Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/100

98 about this time we find silks becoming much more abundant in England as well as in the other countries of Europe than formerly—and they must now have been imported, probably from Spain, Sicily, and Italy, as well as from Asia, in considerable quantities.

It so happens that rather more information has come down to us respecting the commerce of Scotland than of England during the first half of the twelfth century. We have not only some very interesting notices respecting David I., who reigned from 1124 till 1153, from the historian Ailred, or Aldred, who was educated in Scotland along with Prince Henry, David's eldest son; but we have also a collection of the laws and customs of the burghs of Scotland, which professes to be as old as the reign of the same king, and is generally admitted to be, in the greater part, of that antiquity. Ailred celebrates the attention of David to foreign commerce. He exchanged, he says, the produce of Scotland for the wealth of other kingdoms, and made foreign merchandize abound in his harbours. Among the laws of the burghs attributed to him the following may be quoted as referring to trade with other countries:—By chap. 10, all goods imported by sea are ordered not to be sold before being landed, except salt and herrings; by chap. 18, foreign merchants are prohibited from buying wool, hides, or other goods, from any but burgesses; and by chap. 48, the lands of all persons trading to foreign countries are exempted from seizure for any claim whatever during their absence, unless they appeared to have withdrawn on purpose to evade justice. From this regulation it would appear that some of the Scottish merchants already traded themselves to foreign parts. Another of these burgh laws prohibits all persons except burgesses from buying wool for dyeing or making into cloth, and from cutting cloth for sale, except the owners of sheep, who might do with their own wool what they chose. The manufacture of woollen cloth had, therefore, been by this time introduced into Scotland. The art had probably been taught to the inhabitants of that country by settlers from England. William of Newburgh, writing about