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.
ISBN: | 9780367731922 |
Publication date: | 18th December 2020 |
Author: | John Oldland |
Publisher: | Routledge an imprint of Taylor & Francis |
Format: | Paperback |
Pagination: | 358 pages |
Series: | Routledge Research in Early Modern History |
Genres: |
History and Archaeology European history Economic history |