Main content
World History Project - Origins to the Present
Course: World History Project - Origins to the Present > Unit 5
Lesson 3: Old World Webs | 5.2- READ: Archipelago of Trade
- BEFORE YOU WATCH: Guilds, Wool, and Trade — Medieval England in a Global Economy
- WATCH: Guilds, Wool, and Trade — Medieval England in a Global Economy
- BEFORE YOU WATCH: Silk and the Song Dynasty
- WATCH: Silk and the Song Dynasty
- READ: Zheng He (Graphic Biography)
- READ: New World Networks, 1200–1490s
- BEFORE YOU WATCH: Pre-colonial Caribbean
- WATCH: Pre-Colonial Caribbean
- BEFORE YOU WATCH: Aztec Empire
- WATCH: Aztec Empire
- READ: Macuilxochitl (Graphic Biography)
- BEFORE YOU WATCH: Inca Empire Overview
- WATCH: Inca Empire Overview
- READ: Trade Networks and the Black Death
- READ: The Renaissance
- BEFORE YOU WATCH: Disease!
- WATCH: Disease!
- Old World Webs
© 2023 Khan AcademyTerms of usePrivacy PolicyCookie Notice
WATCH: Guilds, Wool, and Trade — Medieval England in a Global Economy
We might think of the Afro-Eurasian trading system as an archipelago of trade—a chain of overlapping trade circuits and trading cities. In the thirteenth century, England was at the far end of this archipelago of trade. England’s most valuable trade good was wool, which it exported to Western Europe and the Mediterranean. The best wool in Europe came from England, and England’s economy ran on wool. The wool trade helped empower an English merchant class. By the fourteenth century, these merchants organized into a guild that gave them more power and privileges in English society.
Website: https://www.oerproject.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OERProject/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OERProject. Created by World History Project.
Website: https://www.oerproject.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OERProject/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OERProject. Created by World History Project.
Video transcript
NICK: Hello, I'm Nick Dennis, fellow of the
school city projects and a history teacher in the UK. TREVOR: And I'm Trevor Getz, professor of World History at San Francisco State University. We're
standing here in the February cold in a field in southern England, with some
sheep, for some reason. NICK: It's to talk about medieval trade routes. TREVOR: Right. And all I'm saying is, we could easily be standing in a field in India where they grow cotton,
or a silk farm in China, or a salt mine in the Sahara Desert - all places where
people were actively producing highly desired goods in the 13th century, and all places that are a lot warmer than this one. NICK: Traditionally, historians who have written or thought about medieval Europe, Asia, and Africa, have thought of them as separate
places, but we now understand that these communities were connected to each other in a big trading system - one stretching far back in time. This system
sometimes grew, sometimes shrank, and reconfigured several times, but it turns
out it was especially large and complex in the century between 1250 and 1350 CE. So rather than think of these 14th century trading centers as lonely
islands, separated by a vast ocean, let's think of them as an archipelago: a chain
of islands that were all connected to each other. TREVOR: Historian and anthropologist, Janet Abu-Lughod, saw this archipelago as a world system. A vast and integrated network, with a bunch of circuits running
within it. Groups of merchants moved within each circuit in caravans of
camels, or with mule trains, or by ship. Where the circuits intersected, there was
trade between these groups of merchants. NICK: One circuit operated in Europe, connecting wool producers in England and Flanders in northwest Europe, to markets
in France and traders in Italy and the Mediterranean. One way to study this vast
trading system, and the circuits within them, is to follow one particular product,
how it is made, and how it gets traded. For example, we can look at wool, the
product that dominated English exports in the 13th century, and was part of that
European circuit. TREVOR: Why did England export wool? Wool, of course, gets turned into cloth, and cloth gets turned into clothing - and everyone
needs clothing. In the 13th century, the biggest cloth manufacturing regions in
Europe were in northern Italy and in Flanders, just across the channel from
England. But although people in these regions were good at turning raw wool
into cloth, they didn't really produce much high-quality wool of their own. The
best wool in Europe came from England. In fact, English wool was so good, that when
the duke of Austria captured the English King Richard the 1st, his ransom was
largely paid in wool instead of money. 14th century English documents even
describe wool as "the sovereign merchandise and jewel of this realm of
England". In the late 13th and early 14th centuries, large portions of the English
population were involved in producing wool. Some individual peasants owned small flocks of sheep, while many villagers held their flocks in common, sharing ownership. Noblemen, like the Duke of Lancaster, or the wealthy Clair
family, owned big flocks. So did the church. The Bishop of Winchester was one of the largest producers of wool of all, owning 29,000 sheep in 1259. In just
one county, Hampshire, as much as 30% of all land belonged to the Bishop of Winchester for the use of his sheep. NICK: At first, much of the wool trade
