trade, and set an example to all the rest of England to do the same."[1] But for this remarkable passage it would scarcely have been suspected that there ever was a time when the natives of England were regularly exported to be sold as slaves to the Irish. Their principal purchasers were probably the Danes, or Ostmen (that is, Eastern men), as they were called, who were at this time the dominant people in Ireland, and especially were masters of nearly the whole line of the coast opposite to Britain. They appear to have carried on a considerable commerce both with England and other countries. Chester, as well as Bristol, is particularly mentioned as one of the ports to which Irish ships were accustomed to resort about the time of the Norman Conquest. William of Malmesbury describes the inhabitants of Chester as depending in his day upon Ireland for a supply of the necessaries of life; and, in another place, he speaks of the great distress the Irish would suffer if they were deprived of their trade with England. Marten skins are mentioned in Domesday Book among the commodities brought by sea to Chester; and this appears, from other authorities, to have been one of the exports in ancient times from Ireland. Notices are also found of merchants from Ireland landing at Cambridge with cloths, and exposing their merchandise to sale.[2] Other English ports which are noticed as possessed of ships at the time of the Conquest, or immediately before that event, are Pevensey, Romney, Hythe, Folkstone, Dover, Sandwich, Southwark, and London. Bede speaks of merchants' ships sailing to Rome; and it appears that trading-vessels sometimes joined together, and went out armed for their mutual protection.[3]
At all the above places, and at every other seaport in the kingdom, customs seem to have been exacted upon the arrival and departure of ships and goods, both by the king and by the lord, generally called the earl or comes, whose property or under whose protection the
