which was not to become a permanent law until some trial should have been had of it, and such amendments made in it as were found by experience to be necessary.[1] In other cases, again, and those of no rare occurrence, the law was of such a nature that it could not be carried into execution; it was an attempt to accomplish what was impossible. These considerations may account for the numerous instances in which our old laws are merely confirmations, or in other words, repetitions of some preceding law, and also for the extraordinary multiplication which we find of fluctuating or contradictory laws. Of this latter description, those relating to the staple afford an eminent example. In 1334, all the lately established staples were again abolished by the king in a parliament held at York. In 1341, the staple was re-established by a royal act at Bruges, in Flanders. In 1348, again, after the capture of Calais, that town was made the staple for tin, lead, feathers, English-made woollen cloths and worsted stuffs, for seven years. All the former inhabitants of Calais, with the exception, it is said, of one priest and two lawyers, had been removed, and an English colony, of which thirty-six merchants from London were the principal members, had been settled in their room. In 1353, by the statute called the Ordinance of the Staples (27 Edw. III. st. 2, c. 1), the staple for wool, leather, woolfels, and lead, was once more removed from the continent by act of parliament, and ordered to be held for ever in the following places, and no others—namely, for England, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, York, Lincoln, Norwich, Westminster, Canterbury, Chichester, Exeter, and Bristol for Wales, at Carmarthen; and for Ireland, at Dublin, Waterford, Cork, and Drogheda. The " for ever" of this statute remained in force for ten years, and no longer. From the preamble of the statute 43 Edw. III., it appears that it had been ordained, for the profit of the realm, and ease of the merchants of England, that the staple of wools, woolfels, and leather, should be holden at Calais; and that there accordingly it
- ↑ See on this subject Hallam's Middle Ages, iii. 72-75.
