Flanders Wool Route

Timeline

1. c. 1200–1300Ghent · FlandersFlemish city guilds controlled cloth production, importing large quantities of English and Spanish raw wool through ports such as Dunkirk and Bruges into the workshops, establishing a fixed seasonal cargo rhythm.
2. 1301–1310Bruges · FlandersBetween 1301 and 1310, the wool route's cargo value reached its peak, with the Bruges fairs becoming the pricing center for raw wool and cloth, where Italian and Hanseatic merchants settled large transactions.
3. c. 1250–1350Champagne–Rhine corridor · Rhine RiverWith the decline of the Champagne fairs, Flemish cloth increasingly traveled south via the North Sea and then the Rhine or Alpine passes, deeply linking the route to the financial networks of Venice and Florence.
4. c. 1350–1500Calais · Pas-de-CalaisEngland progressively restricted raw-wool exports and developed its own domestic cloth industry; the Flanders route shifted toward finished cloth and substitute raw materials, with Antwerp gradually replacing Bruges as the new hub.