Ancient English Commerce

Under Roman rule (B. C. 54-A. D. 455) the Britons partook to some extent of the refinement of their masters, and reached a higher state of commercial development than they again attained for several centuries. These enterprising rulers built roads, cleared forests, drained marshes, opened mines, improved agriculture, founded towns, and introduced a thorough and vigorous system of government which was of the greatest benefit to the people. Under the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus, we find that a considerable commerce had grown up, and Britain exported gold, silver, lead, tin and iron, besides considerable quantities of wheat, cattle, skins and wool. The imports were chiefly articles of luxury such as ivory, gold ornaments, amber and articles in glass.

After the decline of the Roman Empire and the withdrawal from Britain of its energizing and protecting power, came invaders from the mainland of Europe, the Saxons, Normans and Danes, who plundered the people, disturbed their institutions and ruined their commerce. Pirates ravaged the coast, and trade was checked by rapine and lawlessness, so that few foreign merchants would risk life and property for the profits of commercial intercourse with Britain. Now and then an enlightened king would endeavor to cultivate and revive commerce and the arts of peace, but the history of English commerce is almost a blank until the time of King Alfred the Great (A. D. 870). He founded a navy of war galleys, each rowed by sixty or eighty men, in order to protect his merchant ships from the depredations of pirates, encouraged trade by cultivating friendly relations with foreign countries, and sent embassies even as far as India on missions of commerce.

During the Middle Ages, the Baltic and North Seas were infested with pirates, chiefly Northmen, who regarded the merchant ships of neighboring states as their natural plunder, This open highway robbery on the seas was for centuries the common employment of the younger sons of the royal and noble families of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and was considered a legitimate field in which they could win fame and fortune. During the eighth and ninth centuries the coasts of England, Scotland and France suffered severely from the ravages of these pirates, and as previously stated, one of the incentives to the formation of the Hanseatic League was the mutual protection of the towns against piracy. Furthermore, at that distant and unenlightened period, human jealousies and rivalries were stronger in many instances than the instincts of right and justice, and trading towns often regarded the seas as the domain of the strongest and committed acts against rivals which would now be regarded as piracy. Individuals undertook to enforce, on their own account, reparation for maritime wrongs, and were not particular when the real offender could not be reached in substituting another.

An important feature of the internal commerce of England, and other parts of Europe as well, during the Middle Ages, was the annual fairs which were held in the principal towns. These fairs were the means of bringing buyer and seller together, and a general interchange of commodities resulted. Owing to the limited facilities for travel and transportation of goods, the lack of roads and vehicles, and the fact that the people traveled but little, it was a great convenience to have a common meeting time and place, where articles of manufacture from distant parts of the country or world could be exchanged, and the wants of the people thus supplied. The location of these fairs was usually determined by the question of convenience, the size and importance of the town, or the fact that a certain point was a shrine whence came pilgrims periodically to worship. Thus Mecca continues to hold a fair, where large quantities of goods are sold annually. The principal English fairs in the Middle Ages were: That of London, known as St. Bartholomew's Fair, where wool and cloth were the chief articles sold. This fair was not entirely abolished until 1840. The fair at Winchester, where large quantities of wool were sold; and the great fair of Stonebridge, to which came merchants from all parts of Europe. This fair continued a month, and being near the coast was attended by "merchants of Venice and Genoa, with stores of eastern produce and their own manufactures of silks, velvets, cotton goods and glass. The Flemish brought the fine linens and cloths of Bruges, Liege, Ghent and other manufacturing towns. French and Spanish merchants came with their wines and fruits; the great traders of the Hansa brought furs and amber, iron, copper and other metals, flax, timber and grain, and all the products of the north. In the same way the English farmers, or traders acting on their behalf, carried to this fair, hundreds of huge sacks of wool for the manufacturing towns of Europe, barley for the Flemish breweries, with corn, horses, cattle, and many other goods."*

As means of transportation and travel improved these fairs gradually declined, and in the age of railroads and steamships have disappeared almost entirely as trading centers. The local store and the traveling salesman have superseded them. The principal fair in existence at the present time is that at Nijni-Novgorod in eastern Russia, which owes its existence to the primitive condition of that part of the country, and the lack of transportation.

The Norman Conquest brought a change in dynasties in England, and with it contentions which retarded the progress of commerce. The Feudal system fettered vassals, while nobles

♦Gibbins' History of Commerce.

This fair lasts six weeks and is visited by 300,000 people from central Asia and Europe. A town of stone consisting of 5,000 shops or bazars laid out in streets has been erected for this fair. Special goods are sold in certain quarters of the town, thus in the Persian quarter carpets, rugs, shawls and silks are sold; in another tea; another, skins and furs, and in another metallic wares. The sales foot up annually about twenty million pounds sterling spent their time in war and the chase. "Red deer and wild swine were of higher value in the eyes of such men than the lives of Saxon Serfs." Henry I, in 1110, endeavored to encourage home manufacture by establishing a colony of Flemish weavers in London, and gave them many privileges, but displayed his characteristic ignorance by condemning all foreign wool to be burnt. Then came the crusades, in which the zealous Richard I took a prominent part, with the result that Eastern commodities now came more freely into western Europe. Gold, spices and frankincense from Arabia; precious stones from Egypt; purple cloth from India; palm oil from Bagdad and weapons from south Russia and the Baltic Sea were introduced into England, and trade began to show evidences of steady growth. Then came the Great Charter, wrested from the miserable King John, in which were clauses favorable to commerce, guaranteeing merchants against excessive taxation and establishing a uniform system of weights and measures throughout the kingdom. During all this time English wool was the chief basis of wealth. The considerable amount which the English exported shows its relative value to other products, and at the same time indicates the insignificance of their manufactures. Only the coarsest cloths were made at home. Most of this wool went to the looms of Flanders, where a superior quality of fabrics was made and supplied to England and all parts of Europe. Thus England as a source of supply for the raw product and Flanders as a great manufacturing country were interdependent commercially, and this tended to make them so politically, so that when Edward I, in 1297, wished to attack France, he first made sure of the friendship and support of Flanders, and later sovereigns pursued the same policy. Edward I recognized the value of commerce chiefly as a means of revenue, and for this reason aimed to foster it by opening English ports to the merchants of Germany, France, Portugal and Spain. As a further measure for enriching his exhausted treasury and relieving himself of enormous debts, while displaying his religious intolerance and bigotry, he confiscated the property of sixteen thousand five hundred industrious Jews whom he banished from his Kingdom.*