5⁠½_d._ from 1350–1400; while cloth of the second quality {53} fetched 1_s._ 4⁠½_d._ in the first period, and 1_s._ 11⁠¼_d._ in the second. § 6. FLEMISH SETTLERS TEACH THE ENGLISH WEAVERS. NORWICH—It is to Edward III., very largely, that the development of English textile industry is due. It is true that, long before, Henry II. had endeavoured to stimulate English manufacture by establishing a “cloth fair” in the churchyard of St Bartholomew. But English industry had developed slowly till the days of Edward, partly, no doubt, owing to the continual disorder of the preceding reigns. Stimulated, probably, by his wife Philippa’s connexion with Flanders, he encouraged Flemish weavers to settle in England, chiefly in the Eastern counties, though we hear of two Flemings from Brabant settling in York in 1331; and about this time one John Kemp, also a Fleming, removed from Norwich, and founded in Westmoreland the manufacture of the famous “Kendal green.” The chief centre, however, of the foreign weavers was naturally Norwich, the Manchester of those days, with a population of some 6000, and the chief industry was that of worsted cloths, so named from the place of manufacture, Worstead. When we speak of worsted cloths, we mean those plain, unpretending fabrics that probably never went beyond a plain weave or a four-shaft twill. The yarn was very largely spun on the rock or distaff, by means of a primitive whorl or spindle, while the loom was but a small improvement on that in which Penelope wove her famous web. There was a great demand among religious orders for sayes and the like, of good quality; plain worsteds were generally worn by the public. § 7. THE WORSTED INDUSTRY—Whether the growth of the worsted cloth industry was connected or not with this particular Flemish immigration we cannot determine. {54} The manufacture was confirmed to the town of Worstead by a patent of 1313, and in 1328, also, Edward III. issued a letter patent on behalf of the cloth workers in worsted in the county of Norfolk. The manufacture was already so extensive and important that the next year a special “aulnager” (or cloth searcher) was appointed to inspect the worsted stuffs of Norwich and district, and held his office for twenty years. In 1348, however, on the petition of the worsted weavers and merchants themselves, the patent was revoked, and the aulnager removed. But in 1410, when Norwich gained a new charter, the power of “aulnage” was once more given, at its own request, to its mayor and sheriffs, or their deputies.