Medieval Market Morality

Life, Law and Ethics in the English Marketplace, 1200–1500

This important new study examines the market trade of medieval

England from a new perspective, by providing a wide-ranging critique
of the moral and legal imperatives that underpinned retail trade. James
Davis shows how market-goers were influenced not only by practical and
economic considerations of price, quality, supply and demand, but also
by the moral and cultural environment within which such deals were
conducted. This book draws on a broad range of cross-disciplinary
evidence, from the literary works of William Langland and the ser-
mons of medieval preachers, to state, civic and guild laws. Davis scru-
tinises everyday market behaviour through case studies of small and
large towns, using the evidence of manor and borough courts. From
these varied sources, Davis teases out the complex relationship between
morality, law and practice and demonstrates that even the influence of
contemporary Christian ideology was not necessarily incompatible with
efficient and profitable everyday commerce.

j a m e s d av i s is Lecturer in Medieval History in the School of History

and Anthropology at Queen’s University Belfast.
Medieval Market Morality
Life, Law and Ethics in the English
Marketplace, 1200–1500

James Davis
c a m b r i d g e u n i ve r s i t y p r e s s
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,
Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press,
New York

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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107003439


C James Davis 2012

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2012

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Davis, James.
Medieval market morality : life, law and ethics in the English marketplace,
1200–1500 / James Davis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-107-00343-9 (hardback)
1. Markets – Great Britain – History. 2. Retail trade – Great
Britain – History. 3. Cities and towns, Medieval – Great Britain.
4. England – Social life and customs – 1066–1485. 5. Social
history – Medieval, 500–1500. 6. Ethics – Great Britain – History.
I. Title.
HF5474.G7D38 2011
381 .109420902 – dc23 2011033054

ISBN 978-1-107-00343-9 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to
in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such
websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
 Contents

List of figures and tables page viii

Acknowledgements xi
List of abbreviations xiii
Notes to the text xvii

Introduction 1
Market trade and traders 3
The commercialisation of English society 9
The transition from feudalism to capitalism 19
Morality in the pre-industrial marketplace 22
Summary 31

1 Images of market trade 34

History and literature 35
Sources of morality 40
Medieval social theory 46
Avarice and trade 49
Price and profit 55
Usury 65
Bargaining and oaths 68
False words and false wares 73
False weights and measures 77
Customers and ‘lyther bargaining’ 79
The merchant 83
Market traders, hawkers and victuallers 96
Middlemen and hoarding 117
Livelihood and credit 120
Repentance and punishment 122
Conclusion 134

2 Regulation of the market 137

Part I: The forums of regulation 141
National legislation 141
Seigneurial markets 144
Chartered boroughs 152

v
vi Contents

Lot and scot 155

Strangers and foreigners 159
Borough government 163
Craft guilds 169
Conclusion 175
Part II: The public marketplace 176
Regulating the public marketplace 179
Sunday trading 184
Order and sanitation 186
Weights and measures 189
Coinage 196
Bargaining and sale 198
Consumer protection 202
Credit, debt and trust 205
Merchant Law 207
Femme sole 211
Usury 213
Quality and fraud 215
Price and profit 222
The assizes of bread, ale and wine 231
Bread 233
Ale 241
Wine 248
Administering the assizes 251
Middlemen 253
Punishment 263
Conclusion 270

3 The behaviour of market traders 274

The markets of Suffolk 275
Part I: The small town markets of Newmarket and Clare 278
Newmarket and its marketing hinterland 279
Clare and its marketing hinterland 284
Sources, courts and officials 289
The assizes of bread and ale 297
Regrating and forestalling 323
Weights and measures 331
Innkeepers and cooks 335
Quality and the consumer 341
Credit and debt 348
Administering the marketplace 368
Enterprise and the efficiency 371
Piety and morality 377
Conclusion 380
Part II: The borough market of Ipswich 382
The government and courts of Ipswich 386
The assizes of bread and ale 391
Regraters 395
Innkeepers 397
Butchers, cooks and fishmongers 402
 Contents vii

Forestallers 405
The market environment 407
Conclusion 408

4 An evolving market morality? 410

Profit and the commonweal in the early modern economy 413
Early modern retailers 419
Middlemen and dearth 433
Thompson’s moral economy 440
Conclusion 447

Conclusion 450

Bibliography 459
Index 506
 Figures and tables

Figures
1. Merchant, vi.18.3, fol. 47v, reproduced by permission of
the Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge. page 84
2. Chaucer’s Merchant, el 26 c9, fol. 102v, reproduced by
permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino,
California. 86
3. ‘Coveitise’ in Piers Plowman, MS Douce 104, fol. 27r,
reproduced by permission of The Bodleian Libraries,
University of Oxford. 99
4. Sleeping pedlar robbed by apes  C The British Library
Board. BL MS Royal 10.e.iv, fol. 149v. 100
5. An ape as pedlar  C The British Library Board. BL MS
Harleian 6563, fol. 100r. 101
6. Pedlar or tinker C The British Library Board. BL MS
Additional 42130, fol. 70v. 102
7. Bakers C The British Library Board. BL MS Royal 10.e.iv,
fol. 145v. 103
8. Victualler or taverner, vi.18.3, fol. 57r, reproduced by
permission of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College
Cambridge. 104
9. ‘Tapster’, reproduced by permission of the Parish Church
of St Laurence, Ludlow. 105
10. A dishonest alewife being cast into Hell, reproduced by
permission of the Parish Church of St Laurence, Ludlow. 108
11. Alewives in a medieval Doom painting, reproduced by
permission of the PCC of Holy Trinity Church, Coventry. 110
12. The Last Judgement: the blessed and the damned  C All
Rights Reserved. The British Library Board, Licence
Number: queunI12. 111
13. The innkeeper  C The British Library Board. BL MS
Additional 47682, fol. 12v. 115

