The Medieval Irish Wool Trade, 1169-c.1400

Abstract

This thesis uses the prism of the wool trade to examine the medieval Irish export economy between 1169 and c.1400, a topic previously never studied in detail. It looks at how the interplay of economic, societal and political factors at home and abroad affected the lives of those living in Ireland. Combining and comparing archival and printed sources from Ireland, England and continental Europe, it counteracts the widespread belief that there is a dearth of sources for the study of medieval Irish economic history, and opens up new avenues for research. It proposes that there were two branches of the Irish wool trade; firstly, the export of wool, a colonial industry which developed after the Anglo-Norman arrival in 1169, and secondly, the export of distinctive types of Irish cloth, probably the products of Gaelic Ireland. The cloths were exported through the colonial Irish economic system and therefore represent an often-overlooked economic interaction between Gaelic and colonial societies. The thesis begins by looking at at sheep-farming and wool production, analysing the wool qualities required by cloth-makers, the extent to which Irish wool may have differed from English wool, and how this may have affected where it was sold and used. It then examines the production of the various types of Irish cloth sold abroad, seeking to define them. The main body of the thesis is a chronological survey of the trade�s development and decline. Irish cloth, traded from merchant to merchant, was sold in the Baltic and Italy early in the fourteenth century and in the Levant by the 1380s. Irish wool was exported by a fluctuating body of merchants from Italy, Flanders, Gascony, Normandy and England, most often directly to the Low Countries, which remained its main markets throughout the period. This emphasises the international nature of Ireland�s economic links. Ireland, though, was ruled by the English king, and the thesis looks at differences and similarities in the imposition of the crown�s wool-trade legislation in Ireland and England, and at the effects of English economic policies on the Irish wool trade. It contradicts the prevailing view of medieval Ireland as an economic backwater, and argues that particularly before the 1290s, when a series of calamities led to a downturn in the wool trade, the colonial Irish economy was vibrant and highly profitable, the colony perhaps rivalling England in per capita wealth.