Edward III, also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring royal authority after the disastrous and unorthodox reign of his father, Edward II. Edward III transformed the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe. His fifty-year reign was one of the longest in English history, and saw vital developments in legislation and government, in particular the evolution of the English Parliament, as well as the ravages of the Black Death. He outlived his eldest son, Edward the Black Prince, and was succeeded by his grandson Richard II.
The Navigation Acts, or more broadly the Acts of Trade and Navigation, were a long series of English laws that developed, promoted, and regulated English ships, shipping, trade, and commerce between other countries and with its own colonies. The laws also regulated England's fisheries and restricted foreign—including Scottish and Irish—participation in its colonial trade. While based on earlier precedents, they were first enacted in 1651 under the Commonwealth.
The County Palatine of Durham was a jurisdiction in the North of England, within which the bishop of Durham had rights usually exclusive to the monarch. It developed from the Liberty of Durham, which emerged in the Anglo-Saxon period. The gradual acquisition of powers by the bishops led to Durham being recognised as a palatinate by the late thirteenth century, one of several such counties in England during the Middle Ages. The county palatine had its own government and institutions, which broadly mirrored those of the monarch and included several judicial courts. From the sixteenth century the palatine rights of the bishops were gradually reduced, and were finally abolished in 1836. The last palatine institution to survive was the court of chancery, which was abolished in 1972.
The Company of Merchant Adventurers of London was a trading company founded in the City of London in the early 15th century. It brought together leading merchants in a regulated company in the nature of a guild. Its members' main business was exporting cloth, especially white (undyed) broadcloth, in exchange for a large range of foreign goods. It traded in northern European ports, competing with the Hanseatic League. It came to focus on Hamburg.
The Company of Merchants of the Staple of England, the Merchants of the Staple, also known as the Merchant Staplers, is an English company incorporated by Royal Charter in 1319 dealing in wool, skins, lead and tin which controlled the export of wool to the continent during the late medieval period. The company of the staple may perhaps trace its ancestry back as far as 1282 or even further.
In European historiography, the term "staple" refers to the entire medieval system of trade and its taxation; its French equivalent is étape, and its German equivalent stapeln, words deriving from Late Latin stapula with the same meaning, derived from stabulum. designating a system that Hadrianus Junius considered to be of Gaulish origin.
Events from the 1350s in England.
The Penal Laws against the Welsh were a set of laws, passed by the Parliament of England in 1401 and 1402 that discriminated against the Welsh people as a response to the Welsh Revolt of Owain Glyndŵr, which began in 1400.
The medieval English saw their economy as comprising three groups – the clergy, who prayed; the knights, who fought; and the peasants, who worked the land and towns involved in international trade. Over the five centuries of the Middle Ages, the English economy would at first grow and then suffer an acute crisis, resulting in significant political and economic change. Despite economic dislocation in urban and extraction economies, including shifts in the holders of wealth and the location of these economies, the economic output of towns and mines developed and intensified over the period. By the end of the period, England had a weak government, by later standards, overseeing an economy dominated by rented farms controlled by gentry, and a thriving community of indigenous English merchants and corporations.
The economics of English towns and trade in the Middle Ages is the economic history of English towns and trade from the Norman invasion in 1066, to the death of Henry VII in 1509. Although England's economy was fundamentally agricultural throughout the period, even before the invasion the market economy was important to producers. Norman institutions, including serfdom, were superimposed on a mature network of well-established towns involved in international trade. Over the next five centuries the English economy would at first grow and then suffer an acute crisis, resulting in significant political and economic change. Despite economic dislocation in urban areas, including shifts in the holders of wealth and the location of these economies, the economic output of towns developed and intensified over the period. By the end of the period, England would have a weak early modern government overseeing an economy involving a thriving community of indigenous English merchants and corporations.
Sir Richard Lyons (1310–1381) was a prosperous City of London merchant, financier, and property developer, who held a monopoly on the sale of sweet wine in London, during the 14th century. He was a Privy Counsellor, an Alderman of the City, and a member of the Worshipful Company of Vintners, and served as both as Sheriff of London and MP for Essex.
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country. It is the sixth most populous city in the country.
The information about Scotland's domestic and foreign trade during the Middle Ages is limited. In the early Middle Ages the rise of Christianity meant that wine and precious metals were imported for use in religious rites. Imported goods found in archaeological sites of the period include ceramics and glass, while many sites indicate iron and precious metal working. The slave trade was also important and in the Irish Sea it may have been stimulated by the arrival of the Vikings from the late eighth century.
Sir William Chester was one of the leading English Merchants of the Staple and Merchant Adventurers of the mid-16th century, five times Master of the Worshipful Company of Drapers, Lord Mayor of London in the year 1560–61 and Member of Parliament for the City of London. He should not be confused with his contemporary, William Chester, merchant of Bristol, M.P.
Maltolt or "bad tax" was the name given to the new taxes on wool in England of 1294–1297. Protests against the maltolt played their part in forcing the confirmation of the charters from the Crown.
John Chaumpeneys was the last Abbot of Darnhall Abbey and first Abbot of Vale Royal Abbey, Cheshire, from around 1275 to circ 1289.
Thomas Graa was one of two Members of Parliament for the constituency of York. He was the third member of his family to have represented the city in Parliament after his grandfather John Graa and his father William Graa.
The Kontor of Bruges was the Hanseatic kontor, one of the Hanseatic League's four major trading posts, in Bruges, County of Flanders. A kontor was a corporation (universitas) with a level of legal autonomy in a foreign non-Hanseatic city, the one of Bruges was formally organised in the 14th century. Bruges was a major Flemish port in the high and late Middle Ages. Flanders was a fiefdom of France until 1493, after that it belonged to the Holy Roman Empire.
