Died 1486
English Merchant And Trader

Obscure Origins. Thomas Betson was a merchant in the wool cloth trade between England and France in the middle of the fifteenth century. His date of birth is not known, and almost nothing is known of his early life, but his activities became much easier to follow as he engaged in correspondence with his suppliers and fellow merchants in the 1470s.

Merchants of the Staple. It is quite common to associate merchants in early modern Europe with cities, because generally only cities had the privilege of engaging in trade, especially important international trade such as the manufacture and export of woolen cloth. Wool was produced in England and woven into fine cloth in Flanders, leading to close commercial and political ties between the two regions. This trade generated so much revenue to the governments of both realms that the English kings...