page_title: History of trade and industry in Birmingham
section_title: 13th century
hierarchical_section_title: History of trade and industry in Birmingham / 13th century
caption_attribution_description: Hemp rope at the Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. World Aquarium
context_page_description: Birmingham was a flourishing medieval market town.
context_section_description: The first documentary evidence of craftsmen in the town comes in 1232, when a group of burgesses negotiating to be released from their obligation to help with the Lord's haymaking is listed as including a smith, a tailor and four weavers. Manufacturing is likely to have been stimulated by the existence of the market, which provides a source of raw materials such as hides and wool as well as a demand for goods from prosperous merchants in the town and from visitors from the countryside selling produce.
  Mercers and purveyors are mentioned in deeds around this time and there are tanning pits in use in Edgbaston Street; and hemp and flax are being used for making rope, canvas and linen. Kilns producing local pottery also exist. The borough rentals of 1296 provide evidence of at least four forges in the town.
  References in 1285 and 1306 to stolen cattle being sold in the town suggest that the size of the animal trade at this time is sufficient for such sales to go unnoticed.
  Birmingham is situated on several significant overland trade routes. By the end of the 13th century, the town is an important transit point for the trade in cattle along drovers' roads from Wales to Coventry and the South East of England.
caption: Hemp rope which would have been made in the town
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