In 1310 Edward II's barons, jealous of the Italians' power, drew up ordinances forbidding the assignment of customs to foreigners and calling for the arrest of foreign merchants and seizure of their goods.
Edward became a trader himself, transporting goods in his own ships and those of foreign merchants.
By the 1870s the presence of a number of foreign merchants, many invested in the economically important cotton industry, had led to conflict with the city's inhabitants.
There was plenty of conflict in the country, largely over control of the central government, and heavy taxes on exports, as well as the power of foreign merchants, sapped the profits of farmers.
Philip IV countered or even forestalled the publication of Clericis Laicos with an order forbidding all export of money and valuables from France and with the expulsion of foreign merchants.
While large numbers of the middle class head for the exits, hundreds of thousands of foreign merchants and laborers have put down stakes here in recent years, complicating the portrait of how a brain drain unfolds.
The entrance of foreign merchants and imported goods, although on a much more limited scale than would later be the case, led to competition with, and in some areas the displacement of, local traders and producers.
Fine worsteds, silk, alpaca, and velvet cloths were manufactured in the late 19th century, when an influx of foreign merchants (mainly German Jews) stimulated the trade and assured the commercial supremacy of Bradford over other cloth markets at Wakefield and Halifax.
At the end of the 15th century, when nearly all the Low Countries were united under the Burgundian and Habsburg dynasties, the economic preeminence of Antwerp over Brugge is indicated by the fact that the majority of foreign merchants transferred their residence from the old Flemish town to Antwerp.
Now, in his first interview since, he's leaping out of his chair, still worked up about the 100 salespeople he fired for cheating thousands of foreign merchants–or looking the other way.
