While the chief export item from medieval England was wool, an extremely
important import item was wine from Poitou and Flanders. Indeed, wool was
sold and the profits used to import important wares the other way. The
Carpenters in medieval London were naturally directly involved with this
important trade. As you will see they sold their wines to the royal
household itself. But first in order to appreciate the importance of this
commodity trade and the implications it had for the politics of the city of
London specifically, allow me to quote from Longmans The Life and Times of
Edward lll, London, 1869, vol. 1, p. 4.
Merchants became so rich, and were held in such high esteem, that in the
year 1363, one Picard, Mayor of London, entertained Edward the Third, the
Black Prince, and the King of France, Scotland and Cyprus, with many
nobility, in London at his house in the Vintry, where the foreign wine
merchants carried on the their business.
The most conspicuous Carpenter wine merchants were the previously mentioned
Edward Carpenter and a son Robert, probably one of the wealthiest families
in London of the 1300s.
In the following 1311 Fine Rolls document we can glimpse the scale of
Carpenter wine transactions.
Grant to the following merchant vintners of the issue of the custom of
wools and woolfells in the port of Boston. Robert le Carpenter of 58 l. for
14 tuns.
The connection with the royal household can be appreciated in this next
Patent Rolls quotation from 1311.
Indemnity for the mayor, aldermen and communality of the city of London
against William Arnaldi of Portan, Gerald de Cannet, Robert le Carpenter,
Peter Bernadi of Bauet (or Garnet), Raymond de Maas, Peter de Cabaus, Peter
Arnaldi of Tesse, Bernard de la Mote, John Hereman, Peter Blaunke and
Bernard de la Denise, to whom they have given a bond for 870 L. 5s. 10d. for
205 casks and one pipe of wine purchased for the kings use.