Between the “male” of these chapmen and the mere pack of the pedlar the difference is not considerable; it is not very great either if compared to the “male” of the merchant we have met before, who travels slowly on account of an encumbrance represented by the poet as the emblem of “men that ben ryche.” So that these three links kept pretty close together the chain of the itinerant trading community. They all had to go about and to experience the gaieties or dangers of the road, the latter being of course better known to the richer sort than to the poor Bob Jakin of the day. The reasons for this constant travelling were numerous; the same remark applies to merchants of the fourteenth century as to almost all other classes: there was much less journeying than to-day for mere pleasure’s sake, but very much more, comparatively, out of necessity. We cannot underrate the causes of personal journeys suppressed by the post and telegraph (and telephone, unheard-of when the present work was first published), with the money and other facilities they have introduced. But besides the lack thereof, the staple and fairs were, in the fourteenth century, potent causes impelling merchants to move about. The staple was the subject of constant regulations, complaints, new regulations and new complaints. The fundamental law concerning it is the well-known statute of 1353, the mechanism of which the following extracts will show: “We (i.e. the king and Parliament) have ordained . . . first, that the staple of wools, leather, woolfels, and lead, growing or coming forth within our said realm and lands, shall be perpetually holden at the places underwritten, that is to say, for England at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, York, Lincoln, Norwich, Westminster, Canterbury, Chichester, Winchester, Exeter, and Bristow; for Wales at Kaermerdyn; and for Ireland at Dublin, Waterford, {248} Cork, and Drogheda, and not elsewhere; and that all the said wools, as well old as new, woolfels, leather, and lead, which shall be carried out of the said realm and lands shall be first brought to the said staples, and there the said wool and lead, betwixt merchant and merchant or merchant and others, shall be lawfully weighed by the standard; and that every sack and sarpler of the same wools so weighed be sealed under the seal of the mayor of the staple.”