I grant also that the cordwainers who afterwards
may come into the town of Oxford shall be of the same guild and
shall have the same liberties and customs which the corvesars have
and ought to have. For this grant and confirmation, however, the
corvesars and cordwainers ought to pay me every year an ounce of
gold."
A guild merchant for wool dominated and regulated the wool trade
in many boroughs. In Leicester, only guildsmen were permitted to
buy and sell wool wholesale to whom they pleased or to wash their
fells in borough waters. Certain properties, such as those near
running water, essential to the manufacture of wool were
maintained for the use of guild members. The waterwheel was a
technological advance replacing human labor whereby the cloth was
fulled. The waterwheel turned a shaft which lifted hammers to
pound the wet cloth in a trough. Wool packers and washers could
work only for guild members. The guild fixed wages, for instance
to wool wrappers and flock pullers. Strangers who brought wool to
the town for sale could sell only to guild members. A guildsman
could not sell wool retail to strangers nor go into partnership
with a man outside the guild. Each guild member had to swear the
guildsman's oath, pay an entrance fee, and subject himself to the
judgment of the guild in the guild court, which could fine or
suspend a man from practicing his trade for a year.
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