Medieval Merchants: York, Beverley and Hull in the Later Middle Ages

by Jenny Kermode

Overview

This book is based on the biographies of some 1400 individuals who lived in three northern English towns during the later Middle Ages. It analyzes the many aspects of merchant society: achievements in politics, attitudes toward religion, the family, wider circles of friends and business acquaintances, and the nature and conduct of trade. Merchants were at the core of urban society and played a central role in the development of urban mentalité. This is one of the broadest studies of them yet published, integrating a very wide range of original sources.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521497374
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/28/1998
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series , #38
Pages:	404
Product dimensions:	6.22(w) x 9.33(h) x 1.22(d)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; Part I. Society and Politics: 2. Merchants in town government; 3. Merchant society: families, dependants and friends, the evidence of wills; 4. Merchants and religion, the evidence of wills; Part II. Entrepreneurship and Capital Accumulation: 5. The geography and composition of trade; 6. Transaction costs; 7. Business and finance; 8. Trade and competition; 9. Mercantile estates: profits and losses considered; 10. Conclusion; Appendices; Bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

"[Kermode] offers splendid insights into many aspects of medievqal mercantile ilfe and the fortunes of the late medieval economy." Journal of Economics

"This is an important book, based on meticulous scholarship, enriching our understanding both of trading practices and urban history." Albion

"[Kermode's] book is the end result of weaving the most relevant, or the most representative, or the most idiosyncratic threads from 1,400 merchants' lives i nteh fourteenth and fifteenth centuries." Medieval Prosopography

From the Publisher