View source for Company of Merchant Adventurers of London

{{Short description|Trading company in the City of London}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{More citations needed |date=June 2024}}
[[File:MerchantAdventurers OfLondon Arms.png|thumb|200px|Arms of the Merchant Adventurers]]
The '''Company of Merchant Adventurers of London''' was a [[trading company]] founded in the [[City of London]] in the early 15th century. It brought together leading [[merchant]]s in a regulated company in the nature of a [[guild]]. Its members’ main business was exporting cloth, especially white (undyed) [[broadcloth]], in exchange for a large range of foreign goods.<ref>Robert Brenner, ''Merchants and revolution: commercial change, political conflict, and London's overseas traders, 1550–1653'' (Verso, 2003).</ref><ref>E.  Lipson, ''The Economic History of England'' (1956), 2;196–269.</ref> It traded in northern European ports, competing with the [[Hanseatic League]]. It came to focus on [[Hamburg]].
==Origin==
The company received its royal charter from [[Henry IV of England|King Henry IV]] in 1407,<ref>[http://library.eb.co.uk/eb/article-9052088 "Merchant Adventurers"] in [[Encyclopædia Britannica]], Online Library Edition, 2013. Retrieved 22 July 2013.</ref> but its roots may go back to the Fraternity of [[St. Thomas of Canterbury]]. It claimed to have [[Liberty (division)|liberties]] existing as early as 1216.  The [[John II, Duke of Brabant|Duke of Brabant]] granted privileges and in return promised no fees to trading merchants. The company was chiefly chartered to the English merchants at [[Antwerp]] in 1305.  This body may have included the [[Merchants of the Staple|Staplers]], who exported raw wool, as well as the Merchant Adventurers.  Henry IV's charter was in favor of the English merchants dwelling in [[Holland]], [[Zeeland]], [[Duchy of Brabant|Brabant]], and [[Flanders]]. Other groups of merchants traded to different parts of northern Europe, including merchants dwelling in [[State of the Teutonic Order|Prussia]], [[Scania]], [[Øresund|the Sound]], and the [[Hanseatic League]] (whose election of a governor was approved by [[Richard II of England]] in 1391), and the English Merchants in Norway, Sweden and Denmark (who received a charter in 1408).
==Under the Tudors==
Under [[Henry VII of England|Henry VII]]'s charter of 1505, the company had a governor and 24 assistants.  The members were trading investors, and most of them were probably [[Mercery|mercers]] of the [[City of London]].<ref>Many records of the Court Meetings of the Merchant Adventurers of London are printed in L. Lyell and F.D. Watney (eds), ''Acts of Court of the Mercers' Company 1453-1527'' (Cambridge University Press, 1936).</ref> However, the company also had members from [[York]], [[Norwich]], [[Exeter]], [[Ipswich]], [[Newcastle upon Tyne|Newcastle]], [[Kingston upon Hull|Hull]], and other places.  The merchant adventurers of these towns were separate but affiliated bodies.  The [[Society of Merchant Venturers]] of [[Bristol]] was a separate group of investors, chartered by [[Edward VI of England|Edward VI]] in 1552.
Under Henry VII, the merchants who were not of London complained about restraint of trade.  They had once traded freely with Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and the Netherlands, but the London company was imposing a fine of £20, which was driving them out of their markets.  Henry VII required the fine to be reduced to 10 marks (£3, 6s and 8d).<ref>£1 = 3 English marks; 1 mark = 6s 8d</ref> Conflict arose with the [[Merchants of the Staple]], who sought to diversify from exporting wool through [[Calais]] into exporting cloth to [[Flanders]] without having to become freemen of the Company of Merchant Adventurers.  The Merchant Adventurers kept control of their trade and Flanders as their port.  Foreign merchants of the [[Hanseatic League]] had considerable privileges in English trade and competed with the Merchant Adventurers, but these privileges were revoked by the English government in the mid-16th century.
The Merchant Adventurers decided to use other ports.  [[Emden]] in [[East Frisia|East Friesland]] and [[Hamburg]] competed to serve the Merchant Adventurers of England, who chose Emden.  They soon found, however, that the port failed to attract sufficient merchants to buy the English merchants' wares, so they left abruptly and returned to [[Antwerp]].  Operations there were interrupted by [[Elizabeth I of England|Queen Elizabeth]]'s seizing [[Spain|Spanish]] treasure ships, which were conveying money to the [[Duke of Alva]], governor of the [[Netherlands]].  Although trade was resumed at Antwerp from 1573 to 1582, its declining fortunes ceased with the [[Fall of Antwerp|fall of the city]] and the subsequent development of the [[Amsterdam Entrepôt]], and the [[Dutch Golden Age]].
Under the charter of 1564,<ref>''Calendar of Patent Rolls, Elizabeth I, Vol. III: 1563-1566'' (HMSO London 1960)
[https://archive.org/stream/calendarofpatent03grea_1#page/178/mode/2up pp. 178-80, item 922].</ref> the company's court consisted of a governor (elected annually by members beyond the seas), his deputies, and 24 Assistants.  Admission was by patrimony (being the son of a merchant who was free of the company at the time of the son's birth), service (apprenticeship to a member), redemption (purchase) or 'free gift'.  By the time of the accession of [[James I of England|James I]] in 1603, there were at least 200 members.  They gradually increased the fees for admission.
