Laurence of Ludlow (c. 1250–1294) was a medieval English wool merchant, money lender and builder of

Stokesay Castle Stokesay Castle is one of the finest surviving fortified manor houses in England, and situated at Stokesay in Shropshire. It was largely built in its present form in the late 13th century by Laurence of Ludlow, on the earlier castle (some of wh ...

Biography

Laurence of Ludlow was the son of Nicholas of Ludlow, a prominent

Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...

wool merchant. He amassed a fortune in the medieval English

wool trade Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal wool. ...

and established a career as a money lender through his loans to

Edward I of England Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots (Latin: Malleus Scotorum), was King of England from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he was Lord of Ireland, and from 1254 ...

, and other members of the English nobility.Henry Summerson (2005) 'Most Renowned of Merchants': The Life and Occupations of Laurence of Ludlow (d. 1294), Midland History, 30:1, 20-36, DOI: 10.1179/mdh.2005.30.1.20 He purchased the manor of

Stokesay Stokesay is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Craven Arms, in the Shropshire (district), Shropshire district, in the ceremonial county of Shropshire, England. It is just south of Craven Arms on the A49 road, also fleetingly ...

in 1281 and entertained the

Bishop of Hereford The Bishop of Hereford is the Ordinary (officer), ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Hereford in the Province of Canterbury. Until 1534, the Diocese of Hereford was in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church and two of its bishop ...

and the Abbot of Haughmond there in 1290. In 1291, he received a licence from the King to strengthen his

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

with a stone wall and to crenellate the property which subsequently became known as Stokesay Castle.Licence to build Stokesay Castle, 1291, catalogue ref: C 66/110 m. 2 continued, Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward I, 1281-1292, p. 450 By the 1290s, Ludlow was leading a consortium of the most powerful English wool merchants and in 1294, was responsible for the introduction of an export duty on wool termed the 'Maleot'. This satisfied the King's demands for more revenue from the wool trade but placed the burden of the tax on the wool-producers rather than the merchants.Ibid. 76, 78; E. Power, Wool Trade in Eng. Med. Hist. (1941), 7, 9; Ann. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), iii. 389. Ludlow drowned in the English channel during a storm while sailing to Flanders in 1294. Of his death, a

Dunstable Priory The Priory Church of St Peter with its monastery (Dunstable Priory) was founded in 1132 by Henry I for Augustinian Canons in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England. St Peter's today is only the nave of what remains of an originally much larger Au ...

annalist wrote 'and because he sinned against the wool mongers he was drowned in a ship laden with wool'.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ludlow, Laurence of 1250s births 1294 deaths People from Shropshire English merchants Wool merchants