Towns and villages associated with the medieval English wool industry
Lavenham in Suffolk, a typical wool town in the East of England.
A Wool town is a name given to towns and villages, particularly in Suffolk and north Essex, that were the centre of the woven cloth industry in the Middle Ages.[1]
They came to prominence when weavers from Flanders settled in the area, having been displaced by what came to be known as the Hundred Years' War. Up to that time the English wool trade with the rest of Europe was mostly in the form of the export of raw wool. However, exports of woven cloth quickly replaced the export of raw wool (the latter being heavily taxed by Edward III to help finance the war) and those engaged in the trade began to amass great wealth.[2]
^Guy McDonald (2 February 2004). England. New Holland Publishers. pp. 642–4. ISBN 978-1-86011-116-7.
^John H Munro ‘Medieval Woollens, Textiles. Textile Technology and Industrial Organisation. C800 -1500, in The Cambridge History of Western textiles Volume 1, ed. by D.T. Jenkins Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2003) pp. 181-227 (at 181)
A Wooltown is a name given to towns and villages, particularly in Suffolk and north Essex, that were the centre of the woven cloth industry in the Middle...
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