Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire known as the Portuguese Overseas or the Portuguese Colonial Empire, was one of the largest and longest-lived empires in world history. It existed for six centuries, from the capture of Ceuta in 1415, to the handover of Portuguese Macau to China in 1999; the empire began in the 15th century, from the early 16th century it stretched across the globe, with bases in North and South America and various regions of Asia and Oceania. The Portuguese Empire has been described as the first global empire in history, a description given to the Spanish Empire; the Portuguese Empire originated at the beginning of the Age of Discovery, the power and influence of the Kingdom of Portugal would expand across the globe. In the wake of the Reconquista, Portuguese sailors began exploring the coast of Africa and the Atlantic archipelagos in 1418–19, using recent developments in navigation and maritime technology such as the caravel, with the aim of finding a sea route to the source of the lucrative spice-trade.
In 1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope, in 1498 Vasco da Gama reached India. In 1500, either by an accidental landfall or by the crown's secret design, Pedro Álvares Cabral discovered Brazil on the South American coast. Over the following decades, Portuguese sailors continued to explore the coasts and islands of East Asia, establishing forts and factories as they went. By 1571 a string of naval outposts connected Lisbon to Nagasaki along the coasts of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia; this commercial network and the colonial trade had a substantial positive impact on Portuguese economic growth, when it accounted for about a fifth of Portugal's per-capita income. When King Philip II of Spain inherited the Portuguese crown in 1580 there began a 60-year union between Spain and Portugal known to subsequent historiography as the Iberian Union; the realms continued to have separate administrations. As the King of Spain was King of Portugal, Portuguese colonies became the subject of attacks by three rival European powers hostile to Spain: the Dutch Republic and France.
With its smaller population, Portugal found itself unable to defend its overstretched network of trading posts, the empire began a long and gradual decline. Brazil became the most valuable colony of the second era of empire, until, as part of the wave of independence movements that swept the Americas during the early 19th century, it broke away in 1822; the third era of empire covers the final stage of Portuguese colonialism after the independence of Brazil in the 1820s. By the colonial possessions had been reduced to forts and plantations along the African coastline, Portuguese Timor, enclaves in India and China; the 1890 British Ultimatum led to the contraction of Portuguese ambitions in Africa. Under António Salazar, the Second Portuguese Republic made some ill-fated attempts to cling on to its last remaining colonies. Under the ideology of Pluricontinentalism, the regime renamed its colonies "overseas provinces" while retaining the system of forced labour, from which only a small indigenous élite was exempt.
In 1961 India annexed Goa and Dahomey annexed Fort of São João Baptista de Ajudá. The Portuguese Colonial War in Africa lasted from 1961 until the final overthrow of the Estado Novo regime in 1974; the so-called Carnation Revolution of April 1974 in Lisbon led to the hasty decolonization of Portuguese Africa and to the 1975 annexation of Portuguese Timor by Indonesia. Decolonization prompted the exodus of nearly all the Portuguese colonial settlers and of many mixed-race people from the colonies. Portugal returned Macau to China in 1999; the only overseas possessions to remain under Portuguese rule, the Azores and Madeira, both had overwhelmingly Portuguese populations, Lisbon subsequently changed their constitutional status from "overseas provinces" to "autonomous regions". The origin of the Kingdom of Portugal lay in the reconquista, the gradual reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from the Moors. After establishing itself as a separate kingdom in 1139, Portugal completed its reconquest of Moorish territory by reaching Algarve in 1249, but its independence continued to be threatened by neighbouring Castile until the signing of the Treaty of Ayllón in 1411.
