Note 299 — Chapter X · Commerce and Trade

Mr. W. J. Ashley notes that the earliest instance of the prohibition of the export of wool is found in the action of the Oxford Parliament of 1258. The barons then ‘decreed that the wool of the country should be worked up in England and should not be sold to foreigners, and that every one should use woollen cloth made within the country,’ and lest people should be dissatisfied at having to put up with the rough cloth of England they bade them ‘not to seek over precious raiment.’—English Economic History and Theory, 1888-1893, part ii. p. 194.