heir native cities
or travelled away to some other fair, and the officials were
withdrawn. The place was deserted until the next quarter or year. But
in the towns, as has been already stated, more or less continuous
trade went on; not only petty retail trade and that of the weekly or
semi-weekly markets between townsmen or countrymen coming from the
immediate vicinity, but a wholesale trade between the merchants of
that town and those from other towns in England or on the Continent.

It was of this trade above all that the gild merchant of each town
possessed the regulation. Merchants from another town were treated
much the same, whether that town was English or foreign. In fact,
"foreigner" or "alien," as used in the town records, of Bristol, for
instance, may apply to citizens of London or Oxford just as well as to
those of Paris or Cologne. Such "foreign" merchants could deal when
they came to a town only with members of the gild, and only on the
conditions required by the gild. Usually they could buy or sell only
at wholesale, and tolls were collected from them upon their sales or
purchases. They were prohibited from dealing in some kinds of articles
altogether, and frequently the duration of their stay in the town was
limited to a prescribed period. Under such circumstances the
authorities of various towns entered into trade agreements with those
of other towns providing for mutual concessions and advantages.
Correspondence was also constantly going on between the officials of
various towns for the settlement of individual points of dispute, for
the return of fugitive apprentices, asking that justice might be done
to aggrieved citizens, and on occasion threatening reprisal.
Southampton had formal agreements with more than seventy towns or
other trading bodies. During a period of twenty years the city
authorities of London sent more than 300 letters on such matters to
the officials of some 90 other towns in England and towns on the
Continent. The merchants from any one town did not therefore trade or
act entirely as separate individuals, but depended on the prestige of
their town, or the support of the home authorities, or the privileges
already agreed upon by treaty. The non-payment of a debt by a merchant
of one town usually made any fellow-townsman liable to seizure where
the debt was owed, until the debtor could be made to pay. In 1285, by
a law of Edward I, this was prohibited as far as England was
concerned,