Staplers' Hall

The Sarrum wool merchants whose factors buy the March's clip at Harrowgate, advance money against it and set a spring price the whole district plans against; the wool travels south to the High South.

The wool-dealing guild that buys in the county and sells in the city. Its members live in Wetherslade while its hall stands in Fleecegate. The Sarrum hall that buys the raw clip and sells the finished cloth, wanting cheap wool and dear cloth.

Named with it

• Guildmaster Stephen Wray · head
• Wool-Stapler Josiah Thane of Wetherslade · member
• Factor Hugh Brantingham · works for them
• Factor Roger Belasis · works for them

Ties

• permanent rival of the Weavers
• one of the Halls
• quarrel with the Weavers
• one of the Sarrum halls

At the table

The Weavers' 'necessary enemy': in dispute without a break since 4488 under a standing arbitration both ignore, twice bringing the county to the edge of general stoppage. Wray is courteous, numerate and trusted at the October fair. Stapler fortunes have bought into the ring estates. Sends everybody to the October fleece fair. Its permanent quarrel with the Weavers is read as the county-city quarrel by proxy. Thane holds the best information on the clip and no standing to act on it; an hour with him is worth a week at the Halls. More economically important in an ordinary year than any Great House. Two bad clips in the century hit the north hardest, because the staplers can buy elsewhere and the March cannot sell elsewhere.