s kept up with
other Italian cities, especially with Genoa and Florence, though these
lines of trade were more extensive in the fifteenth century than in
the fourteenth.

*23. The Flanders Trade and the Staple.*--A trade of greater bulk and
greater importance, though it did not include articles from such a
distance as that of Italy, was the trade with the Flemish cities. This
was more closely connected with English wool production than was that
with any other country. Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, Courtrai, Arras, and a
number of other cities in Flanders and the adjacent provinces of the
Netherlands and France had become populous and rich, principally from
their weaving industry. For their manufacture of fine fabrics they
needed the English wool, and in turn their fine woven goods were in
constant demand for the use of the wealthier classes in England.
English skill was not yet sufficient to produce anything more than the
crudest and roughest of textile fabrics. The fine cloths, linens,
cambrics, cloth of gold and silver, tapestries and hangings, were the
product of the looms of the Flemish cities. Other fine manufactured
goods, such as armor and weapons, glass and furniture, and articles
which had been brought in the way of trade to the Netherlands, were
all exported thence and sold in England.

The Flemish dealers who habitually engaged in the English trade were
organized among themselves in a company or league known as the
"Flemish Hanse of London." A considerable number of towns held such
membership in the organization that their citizens could take part in
the trade and share in the benefits and privileges of the society, and
no citizen of these towns could trade in England without paying the
dues and submitting himself to the rules of the Hanse. The export
trade from England to the Netherlands was controlled from the English
side by the system known as the "Staple." From early times it had been
customary to gather English standard products in certain towns in
England or abroad for sale. These towns were known as "staples" or
"staple towns," and wool, woolfells, leather, tin, and lead, the goods
most extensively exported, were known as "staple goods." Subsequently
the government took control of the matter, and appointed a certain
town in the Netherlands to which staple goods must be sent in the
first place when they were exported from England. Later certain towns
in England were appointed as staple towns, where all goo