THE SHIPPING TRADE (1457)

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from York into the country districts, which by 14631 had already begun among the subsidiary branches of the trade, had not seriously affected the weaving industry; it was not until a century later that the city became the depot, where the cloth collected in the rest of the county was bought and sold, while it ceased to make any appreciable amount of the material itself.

Unfortunately, the rolls tell little of the ships employed in the cloth trade beyond their names: the Laurance, the Hylde, the litell Joorge of Hull, the Anna, the Juliana Pilkington, the Petrus, the Maria Stables, the Grace de Dieu, all belong to the early days of foreign commerce.2 But the crew, the tonnage, the many particulars that would help us to visualise the vessels, which carried these pioneers of British industry across to Zealand, or through the Sound to Emden and Danzig, or even further still to Riga and Narva, are absent. Fortunately, the Cely papers give some scanty facts. The Margaret Cely, employed in the same trade at the same period, but sailing from the south-east coast, cost, exclusive of rigging and all fittings, twenty-eight pounds. The crew consisted of a master, boatswain, cook, and sixteen able-bodied seamen; her victuals were composed of salt beef and fish, bread, and beer. It has been conjectured that her tonnage was about 200 tons, but other vessels employed were not above a seventh of her size. The north-east coast boats were even smaller. The account book of the Katherine of Hull, for the year 1457, yields some illuminating details. Evidently the ship had met bad weather, and had had to sacrifice much of her cargo. Cloth white and "meld," lead, yarn, harness, calfskins, and "dyvars parsells," contents not given, were thrown overboard, and the owners had to be indemnified. The purser of the vessel had been dishonest, for an item appears, "Payd for costes made for sewyng of the pursowr, and for j man of lawe, xijs. xd." A pilot, too, must have been taken on board, "payd

1 York Memorandum Book, op. cit., p. 175.

2 Text, pp. 64, 68, 72.

3 Cely Papers, op. cit., pp. xxxvii, xxxviii.

'Text, pp. 59-63.

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for bryngyng of the schipe fro the barre Huke to Camfer, xs. Sailors are proverbially superstitious, the owners certainly paid large sums to gain heaven's protection for their ship and crew. Item, payd Gyllys Hakson for pylgramage to the holly blude,1 xxxijs. Item, payd to Thomas Robynson for pylgramage to owr lady of Walsyngham, xijs. Item, for pylgramage to our lady of Donkasstyr, xijs." John Inse and Thomas Skawsby, two prominent York merchants, superintended the freighting of the vessel. The former did a large foreign trade, and was part owner of the Valentine of Newcastle, which, with its cargo, was valued at the enormous sum of £5,000. The unfortunate vessel had been attacked by 400 armed men from Danzig, Lübec, Rostock, Wismar and Stralsund, and much interesting information concerning the dangers of medieval sailors' lives can be gained from the sworn evidence given in 1468, when the claim for damages was brought against the Hanse merchants for this apparently unprovoked attack. But the Valentine must have been a ship of unusual size; probably the average vessels were nearer akin to a Danzig ship, onefourth of which was sold to John Denom of York and John Sexton of Beverley, in 1439, for twenty-six pounds, thirteen shillings, and fourpence. A detailed study of the water bailiffs' accounts in Hull, similar accounts in Middelburg, and the toll books of Copenhagen, would yield more precise information of the size of seagoing vessels of earlier times; all that can be said is that the impression left by a cursory survey, vague as it may be, increases our admiration for the courageous crews that ventured in tiny vessels into seas full of unknown perils. Laws of the sea certainly existed before international

1 From the context it seems probable that this pilgrimage was to Bruges, where several generations of York merchants had resided, but the relic at Hayles Abbey in Gloucestershire, was perhaps the best known place of pilgrimage. There was also a phial of the Holy Blood at Ashridge, in Bucks. Mr. Hamilton Thompson tells me that pilgrims went from Bourne in Lincolnshire to Hayles about 1440.

2 Hansisches Urkundenbuch (W. Stein), vol. ix, pp. 368-370.

3 York Municipal Records, }, fo. 84.

I had hoped to complete my investigations at Middelburg, Copenhagen, Danzig, and Riga before I edited these papers, but the war prevented the completion of my task.

1

A HANSE VESSEL (1590)

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law; "the laws of Oleron "is attributed to Richard I, but how far they were observed is doubtful. Roger de Hoveden gives the laws published by Richard I for those who went on his crusade. The punishment for theft on board ship is sufficiently drastic to deter any except the most hardened. "If any robber be convicted of theft let him be shorn like a champion, and boiling pitch be poured over his head, and let the feathers of a feather bed be shaken over his head that all men may know him, and at the first spot where the ship shall come to land, let him be cast forth."

But discipline was not always maintained, probably the dangers from wreck and storm were less feared than the attacks from pirates, alien or otherwise. Walking the plank was in the fifteenth century no mere figment of the boys' novelists; it was a sober and dreaded reality. For sailors were a law defying horde; even Chaucer was obliged to qualify his assertion concerning the shipman, "certeinly he was a good felawe," by confessing he was a robber and a pirate.

