Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/90

88 CHAPTER III. FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE DEATH OF KING JOHN. A.D. l066—1216.

The Norman Conquest, by the closer connexion which it established between our island and the continent, must have laid the foundation for an ultimate extension of English commerce; but a revolution which so completely overturned the established order of things, and produced so much suffering to the body of the population, could not be favourable, in the first instance, or until after the lapse of a considerable space of time, either to the foreign trade of the country, or to the national industry in any of its other branches. For the first four reigns after the Conquest, accordingly, the notices that have come down to us on the subject of the national commerce are still comparatively few and unimportant.

When the Normans first came over, however, they found England a country possessed of considerable capital, or accumulated wealth, and also, as it would seem, of a flourishing foreign commerce, which had, no doubt, chiefly grown up in the long and, for the greater part, tranquil reign of the Confessor. William of Poictiers gives a glowing account of the quantities of gold and silver and other precious effects which the Conqueror carried with him on his first visit to Normandy, and of the admiration which these spoils excited both in the Normans themselves and in strangers from other parts of the continent by whom they were seen. He expressly testifies that merchants from distant countries were at this time wont to import to England articles of foreign manufacture that were unknown in Normandy. He mentions also in other passages the great wealth of the native or resident merchants both of London and Winchester. Exeter was another town distinguished for its opulence; and Ordericus Vitalis relates, that when it was attacked