Urban population in late medieval England: the evidence of the lay subsidies

Was there a growth in the proportion of the population living in England's towns in the later middle ages? Uncertainty about national population trends and about the taxation multipliers needed to arrive at population totals has made it difficult to answer this question. A direct comparison of the proportion of taxpayers that was urban in 1377 and 1524 suggests that the urban share of population was static or may even have declined in this period. However, such decline provides no simple index of urban prosperity or decay: a decline in urbanization could be the product of rural buoyancy rather than of urban recession.     

诚信与市场经济的内在关系探析

随着我国社会主义市场经济的蓬勃发展,市场经济既是法制经济,也是道德经济的观念已深入人心。在我国浩瀚的传统道德资源中,诚信思想博大精深。能否深刻认识诚信与市场经济的内在关系,是直接关系到我们能否适应市场经济发展的要求,推动我国社会主义市场经济发展的重大问题。一、     

Usury legislation,cash, and credit: the development of the female investor in the late Tudor and Stuart periods1

This article uses testamentary evidence from Lincoln diocesan court between the 1570s and the 1690s to examine links between inheritance, a rise in money‐lending amongst single women, and an increase in the proportion of women that never married. Two trends emerge: first, more fathers after the 1570s chose to bequeath cash to their daughters; second, they were more likely to restrict access to this portion by age rather than marriage. Assisted by a softening of attitudes towards interest‐bearing lending, these changes offered some single women a measure of financial independence that may have impacted on their marriage decisions.     

基于城乡经济一体化的农村信用、信托体系重建

现有的农村信贷体系难以满足农村经济多层次和多元性的资金需求,影响农村整体信贷功能的发挥。重建基于城乡经济一体化的农村信贷体系,从农村信贷资金运行机制和财税政策等方面予以创新,突出以城带乡,以工促农的经济发展战略,对促进城乡经济协调发展具有重要意义。     

Spanish merino wools and the nouvelles draperies: an industrial transformation in the late medieval Low Countries1

From the seventeenth century, the world's finest wools have been those produced by descendants of the Spanish merino. During the middle ages, however, England produced Europe's finest wools. Not until the fourteenth century does a distinct merino breed appear in Spain; and, before then, 'Spanish' wools were amongst the very worst in Europe, used in the production of only the very cheapest fabrics. By the late fourteenth century, some merino wools were being used in some Italian draperies; but, in the north, long‐held historic prejudices against 'Spanish' wools hindered their introduction, especially into the Low Countries' draperies, which, because of structural changes in international trade, had become re‐oriented to manufacturing luxury woollens, most woven from the finest English wools. From the 1420s, however, disastrous changes in England's fiscal policies so increased the cost of these exported wools that many of the younger Flemish draperies, the so‐called nouvelles draperies, producing imitations of the finer woollens from the older established draperies, decided to switch to Spanish merino wools (often mixed with English wools). By the mid‐fifteenth century, the merinos had indeed improved enough in quality to rival at least the mid‐range English wools. Most of the traditional draperies, however, did not adopt merino wools until much too late, and thus, by the early sixteenth century found themselves displaced by the nouvelle draperies as the leading cloth manufacturers in the Low Countries.     

Bees in the medieval economy: religious observance and the production,trade, and consumption of wax in England,c. 1300–1555

The high and late middle ages saw a significant increase in demand for beeswax, a fundamental component of medieval Christian devotion, spurred by both changing socio‐economic conditions and shifts in religious practice. The vast quantities of wax needed for churches and religious foundations in England drove a thriving international trade spanning from the hinterland of Novgorod to the port of Lisbon, while at the same time encouraging widespread domestic beekeeping. This article considers the impact of supply‐side constraints and increasing demand on wax prices, calculating the cost and quantity of wax purchased by large foundations, parish churches, and individual offerings, to reveal the hitherto underexplored impact of religious consumption on the medieval economy.     

Regulation,rent‐seeking,and the Glorious Revolution in the English Atlantic economy

The rapid rise of England's colonial commerce in the late seventeenth century expanded the nation's resource base, stimulated efficiency improvements across the economy, and was important for long‐term growth. However, close examination of the interests at play in England's Atlantic world does not support the Whiggish view that the Glorious Revolution played a benign role in this story. In the decades after the Restoration, the cases of the Royal African Company and the Spanish slave trade in Jamaica are used to show that the competition between Crown and Parliament for control of regulation constrained interest groups on either side in their efforts to capture the profits of empire. Stuart ‘tyranny’ was not able to damage growth and relatively competitive (and peaceful) conditions underpinned very rapid increases in colonial output and trade. The resolution of the rules of the Atlantic game in 1689 allowed a consolidated state better to manipulate and manage the imperial economy in its own interests. More secure rent‐seeking enterprises and expensive wars damaged growth and European rivals began a process of catch‐up. The Glorious Revolution was not sufficient to permanently halt economic development but it was sufficient to slow progress towards industrial revolution.     

Alien finance and the development of the English economy, 1285–13111

The contribution of alien, particularly Italian, investment to the development of the medieval English economy has provoked opposing views which hitherto have had to rely chiefly on customs records and evidence of Italian loans to the state for statistical evidence. These, though, vary in their coverage and do not record the inland trade. This article uses the Statute Merchant certificates of debt from 1285 to analyse changing levels of commercial investment by alien and denizen merchants throughout all areas of the kingdom. It shows that Italian investment was declining from the 1280s in line with falling imports of foreign silver. It discusses the causes of this decline, and the effect on alien and denizen credit of imports of counterfeit sterling coins produced by European mints. It relates these financial developments in England, France, and Flanders to the sequence of events which led to English merchants increasing their numbers and mercantile capital at the beginning of the fourteenth century when they were first able to establish their domination of the country's export trade in wool.