== Conflict ==
The conflict of the Merchant Adventurers with the [[Hanseatic League]] continued as the latter had the same rights in England as native merchants and better privileges abroad, enabling them to undersell English merchants.  [[Hamburg]] was a member of the League.  When the English merchants left [[Emden]], they tried to settle in Hamburg, but the League forced the city to expel them. Emden was tried again in 1579.  The [[Holy Roman Emperor|Emperor]] ordered the [[Count of East Friesland]] to expel the merchants, but he declined.  The English merchants remained there until 1587. In 1586, the [[Senate of Hamburg]] invited the Merchant Adventurers to return there, but negotiations over this broke down.
The merchants who had frequented [[Middelburg, Zeeland|Middelburg]] since 1582 were invited to return in 1587 to the (now independent) [[Netherlands|United Provinces]] (later part of the Netherlands).  Due to impositions by [[Holland]] and [[Zeeland]], this was an unpopular choice with company members.  In 1611 the company's [[staple port|staple]] was permanently fixed at [[Hamburg]]. The designated [[Netherlands|Dutch]] [[staple port]] was moved during the early 17th century from [[Middelburg, Zeeland|Middelburg]] to [[Delft]] in 1621, then to [[Rotterdam]] in 1635, then to [[Dordrecht]] in 1655.
The years between 1615 and 1689 were marked by periods, starting with the ill-fated [[Cockayne Project]] (1614 - 1617),<ref>{{Cite web |title=Astrid Friis. Alderman Cockayne’s Project and the Cloth Trade. The Commercial Policy of England in its main aspects, 1603-1625 |url=https://academic.oup.com/ej/article-abstract/39/156/619/5283364?redirectedFrom=PDF |access-date=2022-10-25 |website=academic.oup.com}}</ref> when the company lost and then regained its monopolistic privileges.  It moved its staple port from [[Delft]] to [[Rotterdam]] in 1635.  The company suffered from trouble with interlopers, traders who were not 'free of the company' (i.e. members), but who nevertheless traded within its privileged area.
==Hamburg Company==
When the Company of London lost its exclusive privileges following the [[Glorious Revolution]] of 1689, the admission fees were reduced to £2.  After Parliament threw the trade open, the company continued to exist as a fellowship of merchants trading to [[Hamburg]].  Because they drove a considerable trade there, members were sometimes called the '''Hamburg Company'''.  The Merchant Adventurers of London still existed at the beginning of the 19th century.
==Similar groups colonising North America==
In the early seventeenth century, similar groups of investors, referred to as "adventurers", were formed to develop overseas trade and colonies in the New World: the [[Virginia Company]] of Adventurers of 1609 (which later split into the [[London Company]] settling [[Jamestown, Virginia|Jamestown]] and the Chesapeake Bay area, and the [[Plymouth Company]], which settled New England). In addition, the Company of Adventurers in Canada sent forces during the [[Thirty Years War]] that achieved the surrender of [[Quebec]] in 1629, and colonized the island of [[Newfoundland (island)|Newfoundland]].
==Heraldry==
The arms of the various companies were as follows:
*Merchant Adventurers of London: ''Barry nebulée of six argent and azure, a chief quarterly gules and or on the first and fourth quarters a lion passant guardant of the fourth on the second and third two roses gules barbed vert''.<ref>Joseph Edmondson (Mowbray Herald Extraordinary), Robert Glover, Sir Joseph Ayloffe, ''A Complete Body of Heraldry'', Volume 1, ''The Arms of Societies and Bodies Corporate Established in London'', London, 1780(no page numbers)[https://books.google.com/books?id=7VszAQAAMAAJ&dq=barry+wavy+merchant+adventurers&pg=PA330]</ref>
*Merchant Adventurers of Bristol: ''Barry wavy of eight argent and azure, on a bend or a dragon passant wings indorsed tail extended vert on a chief gules a lion passant guardant of the third between two bezants''<ref>Edmondson, Glover & Ayloffe</ref>
*Merchant Adventurers of Exeter: ''Azure, a tower triple towered or standing on the waves of the sea in base proper in chief two ducal coronets of the second''<ref>Edmondson, Glover & Ayloffe</ref>
*Merchant Adventurers of York: ''Barry wavy of six argent and azure, on a chief per pale gules and azure a lion passant guardant or between two roses argent seeded or'' (as visible on 1765 escutcheon in Great Hall of Merchant Adventurers' Hall, York;<ref>'Merchant Adventurers' Hall', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in City of York, Volume 5, Central (London, 1981), pp. 81-88. [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/york/vol5/pp81-88] See image [[:File:Merchant Adventurers' Hall - geograph.org.uk - 1505920.jpg]][http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/merchant-adventurers-coat-of-arms-heraldry-high-res-stock-photography/158689550]</ref>)
{{Commons category|Merchant Adventurers Company arms}}
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==Further reading==
* Brenner, Robert. ''Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550-1653'' (Verso, 2003).
* Lipson, E. ''The Economic History of England'' I (12th edition, 1959), 570-84; II (6th edition 1956), 196-269.
{{Chartered companies}}
[[Category:1407 establishments in England]]
[[Category:Chartered companies]]
[[Category:Companies established in the 15th century]]
[[Category:Companies of medieval England]]
[[Category:Defunct companies based in London]]
[[Category:Defunct companies of the United Kingdom|Merchant Adventurers]]
[[Category:Hanseatic League]]
[[Category:Economic history of England]]
[[Category:Organizations established in the 1400s]]
[[Category:Trading companies of England]]