A Note on the 'Cloth Acts'

Yoneyama Masaru

doi:10.20624/sehs.47.3_289

The present essay deals with the problems of enforcement of the 'Cloth Acts', especially 'An Acte towching the making of Wollen Clothes'(1558) and throws some lights on the effects of these Acts. This paper consists of six parts. In the first part the articles I to VIII of the Act of 1558 are examined, these articles being the provisions which laid on the statutory dimensions and weight of cloths to restrain overstretching of cloths by clothiers. In the second part the articles IX to XX are also examined, and it is found that these articles provided that not only the cloths made in towns corporate but also the cloths made out of towns corporate should be searched by the searchers of towns who were to be appointed by mayors and other chief ofticers of towns corporate. In the third part it is made clear that in London many white broadcloth clothiers of west England among others were fined for bringing defective cloths to Blackwell Hall. A few years later, however, Blacwell Hall searchers, extracted fines less often, though clothiers would more readily agree to compound in order to avoid serious scrutiny. In the fourth part, the articles XXI to XXVI of the Act of 1558 prescribed apprenticeship for seven years of clothiers and weavers, and also forbade clothmaking outside towns corporate and market towns. But there was a proviso which prescribed to the contrary except for west England. In the fifth part, the author finds out that for some twenty years clothiers of west England were very occasionally prosecuted at Westminster courts for clothmaking outside towns. In 1575, however, some five Wiltshire clothiers were indicted by Peter Blackborrow,a clothier of somerset. Those five clothiers fulled and finished cloths in their own fulling mills and they were fined at Blackwell Hall for the defectiveness of their cloths according to the cloths standards of the Act of 1558. In the last part, the author points out that less certain is the motive which impelled Peter Blackborrow to lay the informations against clothiers. The formal pecuniary rewards given to him were not so high, for the economic and social cost of even a succesful action may have been heavy, so he might have made money by private composition with clothiers and weavers. But he could not make a regular income from such shady transactions. It may be certain that he laid the series of informations and proposals for the reform of existing machinery for the enforcement of the 'Cloth Acts', so as to justify the cosensus under comnposition or even seek grant of exclusive royal right to inform or compound with clothiers within a said county or a region.

A Note on the 'Cloth Acts'

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