or cloth merchant, because later Caxton was apprenticed to one of
the richest cloth merchants of London. In those days no man was
allowed to begin business for himself until he had served for a
number of years as an apprentice. When he had served his time,
and then only, was he admitted into the company and allowed to
trade for himself. As the Mercers' Company was one of the
wealthiest and most powerful of the merchant companies, they were
very careful of whom they admitted as apprentices. Therefore it
would seem that really Caxton's family was "of great repute of
old, and genteel-like," as an old manuscript says.*

*Harleian MS., 5910.

Caxton's master died before he had finished his apprenticeship,
so he had to find a new master, and very soon he left England and
went to Bruges. There he remained for thirty-five years.
In those days there was much trade between England and Flanders
(Belgium we now call the country) in wool and cloth, and there
was a little colony of English merchants in Bruges. There Caxton
steadily rose in importance until he became "Governor of the
English Nation beyond the seas." As Governor he had great power,
and ruled over his merchant adventurers as if he had been a king.

But even with all his other work, with his trading and ruling to
attend to, Caxton found time to read and write, and he began to
translate from the French a book of stories called the Recuyell*
of the Histories of Troy. This is a book full of the stories of
Greek heroes and of the ancient town of Troy.

*Collection, from the French word recueillir, to gather.