Biographies & Memoirs

Appendix 3

THE WOOL SUBSIDY, 1327–77

Date of Grant

Duration

Rate per Sack Denizens

Rate per Sack Aliens

Authorizing Agency

May 1333

May 1333–May 1334

10s

10s

merchants

Sept. 1336

indefinite

20s

20s

merchants

May 1338

indefinite

33s 4d

53s 4d

? merchants

Apr. 1340

Apr. 1340–May 1341

33s 4d

33s 4d

parliament

July 1342

July 1342–June 1343

40s

40s

merchants

Apr. 1343

June 1343–Sept. 1346

40s

40s

parliament

Feb. 1346

Sept. 1346–Sept. 1348

40s

40s

lords in council

Mar. 1347

Sept. 1347–Sept. 1351

40s

40s

lords in council (? with merchants)1

Apr. 1348

confirmation of above

40s

40s

parliament

Feb. 1351

Sept. 1351–Sept. 1353

40s

40s

parliament

Oct. 1353

1353–56

40s

40s

commons in great council

Nov. 1355

1356–62

40s

40s

parliament

Oct. 1362

1362–65

20s

20s

parliament

Feb. 1365

1365–68

40s

40s

parliament

May 1368

1368–70

36s 8d

36s 8d

parliament

June 1369

1369–72

43s 4d

43s 4d

parliament2

Nov. 1372

1372–74

43s 4d

43s 4d

parliament

Nov. 1373

1374–76

43s 4d

43s 4d

parliament

June 1376

1376–79

43s 4d

43s 4d

parliament

NOTES

1. See p. 303, n. 118.

2. This cancelled the preceding grant and came into immediate effect.

SOURCES

1333: Calendar of Fine Rolls, 1327–37, p. 365; Public Record Office, E356/5, m. 2.

1336–42: E.B. Fryde, ‘Edward III’s War Finance, 1337–41: Transactions in Wool and Credit Operations’, University of Oxford D. Phil. thesis (1947), i. pp. 54–5, 78–80, 487–90; Calendar of Close Rolls, 1341–3, p. 553; E.B. Fryde, William de la Pole, Merchant and King’s Banker (London, 1988), pp. 182–3, 201.

1343 –76: G.L. Harriss, King, Parliament and Public Finance in Medieval England to 1369 (Oxford, 1975), pp. 420–49, 468–9; A. Beardwood, Alien Merchants in England, 1350 to 1377 (Cambridge, Mass., 1931), pp. 44–5; corroborated by the parliament rolls (as cited by J.G. Edwards, The Second Century of the English Parliament, (Oxford, 1975), p. 21, nn. 5, 6), and Public Record Office, E356/8.

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