Free from threats to its existence and unchallenged by the wars fought by other European states, Portuguese attention turned overseas and towards a military expedition to the Muslim lands of North Africa. There were several probable motives for their first attack, on the Marinid Sultanate, it offered the opportunity to continue the Christian crusade against Islam. In 1415 an attack was made on Ceuta, a strategically located North African Muslim enclave along the Mediterranean Sea, one of the terminal ports of the trans-Saharan gold and slave trades; the conquest was a military success, marked one of the first steps in Portuguese expansion beyond the Iberian Peninsula, but it proved costly to defend against the Muslim forces that soon besieged it. The Portuguese were unable to use it as a base for further expansion into the hinterland, the trans-Saharan caravans shifted their routes to bypass Ceuta and/or used alternative Muslim ports. Although Ceuta proved to be a disappointment for the Portuguese
Customs
“Customs” means the Government Service, responsible for the administration of Customs law and the collection of duties and taxes and which has the responsibility for the application of other laws and regulations relating to the importation, movement or storage of goods. Each country has its own laws and regulations for the import and export of goods into and out of a country, which its customs authority enforces; the import or export of some goods may be forbidden. A wide range of penalties are faced by those. A customs duty is a tax on the importation or exportation of goods. Commercial goods not yet cleared through customs are held in a customs area called a bonded store, until processed. All authorized. At airports, customs functions as the point of no return for all passengers. Anyone arriving at an airport must clear customs before they can enter a country; those who breach the law will be detained by customs and returned to their original location. Traditionally customs has been considered as the fiscal subject that charges customs duties and other taxes on import or export.
For the recent decades the views on the functions of customs have expanded and now covers three basic issues: taxation and trade facilitation. The terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, has become the factor that prompted a significant strengthening of the security component in the operations of the modern customs authorities, after which security-oriented control measures for supply chains have been implemented for the aims of preventing risk identification; the most complete guidelines for customs security functions implementation is provided in the WCO SAFE Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade, which have received five editions in 2005, 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2018. The trade facilitation objectives were introduced into routine of customs authorities in order to reduce trade transaction costs; the contemporary understanding of the “trade facilitation” concept is based on the Recommendation No. 4 of UN / CEFACT “National Trade Facilitation Bodies”.
According to its provisions “facilitation covers formalities, procedures and operations related to international trade transactions. Its goals are simplification and standardization, so that transactions become easier and more economical than before”. In many countries, customs procedures for arriving passengers at many international airports and some road crossings are separated into red and green channels. Passengers with goods to declare go through the red channel. Passengers with nothing to declare go through the green channel. However, entry into a particular channel constitutes a legal declaration, if a passenger going through the green channel is found to be carrying goods above the customs limits or prohibited items, he or she may be prosecuted for making a false declaration to customs, by virtue of having gone through the green channel; each channel is a point of no return, once a passenger has entered a particular channel, they cannot go back. Australia, New Zealand, the United States do not operate a red and green channel system.
Airports in EU countries such as Finland, Ireland or the United Kingdom have a blue channel. As the EU is a customs union, travellers between EU countries do not have to pay customs duties. Value-added tax and excise duties may be applicable if the goods are subsequently sold, but these are collected when the goods are sold, not at the border. Passengers arriving from other EU countries go through the blue channel, where they may still be subject to checks for prohibited or restricted goods. Luggage tickets for checked luggage travelling within the EU are green-edged so they may be identified. In most EU member states, travellers coming from other EU countries can use the green lane. All airports in the United Kingdom operate a channel system, however some don't have a red channel, they instead have a red point phone which serves the same purpose. Customs are a public service provided by the government of the respective country that collects the duties levied on imported goods as well as providing security measures through which people enter and exit the country.
A public good/service is defined by being non-excludable. Once cannot avoid customs when exiting or entering a country thus making it non-excludable. There is some congestion when going through airports, with the average wait time in customs in American Domestic airports being 75.1 minutes, the congestion doesn’t discriminate based on rival-consumption thus making it a public service. Customs is part of one of the three basic functions of a government, namely: administration. However, in a bid to mitigate corruption, many countries have privatised their customs; this has occurred by way of contracting pre-shipment inspection agencies, which examine the cargo and verify the declared value before importation occurs. The country's customs is obliged to accept the agency's report for the purpose of assessing duties and taxes at the port of entry. While engaging a pre-shipment inspection agency may appear justified in a country with an inexperienced or inadequate customs establishment, the measure has not been able to plug the loophole and protect revenue.
It has been found that evasion of
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and completely enclosed by land: on the north by Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa and on the east by the Levant. Although the sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, it is identified as a separate body of water. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was or desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years, the Messinian salinity crisis, before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago. It covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, representing 0.7 % of the global ocean surface, but its connection to the Atlantic via the Strait of Gibraltar-the narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Spain in Europe from Morocco in Africa- is only 14 km wide. In oceanography, it is sometimes called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere.
