issued a charter of protection and
privilege to a Fleming named John Kempe, a weaver of woollen cloth,
offering the same privilege and protection to all other weavers,
dyers, and fullers who should care to come to England to live. In 1337
a similar charter was given to a body of weavers coming from Zealand
to England. It is believed that a considerable number of immigrants
from the Netherlands came in at this period, settled largely in the
smaller towns and rural villages, and taking English apprentices
brought about a great improvement in the character of English
manufactures. Flemings are also met with in local records in various
occupations, even in agriculture.

There were other foreigners resident in England, especially Gascons
from the south of France, and Spaniards; but the main elements of
alien population in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were those
which have just been described, Italians, Germans from the Hanse
towns, and Flemings. These were mainly occupied as bankers, merchants,
and handicraftsmen.

*26. BIBLIOGRAPHY*

Dr. Cunningham's _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_ is
particularly full and valuable on this subject. He has given further
details on one branch of it in his _Alien Immigrants in England_.

Schanz, Georg: _Englische Handelspolitik gegen Ende des Mittelalters_.
This work refers to a later period than that included in this chapter,
but the summaries which the author gives of earlier conditions are in
many cases the best accounts that we have.

Ashley, W. J.: _Early History of the Woolen Industry in England_.

Pauli, R.: _Pictures from Old England_. Contains an interesting
account of the Steelyard.

Pirenne, Henri: _La Hanse flamande de Londres_.

Von Ochenkowski, W.: _England's Wirthsschaftliche Entwickelung im
Ausgange des Mittelalters_.

CHAPTER V

THE BLACK DEATH AND THE PEASANTS' REBELLION

Economic Changes Of The Later Fourteenth And Early Fifteenth Centuries

*27. National Affairs from 1338 to 1461.*--For the last century or more
England had been standing with her back to the Continent. Deprived of
most of their French possessions, engaged in the struggle to bring
Wales, Scotland, and Ireland under the English crown, occupied with
repeated conflicts with their barons or with the development of the
internal organization of the country, John, Henry III, and the two
Edwards had had less time and inclination to interest themselves in
continental affa