to new or unrecognized markets, as the
"adventurers to Iceland," "adventurers to Spain." Again, it is applied
to groups of merchants in various towns who were organized for mutual
protection or other advantage, as the "fishmongers adventurers" who
brought their complaints before the Royal Council in 1542, "The
Master, Wardens, and Commonalty of Merchant Venturers, of Bristol,"
existing apparently in the fourteenth century, fully organized by
1467, and incorporated in 1552, "The Society of Merchants Adventurers
of Newcastle upon Tyne," or the similar bodies at York and Exeter.

But by far the most frequent use of the term is that by which it was
applied to those merchants who traded to the Netherlands and adjacent
countries, especially as exporters of cloth, and who came within this
period to be recognized and incorporated as the "Merchants
Adventurers" in a special sense, with headquarters abroad, a coat of
arms of their own, extensive privileges, great wealth, influence, and
prominence. These English merchants, trading to the Netherlands in
other articles than those controlled by the Staplers, apparently
received privileges of trade from the duke of Brabant as early as the
thirteenth century, and the right of settling their own disputes
before their own "consul" in the fourteenth. But their commercial
enterprises must have been quite insignificant, and it was only during
the fifteenth century that they became numerous and their trade in
English cloth extensive. Just at the beginning of this century, in
1407, the king of England gave a general charter to all merchants
trading beyond seas to assemble in definite places and choose for
themselves consuls or governors to arrange for their common trade
advantage. After this time, certainly by the middle of the century,
the regular series of governors of the English merchants in the
Netherlands was established, one of the earliest being William Caxton,
afterward the founder of printing in England. On the basis of these
concessions and of the privileges and charters granted by the home
government the "Merchants Adventurers" gradually became a distinct
organization, with a definite membership which was obtained by payment
of a sum which gradually rose from 6_s._ 8_d._ to L20, until it was
reduced by a law of Parliament in 1497 to L6 13_s._ 4_d._ They had
local branches in England and on the Continent. In 1498 they were
granted a coat of arms by Henry VII, and in 1503 by royal c