The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of 1,500 m and the deepest recorded point is 5,267 m in the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia, in the south by Africa, it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, on the southwestern coast of Turkey, is 4,000 km; the sea's average north-south length, from Croatia's southern shore to Libya, is 800 km. The sea was an important route for merchants and travellers of ancient times that allowed for trade and cultural exchange between emergent peoples of the region; the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. The countries surrounding the Mediterranean in clockwise order are Spain, Monaco, Slovenia, Croatia and Herzegovina, Albania, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri and Dhekelia have coastlines on the sea.
The Ancient Greeks called the Mediterranean ἡ θάλασσα or sometimes ἡ μεγάλη θάλασσα, ἡ ἡμέτερα θάλασσα, or ἡ θάλασσα ἡ καθ'ἡμᾶς. The Romans called it Mare Mare Internum and, starting with the Roman Empire, Mare Nostrum; the term Mare Mediterrāneum appears later: Solinus used it in the 3rd century, but the earliest extant witness to it is in the 6th century, in Isidore of Seville. It means'in the middle of land, inland' in Latin, a compound of medius, -āneus; the Latin word is a calque of Greek μεσόγειος, from μέσος and γήινος, from γῆ. The original meaning may have been'the sea in the middle of the earth', rather than'the sea enclosed by land'; the Carthaginians called it the "Syrian Sea". In ancient Syrian texts, Phoenician epics and in the Hebrew Bible, it was known as the "Great Sea" or as "The Sea". Another name was the "Sea of the Philistines", from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites. In Modern Hebrew, it is called HaYam HaTikhon'the Middle Sea'. In Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ'the Middle Sea'.
In Islamic and older Arabic literature, it was Baḥr al-Rūm'the Sea of the Romans' or'the Roman Sea'. At first, that name referred to only the Eastern Mediterranean, but it was extended to the whole Mediterranean. Other Arabic names were Baḥr al-šām'the Sea of Syria' and Baḥr al-Maghrib'the Sea of the West'. In Turkish, it is the Akdeniz'the White Sea'; the origin of the name is not clear, as it is not known in earlier Greek, Byzantine or Islamic sources. It may be to contrast with the Black Sea. In Persian, the name was translated as Baḥr-i Safīd, used in Ottoman Turkish, it is the origin of the colloquial Greek phrase Άσπρη Θάλασσα. Johann Knobloch claims that in Classical Antiquity, cultures in the Levant used colours to refer to the cardinal points: black referred to the north, yellow or blue to east, red to south, white to west; this would explain both the Turkish Akdeniz and the Arab nomenclature described above. Several ancient civilizations were located around the Mediterranean shores and were influenced by their proximity to the sea.
It provided routes for trade and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages. Due to the shared climate and access to the sea, c
15th century
The 15th century was the century which spans the Julian years 1401 to 1500. In Europe, the 15th century is seen as the bridge between the Late Middle Ages, the Early Renaissance, the Early modern period. Many technological and cultural developments of the 15th century can in retrospect be seen as heralding the "European miracle" of the following centuries. In religious history, the Roman Papacy was split in two parts in Europe for decades, until the Council of Constance; the division of the Catholic Church and the unrest associated with the Hussite movement would become factors in the rise of the Protestant Reformation in the following century. Constantinople, in what is today Turkey the capital of the Christian Byzantine Empire, falls to the emerging Muslim Ottoman Turks, marking the end of the tremendously influential Byzantine Empire and, for some historians, the end of the Middle Ages; the event forced Western Europeans to find a new trade route, adding further momentum to what was the beginning of the Age of Discovery, which would lead to the global mapping of the world.
