Staple

Staple, the modern form of the Anglo-Saxon word stapel, meaning a heap, or regularly piled up accumulation, of goods; hence a place where goods are stored up for sale. In the middle ages, when the term was in common use, a staple meant both the trading-town for particular commodities and the commodities that were wont to be exposed for sale there. The kings of England from the beginning of the 14th century issued various regulations affecting the staple towns for the sale of England's principal commodity in those ages—wool. In 1313 Edward II. enjoined that all English merchants trading abroad, in Flanders, Brabant, and the adjacent countries, should carry all their wool to one staple town in Flanders; from 1343 Bruges was the town that enjoyed this privilege. But the men of Bruges greatly hampered the trade, and put vexatious hindrances in the way of the English merchants trading with the towns that lay farther inland; so that in 1353 Edward III. transferred the staple to England, and shared its privileges amongst half a score of coast towns from Newcastle to Bristol. At the same time all questions in dispute affecting mercantile transactions at these towns were put under the jurisdiction of an officer (one in each town) called the mayor of the staple, who decided all such differences by 'merchant law,' with the assistance of foreign merchants as assessors. The change to England, however, which it was hoped would relieve the English merchant from the vexatious interference of foreign governments and advantage the island country by attracting foreign merchants, proved anything but satisfactory, and from about the year 1362 the staple for English wool was almost constantly fixed at Calais, and remained there down to the year 1558. The Scottish merchants had their staple at Campvere (q.v.) in Holland. But as commerce grew with the lapse of time, it gradually broke down the barriers imposed by the system of staples. This concentration of trade in particular commodities or of particular countries at certain cities and towns was owing to both economic and political reasons. It was a sort of established policy of the Plantagenet kings to regulate trade in the interests of the royal power. Important privileges were accorded to foreign merchants on condition of their agreeing to frequent certain towns for purposes of traffic. This, too, enabled the royal officers of the customs the more readily and easily to collect the revenues of the crown accruing from those sources. And this line of state policy was so far congruent with the requirements of international commerce that it was the means of bringing buyers and sellers together at the same time and in the same place, and that it enabled the merchants trading from or to one town or country, or association of trading-towns, to combine together for their mutual advantage and protection.