An official site for selling wool. The government decreed that wool could only be sold at certain locations in order to control the trade and to facilitate the collection of customs. Sites often changed as the objectives of royal policy changed. (Waugh, Scott. England in the Reign of Edward III, 238) Market with monopoly for sale of goods, especially wool. (Sayles, George O. The King's Parliament of England, 145) A place with a monopoly of a particular trade, which must all pass through it. The Merchants of the Staple were the wool merchants trading through the wool staple (at Calais from 1363). Staple courts were established in 1353 with jurisdiction in mercantile cases in towns then designated as wool staples, and continued (generally in the same places) after the wool staple was moved to Calais. (Reynolds, Susan. An Introduction to the History of English Medieval Towns, 200)