Explorations by the Portuguese and Spanish led to European sightings of the Americas and the sea passage along Cape of Good Hope to India, in the last decade of the century. These expeditions ushered in the era of the Portuguese and Spanish colonial empires; the fall of Constantinople led to the migration of Greek scholars and texts to Italy, while Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the mechanical movable type began the Printing Press. These two events played key roles in the development of the Renaissance; the Spanish Reconquista leads to the final fall of the Emirate of Granada by the end of the century, ending over seven centuries of Muslim rule and returning Spain back to Christian rulers. The Hundred Years' War end with a decisive French victory over the English in the Battle of Castillon. Financial troubles in England following the conflict results in the Wars of the Roses, a series of dynastic wars for the throne of England; the conflicts end with the defeat of Richard III by Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth Field, establishing the Tudor dynasty in the part of the century.
In Asia, under the rule of the Yongle Emperor, who built the Forbidden City and commanded Zheng He to explore the world overseas, the Ming Dynasty's territory reached its pinnacle. Tamerlane established a major empire in the Middle East and Central Asia, in order to revive the Mongol Empire. In Africa, the spread of Islam leads to the destruction of the Christian kingdoms of Nubia, by the end of the century leaving only Alodia; the vast Mali Empire teeters on the brink of collapse, under pressure from the rising Songhai Empire. In the Americas, both the Inca Empire and the Aztec Empire reach the peak of their influence. 1400s 1401: Dilawar Khan establishes the Malwa Sultanate in present-day central India 1402: Ottoman and Timurid Empires fight at the Battle of Ankara resulting in Timur's capture of Bayezid I. 1402: Sultanate of Malacca founded by Parameshwara. 1403: The Yongle Emperor moves the capital of China from Nanjing to Beijing. 1403: The settlement of the Canary Islands signals the beginning of the Spanish Empire.
1405–1433: Zheng He of China sails through the Indian Ocean to India and East Africa to spread China's influence and sovereignty. 1405: Paregreg war, Majapahit civil war of succession between Wikramawardhana against Wirabhumi. 1405–1407: The first voyage of Zheng He, a massive Ming dynasty naval expedition visited Java, Malacca, Aru and Lambri. 1410s 1410: The Battle of Grunwald is the decisive battle of the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War leading to the downfall of the Teutonic Knights. 1410–1413: Foundation of St Andrews University in Scotland. 1414: Khizr Khan, deputised by Timur to be the governor of Multan, takes over Delhi founding the Sayyid dynasty. 1415: Henry the Navigator leads the conquest of Ceuta from the Moors marking the beginning of the Portuguese Empire. 1415: Battle of Agincourt fought between the Kingdom of England and France. 1415: Jan Hus is burned at the stake as a heretic at the Council of Constance.1420s 1420: Construction of the Chinese Forbidden City is completed in Beijing.
1420–1434: Hussite Wars in Bohemia. 1424: James I returns to Scotland after being held hostage under three Kings of England since 1406. 1424: Deva Raya II succeeds his father Veera Vijaya Bukka Raya as monarch of the Vijayanagara Empire. 1425: Catholic University of Leuven founded by Pope Martin V. 1429: Joan of Arc ends the Siege of Orléans and turns the tide of the Hundred Years' War. 1429: Queen Suhita succeeds Wikramawardhana as ruler of Majapahit.1430s 1431 January 9 – Pretrial investigations for Joan of Arc begin in Rouen, France under English occupation. March 3 – Pope Eugene IV succeeds Pope Martin V, to become the 207th pope. March 26 – The trial of Joan of Arc begins. May 30 – Nineteen-year-old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake. June 16 – the Teutonic Knights and Švitrigaila sign the Treaty of Christmemel, creating anti-Polish alliance September – Battle of Inverlochy: Donald Balloch defeats the Royalists. October 30 – Treaty of Medina del Campo, consolidating peace between Portugal and Castille.
