26 COMMERCIAL YEAR BOOK OF THE 
by shippers and exported to Ireland and elsewhere at handsome profits. Thus, in fact, 
was the prosperity of the port of Bristol founded. We of the twentieth century are 
greatly shocked at the idea, but then we usually forget that in the tenth century bondage 
was still one of the primitive institutions of our beloved land. 
The increased general trade of the port was sufficient to justify an outlay of £5,000 
on dock improvements about the middle of the thirteenth century, when the Quay was 
built on the site we know to-day by that name. Until then the quay on Redcliff Back 
had served. Five thousand pounds was an enormous sum in 1248, when the work was 
completed. 
One of the most important marts in England for cloth, leather, and corn, seven or 
eight hundred years ago, was that of Bristol, where a large fair was held on jSt. James’s 
Day behind St. James’s Priory, merchants attending not only from many parts of England, 
but from foreign countries as well. There was great sea traffic with Norway, and other 
European states, whose ships crowded the port. Soap and leather factories stood on 
the banks of the Avon, as they do still. When Henry II. ascended the throne his 
Queen’s influence established a big import of French wines, and Bristol soon became 
the chief English centre of the trade. 
Powerful craft guilds grew up in the town, with their ordinances, their halls, and 
frequently their private chapels built on to churches. They ruled, feasted, and prayed 
with a rigour that amazes us, so used are we to easy-going in everything we do of that sort. 
At one time as many as six-and-twenty crafts were represented by guilds, and even 
that large number left some important industries guild-less. Only one mediaeval guild 
remains—-the Society of Merchant Venturers, incorporated by Edward VI. in 1551—and 
they no longer do any venturing at sea. There are no more new lands or new markets 
remaining for the Society to discover, no more privateers to be fitted out. The Merchant 
Venturers of Bristol are now mainly concerned for the technical education of Bristol’s 
craftsmen, and the Merchant Venturers’ Technical College, recently become the 
Engineering Faculty of the University of Bristol, has a proud record. 
We have relics of some of the other guilds, such as the Weavers’ Chapel, in Temple 
Church ; the Bakers’ Hall, near Quakers’ Friars ; and the Tailors’ Hall, Broad Street, 
and their Almshouse in Merchant Street; the Coopers’ Hall, which still stands in King 
Street; while obscure Tucker Street is a reminder of the Tuckers of Temple. 
Four hundred years ago John Cabot sailed from Bristol Quay in a tiny Bristol ship 
called the Matthew and returned having discovered North America. The next year lie 
went with two larger ships across the Atlantic, and skirted the coast of Newfoundland. 
There stands on Brandon Hill a fine tower, which the public spirit of Bristol men of to-day 
erected to mark the quatercentenary of that epoch-making voyage of the Matthew under 
a Genoese master, but with a Bristol crew of about eighteen all told. 
Great commercial relations with America did not immediately follow Cabot’s 
discoveries ; but his example inspired other enterprises, and by the sixteenth century 
Bristol s overseas trade in many directions was wonderfully increased. She was doing 
lucrative business in the Old World, and competing with Spain in the New. Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges was developing Virginia with Bristol capital and Bristol men, and John Guy,