 8 p.m. with 2 hours allowed to sleep in the midday. In the winter the working day was from dawn to dusk. A Bailiff, responsible for a farm, could receive up to 16 shillings and 8 pence, with 5 shillings for his clothing, a year. A chief shepherd could earn in a year 20 shillings with 5 shillings for meat, drink and his clothing.

After the ravages wrought by the Black Death the social boundaries became blurred. It became difficult to tell a newly enriched Merchant from a Gentleman simply by their appearance, and the Merchants aspired t o gentility. Gradually Merchants became a class in their own right; wealth bought them land, on which they built great houses and began the gentrification process. As Merchants became wealthier and more influential they displayed their affluence. Fine houses were built, churches were endowed but they also demonstrated their wealth in their apparel. In Medieval times even wealthy people owned only a few garments. Most the various elements that make up an outfit were detachable, sleeves and skirt s were separate from the bodice. Bodices, underskirts, sleeves and skirts, jerkins and doublets and hose were the outermost garments. Each item was separate and therefore somewhat interchangeable. They ended up wearing several layers of outer garments, the quality of which was dependent on their status, but the undergarment, a linen shift, was common to all. Letters penned in the 14th century speak with gratitude of the gift of a gown or hose. Frequently it was regarded as a gift of great worth, something to be preserved and treasured, sometimes significant enough to be bequeathed in a Will.

The Sumptuary Laws, were a curious set of laws. These existed all across Europe and they dictated the way people dressed. Chaucer (1340-1400) in his Canterbury Tales was obviously aware of them because he comments that his pilgrims wore items were at odds with their apparent status. These Laws dictated what could or could not be worn and applied across the 12 designated classes of English society. Cloth one could wear as well as colour and decoration was set out by these rules. From the King, in his lavish attire with purple cloth and gold and ermine, to the lady in her glowing coloured silk gown to the lowliest peasant in his rough russet homespun, everyone had their place in society and it could be seen in their apparel and the decorations and adornments of their attire.

This was all set out in the Sumptuary Laws. For example, a craftsperson in 1360 was not allowed to buy cloth worth more than 4 shillings; it could not be silk, or the cloth-of-gold or cloth-of-silver. Women wore veils and for the craftsman wife this had to be of English cloth, made in English lands, it could not be foreign or silk. Craftsmen were not permitted to embroider their clothes; adornments could be of gilt but not of gold or silver. The only furs they were allowed to trim their clothes with was civet cat, rabbit or fox and bright colours were not permitted; these were reserved for the nobility. A merchant was permitted to wear a cloak with a velvet tippet, or pence a year perhaps of dark green or blue or brown gown, trimmed with squirrel fur, or velvet and lined with satin or damask. Further up the social scale a squire with a worth of less than £100 per year could buy cloth costing more than 4 shillings. If he had an income of 200 marks or more he could wear silver and he was allowed furs except ermine. He could also have gems in his hat. A knight was allowed cloth to the value of 6 marks if his land or rents were more than £200, but no ermine or cloth of gold.

A more significant knight with a worth above £400 to £ 1000 could wear anything except ermine and gems in their clothing. That was reserved for the Earls. Parliamentary Peers in 1463 were permitted to wear gold but no one else could. At the bottom of the pile the yeoman were forbidden to pad their doublets or wear long toed shoes. Designed to preserve the social classes, these strange laws were also devised to control the excesses of behaviour, including the newly rich merchant classes. These were rules that ensured that money could not buy you everything.

These were comprehensive and complicated Laws that ensured Trade with Europe continued. Medieval Florence, where the Medici family dominated from 1400 onwards, was one place that flourished due largely to the production of wool cloth. In Florence the dyers of cloth had their own guild, Arta Del Lana. The wool merchants’ uild, was wealthy enough to pay for the building of the magnificent cathedral. It took 158 years to build and was completed in 1436; its landmark dome dominates the skyline of the city.

There was great wealth in wool. Sometime in the reign of Henry VI (1422-1461) an Italian weaver called Antonio Bonvise arrived in Devon. He set about showing its weavers how the make a cloth that was finer than the rough serge they were producing. This cloth was called Kersey and Devon was to become famous for its production. Before this time, England was an importer of woollen fabric, but now that European wool was more expensive, it now became worthwhile to manufacture cloth at home. The staple monopoly in Calais destroyed itself prior to the fall of the town to the French in 1558, and England became the greatest cloth producing country in the world.

The Hanseatic League, a powerful collective of German towns, a rival to the English Merchant Venturers, h ad a major influence on the export trade. Wool was traded to them; the return journey brought back salt, wine, coal, fish and furs. The vagaries of the European political system affected the economy of all the countries with trade links. In 1453 there was a drastic decline leading to a trading recession, which particularly affected the wool industry. The cloth towns of England during this period fell into a state of decay but with the resilience, so characteristic of the English, they rallied to rise again.

Edward IV (1461-1483) passed laws stringent laws forbidding the mixing of wools. If the cloth was intended for export then lambs wool could not be mixed with native wool, nor wools from different flocks. The wool from Devon was coarse and it was the custom to mix it with other wool. The Weavers and Spinners of Devon petitioned Parliament

Weavers demanded that they be allowed to incorporate lambs wool into the cloth, by right of custom. Parliament permitted them to continue this practice. These trades, as never before, became centred on rural craftsmen and their guilds in the local towns. The process of cloth making began when the farmer brought the wool to the town market, where it would be sold. It was then carded and washed after which it was then brought back to the market to be sold on to the spinners and spinsters. They would spin it, return the yarn to the market, where the weaver or the clothier, who organised the weavers bought it.

