Enterprise, Money and Credit in England before the Black Death 1285-1349

This book charts the contributions made to the development of the late medieval English economy by enterprise, money and credit in a period which saw its major export trade in wool suffer from the impact of prolonged periods of warfare and high taxation, from internal political conflicts, severe shortages of coin, and from devastating mortality caused by plague. The analysis covers the entire kingdom, while concentrating on the ten counties which recorded the most credit in each period. This chronological arrangement of chapters by short time periods has been chosen to link the relevant totals of credit precisely to the events which might have influenced them. Since credit is a good indicator of economic activity, it shows the extent to which economies were growing or declining throughout the period, and also indicates the reasons for change. Unlike previous historians who have based their judgements mainly on the number of certificates issued by the creditors of those counties, which usually include numerous duplicates, the conclusions in this book are based on the value of their individual transactions which the author has analysed in decadal, or five-year totals when they are most numerous. The use of the actual sums of credit, although very time-consuming to record and analyse, highlights key differences in regional enterprise which arose from differences in the natural assets of a region, and its ease of access to overseas trade. These differences, in turn, influenced the structure of the inland trade, the routes it followed, and the degree to which coin was likely to circulate in the area. 

• ISBN: 978-3-319-90250-0
• Editorial: Palgrave Macmillan
• Encuadernacion: Cartoné
• Fecha Publicación: 11/10/2018
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés