Andrea Velich (Budapest)
Immigration to London in the Late Middle Ages played a major role in the demographic development of the city. Under the Tudors, the population of London rose from about 50,000 to about 200,000 between 1485 and 1603, at a disproportionately faster rate than the overall English population growth from 3 million to 4.5 million in the same period. Immigrants flooded London as they thought that "the roads to London were paved with gold," i.e. with possibilities, and thus caused difficulties both for the kings and the municipal authorities.
If we examine early Tudor documents of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century (The Repertories of the Court of Aldermen, of the Common Council, the Letter Books, guild and parish records, and wills) we can differentiate three broad categories among the immigrants or aliens: foreigners, denizens (who provided a permanent source of income both for the city and the court with their regularly reissued royal patent) and countrymen. Of course, these different groups represented different values and interests and the London authorities took different measures against (rarely for) them. Stow and Hall speak about the ever-growing number of "vagrants" from the country, but recent research has found no record of these dangerous wandering gangs, except for young artisans looking for jobs and entering town, preferably alone for better chances.
Some immigrants, especially skilled artisans like dyers and weavers, were welcome for their skills, while others, especially traders and merchants, were looked upon as potential rivals and were hindered and restricted in their activities. In the field of the textile and luxury industry there was a great demand for cheap, skilled artisans, thus we can see contradictory legislation both at state and municipal levels. The London Bakers provide an excellent example of this, as the nearby Stratford Bakers were banned from town unless demand made their work and bread necessary, then they were even offered an escort to town to feed hungry Londoners to prevent famine and disturbances.
The growing pressure of Londoners led to the passage of laws against foreigners, but in reality they were not banned from the town and were rather tolerated as settlers in nearby suburbs with inferior standing as they meant profit for the Londoners. For the liverymen especially, the elite of late medieval London society with whom they ran joint enterprises more and more often tolerated them. For instance, E. Shorle, a London merchant who worked with a Hansa merchant and a country merchant, settled in the London suburb of Southwark in 1504 and were were fined by the mayor of London, but not banned from town. However, there were more severe restrictions aimed at stopping the flood of poor immigrant beggars, who were feared both for their diseases and the social burden the involved. Executing restrictions was all the more difficult as often even the mayor of London himself had a counter-vested interest in doing business with foreigners, for instance, Mayor of London Sir John Shaa, who rented and ran a dyehouse with George Morelly from Lucca.
Considering the laws and measures taken against immigrants we see a highly diversified picture. The first impression created seems to be discrimination and a series of restrictions preventing them from being apprentices, settling in different districts (where they were strictly checked on, eg. the host or hostess had to report the arrival of a foreign guest to the mayor and aldermen within 24 hours and taverns and inns were not allowed to accomodate foreigners for more than three days). However, immigrants were gradually provided some rights: from 1480 they could reclaim debts, from 1484 they could claim compensation if burgled, from 1547 they could sue in English courts, from 1552 they could rent property freely and could legally make wills. By 1500, at the reception of Katherine of Aragon to London, foreigners were even allowed to take part in lining the London streets; although they had to line the poorer eastern parts of the city their presence was made clear as well as their subdued role in society visually emphasized.
Nevertheless, the London guilds made many complaints against foreigners to the municipal authorities. In most cases the guilds complained about inferior quality of goods and weights and measures. Among the complainants were the fishmongers and the goldsmiths blaming foreign competion for not keeping the correct measures, but a few of the guilds, like the tailors, acknowledged the superior skills of their foreign rivals, thus claiming that foreign craftsmen could be employed if it served the reputation of their guild. Some of the guilds explained banning ' foreign labour' with social reasons, eg. the pinners said that the foreign pinners did not pay alms to old or sick guild members, and the goldsmiths referred to the decaying friendlineess of guild "community spirit". The London marblers claimed that the amount of fraud increased because of the wave of immigrants flooding their city. Certainly it was more difficult to check on people and fraud when there were joint enterprises. Although the number of immigrants kept rising, the general impression we get from contemporary documents of the overwhelming presence of foreign artisans and merchants might be attributed to their segregation.
In times of crisis there were even attacks on foreigners; after the ill-famous 1381 attack, when the Flemish weavers were attacked during the peasant revolt, in the Tudor era there were three attacks, in 1493 the Hansa merchants were attacked at their headquarters, the Steelyard, as a result of the commercial decline during the Anglo-Burgundian embargo, then in 1517 the French secretary was attacked in his London home during the Anglo-French war, and finally in 1595, when foreigners became targets during and because of crop failure and famine. Although the kings and London authorities tried to prevent attacks and disturbances by providing basic food and drink besides peace and favourable working and trading conditions (Henry VII is known for keeping peace and his several commercial treaties with neighboring countries), from time to time this was not enough.
Therefore, London authorities claimed that restrictions against foreign immigrants were inevitable. On the one hand, they passed laws and took measures against immigrants for economic and social reasons under pressure from both the crown and the guilds, while as the merchant elite of the country and London they did not want to encourage competition in trade. On the other hand, as employers and early capitalist entrepeneurs, they had some vested interest in increasing the labour market to loosen the limited profit margins of the tight medieval guild structure. Thus the series of steps Londoners took in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century were from time to time either against the royal legislation or in line with it depending on the interest of the city, even leading to tension and conflict with the crown.
I find these series of contradictory measures by the London guilds and authorities as well as by the court significant enough to elaborate on in my paper. Among these and other interesting issues I am looking for answers to the following questions: How did the mayors and aldermen of London walk a tightrope between these two contradictory spheres of interest? And how did this result in further enterprise and point in the direction of the rise of capitalism in England?