Many restrictions were levied against weavers through the centuries. In the earliest medieval period weavers were forbidden to work at night, weaving had to be done in sight of the public, not in an upstairs room. Later this changed and at lot of weaving was done in tiny upstairs room; evidence of this can still be seen in the wide upstairs windows in wool towns. After weaving the cloth went to be fulled, then it was dyed. The end of the process was when the Shearmen removing the nap using large shears.

After weaving fulling was the next process and a particularly smelly one. It required the use of such pungent liquids as stale urine. (In Ancient Rome, the collectors of urine or became so rich that the Roman Emperor levied a special tax on them.) After weaving the cloth was soaped, washed in urine to bleach it, beaten when damp until it looked unwoven, as Felt does. A thick and durable cloth, it was a sturdy, hard wearing, if uninteresting.

Two hundred years later in 1698, Celia Fiennes, a lady who kept a diary of her perambulations around England, recorded that a stinking miasma hung over the Exe valley when the fulling was being done. This unusually independent lady and inveterate traveller wrote of Exeter that the whole town and surrounding countryside for at least 20 miles round is employed in spinning, weaving, dressing and scouring, fulling and drying of serge's, it turns the most money in a week of anything in England.

It must have been a pretty unpleasant place to visit. The countryside abounds with the places called Tuckers Mill or Fullers Mills and the number of families so named reflects those who were involved in the trade. The fields around the city and the river were covered with cloth hung from hooks or tented. Hung out to dry on tenterhooks

The dyeing was the next process and hedgerow plants were used as dyes. Dyeing could take place at any one of three times in the processing: After cleaning but before spinning. This is known as "dyed in the wool" and is generally the most colour fast. Or it was done after spinning or it took place after the cloth is woven, but before it is fulled.

Plants dyes such as madder, weld or dyers greenwood were amongst the plants used. Woad was popular as it produced a bright blue dye and if stale urine is added as mordant becomes bluish purple. (Mordant fixes the dye in the cloth) The madder plant produces a range of reddish colours from rosy pink dye to a rich red brown, depending on the mordant used. When alum is added the dye turns yellow. Alum was traded in the Southwest; tin, another product of De von, was also used as a mordant. There was another dyestuff that was used; it came from lichen collected from the rocks on Dartmoor. When used with tin as a mordent, it produced a red dye. This was used to dye serge cloth that was, much later, used to make the famous red coats of the British Army.

Two main types of cloth were produced. ‘Woollen’ was made from the short fibres of the fleece, after they were combed and fulled. The fulling process produced a flat cloth without detail or design with such names as Broadcloth and Devonshire Dozens were made from the long fibres of the fleece, was carded, then woven and left un-fulled.

‘Worsted’ cloth could have pattern and texture and there were many types with names like New Draperies, stuffs, bayes, serge, perpetuanas, frisadoes, and bombazine which, with a silk warp, was dyed black for mourning clothing..

In 1489 Hat makers were accused of charging exorbitant prices for caps. An Act of Parliament was passed to control the cost of caps. The maximum price was fixed at 20 pence for a hat and 2 shillings and 8 pence for a cap. Felt makers and milliners frequently used Spanish wool because it is so fine. In late centuries this practice was to spill into the making of cloth heralding the demise of the home-grown wool production.

Deceitful practices were rife. In 1495 a law was passed allowing the Company of Shearmen to search the premises of anyone who made doublets. The act of 1495 passed to prevent a new method of shearing the fustian. This innovation, it was claimed, reduced the longevity of the garment, so that 'Formerly doublets of fustian would last 2 years or more, now scarcely 4 months' This allowed the Company of Shearmen to search the premises of anyone who made doublets. A doublet was an essential garment for men, an expensive item and expected to last several years. They were by no means always plain they have been described variously as a 'fustian dublet with' silk and gold lace' Most, however, were plainer, and most commonly made of fustian. However some doublets were falling apart after a couple of months of wear and built in obsolescence was not part of the medieval way of life. The shoddy doublets were being made using iron instruments, which ruined the cloth. The law was passed that only broadshears could be used. The fine for breaking this law was 20 shillings, a considerable sum in the 15th century.

When Henry VIII (1509 1547) cast his angry eye over the wealth of the monasteries, and Devon, with 17 monastic houses, was seen to be one of the richest counties. Religion was serious business in those days and the Roman Church a powerful force. Church was very rich indeed and corruption was rife. The Dissolution of the Monasteries released vast new holdings of land and revenue. Some of the land was sold back to local gentry and some became the country estates of wealthy London speculators, and filled Henry’s coffers nicely.

The religious turbulence of Henry VIII reign made little impact on the flourishing trade in wool cloth. All across England successful land and sheep owners were in a good position to increase their profits for little outlay and many, like Spencer of Althorpe, grazed 15,000 in several flock and were a major provider of wool and mutton. The West Country in the 16th century was the most significant manufacturing area in England. From Exeter in the west, to Witney in Oxfordshire and Painswick in Gloucestershire, northwards to Shepton Mallet on the Fosse Way, east to Salisbury and Warminster, cloth making became the predominant industry.

In Exeter, 2nd port and 4th greatest town in England, 65 percent of the population was employed in the wool trade, mainly producing Broadcloth and serges. In 1536, the weekly market in Exeter sold over £10,000 of yarn and wool however there was a decline and at the end of 1540 only £5000 per annum was from the export of worsted cloth.

