ALIENS IN THE MEDIEVAL LONDON ESSAY

The Medieval Londoners understood the term alien to mean an individual who is a subject of a foreign country than the country of his/her residence. These aliens were those individuals who were foreign in origin with no legal naturalization and whose allegiance was as a result of the foreign state. During the modern era, a foreigner was an individual of another country outsider or stranger. Someone was regarded as an alien in medieval London if he/she came from another country other than London. This paper seeks to explore the aliens in the medieval London, their contribution to the economy of London and how the natives received and treated them during their stay in London. 3 This resulted in the petitioning the government for laws that were anti-aliens championed by the guilds and the companies.

Because most of the petitions were ruled out, violence against the aliens erupted in London. Irrespective of the inevitable hostility that brought them fear, the alien craft expertise tremendously contributed to the London’s expanding economy. The aliens introduced in London the production commodities s such as lace and economically important Draperies. The Flemish weavers brought in London the knowledge of how to create draperies fabrics allowing London to compete in the international markets internationally. The municipal authority would write to the royal government soliciting for a letter patent. Upon issuance of the license, a person was subscribed to be part of a community called alien friends and was entitled to limited privileges within the country. The alien communities were exempted by law from owning any form of property in London but permitted to practice buying and or lease dwelling for personal use.

Aliens could transcend the status of the alien friends by either being naturalized or denizen to Englishmen. To exceed to a resident, an alien was to apply for a letter of denization. Engineers, apothecaries among other professionals. 9 Several innovations in trade and crafts resulted in a direct influx of the immigrant community to London. The refugee from the Low Countries introduced gardening and landscaping skills that significantly impacted the improved state of the English gardens, and the Flemish instituted the brewing of beer with hop in London. This community aliens also carried along with them sophisticated printing skills and other items from a far inferior continent unlike that of their English colleagues. The printers of the English entirely depended on the Dutch foundries type to produce a typeface for the successive three centuries from the 15th century.

The aliens who wanted admissions into the companies were expected to pay 25 shillings, unlike the Englishmen who only paid 6 and 8 pence for the same. In the mid 15th century, the company de-campaigned the freemen who learnt the skills of weaving from the aliens. The guilds drafted petitions to have control over the alien weaver’s productivity leading to violent protests against the alien community. 12 The introduction of the New Draperies. These were clothes which were light in weight that was brought in London by the alien immigrants. What followed was the execution of a dozen of alien population apprentices on their doorways and destroyed the shops that were run and operated by the alien merchants. The prejudice towards the aliens’ community by the London guilds continued to spread throughout history up to the sixteenth century.

Despite the continued hostility, the aliens' companies like Weavers and Feltmakers continually petitioned for the restrictions against the alien artisans. During 1580, the Stationers Company was advised by the printers to desist from employing any foreigner. Later on, a specific group of apprentices rallied an attack on the aliens after the parliament voted against their anti-alien restriction petition. Flemish and Dutch artists in early modern England: collaboration and competition, 1460-1680. Routledge, 2017. Good, Jonathan. "The alien clothworkers of London, 1337–1381. " In The Ties that Bind, pp. " In State Power and Asylum Seekers in Ireland, pp. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2018. Piskorski, Jan Μ. "The Medieval Colonization of Central Europe as a Problem of World History and Historiography 1. " In The Expansion of Central Europe in the Middle Ages, pp.