The concourse must have been a singular medley. Besides the people who poured forth from the great towns—from London, Norwich, Colchester, Oxford, places in the beginning of the fourteenth century of great comparative importance, and who gave their names, or, in case certain branches of commerce had been planted in particular London streets, the names of such streets, to the rows of booths in the three-weeks’ fair of Stourbridge—there were, beyond doubt, the representatives of many nations collected together to this great mart of medieval commerce. The Jew, expelled from England, had given place to the Lombard exchanger. The Venetian and Genoese merchant came with his precious stock of Eastern produce, his Italian silks and velvets, his store of delicate glass. The Flemish weaver was present with his linens of Liege and Ghent. The Spaniard came with his stock of iron, the Norwegian with his tar and pitch. The Gascon vine-grower was ready to trade in the produce of his vineyard; and, more rarely, the richer growths of Spain, and, still more rarely, the vintages of Greece were also supplied. The Hanse towns sent furs and amber, and probably were the channel by which the precious stones of the East were supplied through the markets of Moscow and Novgorod. And perhaps by some of those unknown courses, the history of which is lost, save by the relics which have occasionally been discovered, the porcelain of the farthest East might have been seen in some of the booths. Blakeney, and Colchester, and Lynn, and perhaps Norwich, were filled with foreign vessels, and busy with the transit of various produce; and Eastern England grew rich under this confluence of trade. How keen must have been the interest with which the franklin and bailiff, the one trading on his own account, the other entrusted with his master’s produce, witnessed the scene, talked of the wonderful world about them, and discussed the politics of Europe! To this great fair came, on the other hand, the woolpacks, which then formed the riches of England and were the envy of outer nations. The Cornish tin-mine sent its produce, stamped with the sign of the rich earl who bought the throne of the German Empire, or of the warlike prince who had won his spurs at Crecy, and captured the French king at Poitiers. Thither came also salt from the springs of Worcestershire, as well as that which had been gathered under the summer sun from the salterns of the eastern coast. Here, too, might be found lead from the mines in Derbyshire, and iron, either raw or manufactured, from the Sussex forges. And besides these, there were great stores of those kinds of agricultural produce which, even under the imperfect cultivation of the time, were gathered in greater security, and therefore in greater plenty, than in any other part of the world, except Flanders.