Kersey was introduced in the fifteenth century and by 1600, its production had made Devon one of England’s leading textile producing areas. Made from lower grade wool, using both long and short fibres the cloth had a coarse finish. Used to make clothing for servants and the poor Kersey was woven with a diagonal rib or a twill across the surface of the cloth, and was woven with a combination of the course Devon longwools

Serge making begun in in Exeter about 1615 and was a finer cloth than kersey. It quickly became the main product of Exeter's fulling mills so that by the year 1700, there were 1,200 serge weavers employed across the county.

Serge is best suited to the wool available from Devon and was made from a combination of The trade in serge quickly exceeded that of kersey, with £100,000 worth of serge leaving the Staple of Exeter each week in the 17th century. Much of the profit went into the pockets of the Staple Merchants.

This considerable wealth allowed them build houses, some of which can still remain in the High Streets of the Devon wool towns. Living over the shop was customary and Exeter has a number of these lovely old buildings in the High Street, adjacent to Gandy Street and Queen Street. The houses of merchants in the city centre include what is now the Laura Ashley shop, which is a particularly fine example of carefully restoration. The Thornton’s shop, which is one of the oldest in the Exeter High street and on the opposite side of the street are three beautiful old buildings that were built as the homes of prominent merchants. Amongst them Simon Snow, and William Nation, both Mayors of Exeter and Sir William Bodely, father of Sir Thomas Bodely the Elizabethan poet and diplomat who founded the Bodleian Library in Oxford University.

On the corner of Gandy Street stands the house that was built originally by Merchant and Mayor, Simon Snow, who represented Exeter the 1640 Long Parliament of Charles I. It was for a long time the home of The Flying Post, the local Newspaper.

This one remains but sadly, Exeter lost many architectural gems in the 1941 blitz.

Elizabethan Merchants in Exeter

An assembly in Exeter in the autumn of 1558 was held at the Guildhall in Exeter, twenty four men and the mayor were present and all but one were merchants. Robert Chafe was the exception, a lawyer of some experience and an ecclesiastical official connected with the cathedral.

The merchant class of Exeter was a close knit one, interrelated by marriage, there were around a hundred of them at any one time in the city, and this remained so through many generations. One in every twenty families was likely to be a merchant family and they became the governing class of the city. These were the men who became Exeter City Mayors and sat on the Council.

To succeed in those times a man had to be a Freeman of the City and to became a Freeman he had to serve his apprenticeship. At the end of seven years if he could satisfy his master and the Guild as to his worth with his Masterpiece he became a Freeman able to conduct his trade in his own town and his son could inherit his father's freedom. Freemen, who were members of guilds were granted special privileges and monopolies of trade within the city. A Freeman was required to serve the Mayor, defend the city and help maintain the city fabric. In return he could vote at the election for a new member of the chamber or the Mayor.

In 1558 the mayor was John Beller, the oldest man in the council at seventy six year. William Hurst had been mayor for many years before and represented Exeter in parliament three times. This assembly governed the city of Exeter , one of the wealthiest in Elizabethan England. The social and cultural capital of the west country, a cathedral city, an industrial town and a busy port Exeter was a small city , and it is still possible to walk around its walls in twenty or so minutes, although today much of the Roman built town wall is now missing. In the 16th Century particularly it was possible for a man from a very humble background to make a great deal of money through the wool trade and rise to be the most influential person in Exeter.

Men like William Peryam, who began life as the son of a franklyn, or smallholder, was apprenticed as a capper yet went on to be a wealthy merchant and Mayor of Exeter in 1532 and 1563. William the elder was a well liked man, despite his rough and ready personality, and he married Mayor Blackaller's daughter. John Peryam, William's brother, was also twice mayor of the city and was in office when the 1588 Spanish Armada appeared off the coast of Devon. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he was elected fellow in 1551. In the next generation John Peryam also became Mayor in 1563 and 1572 - died 5th September 1573, and was replaced by John Blackall . William the elders’ grandson William Peryam was born in Exeter in 1534, second son of John and Elizabeth Peryam who was a man of means, twice mayor of Exeter and died during his second term of office in 1572.

Sir William Peryam (1534 – 9 October 1604) Peryam was born in Exeter, the eldest son of John Peryam, twice mayor of Exeter, and his wife Elizabeth, a daughter and co-heir of Robert Hone of Ottery of Little Fulford, near Crediton in Devon, became an English judge who, in 1593, rose to the position of Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I. There is a substantial memorial in the parish church at Crediton.

Another man who rose from nothing to considerable wealth & influence was William Crugge. He is interesting because he also started out very humbly, as a tanner. He seems to have been a pretty antagonistic character and after a fight in which he was maimed, he sued his antagonist, won his case and used the resulting money to set up as a clothier- From that he became one of the richest men in Exeter and Mayor twice- in 1505 and also in 1511, when Mayor William Wilsford (Wilford) died 29th Jan 1512, he was replaced him. When Crugge died on 26 February 1520 he left £750 which was a great deal of money for that time.

‘ Whereas William Cruygge [or Crugge Mayor in 1515, 1518] hath gevyn unto the Citie as sone as he is departed oute of this transitory lif his cloke of scarlet, 2 paier of brygandyns, 2 saletts, and 2 bills for which is graunted unto Anne the wife of the seid William Gruygge during her wydohode canon brede as olde maiers is wonte to have 8 canon lovys at Ester and 20d. in money and as moche at Christmas.'

Names that crop up in that time are Thomas Prestwood, who came from Worcester, John Bodley whose widow married the aforementioned Prestwood, his grandson Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of the famous Bodleian Library in Oxford; Nicholas Ball a trader in pilchards from Totnes, one of the richest towns in England; Thomas Richardson, a wine merchant from Leicestershire, a Merchant Adventurer who kept a wine tavern in Exeter, are but a few. These were the merchant families with names such as Peryam, Midwinter, Blackall or Blackallers, Martins and Spicers all wealthy and successful merchant in Exeter during the time of Elizabeth I.