was dominated by merchants sent by the manufacturers in Flanders and Italy, but
English merchants soon became important. In both cases, the merchants often
advanced money to the owners of the sheep, in essence, guaranteeing they would get wool every year, and sometimes charging interest of a sort. The merchants would then go around and gather the wool every year. By the 14th
century, some wool merchant families living in towns across England, had
become as rich as the nobility. These merchants were called Woolmen. NICK: I'm here with Bill Clark, Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Woolmen. So when was the company set up? BILL: Well, we don't know for sure, but we've got records that show it was around in 1174, when they
began to build the original London Bridge, and we definitely know they were
around in 1180, because they were fined that year for operating without the
King's license. NICK: And why was it set up? BILL: It was set up because a lot of other
organizations were getting together - all the grocers were getting together, the
pepper importers were getting together - it just made sense for them to form a
guild for mutual support and mutual profit. The Worshipful Company of Woolmen is a livery company. Now, livery companies, I think there are about 110 in the city of
London at the moment, are groups of people who used to work in the same
trade, live in the same areas, and were there as a sort of self-help organization to make sure that everybody thrived and prospered in that particular
trade. And as such, they would go to the same churches and get involved in the
same activities. And eventually, the idea came that they'd wear the same clothes,
and their clothes were known as livery. And so they became called Livery companies. Now, to become a liveryman, you, first of all, have to be a freeman of
the City of London, and being a Freeman of the City of London, the biggest
advantage of that was that you could trade in the city, and you couldn't do
that unless you were actually free of the city, as they say. And so, if you were
free of the city, you had a number of advantages. Not just trading in the City
of London, but you were also allowed to carry a naked sword in public, so that
you could defend yourself, if you, um, overindulged one night, and you weren't
too steady on your feet, then the watch would see you home and nothing further
was said. If you committed a capital offense, you could be hung with a silken
rope, which is probably not much different from being hung with a hempen
one, but anyway, it was a privilege and a right. And of course, you had the right to
take the tools of your trade across London Bridge, and of course for the
woolmen, the tools of their trade were their sheep. NICK: Why was wool important for England? BILL: Wool was known as the sovereign merchandise for two reasons. One was, it was the king of
merchandise as it was so valuable, and the other reason was that the King
traded in wool, and so it was also a sovereign merchandise for that reason. Certainly in the early 12th century, there were English traders who were
trading in wool and so on, but then of course Flanders got involved. When they
had their shortage of wool, they came across and they were buying all our wool, and
most of the wool went to the Flemish cities of Ghent and Bruges and so on. And
then of course, the Italians got involved. The Italians suddenly thought that, um, if
there's money in wool, we want to be there, and they were the ones who
actually got very close to the king and said to the king, "if you want to make
some money, just add a bit more tax on the wool, and then everybody collects the
taxes all the way along, and you'll get an extra bonus". And so the king thought
this was a good idea, because several kings in a row wanted to fight quite a
number of wars, and so Edward the 1st, Edward the 2nd, and Edward the
3rd financed all their wars from wool. In fact, he even bought allies with wool.
And so, wool was, as I've said before, it was a sovereign merchandise, it would open all doors. NICK: In return for their wool, English merchants would buy all kinds of
goods - French wine of course, and ceramics from Flanders just across the channel,
but also Russian and Swedish furs, precious metals from Central Europe, and
silks from as far away as Asia. In the late 14th century, with the advent
of the plague known as the Black Death, and a 100-year war between England
and France, the English wool trade collapsed. However, it would recover in the later centuries, and eventually form the basis of the first industry of the
Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century - an era where England would
dominate the world of cloth, not only as a producer of wool, but also as a
manufacturer of cloth, made of wool, cotton, and other fibers. TREVOR: Some of the best wool in the world still comes from England - heck, I'm wearing some right now! NICK: Often when we think about continuity and change in history, we focus on wars, personalities, and disputes. What we can miss by focusing on these large, eye-catching events, is that there are currents under the surface,
moving steadily. By looking closely at trade during this period, we can see how
the lives of ordinary people, thousands of miles apart, were connected. And we
marvel that many of these networks still exist today, and still shape the clothing
that we wear.