Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- 1 Credit in medieval trade
- 2 Private financial instruments in medieval England
- 3 Partnership in English medieval commerce
- 4 The trade of medieval Europe: the North
- 5 The economic and political relations of England and the Hanse from 1400 to 1475
- 6 Economic relations between eastern and western Europe
- 7 Italians and the economic development of England in the Middle Ages
- 8 The medieval wool trade
- 9 English studies of the customs accounts
- Index
9 - English studies of the customs accounts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Contents
- 1 Credit in medieval trade
- 2 Private financial instruments in medieval England
- 3 Partnership in English medieval commerce
- 4 The trade of medieval Europe: the North
- 5 The economic and political relations of England and the Hanse from 1400 to 1475
- 6 Economic relations between eastern and western Europe
- 7 Italians and the economic development of England in the Middle Ages
- 8 The medieval wool trade
- 9 English studies of the customs accounts
- Index
Summary
I hope you will forgive me if I begin with a personal remark. I abandoned the study of trade for other researches some years ago. However, I often look back with nostalgia to my early work on commercial topics. Compared with my present researches on rural society and demography the work I then did in collaboration with other historians was simple and direct and produced clear and incontestable results. It was a real terra firma: and what gave it its solidity was its foundation in customs accounts. Of all the sources of English economic history, the customs accounts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries appear the fullest, the firmest and the easiest to interpret.
I believe that the customs accounts for the last two centuries of the Middle Ages form a much more abundant series than the sources which serve the study of medieval trade in other countries. For the period in which I am interested we have annual summaries (enrolments) of imports and exports subject to dues for each port and for almost every year. In addition to these summaries (Enrolled Accounts), we have detailed lists, the so-called Particular Accounts, which give details of imports and exports, ship by ship.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Mediaeval Trade and Finance , pp. 353 - 360Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1973