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 84, ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS. applied to all sorts of article^ of sale, and not to victuals only. The regulation as to the sale of yarn is curious. The prudeshommes, or wardens of the mystery of tapeners kept watch over the sellers of yarn to prevent purchases hefore 9 a.m, and nothing was allowed to he kept on the premises in which a regrater could conceal his purchases. There is a parallel provision in the old laws of the Scotch boroughs, " Reo-ratarii, qui emunt et vendunt ad lucrum in burgo, non emant aliquam rem ad revendendum ante tertiam pidsatam, neque lanam operatam .... nee filetum .... Et qui super hoc convictus fuerit dabit octo solidos, etrem sic emptani amittet."'* If the wardens found " chose mouillee," i. e. any woollen article wetted, it was to be seized and delivered to the bailiffs to adjudicate upon. This provision is illustrated by the Iter Camerarii of Edinburgh,* " cum [textores] accipiunt pannum per pondera, et per pondus eundem restituunt, [debent calumniari et accusari] quod faciunt euni humidum, et aspergunt cum urina et aliis, ut sit majoris ponderis," k,c. The manufacture which occupies the most important place in the Consue- tudinary is that of weaving, or rather of drapery in general. At the time of the certificate before us this was probably in a declining state ; but the regidations themselves are, of course, of older date, and may be reasonably referred to its more flourishing condition in the twelfth century. It would be interesting to retrace the vicissitudes of this manufacture ; but the materials for its earlier history are scanty. The conjecture of Camden and others, who would assign to the textile fabrics of Winchester an antiquity coeval with the Notitia Imperii, is, at least, a very plausible one, though the late learned compiler of the " Monumenta Historica Britannica " has inconsiderately robbed the city of this honour, and con- verted the Imperial textrinum into a dog-kennel. ^ The two principal gilds of the Telarii and Fullones appear in the earliest of the pipe roUs, 3Ist Hen. I. ; and in the subsequent reign of Henry II. the liberties of the former are extended and their payments to the Crown increased.- In the survey A.D. 114:8, recorded in the Liber Winton, the activity of the " ustUia," fullones, tinctores, and the drapery business is apparent ; much more so than in the earlier survey of Henry I. I believe that Sir Matthew Hale had good warrant for saying that the woollen cloth trade principally flourished in the reigns of Henry II. and Richard I., and that it declined in the subsequent reigns.'^ It is certain that the city emerged from the barons' war of Henry III. with impaired lustre, and obtained a reduction of " Leges Burgorum, cap. 73. cities of Lincoln, York, Oxford, &c. He ' Cap. 25. says that the trade re^-ived through the ' Mr. Petrie has adopted the reading Hberal policy of Edward IIL and his "fair Cynfr/ii, instead of Gynadi, in the passage treatment of foreign artists." Primitive of the Notitia which mentions the " Pro- Origination of Mankind, ed. 1677 ; p. 161. curator GyniEcii Bentensis in Britannia." — This work of the eminent chief justice Gothofredus, in the Paratitlon to X Cod is quoted by XIacpherson in his History of Theod. Tit XX, and Bocking, the latest Commerce, and the profound learning of editor of the Notitia, have given (iynaril the judge in our ancient records makes without a doubt. The last editor, also, his opinion of great value on this matter. locates the Gynteceum at Venta Belgarum Milner mentions a great manufacture of witliont hesitation. caps in the reign of Henry I. Tmssel, s Madox's Exch., p. 323 ; also Pipe his authority for this, 'has probably Rolls. 2 & 4 Henry IL, and 1 Ric. I. mistranslated the word caija. 1 Mihi. 157, ' Sir M. Hale is not speaking of 8vo. ed. Winchester only, but generally of tlie