ustom as the mainspring of trade.

The cloth exporters, who were mostly mercers, were unregulated and
banded together for mutual support and protection under the name
of Merchant Adventurers of London. The Merchant Adventurers was
chartered in 1407. It was the first and a prototype of regulated
companies. That is the company regulated the trade. Each merchant
could ship on his own a certain number of cloths each year (the
number depending on the length of his membership in the company)
and sell them himself or by his factor at the place where the
company had privileges of market. Strict rules governed the
conduct of each member. He was to make sales only at certain hours
on specified days. All disagreements were to be settled by the
company's governor, or his deputy in residence, and those
officials dealt with such disputes as arose between members of the
company and continental officials and buyers. A share in the
ownership of one of their vessels was a common form of investment
by prosperous merchants. By 1450, the merchant adventurers were
dealing in linen cloths, buckrams [a stiffened, coarse cloth],
fustians [coarse cloth made of cotton threads going in one
direction and linen threads the other], satins, jewels, fine
woolen and linen wares, threads, potions, wood, oil, wine, salt,
copper, and iron. They began to replace trade by alien traders.
The history of the "Merchant Adventurers" was associated with the
growth of the mercantile system for more than 300 years. It
eventually replaced the staples system.

Paved roads in towns were usually gravel and sometimes cobble.
They were frequently muddy because of rain and spillage of water
being carried. Iron-shod wheels and overloaded carts made them
very uneven. London was the first town with paviors. They cleaned
and repaired the streets, filling up potholes with wood chips and
compacting them with hand rams. The paviors were organized as a
city company in 1479. About 1482, towns besides London began
appointing salaried road paviors to repair roads and collect their
expenses from the householders because the policy of placing the
burden on individual householders didn't work well. London streets
were lighted at night by public lanterns, under the direction of
the mayor. The residents were to light these candle lanterns in
winter from dusk to the 9 p.m. curfew. There were fire-engines
composed of a circular cistern with a pump and six feet of
inflexible hose on whee