Daniel Defoe wrote in A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724)

'Exeter is full of gentry, and good company, and yet full of trade and manufactures. The serge market held every week is very well worth a stranger's seeing, and next to the market in Leeds, is the greatest in England. The people assure me that at this market is generally sold from 60 to 80, and sometimes a hundred thousand pounds value in serge a week. They have the River Esk here, a very considerable river. The channel of the river has been widened, deepened and cleansed and the ships now come up to the city, and there with ease both deliver and take in their goods.'

In Exeter the cloth merchants met at the New Inn in the High Street. The earliest mention of this hostelry is a lease in 1456. It was an important meeting place and a large establishment, which front onto the High Street and went through to St Catherine Street. By 1554, it accommodated the Merchants Hall. It was damaged by fire in 1723, and was rebuilt; later still becoming Greens & Son’s, drapers. Within living memory, the site was Bobby’s, the draper’s. Nothing remains of that building, it was lost in the blitz of 1941, but 25 and 26 High Street were adjacent to St Stephen's Church and St Stephen's Bow.

In 1552 act of Parliament was enacted which stifled trade and brought great hardship to wool smaller producers. It was decreed that wool could not be bought unless it was for the buyers’ own use. He had to weave it himself or within his household and it could not be exported except through the Staple. The result was terrible. Destitute farmers, so penurious that they could not afford a horse, were forced to carry their wool to market on their backs.

Starting before dawn they would walk a distance of 5 or 10 miles, to the nearest market town. To make matters worse if a small farmer could not sell his fleeces within a year, he was forced to sell them to the local clothier whatever the current market price was at the local market. There was bitter complaint and in 1555 the position was remedied.

Elizabeth I (1558 1603) came to the throne and encouraged all forms of trade. England prospered as a result. Her reign was an exciting time. The national coffers were filled, as peace became a way of life in England. Many wealthy dynasties were founded then. Devon wool cloth men like Raleigh, Drake and Hawkins explored the globe, and although Spain remained troublesome, trade improved.

Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Warden of the Stannaries 1584–1603 was from time to time much favoured by Queen Elizabeth I. He managed to gain licenses to export a prohibited cloth called straight whites. that Totnes produce. He became very wealthy on the profits and may well have an effect on local trade in Devon. Local legend has it that he was arrested in 1618, on the Buckfast road near Ashburton, after leaving a favourite hostelry, the Exeter Inn in West Street. He was carted off to the Tower of London, later being ignominious deprived of his head.

By the middle of the 16th century middlemen, dealers in wool emerged as three separate classes. There were the Staple Merchants at the top, next came the commodity dealers such as leather workers and glove makers and lastly the Broggers who sold all the wool they bought.

The Merchant Staplers generally would have owned at least two properties first a large country house in an area where wool was produced as well as a town house where they carried on their business.

The Glovers and the worker in leather traded in wool as a by-product of their craft. They purchased wool fells, sheepskins. Before they could process the pelts, the fleece had to be removed. This done, they sold the wool to dealers and other manufactures. Since everyone wore gloves, and glove makers were great dealers in wool, the broggers or fellmongers bought wool and wool fells from small growers, selling all they bought. They might have become moderately wealthy, increasing their income by acting as a clothier as well. Many later abandoned this for the profitable activity of simply dealing in wool.

The Merchant’s middleman, who travelled his area collecting the great bundles of wools, would usually have been prompt in collecting from the growers. If the purchase was very large he might buy in three instalments. These were at set times. The Feast of St Bartholomew, (August 24, the Feast of All Saints (1st November) and the Feast of Purification (2nd February). Occasionally the clothier would leave the wool with the growers for a whole year, waiting for prices to rise. This caused sheep farmers to complain bitterly since it inhibited their money flow. Most of the time collection was immediate and the wool was carried to the clothiers warehouse. The price of wool and the trade fluctuated through this period and various means were used to elevate the prices. In 1571 Parliament decreed that everyone over the age of six had to wear on Sundays and on Holy days and the hats had to be made of English woollen cloth. A hat was to become part of everyone’s ordinary costume. It was only in the latter part of the twentieth century that wearing a hat out of doors, as did the wearing of gloves, ceased to be commonplace.

Fine cloths, brocades, velvets, damask, taffetas, satins, woven and embroidered silks and gauze's were imported for the upper classes. The merchants wore good quality cloth but not as gorgeous as those of higher rank. The peasantry wore homespun, home-woven cloth. This poor grade stuff was good enough for the toilers of the English countryside, who were the backbone of England. It was on their backs that the English economy rested. Without them the whole structure would have come tumbling down.

The 16th century the importance of farming sheep continued. Even a man with other interests, would own sheep and the more he had, the better his trading position. A peasant tilling his open field system might have owned 20 or 30 sheep, supplementing his meagre income with the profits. At the other end of the social scale, a landed gentleman might have thousands of sheep, until in 1535 an Act was passed forbidding ownership of more than 2,500 sheep. It was also decreed that for every 1,200 sheep, the farmer had to keep a milch cow. This was an attempt to overcome the tendency to ignore other types of agriculture. Gradually sheep farming became concentrated into fewer and fewer hand meanwhile other aspects of farming neglected in favour of farming sheep. It was during this period that Spanish wool and cloth was imported in quantity. The cloth, made from the soft Spain wools, was imported to be dyed in England, and then exported. Duty was levied no matter what the quality of the cloth. Broadcloth and other English wool cloths became less favoured than the fine Spanish cloths. It was the beginning of the end for the exclusively home produced wool cloth trade in England.