"Full many a draughte of wyn hadde he ydrawe

From Burdeux-ward, while that the chapman sleep, "Of nyce conscience took he no keep

"If that he faught, and hadde the hyer hond,

By water he sent hem hoom to every lond."

The account of an eyewitness of a journey from Riga to Tramünd in a Hanse vessel has fortunately been preserved. Though it belongs to the late sixteenth century, it described customs handed down from former centuries. It is interesting, too, as showing how the wealthy burgher from Lübec, Riga, Mittau, and Strassburg, carried his ideas of self-government even on his travels, but in the presence of possible disaster acknowledged an equality which he would have denied in his native city. The ship sailed from Riga, and after half-a-day at sea the skipper called the forty-seven men, crew and passengers, before him, and addressed them. "Seeing

1 R. G. Marsden, Documents relating to Law and Custom of the Sea (Printed for the Navy Record Society).

2 Roger de Hoveden, vol. iii, p. 35, printed in the Medieval Garner, pp. 154, 155.

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that we are now at the mercy of God and the elements, each shall henceforth be held equal to his fellows, without respect of persons.' He then entreated them as they were in jeopardy of sudden tempests, pirates, monsters of the deep, and other perils, to approach God steadfastly, that He might vouchsafe fair winds and a prosperous journey. He then proceeded, by popular consent, to appoint a judge, four assessors, two procurators, a watchman, a scribe, an executor, and a provostmarshall. The sea-laws from a written text, probably handed down from early times, were then read. No man," runs one of the laws, "shall draw his sword in anger against another on board ship.....under penalty of sea-law: that is, let the weapon be struck through the offender's hand into the foremast, so that, if he will go free, he must himself draw the sword out of his hand." Half-a-day's sail before they expected to sight the port of Tramünd, the men were again assembled. The judge then resigned his office; he appealed to those upon whom he had pronounced judgment to swear an oath by salt and bread never to think bitterly of their enemies, and if they thought he had judged wrongly to speak out, and he would discuss his verdict. If he could not convince them, then they could take their case, before sundown on the day they arrived at Tramünd, before the portreeve there; "as hath been the custom from time immemorial unto this day." After this, the narrator adds, each man took forthwith salt and bread, in token of hearty forgiveness for all that might have befallen.1

In the days before a foreign office with consuls and permanent ambassadors formed an integral part of the government, there was much more scope for the play of the individuality of the merchants in foreign parts. The elasticity of the bond, which united these groups of English traders, enhances the difficulty of giving an account of general application. Still, exclusive of London, the conditions under which the York mercer carried on his trade may be applied with fair accuracy to all the towns on the north-east and south-east coasts. Each merchant, in addition to the ordinary admission fee, paid to 1 Medieval Garner, pp. 156-158.

THE CHARTER OF HENRY IV (1406-7)

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the fellowship1 a sum varying from one to sixteen shillings, according to the weight of goods exported. He was not allowed to ship his merchandise in any vessel he pleased; a heavy fine was imposed if he employed "of this syde see or on tother syde of the see" any boat belonging to anyone not a member of the fellowship.2 It is not clear whether the two shillings paid by the merchant and the sixteen pence paid by the apprentice in any of the mart towns as Bruges, Antwerp, Bergen-opZoom, or Middelburg gave him a perpetual freedom of trade, or whether he had to renew his license periodically; it seems, too, that although levied in the local court, the governor in the mart town claimed the right to interfere with its imposition, or levy an additional one.

A graphic picture of the disadvantages under which the northern traders laboured, is given in a long and verbose document sent to the King in 1478.3 They claim that, "at all tymes it hath been accustomed and used oon governeur to be chosen for the citee of London, and another governeur for the citee of York, Hull, Beverlay, Scarburg, and all other from Trent northwards." The charter granted by Henry IV in 1406-7 to the English merchants in Holland, Zeeland, Brabant, and Flanders, which legalised the position of the merchant adventurers, certainly supports this claim of the north for an equal jurisdiction with the metropolitan city. There is no hint of a despotic committee from one city, under one head, dictating ordinances to a subservient body of merchants from many towns. The language is absolutely clear; all the merchants in the foreign mart could assemble and choose governors at their liking. "We, Heartily desiring to prevent the perils and dangers which are like to fall out in this case, and that the said merchants and others which shall travel out of our said realm and dominions into the parts aforesaid may justly and faithfully be ruled and entreated, Do will, and grant, by the tenor of these presents, to the said merchants,

1 Text, pp. 52, 64, 68, 72, 73.

2 Ibid., pp. 64, 87.

3 Ibid., pp. 75–79, 119.

Rymer's Foedera, viii, 464. A translation is printed in the appendix to Sir C. P. Lucas's The Beginnings of English Overseas Enterprise, pp. 184–187,