Читать книгу The Industrial History of England - Henry de Beltgens Gibbins - Страница 56

—Whether the growth of the worsted cloth industry was connected or not with this particular Flemish immigration we cannot determine. {54} The manufacture was confirmed to the town of Worstead by a patent of 1313, and in 1328, also, Edward III. issued a letter patent on behalf of the cloth workers in worsted in the county of Norfolk. The manufacture was already so extensive and important that the next year a special “aulnager” (or cloth searcher) was appointed to inspect the worsted stuffs of Norwich and district, and held his office for twenty years. In 1348, however, on the petition of the worsted weavers and merchants themselves, the patent was revoked, and the aulnager removed. But in 1410, when Norwich gained a new charter, the power of “aulnage” was once more given, at its own request, to its mayor and sheriffs, or their deputies.