[3] The previous act in 1326 had given the Staple towns legal definition, but the new piece of legislation broadened and widened their trading privileges.

The Act facilitated mercantile credit to promote trade (which supported by a sympathetic King Edward, was also the constitutional duty of the Commons).

It highlighted the weakness of 14th-century debt system, and the need to regulate trade to improve liquidity, after the economic crisis caused by the Black Death.

[4] The staple towns named in the statute were at Newcastle upon Tyne, York, Lincoln, Norwich, Westminster, Canterbury, Chichester, Winchester, Exeter, and Bristol, in England, as well as Dublin, Waterford, Cork, and Drogheda in Ireland.

The collapse of available labour supply increased awareness of trade regulation, and the need to control fraud, implied for England imposition of customs duties at given ports.