Wool was however produced to a considerable extent, the rich pastures of England having furnished from the earliest ages ample food for large flocks of sheep. By the eighth law of King Edgar, the highest price which could be taken for wool was somewhat less than three-fourths of a penny for a pound; and though there is no positive information on the subject, the Flemings, who were then and for some centuries afterwards the chief manufacturers of fine woollen goods for the whole of Europe, must have bought wool largely in the markets of England, and carried it away to be spun and woven in their own country. Lead was frequently used for the roofs of churches and other buildings; and from the records in Domesday Book it is clear that, during the reign of Edward the Confessor, there were iron works in the neighbourhood of Gloucester, of a date perhaps as early as the Roman colonization.[513] Although there is no account of the exportation of any metals in the age now under consideration, it is reasonable to suppose that the demand at home and abroad for lead, tin, and iron, could never have wholly ceased, and that they must have formed a considerable part of the few exports during the Anglo-Saxon period.[514] Horses, it may be presumed, were sometimes exported, as King Athelstan made a law against carrying any out of the kingdom except as presents.[515] The natives of Britain, too, were not unfrequently exported to the Continent and even to Rome, the handsome figures of these female slaves naturally attracting much attention. The merchants of Bristol and of Northumberland appear to have been the chief dealers in this inhuman traffic, the former finding in Ireland the readiest and the largest market for their slaves.[516] [Sidenote: Manufactures.] Concerning the ordinary description of manufactures, the meagre chronicles of the period furnish little information. We find, however, that Northumberland was then comparatively famous, as it has been ever since, for the manufacture of glass, while the English jewellers and workers in gold surpassed those of most other nations. Nor were the women of England less famous for their taste and skill in the embroidering of silk of various colours interspersed with threads of gold and silver. So famous, indeed, were they in this description of work, that when William the Conqueror sent to his patron, Pope Alexander II., the banner of Harold wrought for him by them, it was remarked that “it might be greatly admired even in Constantinople,”[517] then the wealthiest and most refined city of the world; and similar presents made by him to the church of Caen in Normandy are said to have been “such as strangers of the highest rank, who had seen the treasures of many noble churches, might look upon them with delight; and even the natives of Greece and Arabia, if they were to travel thither, would be equally charmed with them.”[518] [Sidenote: Wealth.]