viii
 List of figures and tables ix

14. The cleansing of the Temple  C The British Library Board.

BL MS Additional 47682, fol. 26r. 123
15. The market official, vi.18.3, fol. 62r, reproduced by
permission of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College
Cambridge. 131
16. Alewife and alestake C All Rights Reserved. The British
Library Board, Licence Number: queuni12. 245
17. Bakers and corporal punishment, col/cs/01/004 (Custumal
4, fol. 1r) reproduced by permission of the City of London,
London Metropolitan Archives. 265
18. Baker drawn on a hurdle, BRO MS 01250(1) reproduced by
permission of the Bristol Record Office. 266
19. Marketing hinterland of Newmarket, 1399–1413. 283
20. Marketing hinterland of Clare, 1377–1422. 288
21. Scatter graph of amercements and brewing offences in
Newmarket, 1400–1413. 309
22. Scatter graph of amercements and brewing offences in
Clare, 1377–1425. 310
23. Scatter graph of amercements and baking offences in
Newmarket, 1400–1413. 315
24. Scatter graph of amercements and baking offences in Clare,
1377–1425. 316
25. Scatter graph of amercements and ale-regrating offences in
Newmarket, 1400–1413. 325
26. Scatter graph of amercements and regrating offences in
Clare, 1377–1425. 326
27. Frequency of amercements for trading offences in
Newmarket, 1400–1413. 342
28. Frequency of amercements for trading offences in Clare,
1377–1425. 343
29. Attachments in Newmarket debt cases. 361

Tables
1. Bakers and brewers amerced for breaking the assize,
Newmarket, 1400–1413 301
2. Bakers and brewers amerced for breaking the assize, Clare,
1377–1425 302
3. Baking, brewing and regrating offences in Newmarket,
1400–1413 303
4. Baking, brewing and regrating offences in Clare, 1377–1425 304
x List of figures and tables

5. Newmarket households and their socio-economic status,

1400–1413 307
6. Clare households and their socio-economic status,
1377–1425 307
7. Regraters, cooks and forestallers in Newmarket, 1400–1413 330
8. Regraters, butchers, fishmongers and tanners in Clare,
1377–1425 332
9. The prominent victuallers of Newmarket, 1400–1413 339
10. Value of debt pleas in Newmarket courts, 1399–1413 350
11. Value of debt pleas in Clare courts, 1377–1422 350
12. Regular debtors and creditors in Clare, 1377–1422 352
13. Debt plea decisions in Newmarket, 1399–1413 357
14. Debt plea decisions in Clare, 1377–1422 360
15. Plea decisions for resident and outside litigants in
Newmarket, 1399–1413 364
16. Damages claimed and awarded in Clare and Newmarket
courts 366
17. The innkeepers of Ipswich, 1415–68 399
 Acknowledgements

This book began life as my Ph.D. thesis at Jesus College, Cambridge,

and has since gone through numerous revisions and amendments, par-
ticularly during a British Academy post-doctoral fellowship at Wolfson
College, Cambridge. It was completed during research leave funded by
the Arts and Humanities Research Council. During the long gestation
of this book, I have been touched by the generosity of my colleagues
and friends. There are several people to whom I owe a particular debt
of gratitude. John Hatcher, my supervisor and mentor, has been unstint-
ing with his encouragement, expertise and inspiration. The examiners
of my thesis, Richard Britnell and Richard Smith, have given me excep-
tional support and guidance over the past years. Mark Bailey pointed me
towards the excellent Newmarket sources, while Nicholas Amor gener-
ously allowed me to compare his work on the Ipswich leet courts to my
own transcripts. I am very grateful for Steve Rigby’s expert insights and
challenging comments on Chapter 1. Helen Fulton similarly gave me
advice on the literary evidence, while John Lee has aided me throughout
the drafting process. Kaele Stokes valiantly read the whole manuscript
several times, providing invaluable comments and an unparalleled eye for
detail. Numerous other colleagues have been generous with their time
and advice, challenging me to develop my research. Without them, this
book would have been infinitely poorer: Robert Braid, Chris Briggs,
Bruce Campbell, Catherine Casson, Marie Therese Flanagan, Steve
Flanders, Martin Heale, Derek Keene, Stephen Kelly, Keith Lilley, Chris
Marsh, Ed Meek, Sinead O’Sullivan, Phillipp Schofield, Peter Spufford,
Ted Westervelt, Keith Wrightson and Margaret Yates.
I would like to thank the many librarians and archivists whom I have
encountered during my research, particularly the staff of Cambridge Uni-
versity Library, the British Library, the Suffolk Record Offices of Bury
St Edmunds and Ipswich, and the National Archives. In addition, the
completion of this book would not have been possible without generous
funding from the British Academy and the Arts and Humanities Research
Council. I must also mention further support from the Economic
xi
xii Acknowledgements

History Society, as well as from the Folger Institute, who funded a

superb three-day seminar to discuss issues of market culture (under the
expert guidance of Craig Muldrew). Queen’s University Belfast kindly
provided funds towards reproduction of images. This book was com-
pleted amidst the supportive environment of my colleagues at Queen’s
University who have all provided inspiration during my early career, with
particular thanks to David Hayton, Katy Turton, Paul Corthorn, Andrew
Holmes and Sean O’Connell. Thanks must also go to the staff at Cam-
bridge University Press, especially Liz Friend-Smith, Michael Watson
and the two anonymous readers.
Many other people have provided immeasurable friendship and
encouragement during the writing of this book, and space permits me
to mention just a few: Jane, Alex, Julia, Sinead, Kirsten, Nathan, Vicky,
Yolanda, Dominic, David, Cass, Maria, Andrew, Leanne, Amy, Judith,
Lynsey and Katherine. I must give special thanks to Carol Emerson,
whose love and patience over the last two years have been extraordi-
nary. I owe her a great deal. Finally, the strength of support and love
from my mother and father, and my brother and sister, has always been
unwavering. This book is for them.

