Staplers (a designation that MLD includes in the Craft field) were a special group of merchants given exclusive right by the crown to purchase English wool for export through and to appointed markets (or staples). Most of the staples on the continent were in the Low Countries; the best known and longest serving staple was at Calais.

No medieval list of English members of the various continental staples survives, so Sutton has compiled this list of Mercer-Staplers chiefly from their activities in the overseas customs accounts for wool exports (TNA E122) and secondly from lists of wool export licenses and general pardons granted to the staplers in the national records. Her main aim was creating material to use in her book, The Mercery of London : Trade, Goods and People, 1130-1578 (Routledge, 2005) to which users are directed for further details. The last addition made by Sutton to the list was August 2004, so sources published since then are not included.

Abbreviations used in Sutton’s list of the Mercer-Staplers:

Merchant Adventurers (a designation that MLD includes in the Craft field) were members of a regulated trading company who exported English cloth in exchange for foreign imports, mainly in northern Europe. The London company received a royal charter in 1407, but smaller companies of merchant adventurers also formed in other ports, such as Bristol and York. The London Mercers who dominated the company focused most of their trade in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century on Antwerp and the cloth fairs in the Low Countries.  In later centuries it came to focus more on Hamburg.

Abbreviations used in Sutton’s list of the Mercer-Merchant Adventurers. Note that some men with the same name may be under one entry—these need to be amended by reference to date of death. Date of the man follows his name — taken from source(s) used. If he was a Mercer, the name is followed ‘m.’ ‘Stapler’ alone means of Calais, but Westminster (Westm) is specified when meant.