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 CHAPTER XVII OF MATERIALS, THE CORSET, AND THE CRINOLINE material question seems to have been answered in every country save England, where the initiative in manufacture is conspicuous by its absence, though we have through the centuries so successfully begged, borrowed, stolen, or acquired an expert knowledge of the various textile arts, that every manufactured fabric is now grist which may come from our mill.

The art of cloth-making the early Britons learned from the Romans, but their ambition towards this industry died after the departure of their instructors, not actively asserting itself again until, at the suggestion of Philippa of Hainault, some Flemish weavers established themselves at Norwich—a policy evidently successful enough to induce Edward III. in the fourteenth century to invite a Flemish weaver to teach the art to "such of our people as shall be inclined to learn it."

The trade was started at Kendal, spreading to York and thence to many different towns, where there grew up in due course the manufacture of broadcloth, baizes, kerseys, and serges, the North of England then, as to this day, holding the best interests of the cloth trades firmly in the hollow of 201