Catalogue description ULNAGE

Details of Subseries within E 101
Reference: Subseries within E 101
Title: ULNAGE
Description:

These are the accounts, with supporting particulars, of the collectors of ulnage, a tax on cloth intended for sale at home and abroad.

Related material:

Prior to 42 Edward III these accounts appear on the pipe rolls, E 372, with duplicate chancellor's rolls in E 352. After 42 Edward III they appear in the foreign accounts rolls, E 364. Particulars of customs accounts are in E 122, and enrolled in E 356. Particulars of lay subsidies, or taxes are in E 179 and are enrolled in E 359.

Separated material:

There are two stray ulnage enrolled accounts in E 35818 and E 358/9: see the introductory note to E 358 for possible reasons for their separate enrolment.

Publication note:

H L Gray, 'The production and exportation of English woollens in the fourteenth century', English Historical Review, vol 39 (1924), pp 13-35; E M Carus-Wilson, 'Trends in the export of English woollens in the fourteenth century', Medieval merchant venturers (London, 2nd edn, 1967), pp 239-264; E M Carus-Wilson, 'The aulnage accounts: a criticism', Medieval merchant venturers (London, 2nd edn, 1967), pp 239-264; A R Bridbury, Medieval English clothmaking: an economic survey (London, 1982).

Unpublished finding aids:

A detailed list of the documents is in PRO Lists and Indexes, vol 35 (London, 1912), pp 213-218, where the documents are sorted into alphabetical order by name of the county or port where the ulnage was collected, and then chronologically within each county.

Administrative / biographical background:

The term ulnage properly refers to the licencing of cloth by local inspectors who measured cloth by the ell (hence 'ulnage') to ensure that it conformed to regulations laid down in 1196, known as the assize of measures. In 1353 the assize was abolished and instead the ulnager was instructed to collect a tax of 4d on his inspection.

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