Much of the home spinning and weaving ceased and the cloth trade became localised to a few areas. Devon was one such area. Devon cloth did become famous and was made exclusively from Devon wool. Later Cornish and Dorset wool was included in the weaving.

15th century trade was monopolised Dutch merchants who brought spices from the East. When they raised the price of pepper from 3 shillings to 8 shillings a pound, in 1599 and then announced that they were enlarging their eastern fleets by purchasing English ships the exasperated London merchants demanded action. A meeting was called and they decided that they should secure their own supplies of spices. So it was that on 31 December 1600, Queen Elizabeth I signed the charter creating 'The Company of Merchants of London Trading to the East Indies' with over 200 subscribers who between them raised the enormous some of £70,000 for a voyage to the east. In the centuries that followed the Honourable East India Company, a joint-stock company, traded mainly with the Indian subcontinent and Qing China. Holding a monopoly of trade with the east it had sole trading rights, which were always a source of controversy and eventually revoked by Parliament. It became the single most effective long term trading monopoly ever, trading Indian textiles and tea, controlled large areas of India. Its merchant ships were armed and its own militia.

A variety of goods were exchanged across Asia and large quantities of British materials such as copper, iron and Cornish tin were exported. The Company become very powerful and very profitable and by 1720, it had almost 15% of British imports came from India. The Companies license was prolonged until 1766 by yet another act in 1730. Between 1756 – 1800 East India Company exported woollens, including worsteds such as Devonshire long ells,( An ell is an old measurement of about 45 inches. Long ell refers to a very long cloth of twill weave with a worsted (combed) warp and woollen (carded) weft.) which made up over half of the value of goods that the Company exported.

The Civil wars 1646-1653 devastated the whole country. Trade suffered grievously during that time. The recession of 1650 was so bad that, to boost the trade, shrouds were made of wool. It was a miserable time for England on the whole. The Commonwealth was established in 1649 and lasted for 10 years, then the King returned to claim his kingdom.

The restoration of Charles II in 1660 bought an economic recovery. There was a huge increase in all trade, once again the small towns flourished and this was a period of peace and great prosperity in England.

In William and Mary’s time (1689-1702) laws were made permitting Irish wools to be imported, but only through certain ports. Exeter, Barnstable and Bideford, in the west, although Exeter was later expelled. The seas around Lands End were rough and treacherous. To avoid these perils Irish Traders were encouraged to come overland. Inevitably, taxes and duties were involved. This resulted in the smuggling of Irish wool, across Dartmoor along the Mariners way. Fellmongering , in which the wool is removed from the sheepskin by soaking the skins and leaving for several days for the root of the wool to decay, allowing easy removal, was part of the woollen industry associated with leather and tannery trade.

John Lethbridge was a wool merchant based in Newton Abbot who invented a diving machine in 1715 that was used to salvage valuables from wrecks. This machine was an airtight oak barrel that allowed “the diver” to submerge long enough to retrieve underwater material. After testing this machine in his garden pond (specially built for the purpose) Lethbridge dived on a number of wrecks: four English men-of-war, one East Indiaman (both English and Dutch), two Spanish galleons and a number of galleys. He became very wealthy as a result of his salvages. One of his better-known recoveries was on the Dutch Slotter Hooge, which had sunk off Madeira with over three tons of silver on board. Lethbridge is buried in Wolborough church, Newton Abbot.

In 1724 Newton Bushel had a thriving serge industry that sent goods to Holland through the port of Teignmouth to the Staple of Exeter. The annual cloth fair was the town’s busiest fair of the year. The Bradley Mills, Newton Bushell ‘s main wool commodity was serge and kersey and they was a foremost producer of these whilst Vicary Mills concentrated on fellmongering. From its founding in 1747 Vicary's Mills became an important employer in the town, employing over 400 men in the 1920s.

Vicary’s ketch ‘Fiona’ purchased in 1874 kept records of her voyages. In 1876 one cargo alone consisted of 36 bales of woolfells( sheepskins), 15 tons of coal, 10 tons of pelts, 3 tons of bark( used in the tanning process) 17 tons of Gambig, a plant extract also used in tanning and 12 tons of myrobalam, a fruit used in tanning. The Fiona also carried clay, dressed pelts and scrap iron and was manned by local Teignmouth crews under her master Charles Seagall. Vicary continued to trade out of Teignmouth for another 70 years although he stopped using his own ships and much of his cargos went by the regular steamer services, to Liverpool or London. One of the last cargos Vicary imported was 295 tons of hides from Uruguay.

In the 1860’s Bradley Mills was in the wool processing business but the mill burnt down in 1860. It was rebuilt only to burn down again on 1882. Vicary Mills however went from strength to strength in leather business, becoming the town’s only fellmonger and continuing right up until 1972. During WWI much of the Vicary Mills leather output was taken up by War Office and Army contracts for both serge and leather, with wool processing machines were installed in 1914 –15

Laws continued to be made controlling the import and export of wool and the selling of cloth. There was even a law restricting the selling of. Apparently sales of serge button interfered with sales of silk and mohair buttons, which came from Turkey, and were traded for English woollen goods. For Exeter a major European trading connection was Rotterdam. The influence of the Dutch merchants can be seen in Exeter in some architectural touches, the most notable being Molls Coffee House in the Cathedral Green. The gables of several buildings around the city are most markedly of Dutch influence.