j a m e s d av i s
 Abbreviations

Alsford, Towns Medieval English Towns, at:

http://users.trytel.com/∼tristan/towns/towns.html
(accessed 11 October 2009)
Ayenbite of Inwyt R. Morris (ed.), Dan Michel’s Ayenbite of Inwyt,
or, Remorse of Conscience. In the Kentish Dialect,
1340 ad (Early English Text Society, o.s. 23,
London, 1866)
BBC, 1042–1216 A. Ballard (ed.), British Borough Charters
1042–1216 (Cambridge, 1913)
BBC, 1216–1307 A. Ballard and J. Tait (eds.), British Borough
Charters 1216–1307 (Cambridge, 1923)
BBC, 1307–1660 M. Weinbaum (ed.), British Borough Charters
1307–1660 (Cambridge, 1943)
Beverley A. F. Leach (ed.), Beverley Town Documents
(Selden Society, 14, London, 1900)
BL London, British Library
Black Book T. Twiss (ed.), The Black Book of the Admiralty or
Monumenta Juridica, 2 vols. (Rolls Series, 55,
London, 1873)
Bridgwater T. B. Dilks (ed.), Bridgwater Borough Archives,
1200–1485 (Somerset Record Society, 48, 53, 58,
60 and 70, 1933–71)
Bristol F. B. Bickley (ed.), The Little Red Book of Bristol,
2 vols. (Bristol, 1900)
Britton F. M. Nichols (ed.), Britton, 2 vols. (Oxford,
1865)
CChR Calendar of Charter Rolls, 6 vols. (London,
1903–27)
CCR Calendar of Close Rolls, 46 vols. (London,
1892–1963)
Chaucer L. D. Benson (ed.), The Riverside Chaucer
(Boston, Mass., 1987)
xiii
xiv List of abbreviations

CIM Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous, 7 vols.

(London, 1916–68)
CLB R. R. Sharpe (ed.), Calendar of Letter-Books of the
City of London, 12 vols. (London, 1899–1912)
Coventry M. D. Harris (ed.), The Coventry Leet Book
(EETS, o.s. 134, 135, 138, 146, London,
1907–13)
CPR Calendar of Patent Rolls, 54 vols. (London,
1891–1916)
CUL Cambridge University Library
DB A. Rumble (ed.), Domesday Book, 34: Suffolk
(Chichester, 1986)
Dives and Pauper P. H. Barnum (ed.), Dives and Pauper (Early
English Text Society, n.s. 275 and 280, Oxford,
1976–80)
Fasciculus Morum S. Wenzel (ed.), Fasciculus Morum: A
Fourteenth-Century Preacher’s Handbook (London,
1989)
Fleta H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles (eds.), Fleta
(Seldon Society, 72, London, 1953)
Gower, Mirour W. B. Wilson (ed.), John Gower, Mirour de
l’Omme (The Mirror of Mankind) (East Lansing,
Mich., 1992)
Great Red Book E. W. W. Veale (ed.), The Great Red Book of Bristol
(Bristol Record Society, 2, 4, 8 and 16, 1931–51)
Handlyng Synne F. J. Furnivall (ed.), Robert of Brunne’s ‘Handlyng
Synne’, ad1303 (Early English Text Society, o.s.
119, London, 1901)
Henley P. M. Briers (ed.), Henley Borough Records:
Assembly Books i−iv, 1395–1543 (Oxfordshire
Record Society, 41, Oxford, 1960)
HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on
Manuscripts in Various Collections (London, 1907)
Jacob’s Well A. Brandeis (ed.), Jacob’s Well: An English Treatise
on the Cleansing of Man’s Conscience (Early
English Text Society, o.s. 115, London, 1900)
King’s Lynn D. M. Owen (ed.), The Making of King’s Lynn:
A Documentary Survey (Records of Social and
Economic History, new ser. 9, London, 1984)
Leicester M. Bateson (ed.), Records of the Borough of
Leicester, 3 vols. (London, 1899–1901)
 List of abbreviations xv

Liber Albus H. T. Riley (ed.), Liber Albus: The White Book of

the City of London (London, 1861)
Memorials H. T. Riley (ed.), Memorials of London and
London Life in the XIIIth, XIVth, and XVth
Centuries, ad1276–1419 (London, 1868)
Northampton C. A. Markham and J. C. Cox (eds.), The Records
of the Borough of Northampton, 2 vols.
(Northampton, 1898)
Norwich W. Hudson and J. C. Tingey (eds.), The Records
of the City of Norwich, 2 vols. (Norwich, 1906)
Nottingham W. H. Stevenson (ed.), Records of the Borough of
Nottingham: 1155–1485, 2 vols. (London,
1882–3)
Oak Book P. Studer (ed.), The Oak Book of Southampton,
2 vols. (Southampton Record Society, 10–11,
Southampton, 1910)
Parl. Rolls C. Given-Wilson, P. Brand, A. Curry, R. Horrox,
G. Martin, S. Philips and W. M. Ormrod (eds.),
The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England,
1275–1504 (PROME) (Scholarly Digital
Editions, Leicester, 2005)
Piers Plowman, A G. Kane (ed.), Piers Plowman: The A Version –
Will’s Visions of Piers Plowman and Do-Well
(Berkeley, Calif., 1988)
Piers Plowman, B G. Kane and E. T. Donaldson (eds.), Piers
Plowman: The B Version – Will’s Visions of Piers
Plowman, Do-Well, Do-Better and Do-Best
(Berkeley, Calif., 1988)
Piers Plowman, C D. Pearsall (ed.), William Langland, Piers
Plowman: The C-Text (Berkeley, 1978; repr.
Exeter, 1994)
RCh T. D. Hardy (ed.), Rotuli Chartarum (London,
1837)
Red Paper Book W. G. Benham (ed.), The Red Paper Book of
Colchester (Colchester, 1902)
RLC T. D. Hardy (ed.), Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum,
2 vols. (London, 1833–44)
RP Rotuli Parliamentorum, 6 vols. (London, 1783)
Salisbury D. R. Carr (ed.), The First General Entry Book of
the City of Salisbury 1387–1452 (Wiltshire Record
Society, 54, Trowbridge, 2001)
SRO (B) Suffolk Record Office (Bury St Edmunds)
xvi List of abbreviations

SRO (I) Suffolk Record Office (Ipswich)