December 16 – Henry VI of England is crowned King of France. 1438: Pachacuti founds the Inca Empire.1440s 1440: Eton College founded by Henry VI. 1440s: The Golden Horde breaks up into the Siberia Khanate, the Khanate of Kazan, the Astrakhan Khanate, the Crimean Khanate, the Great Horde. 1440–1469: Under Moctezuma I, the Aztecs become the dominant power in Mesoamerica. 1440: Oba Ewuare comes to power in the West African city of Benin, turns it into an empire. 1441: Jan van Eyck, Flemish painter, dies. 1441: Portuguese navigators cruise West
Colonialism
Colonialism is the policy of a nation seeking to extend or retain its authority over other people or territories with the aim of opening trade opportunities. The colonizing country seeks to benefit from the colonized land mass. In the process, colonizers imposed their religion and medicinal practices on the natives; some argue this was a positive move toward modernization, while other scholars counter that this is an intrinsically Eurocentric rationalization, given that modernization is itself a concept introduced by Europeans. Colonialism is regarded as a relationship of domination of an indigenous majority by a minority of foreign invaders where the latter rule in pursuit of its interests. Early records of colonization go as far back as Phoenicians, an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550 BC to 300 BC and the Greeks and Persians continued on this line of setting up colonies; the Romans would soon follow, setting up colonies throughout the Mediterranean, Northern Africa, Western Asia.
In the 9th century a new wave of Mediterranean colonization had begun between competing states such as the Islamic Ottomans and the Venetians and Amalfians, invading the wealthy Byzantine or Eastern Roman islands and lands. Venice began with the conquest of Dalmatia and reached its greatest nominal extent at the conclusion of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, with the declaration of the acquisition of three octaves of the Byzantine Empire. In the 15th century some European states established their own empires during the European colonial period; the Belgian, Danish, French, Russian and Swedish empires established colonies across large areas. Imperial Japan, the Ottoman Empire and the United States acquired colonies, as did imperialist China and in the late 19th century the German and the Italian. At first, European colonizing countries followed policies of mercantilism, in order to strengthen the home economy, so agreements restricted the colonies to trading only with the metropole. By the mid-19th century, the British Empire gave up mercantilism and trade restrictions and adopted the principle of free trade, with few restrictions or tariffs.
Christian missionaries were active in all of the colonies because the Colonialists were Christians. Historian Philip Hoffman calculated that by 1800, before the Industrial Revolution, Europeans controlled at least 35% of the globe, by 1914, they had gained control of 84%. In the aftermath of World War II, the archetypal European colonial system ended between 1945–1975, when nearly all Europe's colonies gained political independence. Collins English Dictionary defines colonialism as "the policy and practice of a power in extending control over weaker peoples or areas". Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary defines colonialism as "the system or policy of a nation seeking to extend or retain its authority over other people or territories"; the Merriam-Webster Dictionary offers four definitions, including "something characteristic of a colony" and "control by one power over a dependent area or people". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy "uses the term'colonialism' to describe the process of European settlement and political control over the rest of the world, including the Americas and parts of Africa and Asia".
It discusses the distinction between colonialism and imperialism and states that "given the difficulty of distinguishing between the two terms, this entry will use colonialism as a broad concept that refers to the project of European political domination from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries that ended with the national liberation movements of the 1960s". In his preface to Jürgen Osterhammel's Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview, Roger Tignor says "For Osterhammel, the essence of colonialism is the existence of colonies, which are by definition governed differently from other territories such as protectorates or informal spheres of influence." In the book, Osterhammel asks, "How can'colonialism' be defined independently from'colony?'" He settles on a three-sentence definition: Colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are defined in a distant metropolis.
Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population, the colonizers are convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate to rule. Historians distinguish between various overlapping forms of colonialism, which are classified into four types: settler colonialism, exploitation colonialism, surrogate colonialism, internal colonialism. Settler colonialism involves large-scale immigration motivated by religious, political, or economic reasons, it pursues to replace the original population. Here, a large number of people emigrate to the colony for the purpose of staying and cultivating the land. Australia, Israel, South Africa, the United States are all examples of current settler colonial societies. Exploitation colonialism involves fewer colonists and focuses on the exploitation of natural resources or population as labor to the benefit of the metropole; this category includes trading posts as well as larger colonies where colonists would constitute much of the political and economic administration.
Prior to the end of the slave trade and widespread abolition, when indigenous labor was unavailable, slaves were imported to the Americas, first by the Portuguese Empire, by the Spanish, Dutch and British. Surrogate colonialism involves a set
King's Lynn
King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn, is an English seaport and market town in Norfolk, about 98 miles north of London, 36 miles north-east of Peterborough, 44 miles north north-east of Cambridge and 44 miles west of Norwich. The population is 42,800, it is a cultural centre with two theatres, three museums, several other cultural and sporting venues, along with three secondary schools and one college. The etymology of King's Lynn is uncertain; the name Lynn is said to be derived from the body of water near the town: the Celtic word llyn, means a lake. As the Domesday Book mentions many saltings at Lena, an area of partitioned pools or small lakes may have existed there at that time; the salt may have contributed to Herbert de Losinga's interest in the modest parish. For a time it was named Len Episcopi while under the jurisdiction, both temporal and spiritual, of the Bishop of Norwich. In the Domesday Book, it is known as Lun, Lenn; the town is and has been for generations known by its inhabitants and local people as Lynn.
The city of Lynn, just north of Boston, was named in 1637 in honour of its first official minister of religion, Samuel Whiting, who arrived at the new settlement from Lynn, Norfolk. Lynn originated as a settlement on a constricted site to the south of where the River Great Ouse exits to the Wash. Development began in the early 10th century, but the place was not recorded until the early 11th century; until the early 13th century, the Great Ouse emptied via the Wellstream at Wisbech. After the redirection of the Great Ouse in the 13th century and its port became significant and prosperous. In 1101, Bishop Herbert de Losinga of Thetford began to construct the first mediaeval town between two rivers, the Purfleet to the north and Mill Fleet to the south, he authorised a market. In the same year, the bishop granted the people of Lynn the right to hold a market on Saturday. Trade built up along the waterways that stretched inland and the town expanded between the two rivers. Lynn had a Jewish community in the 12th century, exterminated during anti-Jewish massacres in 1189.
During the 14th century, Lynn ranked as England's most important port. It was considered as vital to England during the Middle Ages as Liverpool was during the Industrial Revolution. Sea trade with Europe was dominated by the Hanseatic League of ports; the Trinity Guildhall was rebuilt in 1421 after a fire. It is possible that the Guildhall of St George is the oldest in England. Walls entered by the South Gate and East Gate were erected to protect the town; the town retains two former Hanseatic League warehouses: Hanse House built in 1475 and Marriott's Warehouse, in use between the 15th and 17th centuries. They are the only remaining buildings from the Hanseatic League in England. In the first decade of the 16th century, Thoresby College was built by Thomas Thoresby to house priests of the Guild of The Holy Trinity in Lynn; the guild had been incorporated in 1453 on the petition of its alderman, four brethren and four sisters. The guildsmen were licensed to found a chantry of chaplains to celebrate at the altar of Holy Trinity in Wisbech, to grant to the chaplains lands in mortmain.
In 1524 Lynn acquired a corporation. In 1537 the king took control of the town from the bishop and in the 16th century the town's two annual fairs were reduced to one. In 1534 a grammar school was founded and four years Henry VIII closed the Benedictine priory and the three friaries. During the 16th century a piped water supply was created, although many could not afford to be connected: elm pipes carried water under the streets. King's Lynn suffered from outbreaks of plague, notably in 1516, 1587, 1597, 1636 and the last in 1665. Fire was another hazard and in 1572 thatched roofs were banned to reduce the risk. During the English Civil War, King's Lynn supported Parliament, but in August 1643, after a change in government, the town changed sides. Parliament sent an army, the town was besieged for three weeks before it surrendered. A heart carved on the wall of the Tuesday Market Place commemorates the burning of an alleged witch, Margaret Read, in 1590, it struck the wall. In 1683, the architect Henry Bell, once the town's mayor, designed the Custom House.
Bell designed the Duke's Head Inn, the North Runcton Church, Stanhoe Hall. His artistic inspiration was the result of travelling Europe as a young man. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the town's main export was grain. Lynn was no longer a major international port, although timber were imported. King's Lynn suffered from the discovery of the Americas, which benefited the ports on the west coast of England, its trade was affected by the growth of London. In the late 17th century, imports of wine from Spain and France boomed, there was still an important coastal trade, it was cheaper to transport goods by water than by road at that time. Large quantities of coal arrived from the north-east of England; the Fens began to be drained in the mid–17th century, the land turned to agriculture, allowing vast amounts of produce to be sent to the gr
Guild
A guild is an association of artisans or merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as a confraternities of tradesmen, they were organized in a manner something between a professional association, a trade union, a cartel, a secret society. They depended on grants of letters patent from a monarch or other authority to enforce the flow of trade to their self-employed members, to retain ownership of tools and the supply of materials. A lasting legacy of traditional guilds are the guildhalls constructed and used as guild meeting-places. Guild members found guilty of cheating on the public would be banned from the guild. An important result of the guild framework was the emergence of universities at Bologna and Paris. A type of guild was known in Roman times. Known as collegium, collegia or corpus, these were organised groups of merchants who specialised in a particular craft and whose membership of the group was voluntary. One such example is the corpus naviculariorum, the college of long-distance shippers based at Rome's La Ostia port.
The Roman guilds failed to survive the collapse of the Roman Empire. In medieval cities, craftsmen tended to form associations based on their trades, confraternities of textile workers, carpenters, glass workers, each of whom controlled secrets of traditionally imparted technology, the "arts" or "mysteries" of their crafts; the founders were free independent master craftsmen who hired apprentices. There were several types of guilds, including the two main categories of merchant guilds and craft guilds but the frith guild and religious guild. Guilds arose beginning in the High Middle Ages as craftsmen united to protect their common interests. In the German city of Augsburg craft guilds are being mentioned in the Towncharter of 1156; the continental system of guilds and merchants arrived in England after the Norman Conquest, with incorporated societies of merchants in each town or city holding exclusive rights of doing business there. In many cases they became the governing body of a town. For example, London's Guildhall became the seat of the Court of Common Council of the City of London Corporation, the world’s oldest continuously elected local government, whose members to this day must be Freemen of the City.
The Freedom of the City, effective from the Middle Ages until 1835, gave the right to trade, was only bestowed upon members of a Guild or Livery. Early egalitarian communities called "guilds" were denounced by Catholic clergy for their "conjurations" — the binding oaths sworn among the members to support one another in adversity, kill specific enemies, back one another in feuds or in business ventures; the occasion for these oaths were drunken banquets held on December 26, the pagan feast of Jul —in 858, West Francian Bishop Hincmar sought vainly to Christianise the guilds. In the Early Middle Ages, most of the Roman craft organisations formed as religious confraternities, had disappeared, with the apparent exceptions of stonecutters and glassmakers the people that had local skills. Gregory of Tours tells a miraculous tale of a builder whose art and techniques left him, but were restored by an apparition of the Virgin Mary in a dream. Michel Rouche remarks that the story speaks for the importance of transmitted journeymanship.
In France, guilds were called corps de métiers. According to Viktor Ivanovich Rutenburg, "Within the guild itself there was little division of labour, which tended to operate rather between the guilds. Thus, according to Étienne Boileau's Book of Handicrafts, by the mid-13th century there were no less than 100 guilds in Paris, a figure which by the 14th century had risen to 350." There were different guilds of metal-workers: the farriers, knife-makers, chain-forgers, nail-makers formed separate and distinct corporations. In Catalan towns, specially at Barcelona, guilds or gremis were a basic agent in the society: a shoemakers' guild is recorded in 1208. In England in the City of London Corporation, more than 110 guilds, referred to as livery companies, survive today, with the oldest more than a thousand years old. Other groups, such as the Worshipful Company of Tax Advisers, have been formed far more recently. Membership in a livery company is expected for individuals participating in the governance of The City, as the Lord Mayor and the Remembrancer.
The guild system reached a mature state in Germany circa 1300 and held on in German cities into the 19th century, with some special privileges for certain occupations remaining today. In the 15th century, Hamburg had 100 guilds, Cologne 80, Lübeck 70; the latest guilds to develop in Western Europe were the gremios of Spain: Toledo. Not all city economies were controlled by guilds. Where guilds were in control, they shaped labor and trade. In order to become a master, a journeyman would have to go on a three-year voyage called journeyman years; the practice of the journeyman years still exists in France. As production became more specialized, trade guilds were divided and subdivided, eliciting the squabbles over jurisdiction that produced the paperwork by which economic historians trace their development: The
