conspicuous or influential as at the Steelyard. [Illustration: Ground Plan of the Steelyard in the Seventeenth Century. (Lappenberg. _Geschichte des Hansischen Stahlhofes_.)] The trade with Flanders brought Flemish merchants into England temporarily, but they do not seem to have formed any settlement or located permanently in any one place. Flemish artisans, on the other hand, had migrated to England from early times and were scattered here and there in several towns and villages. In the early part of the fourteenth century Edward III made it a matter of deliberate policy to encourage the immigration of Flemish weavers and other handicraftsmen, with the expectation that they would teach their art to the more backward native English. In 1332 he issued a charter of protection and privilege to a Fleming named John Kempe, a weaver of woollen cloth, offering the same privilege and protection to all other weavers, dyers, and fullers who should care to come to England to live. In 1337 a similar charter was given to a body of weavers coming from Zealand to England. It is believed that a considerable number of immigrants from the Netherlands came in at this period, settled largely in the smaller towns and rural villages, and taking English apprentices brought about a great improvement in the character of English manufactures. Flemings are also met with in local records in various occupations, even in agriculture. There were other foreigners resident in England, especially Gascons from the south of France, and Spaniards; but the main elements of alien population in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were those which have just been described, Italians, Germans from the Hanse towns, and Flemings. These were mainly occupied as bankers, merchants, and handicraftsmen. *26. BIBLIOGRAPHY* Dr. Cunningham's _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_ is particularly full and valuable on this subject. He has given further details on one branch of it in his _Alien Immigrants in England_. Schanz, Georg: _Englische Handelspolitik gegen Ende des Mittelalters_. This work refers to a later period than that included in this chapter, but the summaries which the author gives of earlier conditions are in many cases the best accounts that we have. Ashley, W. J.: _Early History of the Woolen Industry in England_. Pauli, R.: _Pictures from Old England_. Contains an interesting account of the Steelyard. Pirenne, Henri: _La Hanse flamande de Londres_. Von Ochenkowski, W.: _England's Wirthsschaftliche Entwickelung im Ausgange des Mittelalters_. CHAPTER V THE BLACK DEATH AND THE PEASANTS' REBELLION Economic Changes Of The Later Fourteenth And Early Fifteenth Centuries