‘Sore Decay’ and ‘Fair Dwellings’: Boston and Urban Decline in the Later Middle Ages

Credit and Trade in Later Medieval England, 1353-1532

“…Cain and Hopkins' hypothesis known as 'gentlemanly capitalism' posits a similar growth of fi nancial services in London in the later nineteenth century and a shift in Britain's economic geography along with it, making London both the largest city in the world and the centre of a worldwide empire. 3 Later medieval London could never match those world-encompassing attributes and yet there are striking similarities in process, if not in scale. Th e answer as to why Robert Belle came to London in 1423 must relate to the development of London in this period as a 'primate' city, as the late fi fteenth-century English economy could no longer sustain a large number of medium-sized provincial towns and so was re-organised, by the merchants themselves, to comprise one principal commercial centre-London.…”

“…Nightingale estimates that defaulted debts sent to Chancery might represent about 20 per cent of all credit transactions in the period. 3 If, in the absence of accuratelyrecorded medieval default rates we, cautiously, accept Nightingale's fi gure as an a priori assumption, then if the remaining (conjectural) 80 per cent of successful transactions are added, then the total amount of credit advanced at that time must have been in the region of 680 Staple credit agreements in 1360 alone. Th e mean amount of the defaulted debts in that year was £83 3s 5d.…”

“…Th e Newcastle evidence suggests that credit became more widely available in the decades following the fi rst outbreak of the plague, with 44 Freemen of the City of Chester , ed. Bennett,[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] Freemen of the City of Chester , ed. Bennett, 1-20.…”

“…Borough courts, often referred to as the portmanmoot or portmote , unlike Statute Staple courts or 'pie powder' courts (occasional courts for settling market disputes between borough court sessions), did not devote themselves exclusively to trading or credit disputes. 3 Borough courts were held generally every three weeks, but could be held more often. In Chester, for example, the portmote often met weekly.…”

“…3 All medieval trade depended upon credit-the deferred part-payment for goods sold or advances for future delivery of goods. John Gower, the late fourteenth-century poet and moralist, certainly recognises in the above quote that merchants depended upon debt and perceptively identifi ed the fragility of a commercial system that hinged upon credit.…”