The English Woollen Industry, c.1200-c.1560

Download or read book The English Woollen Industry, c.1200-c.1560 written by John Oldland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to describe the early English woollens’ industry and its dominance of the trade in quality cloth across Europe by the mid-sixteenth century, as English trade was transformed from dependence on wool to value-added woollen cloth. It compares English and continental draperies, weighs the advantages of urban and rural production, and examines both quality and coarse cloths. Rural clothiers who made broadcloth to a consistent high quality at relatively low cost, Merchant Adventurers who enjoyed a trade monopoly with the Low Countries, and Antwerp’s artisans who finished cloth to customers’ needs all eventually combined to make English woollens unbeatable on the continent.