SRP, i J. F. Larkin and P. L. Hughes (eds.), Stuart Royal
Proclamations. Volume I: Royal Proclamations of
King James I, 1603–1625 (Oxford, 1973)
SRP, ii J. F. Larkin (ed.), Stuart Royal Proclamations.
Volume II: Royal Proclamations of King Charles I,
1625–1646 (Oxford, 1983)
Statutes Statutes of the Realm (1101–1713), 11 vols.
(ed. A. Luders, T. Edlyn Tomlins, J. France,
W. E. Tauton and J. Raithby, London, 1810–28,
repr. 1963)
STC A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, A Short-Title
Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland
and Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad,
1475–1640, 3 vols. (rev. edn W. A. Jackson,
F. S. Ferguson and K. F. Pantzer, London, 1986)
TNA London, The National Archives
TRP P. L. Hughes and J. F. Larkin (eds.), Tudor Royal
Proclamations, 3 vols. (New Haven, Conn.,
1964–9)
VCH Victoria County History
Vices and Virtues W. N. Francis (ed.), The Book of Vices and Virtues
(Early English Text Society, n.s. 217, London,
1942)
Winchester W. H. B. Bird (ed.), The Black Book of Winchester
(Winchester, 1925)
York, i−ii M. Sellers (ed.), York Memorandum Book, volumes
I−II (Surtees Society, 120 and 125, Durham,
1912–15)
York, iii J. W. Percy (ed.), York Memorandum Book, volume
III (Surtees Society, 186, Durham, 1973)
 Notes to the text

Currency and measures

A pound sterling (£) consisted of 20 shillings (s., ‘solidus’) and 240
pence (d., ‘denarius’), with 12 pence to a shilling. A ‘mark’ was worth
two-thirds of a pound (13s. 4d.) and a ‘groat’ was worth 4d.
A ‘quarter’ was a dry measure, equivalent to eight ‘bushels’; a bushel
was equivalent to eight gallons. Other measures included the ‘peck’,
which was equivalent to two gallons or a quarter of a bushel, the pottle
or potel (1/2 gallon) and the ‘quart’ (1/4 gallon). The ell was a measure of
length, particularly for cloth, equivalent to 45 inches in England.
The troy pound was mostly used for money and bread and often delin-
eated in pounds, shillings and pence: 20 pennies to an ounce, 12 ounces
to a pound (lb.), 64 lb. to a bushel, and 512 lb. to a quarter. A tower
pound consisted of 5,400 barley grains, a troy pound of 5,760 barley
grains, and an avoirdupois pound (of 16 ounces) of 7,000 barley grains.
Many other scales were also employed throughout the period covered by
this book, with numerous local variations.

Extracts from contemporary texts

The original Middle English versions of vernacular texts are given where
possible, and modern English translations are provided for certain dif-
ficult words or passages. Middle English includes the letters þ (thorn),
generally pronounced ‘th’, and з (yogh), similar to ‘gh’. Translations of
Middle English, Latin and French texts are either the author’s own or
taken from published sources as referenced.

xvii
 Introduction

The fifteenth-century poem London Lickpenny provides a vivid portrait

of a town’s streets, brimming with the vibrant noises and sights of market
life. Within the marketplaces of medieval London swarmed a multitude
of hawkers, pedlars, cooks and stallholders, all crying their wares and
pestering potential customers:
Then went I forth by London stone,
Throughout all Canwyle streete; Candlewick Street
Drapers mutch cloth me offred anone.
Then comes me one, cryed, ‘Hot shepes feete!’
One cryde, ‘Makerell!’; ‘Ryshes grene!’ another
gan greete Rushes
One bad me by a hood to cover my head –
But for want of mony I myght not be sped.1

The poem portrays a young man from the country who is bewildered by
the cacophony of sounds, but is perhaps also seduced by the contrasting
sights and smells of a commercial world in which money is the prime
motivational force. The writer emphasises the variety of goods on sale, as
well as the belligerent persistence of the vendors. However, a distasteful
undercurrent is implied. A hood lost by the young man is later spotted
by him on a stall, being sold amidst other stolen goods.
A similar touting for wares is seen in the Prologue of William Lang-
land’s Piers Plowman (c.1360–87) in the ‘Fair Field Full of Folke’, in
which cries of ‘hote pyes, hote!, Good goos and grys’2 ring out. Bakers,
brewers, butchers, cooks, taverners, weavers, tailors and other crafts-
men are all represented in this ‘Fair Field’.3 Yet, Langland’s commercial
world, though brimming with opportunities and variety, belied another

1 Gray (ed.), Oxford Book, pp. 18–19, ll. 50–98; BL, MS Harleian 367, fols. 126r–127v.
Authorship is uncertain, but the poem is traditionally attributed to John Lydgate, a monk
of Bury St Edmunds, writing in the early fifteenth century.
2 (hot pies, hot! Good goose and young pig.)
3 Piers Plowman, A.Prol.97–109; Piers Plowman, B.Prol.217–31; Piers Plowman,
C.Prol.221–32.

1
2 Medieval market morality

more insidious, deceitful and harmful environment, where people and

traders competed with each other for material goods, driven by their own
venality, avarice and gluttony. An early fourteenth-century preacher’s
handbook, Fasciculus Morum, described this dualism: ‘A marketplace or
a fair is now filled with people, stocked with all sorts of goods, joyful and
magnificent, and in a little while everyone goes back to his home, one
with profit, another with loss, and the place at once becomes deserted,
ugly, dirty, and contemptible’.4 A thirteenth-century French Dominican,
Humbert de Romans, similarly lamented the quarrels, drinking, fraud,
perfidy and injustice that pervaded medieval marketplaces. He related
the tale of a man who entered an abbey and found many demons in the
cloister, but in the marketplace there was only one, alone on a high pillar.
He was told that the abbey and cloister were arranged to help souls find
God, so that many devils were needed to lead the monks astray. But in
the marketplace, since each man was a devil to himself, just one other
demon sufficed.5
In these examples, the dilemmas of medieval market morality are
starkly evident. The opportunities of commerce and the vital needs it
served were counterbalanced by the realisation that money and profit
dominated trade, which in turn was driven by avarice and self-interest.
It was this paradox that lay at the core of representations of market
traders in the literary and religious works of medieval England. Moral-
ists found it difficult to fit retail traders and middlemen into concepts
of social harmony. Traders were considered to be the epitome of self-
ishness, greed and dishonesty, yet their activities were also recognised as
essential to the sustenance of society. The marketplace was the setting
where these paradoxes and attitudes were played out on a day-to-day
basis. How did medieval people view the market and traders with whom
they interacted; was it the problematic economic and social space that
consternated medieval moralists? This book is an attempt to examine and
evaluate the moral undercurrents and discourses that influenced every-
day medieval market practices, but also to determine the extent to which
the cultural and religious environment both informed and was shaped
by wide-reaching commercial developments. Retail traders, small-scale
artisans and middlemen dominated the transactions of internal trade in
late medieval England (1200–1500). The following study explores how
they were represented in literary and cultural artefacts, how they were
regulated in their commercial affairs, and how they practised their occu-
pations in the marketplace.

