On November 5, 1471, Margaret Paston (c. 1420–1484) forcefully wrote to her son John Paston (III), ‘I shall send yw money to by such stufe as I wull haue.’ It seems he had little choice but to do as she instructed and purchase the items from her shopping list.

The fifteenth-century Paston letters are well known and well documented; the shopping lists that they contain are perhaps less so. The exchange of letters between the female family members located in Norfolk and their male relatives living and working in London demonstrates their understanding of the capital as a centre for commercial activity: the ideal place to obtain a bargain. The shopping lists contained in letters written by the Paston women expose the Norfolk-based family's consumption of internationally traded items while also showing them to be ‘savvy’ shoppers. Imbrued in local and national politics, the Paston family's desire and acquisition of international luxury goods – spices, jewels, fabrics – reveal their involvement in a world of trade and economy stretching beyond the borders of Britain. The women skilfully research the costs of imported goods such as sultanas, dates and ginger, alongside luxurious cloth to update their wardrobes, and weapons to defend the family property. The shopping lists embedded within their correspondence demonstrate that an international outlook through the means of economic consumption was part and parcel of the female Pastons’ understanding and practice of running the family's estates and maintenance of their hard-won social status. This essay takes the shopping lists of the Paston women as a starting point from which to explore their appropriation of mercantile practice to other areas of their lives. Does Margaret Paston shop for a bride for her son in the same way she shops for spices? Is she more assertive in requests for weapons than in those for ingredients or fabric? How do Elizabeth Paston (c. 1429–1488) – Margaret's sister-in-law – and Margery Brews (d. 1495) – Margaret's future daughter-in-law – perceive the negotiations over the sale of their own marriages? Do these women use the same methods to barter over marriage settlements as they do over internationally traded commodities? Are they more pragmatic in their shopping for exotic foodstuffs than they are in their marital buying and selling?

AUTHORS?

Despite the frequent use of amanuenses by the Pastons, the woman who sent each letter is undoubtedly its author.