MIDDLEMEN 287
visited the local markets, bought up the wool, and distributed
it among the cottagers, whose spinning-wheels turned it into
yarn. The yarn was then collected and taken to weavers, who
owned their own looms and wove it into cloth at piece rates.
Others might be employed to finish, bleach (by washing), and
dye the cloth before it was ready for the market. In cases where
a single clothier did not control all the differentprocesses of the
industry, there were middlemen ready to undertake one or
more of the stages, and to take their percentage of profit.
The middlemen who were the objects of much undiscriminat-
ing criticism were the wool-brokers. In the late middle ages
they had performed an essential task and had been organized
as a society of staplers, with their staple at Calais. After the
loss of this town in Mary's reign, the staple had been moved,
first to Middelburg and then to Bruges, but was abolished
altogether by a proclamation in 1617, on the ground that the
whole process of the manufacture of wool should be completed
at home. Staples were accordingly to be established in London
and twenty-two other places; and staplers, notwithstanding any
previous regulations, might buy wool anywhere in England and
sell it at any staple.1 They seem to have taken full advantage
of the privileges thus afforded them and to have performed the
useful function of supplying clothiers with wool from districts
far from their immediate neighbourhoods. Thereby they con-
tributed to the breaking down of the provincialism that ham-
pered the expansion of industry. On the other hand charges
were freely bruited abroad that they 'engrossed9 most of the
wool and were consequently able to sell at their own rates.
Moreover the fact that they bought in different areas resulted
in a mixture of wool of varying qualities, which was naively
thought to result in poor cloth—in reality much of the reputa-
tion of English woollens rested on skill in mixing different wools.
The most famous centre for the buying and selling of cloth was
Bakewell (or Blackwell) Hall, near the Guildhall. It served
both as a warehouse and as a market-place, and was supposed
to have a monopoly of all sales within the capital. However,
the monopoly was avoided by another kind of middleman
known as the factor, who was an intermediary between the
clothier and his customer, the draper or wholesale dealer. Like
the staplers, the factors were denounced as aiming at their own
1 Steele, no. 1197.