4 Fasciculus Morum, pp. 558–9.

5 Cf. Jarrett, Social Theories, p. 164; Murray, ‘Religion’.
 Introduction 3

Market trade and traders

Exchange, commerce and credit have long permeated society, in a daily
and often informal manner, wherever one person has something that
another needs or desires. It is likely that medieval people regularly
bought and sold items and services from each other in an informal
manner, agreeing prices for a pound of apples, the hire of a plough,
the rent of a room, or a day’s wages.6 However, when production and
demand reached a significant level, many marketing practices became
more formal and sophisticated. This does not mean that informal trade
declined, merely that formal institutions developed to assist transactions
and commercial growth. This included not just physical sites for the
facilitation of marketing, but also processes for the movement, sale and
purchase of goods. Regular market places and times, enforcement of
contracts and debts, quality-controls, supervision of prices, and pro-
tection against stolen goods were just some of the devices that helped
lower transaction costs and expedite trade. These marketing develop-
ments not only encouraged new patterns of consumption and expendi-
ture, but may have also shifted contemporary attitudes towards trade and
traders.
In late medieval England, the periodic rural or small-town market, usu-
ally held once a week, was predominant because of the localised structure
of society and the pervasive agricultural economy. Periodicity allowed an
efficient use of time for vendors, who would be ensured a maximum
number of consumers gathered for a minimum time, while consumers
could concentrate their efforts to a single day. In addition, periodicity
facilitated itinerant traders who could not find enough custom in a sin-
gle, permanent location and could thus travel around several markets.
Annual fairs were also held when the surplus agricultural produce of an
area was ready to market in bulk, or to cater for luxury imports or spe-
cialist goods. More frequent marketing, as seen in larger towns, required
heavier and broader consumer demand.
The marketplace was the accepted physical location where regular eco-
nomic, social, cultural and political interchanges took place and attitudes
were readily formed. It facilitated a dynamic congregation of professional
traders, marginal retailers, part-time hucksters, peasant producers and
sundry consumers, who created a hive of haggling, shouting and gossip.
The core of any medieval town was the marketplace, often symbolised by
a market cross. These structures, varying from simple cruciform wooden

6 Schofield, Peasant and Community, pp. 137–9; Britnell, ‘Proliferation’, 211; Britnell,
‘Markets, shops, inns’; Dyer, ‘Hidden trade’, 153.
4 Medieval market morality

pillars to more elaborate stone shelters, were symbolic reminders to

market users of a multiplicity of influences over their activities: the royal
market charter, regulatory oversight by local officials, and the moral
imperatives of divine authority.7 The market cross was the economic,
social and cultural heart of any market town or village. Markets were
thus places where the forces of supply and demand converged, but also
where such economic factors were circumscribed by contemporary reg-
ulations, morals, attitudes and prejudices.
There has been much academic interest in medieval market trade,
particularly in the wake of growing research on commercialisation, inter-
nal marketing networks and small towns. Richard Britnell, Christopher
Dyer, James Masschaele and others have reinforced the historical impor-
tance of smaller markets and towns to the commercial environment of
medieval England. They recognised that small-scale trade was a vital
lifeline for many in an increasingly market-oriented society, and that
petty commodity production and exchange lay at the heart of numer-
ous economic changes.8 There has been less work on market traders
specifically, but Judith Bennett and Heather Swanson have produced
substantial research on brewers and artisans respectively, including the
role of women who often supplemented household income by engaging
in part-time retailing.9 Many women would bake and brew, make butter
and cheese, and raise poultry for meat and eggs, within the context of the
household economy. They were common sights, sitting under the cross
on market day, selling their victuals to raise extra income for the family,
though their profits were often marginal.10
Rodney Hilton also highlighted the pervasiveness of hucksters and
retailers in late medieval England, in both urban and rural settings, full-
time and part-time, male and female.11 In his investigations of Halesowen
and Thornbury, he presented a medieval world dominated by petty pro-
duction and petty retail trade. In particular, he drew attention to the
prevalence of victuallers in court rolls and argued that this demonstrated
both the volume of trade in foodstuffs and the earnestness of authorities
to control such transactions. Hilton suggested that market traders and
retailers were regarded with suspicion and closely controlled, though our
historical perception of such people may have become distorted by the
level of prosecutions evident in late medieval court rolls, as well as the