In 1767 came the final blow, mechanisation. The wool market was transformed with the introduction of the Spinning Jenny. Worsted spinning frames were introduced into Devon and for a while the operators had a monopoly. The mills, filled with machinery, revolutionised the woollen cloth industry. The carding and spinning was done mechanically, in the factory but the weaving was still being done by hand. This was when the trade began to die out as a cottage industry. In the 18th Century, Exeter was the leading wool market in England and during the 19th century the hand weaving trade briefly boomed again, bringing weavers into the towns to sell their serge. Local populations expanded dramatically but it did not last and very soon mills closed as the boom in trade ceased. Changes in policy in the 19th century opened up the wool trade to international pressures.

In 1724, Daniel Defoe had written ‘A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain’. He visited Exeter and wrote 'Exeter is full of gentry, and good company, and yet full of trade and manufactures. The serge market held every week is very well worth a stranger's seeing, and next to the market in Leeds, is the greatest in England. The people assure me that at this market am generally sold from 60 to 80, and sometimes a hundred thousand pounds value in serge a week. They have the River Esk here, a very considerable river. The channel of the river has been widened, deepened and cleansed and the ships now come up to the city, and there with ease both deliver and take in their goods.'

Huge mechanised factories were erected in the cities of the Midlands and North of England, with their large populations for the work force. In Devon the long association with the wool cloth trade finally ceased. Hand weaving ended in Devon in 1831. At the height of its prosperity the trade had produced close to £10 0,000 worth of cloth as an annual export of just one small town. However it become increasingly difficult to find a market for woollen cloth and in 1833, when their monopoly expired and their charter with it, The East India Company left with tons of uneconomic Devonshire serges, dumped them on the Chinese market in exchange for tea.

Wool, so long the main source of income in small towns, was no longer a favoured item. The cloth produced on the handlooms was no longer good enough. Machines could do it better. Many things had combined to make the hand spinning of wool at home, the most advantageous work for the cottager's wife and children.

The local clothier or wool-man would supply them with wool by the pound. Sometimes, rather than pay the wool workers a barter system was established whereby employee would take it on account from the chandler's shop, where they bought their food and clothing. No stock was required, and once they taken their spun wool spun back to the clothier they had no further interest in it. One of the other advantages of this work was, that until machines were introduced, it was done in every part of the county. Children from five years old were used run at the wheel and it was considered that this could continue until a very advanced age. The new machines were not introduced all at once and it was found to be less easy to mechanize weaving than it was spinning. In the years around this resulted in a loss of work for spinners and those employed in that "cottage industry.” Men and boys usually did combing and it was possible for them to find some other work. For the wives and daughters of the day-labourers, deprived of their work at spinning which was usually done at home, there was no other employment.

To supplement the family’s income the women would do seasonal work, such as harvesting, going into the fields to bring in the wheat & barley, afterwards gleaning for the scattered grain with which they could make bread. However with large families, and many had eight or ten or more children under the age at which farmers would employ them, mechanisation was a terrible disaster. The destitution, even starvation, that resulted made mock of the modernisation. It might have lined the farmers pockets but the agricultural labourers, on whom the landowners had once depended, were devastated. The advance into the modern world made the once quiet countryside into noisy place as never before, particularly where the sound of machinery working could be heard in the distance. In some places some hand-work was still to be found but the pay was worse than before. The results were near starvation for many. The poverty wages of the wool factory, just about them enabled them to eat when the day's work was done.

Soon after the establishment of the spinning machines there was little or no hand-work to be found and as a consequence the whole support of the family fell to the father. This meant a loss six or seven or shillings a week, cash which a wife and younger children had provided by their work on the wheel. Father’s weekly pay was all they now have to depend upon.

When the combing machines were put in motion the wheel required four men to turn it, but it was later turned either by water or steam. A child kept the frames supplied with wool and as the wheel turned, flakes of ready combed wool dropped off the cylinder into a trough, were young girls aged about 12 or 14 years picked them. They placed them on the Spinning Jenny which has a n umber of horizontal beams of wood, on each of which could be up to fifty bobbins. One girl would set the bobbins in motion by turning a wheel at the end of the beam; a wire then caught up more flakes of wool, spun it and gathered it onto each bobbin. The girl again turned the wheel allowing another fifty flakes of wool to be taken up and spun This work was done without interruption, so that one girl turning one wheel, did the work of one hundred hand wheels at the least. About twenty of these sets of bobbins, would be at work in one room. Many of these ‘manufacturing units’ were in upper storeys, in rooms were high, much larger that the usual attic rooms than hand spinners and carders worked in at home.

Once the machines set up the expense of running them was minimal, 20 girls could do the work of 2,000 women and children. The work was less arduous than farm work. When these girls were of age to go into a farmer's Service they would have to endure the fatigue and exposure to weather, necessary to work as farm servants. There became a choice between hard but healthy work and less arduous but unhealthy conditions in the ‘factory’ where the girls were confined together in one room that did not make them as hardy and strong. Working at the wheel in a cold cottage, and frequently in the open air, made them hardy. It also allowed them to do other work around the home, such as cooking, patching the clothes, mending the shoes, maintain the fire, nurse the younger children, help with gleaning during in the harvest. She might also take charge of the house in her mother's absence to the shop, or if she could get work at neighbouring houses, all of which helped maintain the family enterprise. This sort of training would prepared her to be a good wife and a well prepared and a fit mother for their family. Girls taken from six years old to sixteen and employed at the machines, learned few of these habits

The miseries that resulted from the machines affected the day to day life of a labourer's wife and children During his life the direst poverty was their lot but if deprived by his death of the tiny income he provide, the pittance that the industry afford them, their poverty became even worse. A widow could hope to maintain herself and her children by her spinning when she was paid one 1 penny for every skein; but without this she would be forced onto the charity of the parish, the Dole, a pauper and a wretched inhabitant of the local Workhouse.

