§ 2. STAPLE TOWNS AND THE MERCHANTS—It will have been {59} observed that by the time this list was compiled, most towns were either the seat of a certain manufacture, or the market where such manufactures were sold. Now, in the days of Edward I. and Edward II. (1272–1327), several such towns were specially singled out and granted the privilege of selling a particular product, the _staple_ of the district, and were hence called _staple towns_. Besides a number of towns in England, staples were fixed at certain foreign ports for the sale of English goods. At first Antwerp was selected as the staple town for our produce, and afterwards St Omer. A staple was also set up at Calais when we took it (1347), but at the loss of that town in 1558 it was transferred to Bruges. The staple system thus begun by the first two Edwards, was established upon a firm legal basis by Edward III. The statute 27 Edward III. c. 9 (1354), enumerates all the staple towns of England, and sets forth the ancient customs payable upon staple goods. It enacts that only merchants of a particular staple—_i.e._ those engaged in a particular trade like wool or hides—may export these goods, and that each staple should be governed by its own mayor and constables. Now, although regulations like these are opposed to our modern ideas of free competition, they were to a certain extent useful in the Middle Ages, because the existence of staple towns facilitated the collection of custom duties, and also secured in some degree the good quality of the goods made in, or exported from, a town. For special officers were appointed to mark them if of the proper quality and reject them if inferior. The system also had the important _political_ result of bringing into prominence the merchants as a class, and of increasing their influence. So much were they a special class, that the sovereign always negotiated with them separately. Thus in 1339, when Edward III. was as usual fighting {60} against France, and, also as usual, in great want of money, he was liberally supplied with loans by Sir William de la Pole, a rich merchant of Hull, who acted on behalf of himself, and many other merchants. Sir Richard Whittington performed similar services for Henry IV. and Henry V.