7 Davis, ‘The cross and the pillory’.

8 Britnell, Commercialisation; Dyer, ‘Market towns’; Masschaele, Peasants; Bailey,
‘Historiographical’; Kowaleski, Local Markets.
9 Bennett, Ale; Swanson, Medieval Artisans.
10 Goldberg, ‘Women in fifteenth-century town life’; Mate, Women, pp. 45–6.
11 Hilton, ‘Lords, burgesses and hucksters’; Hilton, ‘Women traders’.
 Introduction 5

literary representations of cheating and corruption. David Farmer, in

contrast, assumed that retailers and victuallers suffered daily harassment
and opprobrium on the scale suggested by moralists such as John Gower
and William Langland.12 The relationship between the literary and legal
representations of traders is still not clearly understood. Indeed, despite a
number of studies on alewives, the role and behaviour of medieval market
traders more generally has not been fully examined.
Medieval market traders encompassed a wide range of people, engaged
in commerce for a variety of reasons and levels of gain. The following
study concentrates on those that can be broadly defined as engaged in
retail trade, petty wholesale transactions and small-scale commodity pro-
duction, but such individuals ranged from lesser merchants and middle-
men to urban shopkeepers and stallholders, and from itinerant hawkers
and pedlars to marginal and part-time hucksters. Market traders did not
form a contained, self-aware and homogeneous group, but were a broad
and varied constituency. This book is concerned primarily with those
retail traders who sold goods in the marketplaces on a regular or semi-
regular basis, but it is recognised that any who were involved in vending
were expected to abide by legal and moral injunctions. Indeed, retail-
ers merely constituted the base of a commercial pyramid, at the apex of
which resided the wholesaling, international merchants.
The label ‘merchant’ normally conjures up images of a wealthy Staple-
man, exporting wool or cloth in exchange for various luxury goods, which
he then distributed throughout the realm. Typically, he aspired to gentry
life and perhaps retirement to a country estate, where he could enjoy the
benefits of his commercial gains and a higher social status.13 Rosemary
Horrox argued that merchants wanted the best of both worlds, town and
country.14 The activities of such merchants have been widely investigated
by historians, attracted by the abundance of customs records detailing
the trade in international commodities.15 There are also several studies of
individual merchants and their families, as well as research into the mer-
chant class as a whole.16 However, merchants were a rank apart from the
mass of small-scale traders and artisans in late medieval England. Swan-
son suggested that the fourteenth century saw the polarisation of whole-
salers, retailers and artisans into more definitive sub-categories, whereas

12 Farmer, ‘Marketing’, p. 377.

13 Thrupp, Merchant Class, p. 234; O’Connor, ‘Adam Fraunceys and John Pyel’.
14 Horrox, ‘Urban gentry’, pp. 22–44.
15 Power, Wool Trade; Thrupp, Merchant Class; Kermode, Medieval Merchants; Nightingale,
A Medieval Mercantile Community; Spufford, Power and Profit.
16 Hanham, The Celys; James, Studies in the Medieval Wine Trade; Power, Medieval People,
pp. 123–57; Penn, ‘A fourteenth-century Bristol merchant’, 183–6.
6 Medieval market morality

previously ‘merchant’ had been a more generic term.17 By the later Mid-
dle Ages, the designation of ‘merchant’ was confined to those engaged in
wholesale trade, though this covered a range of people, from international
dealers to lowly intra-regional traders.18 Thirteenth-century London,
for instance, was well served by cornmongers, with places like Henley-
on-Thames operating as entrepôts for the collection of London grain
supplies.19 At the higher end of the marketing scale, usually in the bigger
boroughs, there were the merchants and specialised traders who dealt
in imports like dyes, spices and wine, or higher-quality manufactures
like cloth and metalware.20 All these required distribution networks and
would have differentiated the regulatory and political structures in larger
towns from those in small towns and markets. The merchant elite thus
dominated international and regional trade and often governed larger
towns, but they were partially detached from the day-to-day retail trade
in basic, low-value commodities. It was the petty retailers and craftsmen
who represented everyday marketing and who were the main, accessible
link between the peasantry and market dealings.
Retailers were generally poorer and less influential than wholesaling
merchants, and often processed their own goods, sold them from shop
fronts, stalls or moveable carts, or hawked them in the streets. On market
day, simple timber stalls were erected in the marketplace, though over
time some became more permanent in style and structure, encroach-
ing upon the public space. Those without a stall would carry goods in
baskets, either wandering around the marketplace or standing in desig-
nated areas. More substantial retailers might have had permanent shops
under arcades or within a ground-floor room. A typical urban shop was
contained within the front of a house and opened onto the street by
the lifting or removal of window boards. Professional craftsmen-retailers
also had workshops in the yard behind, as well as living quarters above.21
Very often, resident traders with shops might seek to enlarge their com-
mercial space by renting a stall on market day. There is also evidence
that some traders travelled to other markets to sell goods.22 In particu-
lar, there were itinerant pedlars or chapmen who sold minor manufac-
tured goods: cheap clothes, pottery, metalware, buckles, purses, combs
and other knick-knacks. These were often low-quality, small-scale and

17 Swanson, Medieval Artisans, pp. 20, 110–13.

18 Thrupp, Merchant Class, p. 6; Britnell, Growth and Decline, p. 109.
19 Campbell, Galloway, Keene and Murphy, A Medieval Capital, pp. 47–9. The operations
of London cornmongers seem to have contracted significantly after the Black Death.
20 Britnell, ‘Town life’, pp. 148–9.
21 Morrison, English Shops, pp. 19–27; Keene, ‘Shops and shopping’.
22 Mate, Trade and Economic Developments, pp. 23–4.
 Introduction 7

second-hand items, and may have been distributed around regular cir-
cuits of periodic markets.23 Minor middlemen similarly wandered the
countryside in search of raw materials to sell at local markets, particu-
larly staple products such as grain, wool and fish.
There were certainly professional traders, such as brewers, bakers,
cooks, butchers and various artisans, who operated from fixed shops or
stalls as specialised retailers or petty commodity producers. They might
sell goods acquired from local producers or wholesalers, or process raw
materials themselves to retail. Indeed, the craftsmen-retailer or producer-
retailer was common in all market towns.24 However, the level of spe-
cialisation should not be overemphasised.25 Many retailers were general
dealers rather than specialists, seeking profit where they could find it:
taverners were often vintners; chandlers often sellers of wax or tallow
products; innkeepers were brewers and grain dealers. Other traders were
irregular, part-time and ad hoc in their marketing patterns, often as an
adjunct to another primary occupation or domestic activity. For instance,
brewing was a domestic industry which many women undertook on a
supplementary basis in order to earn extra household income.26
Victuallers constituted the most common trading group in late medi-
eval markets, supplying sustenance to an increasing non-agricultural,
landless or smallholding population. Indeed, with fluctuating harvests,
poor transport and a lack of storage facilities (especially for perishables),
the supply of food was a prime consideration for officials. Consequent-
ly, the activities of bakers, brewers, fishmongers, butchers, poulterers
and other producers or sellers of foodstuffs were closely monitored
and intensely regulated. In larger market centres, victuallers were seen
throughout the streets, and probably throughout the week, alongside
cooks who sold the ‘fast-food’ of the Middle Ages – pies, pastries and
breads.27 In a similar manner, inns, alehouses and taverns became an
increasingly dominant part of the everyday marketing landscape, provid-
ing food and drink to a variety of customers.
Many regular victuallers also sold a percentage of their products to
hucksters or regraters, who were purely retailers, buying goods directly
from producers in order to sell them onto consumers. The term ‘huck-
ster’ was frequently applied to those who dealt in small batches of vict-
uals on a casual basis. They were often women (hence the feminine form