Wool in its raw state was produced in almost every parish in England; Wool-staplers or clothiers were consequently found in every market town. Carders and combers worked for them, preparing the wool for the cottagers, who were glad at the 2 shillings it paid. Thus, a widow was able to get wholesome employment within her own home for herself and for those children who were able to work the wheel.

The hand wheel or Jazey wheel had been the pride of the English housewife. In good weather or bad, it was a resource but with the advent of mechanisation, the Wheel became something to be laid aside as a useless. In times gone by she might have help from a better off neighbour, one who would lend her a trifle to help through a period of sickness or when she gave birth to a child or to who she could mortgaging the next handwork. Now she was faced with the prospect that not only had she lost her livelihood but she had also lost one of the perks of the work. No longer did she have yarn ends with which to mend or knit stockings, or darn a woollen garment. She had to buy ready-made items from a shop and wear them, ragged or not, until they utterly worn-out.

Mechanisation of the age-old hand trade had a devastating effect on the English countryside and was the cause of one of the great periodic migrations of workers form country to town. Thousands of country born people went to live in the disease ridden hinterland if the cities where factories provided work and they continued to live in the direst poverty but now the fresh air was gone and the sun was blotted out by the smog of coal fire.

Many people tend to have a view the past. one that was heavily tinted with romantic rosy hues. We ignored the grinding poverty and hardship in which most people lived their lives. We are hardly aware of the daily struggle to survive, the sheer of difficulty of substance living, and incidences of diseases, which were not treatable and all made for harder shorter lives. We see the grand remains, the glamorous portraits and the fine houses of the wealthy, yet it is the lives of ordinary people that is really interesting.

How did they make so many of the things that they needed for day to day living? What did they cook and eat? What did they wear and who made it? What did they buy? Where did they buy it? What were their homes like? What were they afraid of? What did they enjoy? What did they do for entertainment? What were their daily lives like? What were they like? Although they lived lives very different to ours, fundamentally, as people, they were much the same as we are. Less sophisticated, less well informed, certainly less educated with fewer expectations and narrower horizons, but as individuals, they could not have been very different. Their lives were completely filled with working to survive but there was always time for recreation. Their every day pleasures were simpler than ours in 21st century. They would have found pleasure in making something for the house or the family or maybe in a flower or herb garden, or perhaps a book, if they could read. Days of celebrations such as the annual Fair or the weekly Market at the local town or the celebration of Harvest being safely gathered in or religious holidays, these were enjoyed to the full. It some ways their lives were more complicated than ours, in others much more simple.

In medieval times all local communities were highly self-sufficient, almost everybody made much of what they needed for themselves, what they could not make, brew, bake or grow, they bought at the local market. Because the 14th century when the Black Death reduced the population drastically and this began the demise of the feudal system, with its slaves, serfs and villains under the control of a land owning lord. Afterwards people began to move around the countryside in search of work and for the first time they had choices. However, in comparison with today they did not travel much outside their immediate area. In the 19th century the combination of mechanisation, enclosure and a series of bad harvests forced people to venture far from home, as they were obliged to migrate across the world searching for the chance of a better life.

Through the centuries made massive fortunes as a result. Many of their homes and dwellings can still be seen. Attractive houses, and fine examples of wool Merchants houses exist in Devon from Ashburton to Zeal Monachorum and alongside them the weavers’ cottages. These houses can be found in Exeter, Honiton, Tiverton, Totnes, Cullumpton and Culmstock to name but a few. They are comparatively modest dwellings in comparison with the grand houses of merchants further afield, but those in Devon are attractive reminders of this aspect of England’s past.

The market, weekly , monthly or the annual fairs were important events and allowances were made for servants to attend some of them . The weekly market was essential for it allowed for purchasing of food and the sale of surplus vegetable and cheese or butter whilst the annual fair cum market was the place to sell and buy animals and cloth.

Eileen Power Professor of Economic History (1889–1941) First Published 1941

The barons in 1297 roundly state that the wool of England amounts to half the value of the whole land. The merchants in 1341 told the king that it was his ‘rich treasure,’ and twelve years later the Ordinance of the Staple calls it’ the sovereign merchandise and jewel of this realm of England.’

...The struggles ended in a compromise by which the king was left in possession of a very high subsidy on wool, parliament was left in possession of control over taxation, and a body of English merchants, known as the Company of the Staple, was left in possession, of a quasi-monopoly of the wool trade.

The economic and social changes were equally important. Under the monopoly of the Staple the trade contracted, but the English cloth industry, on the contrary, forged ahead, and this, in its turn, had an obvious effect on the structure of the English middle class. However it was the expanding wool ‘trade of the thirteenth and early fourteenth century which gave birth to the great capitalist financiers whose speculations reached highest in the syndicates which

financed the Hundred Years’ War. This affected the staple monopoly in the fifteenth century was to prevent the emergence of the great financier and to establish instead a large and substantial middle class. In short, wool entered into every phase of English life in the middle ages.

The English economy, society and government reacted, each in its own way, to changes in the wool trade, to its ebb and flow, its varying relations with the crown, and its continually changing organisation.

Fulling , Tucking or Waulking ("waulking" in Scotland) is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of cloth (particularly wool) to get rid of oils, dirt, and other impurities, and thickening it. The worker who does the job is a fuller, tucker or walker. Despite suggestions to the contrary, these processes are essentially identical.

