The Story of LondonWheatley, Henry B. (Henry Benjamin)
History
The Story of London
Wheatley, Henry B. (Henry Benjamin)
London (England) -- History
The Drapers' Company is the third on the list of the twelve great
companies, and the second of the clothing companies, the Mercers being
the first. Henry Fitz-Ailwin, the first Mayor of London, was a freeman
of the Drapers' Gild, to which he left by will an inn, called the
Chequer, in the parish of St. Mary Bothaw.
The Skinners represented the trade that dealt with furs. The furs
mentioned in the _Liber Albus_ as imported are, marten skins, rabbit
skins, dressed woolfels, Spanish squirrel skins, and grysoevere or grey
work. In the reign of Edward I. an enactment was made that 'no woman,
except a lady who is in the habit of using furs, shall have a hood
furred with dressed woolfel' (pelure). Women of ill-fame were forbidden
at one period to wear minever or other furs, though at a later date they
were permitted to use lambs' wool and rabbit skin. No mixed work, formed
of different kinds of skins, was allowed to be made, and no new fur was
to be worked up with the old.[339]
'The skynner unto the feeld moot also,
His hous in London is to streyt and scars
To doon his craft; sum tyme it was nat so.
O lordës, yeve unto your men hir pars
That so doon, and acqwente hem bet with Mars,
God of bataile; he loueth non array
That hurtyth manhode at preef or assay.'
(_The Regement of Princes_, by Thomas Hoccleve, II. 477-483.)
The Clothworkers' Company, formed by a junction of the Gilds of Shearmen
and Fullers, has already been alluded to.
The minor companies connected with the clothing trades require some
notice here. The Cordwainers held a prominent position, but in the reign
of Edward I. (1303) there were public complaints of frauds and
irregularities brought against them, and charges were made that they
mixed inferior with the superior leathers. They were continually at feud
with the Cobblers, and every endeavour was made to keep the two trades
distinct. The cordwainers were forbidden to mend shoes and the cobblers
to make them. Moreover, throughout the thirteenth, fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries there were fixed regulations not only that
cordwainers should use new leather in making shoes, but that cobblers
should be restricted wholly to the use of old leather in mending them.
The latter were even punished for having new leather in their
possession.[340]
In the reign of Edward III. the prices fixed for boots and shoes were: a
pair of shoes made of cordwain, 6d.; made of cow leather, 5d.; a pair of
boots made of cordwain, 3s, 6d.; made of cow leather, 3s.[341] This
shows that boots were then very dear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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