23 See Veale, English Fur Trade, pp. 13–14; Davis, ‘Men as march with fote packes’; Davis,
‘Marketing secondhand goods’.
24 Swanson, Medieval Artisans, p. 2; Hilton, English and French Towns, p. 78.
25 Britnell, ‘Specialization’; Kowaleski, Local Markets, pp. 131–2.
26 Mate, Women, pp. 39–40.
27 Carlin, ‘Fast food’; Carlin, ‘Provisions for the poor’.
8 Medieval market morality

‘-ster’), dealing in a selection of low-priced vegetables, poultry and dairy

products. These derived from either their own holdings or from local pro-
ducers, and were then carried into the marketplace in baskets on their
heads or in their arms. Some resided in the market settlement, while
others travelled from the surrounding countryside. They paid the appro-
priate market tolls, and then sold their goods from under the market
cross, in the streets, or occasionally from hired stalls, depending on the
arrangements and costs of the particular marketplace. Many purchased
and resold ale, bread and fish, or diversified into petty manufactures
like coarse cloth, yarn and candles. Hucksters were usually at the bot-
tom of the marketing hierarchy in both status and wealth, making only
meagre gains through trade.28 It appears that hucksters, hawkers and
regraters were closely watched, and authorities were anxious that they
should not usurp the privileges of more permanent retailers, sell sub-
standard foodstuffs, or engage in unacceptable regrating, forestalling or
other price-raising activities.29
At its most basic extent, trade involved manorial officials or peas-
ants, selling surplus agricultural produce or by-products, such as ale and
cheese, and entering the market on a transient basis. Several studies have
emphasised the extent to which the medieval peasantry were producing
goods to sell in nearby markets.30 They sold either to producer-retailers
or directly to consumers. In turn, they would purchase a diversity of
manufactures and commodities, such as pottery, metalwork or cloth,
which they could not find in their own communities. For smallholders
and labourers, there was a great dependence on the market simply for
obtaining basic foodstuffs. But most peasants, whether they held large or
small holdings, also needed to raise cash to pay fines and rents to their
lords.
Market trade thus supplied the small-scale needs of numerous con-
sumers, whether resident or visitors, in foodstuffs and cheap manufac-
tured goods. Traders were a mix of the regular and irregular, the well-off
and the poor, all seeking to make a profit. Periodic markets would throng
to the sound of traders hawking their wares, while a more steady retail
business for victuals and manufactures undoubtedly continued through-
out the week. These petty traders constituted the backbone of a growing

28 McIntosh, Working Women, pp. 130–2.

29 Regrating was the practice of buying goods simply in order to sell them again, without
added value, in the same market at a higher price. The act of forestalling involved the
interception of goods either before they reached the marketplace or before the scheduled
market time. See below, pp. 253–63, for a fuller discussion of these offences.
30 Smith, ‘A periodic market’, pp. 472–3; Schofield, Peasant and Community, pp. 147–8;
Britnell, Commercialisation.
 Introduction 9

commercial system from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, facilitating the

exchange of goods and shaping local market ethics.

The commercialisation of English society

The history of retail trade is an important indicator of the sophistica-
tion of the English economy. Some historians argue that the expansion
of market trade and production was a small, but important, stepping-
stone towards a new form of economic organisation.31 Consequently, the
function and importance of market traders should be examined within a
context of the wider economic and social environment of medieval Eng-
land. Changing economic trends in the later Middle Ages ensured that
petty traders did not remain peripheral or irregular figures. Indeed, it is
important to recognise that there was a proliferation of market traders
from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries and a general immersion of the
English population in commercial endeavours.
Medieval economic history has turned full circle as scholars have
revitalised the study of commercial institutions and practitioners. Late
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century economic historians stressed the
importance of markets and other commercial institutions to the eco-
nomic growth of late medieval England. Ephraim Lipson and Norman
Gras, for example, viewed the rise of monetarisation, merchant oli-
garchies and markets as part of an evolutionary progression towards
a modern economy.32 However, by the 1960s, the dominance of com-
mercialism in economic histories was questioned by Munia Postan, who
advocated a greater emphasis on agricultural and demographic factors,
in the economic tradition of Ricardo and Malthus.33 Postan moved the
historical debate away from markets and monetarisation towards a more
pessimistic model based upon the relationship between resources, pop-
ulation and income. He argued that the striking population growth of
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries caused demand to outstrip available
resources, leading to a decline in living standards. Postan saw agriculture
as stagnant, reliant on poor marginal lands and lacking in technolog-
ical innovation. As the population expanded, resources became scarce
for the peasantry, particularly smallholders and the landless. Land was
subdivided to such an extent that more units of production were unable
to support a family group. Consequently, a growing number of peasants