Processes

Fulling involves two processes - scouring and milling (thickening). These are followed by stretching the cloth on great frames known as tenters and held lengthwise along the frames by tenterhooks. It is from this process that we derive the phrase being on tenterhooks as meaning to be held in suspense. The area where the tenters were erected was known as a tenter-ground.

Originally, this was literally pounding the cloth with the fuller's feet (whence the description of them as 'walkers'), or with his hands or a club. However, from the medieval period, it was often carried out in a water mill.

Scouring

In Roman times, fulling was conducted by slaves standing ankle deep in tubs of human urine and cloth. Urine was so important to the fulling business that urine was taxed. Urine (known as 'wash') was a source of ammonium salts, and assisted in cleansing the cloth.

By the medieval period, fuller's earth had been introduced. This is a soft clay-like material occurring in nature as an impure hydrous aluminium silicate. This seems to have been used in conjunction with 'wash'. More recently, soap has been used.

Thickening

The second function of fulling was to thicken the cloth, by matting the fibres together to give it strength. This was vital in the case of woollens, made from short staple wool, but not worsteds made from long staple wool. At this stage, the liquid used was water, thus rinsing out the foul smelling liquor used during cleansing.

Fulling mills

A fulling mill from Georg Andreas Böckler's Theatrum Machinarum Novum, 1661

From the medieval period, the fulling of cloth was often undertaken in a water mill, known as a fulling mill (also as walk mills or tuck mills). In Wales, a fulling mill is a pandy. In these, the cloth was beaten with wooden hammers, known as fulling stocks. Fulling stocks were of two kinds, falling stocks (operating vertically), used only for scouring, and driving or hanging stocks.

In both cases the machinery was operated by cams on the shaft of a waterwheel or on a tappet wheel, which lifted the hammer. Driving stocks were pivotted so that the 'foot' (the head of the hammer) struck the cloth almost horizontally. The stock had a tub holding the liquor and cloth. This was somewhat rounded on the side away from the hammer, so that the cloth gradually turned, ensuring that all parts of it were milled evenly. However, the cloth was taken out about every two hours to undo plaits and wrinkles. The 'foot' was somewhat triangular in shape, with notches to assist the turning of the cloth.

History

From around the 10th century there were mentions of fulling mills in Persia and by the time of the 11th century Crusades fulling mills were found throughout the Islamic world, from Spain and North Africa to Central Asia. In .England they are mentioned after the Norman Conquest with some belonging to the Knights Templar. Fulling mills were in most counties of England and Wales during the 13th century, but were largely absent in areas only making worsteds.

Processes

There were a series of processes the woollen cloth underwent after weaving and before it was ready for use. In Devon the dyeing was carried out after weaving. Fulling was the next process and this involved and this involved first scouring, which removed much of the grease or lanoline, as well as dirt and other impurities. The cloth was smeared with soap and soda before being put into troughs of hot water where it was trampled or waulked, by foot. A later innovation was the fulling or trucking mill using huge wooden hammers and water diverted into leats, the specially constructed channels, from the river Exe.

Each mill housed an elaborate construction of a pair of huge wooded hammers, their heads weighing several hundred weight, on a revolving drums, lifted by tappets to drop onto the wet cloth which lay in a a trough below. Driven by an overshot water wheel these hammers pounded the fabric for several hours or until the fuller was satisfied as to its quality. After milling the cloth was hung in rack fields stretched over tenter hook lengthwise, along the frames, all 12 yards of it stretched out to dry

The next process was burling where the clothe was taken to a workshop where it was searched for knots and imperfections which were removed with burling irons or small metal pincers.

After this the still damp cloth was rowed or dubbed , hung on vertical frames to have its nap raised with teasel heads set into a wooden frame

Shearing came next. This gave the cloth a smooth finished and was a highly skilled occupation in which huge 4 foot long heavy cast iron shears, which had very sharp blades. The cloth was laid flat on horizontal or sloping boards to keep it wrinkle free and the shears were laid flat on the surface of the cloth to remove fluffy surface. To keep them in best condition the shearmans apprentice would have a sharpening stone at the ready to keep the blades razor sharp. Once this was completed the now finished cloth was pressed before being immersed in hot water again and then being folded and packed for transport. Exeter had many cloth finishing workshops and every acre of land outside the walls were filled with racking frames.

These can be seen on old maps , row upon row and racks in the fields surrounding the city walls

In the 16th & 17th centuries the wool trade was flourishing , making rich men very, very rich and keeping poor men in work, but bitterly poor despite their toil

The Yeoman or peasant tilling his open field system might have owned 20 or 30 sheep, supplementing his meagre income with the profits. At the other end of the social scale, a landed gentleman might have thousands of sheep, until in 1535 an Act was passed forbidding ownership of more than 2,500 sheep. It was also decreed that for every 1,200 sheep, the farmer had to keep a milch cow. This was an attempt to overcome the tendency to ignore other types of agriculture. Gradually sheep farming became concentrated into fewer and fewer hands meanwhile other aspects of farming neglected in favour of farming sheep.

It was during this period that Spanish wool and cloth was imported in quantity. The cloth, made from the soft Spain wools, was imported to be dyed in England, and then exported. Duty was levied no matter what the quality of the cloth. Broadcloth and other English wool cloths became less favoured than the fine Spanish cloths. It was the beginning of the end for the exclusively home produced wool cloth trade in England.

Much of the home spinning and weaving ceased and the cloth trade became localised to a few areas. Devon was one such area. Devon cloth did become famous and was made exclusively from Devon wool. Later Cornish and Dorset wool was included in the weaving.