31 Hilton, ‘Introduction’, pp. 21–7. See below, pp. 19–22.

32 Lipson, Economic History; Salzman, English Trade; Gras, Evolution.
33 Postan, Medieval Economy; Postan, Essays.
10 Medieval market morality

were struggling to subsist on their own landholdings and had to find by-
employment and labouring wages in order to buy their food from local
markets. Postan’s thesis has been criticised, especially in its application to
less populated parts of the realm.34 The model also downplays important
agricultural and technological innovations, efficient and appropriate use
of marginal lands, and questions about the relationship between demo-
graphic trends and economic indicators.35 The complexities of change,
especially considering the stagnant population after the Black Death,
are not convincingly accommodated. Others, employing a Marxist per-
spective, argued that more account was needed regarding the lack of
seigneurial investment and the lordly exploitation of dependent peas-
ants. Hilton and Robert Brenner both suggested that excessive burdens
precipitated a crisis in both peasant welfare and lord–tenant relations,
though John Hatcher argued that such a model neglected the customary
and economic restraints upon lordly action.36
Issues of internal trade thus became sidelined until work in the 1980s
looked anew at the commercial sector, markets, money supply and agrar-
ian innovation. Scholars proposed a model of commercialisation in which
the English medieval economy was driven by an increasing demand for
grain from an expanding population.37 Richard Britnell redeveloped con-
cepts of ‘commercialisation’ in his book The Commercialisation of English
Society 1000–1500, in which he studied changes in the medieval economy
and emphasised the formal institutional frameworks for those changes.38
In particular, he noted that the facilities of commercial exchange grew in
size and number in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This was part of
a wider commercial transformation, which included: a denser, organised
market structure; an increase in the value and volume of coinage in cir-
culation; growing credit markets; urban expansion and new towns; a pro-
liferation of non-agricultural occupations; and a more market-oriented
peasant society. For instance, the urban population may have, on aggre-
gate, doubled over the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, sustained by
immigration from the burgeoning ranks of the rural population.39 Some
towns grew in their physical size and density of settlement, while others

34 Britnell, Britain and Ireland, pp. 85–6.

35 Bailey, A Marginal Economy?; Smith, ‘Human resources’, pp. 202–11; Dyer, An Age,
pp. 30–2.
36 Hilton, Class Conflict; Aston and Philipin (eds.), Brenner Debate; Hatcher, ‘English
serfdom’. For further delineation of these models, as well as additional theories such as
Schumpeter’s model of limits to investment opportunities and catastrophe models, see
Britnell, Britain and Ireland, pp. 84–90.
37 Britnell, ‘Commercialisation’; Bailey, ‘Historiographical’.
38 Britnell, Commercialisation.
39 Miller and Hatcher, Medieval England: Rural Society, pp. 70–1.
 Introduction 11

were new foundations established by lordly enterprise.40 It is difficult

to be exact about the proportion of the medieval population that lived
in towns, especially given the problematic nature of defining an urban
settlement, but most historians assert that some 15–20 per cent lived in
towns by 1300 and that this remained buoyant despite the post-Black
Death demographic decline.41 By the late fourteenth century, London
was still by far the largest city, with a population of over 50,000; this
was followed by the provincial centres of York, Coventry, Bristol and
Norwich (8,000–15,000); some 30–40 towns between 2,000 and 8,000
inhabitants; and over 500 small towns, where half of the aggregate urban
population lived.42
Britnell estimated that by 1300 there was a substantial non-agrarian
sector (perhaps 20 per cent of the population) dependent upon producing
goods and services for sale. In addition, some 20 per cent of agricultural
produce, as well as most wool, was sold through markets.43 In this anal-
ysis, monetarisation, urbanisation and market facilities increased in pro-
portion to demographic expansion. Indeed, in addition to the needs of the
rural peasantry, urban expansion itself both fed and generated demand.
Commercialisation thus enabled a growing population to subsist at the
existing levels of welfare.44 Ambitious landlords were drawn into produc-
ing for the market in order to profit from increasing levels of consump-
tion, and their success was aided by buoyant prices, high rents and cheap
labour. The peak of demesne agriculture consequently occurred during
the thirteenth century.45 The peasant tenants of medium to large hold-
ings also put their surpluses into circulation. Kathleen Biddick showed
that many higher-status peasants were using thirteenth-century Bedford-
shire markets in a proactive manner for commercial gain.46 William Lene
of Walsham-le-Willows (Suffolk) was one such early fourteenth-century
wealthy peasant, whose possessions unusually were listed in the court
roll. He had surplus corn, dairy produce, wool and meat, all of which he
could have sold in nearby markets, as well as russet cloth, linen sheets
and brass pots that he had probably bought there.47

40 Beresford, New Towns.

41 Dyer, ‘How urbanized’; Dyer, An Age, p. 24.
42 Rigby, English Society, pp. 145–6; Holt and Rosser, ‘Introduction’, p. 6; Palliser, ‘Urban
society’, p. 133.
43 Palliser, ‘Urban society’, pp. 115, 120–3.
44 Hilton, English Peasantry, p. 126; Britnell, Commercialisation, p. 164; Bailey, ‘Historio-
graphical’, 308–9.
45 Miller and Hatcher, Medieval England: Rural Society, p. 182; Dyer, Lords and Peasants,
p. 67.
46 Biddick, ‘Medieval English peasants’; Biddick, ‘Missing links’; Dyer, An Age, pp. 25–6.
47 Lock (ed.), Walsham le Willows 1303–1350, pp. 133–5; Dyer, An Age, pp. 25–6.
12 Medieval market morality

A minority of the peasantry may have benefited from the market oppor-
tunities of the thirteenth century, but the majority were smallholders or
landless who faced a period of acute poverty and heavy seigneurial bur-
dens and needed the market for subsistence.48 It has been argued that the
increasing impoverishment of a significant sector of the peasantry meant
that they were compelled to sell their produce in the market. Lords and
the state demanded that certain rents, dues and taxes were met in cash.49
Not all market involvement was thus liberating in the classical economic
mode; it was a dependence on the market driven by necessity rather than
opportunity.50 Nevertheless, the market was instrumental in sustaining
population and urban expansion, and demand came from all sectors
of medieval society. Market exchange also facilitated agricultural and
industrial specialisation and thus increased economic efficiency, though
admittedly this was an uneven process.51 There were limitations to com-
mercial improvements, including an unequal distribution of gains both
socially and regionally, and perhaps a glut of commercial expansion by
the early fourteenth century.
The wider benefits of commercialisation were probably not felt until
after the Black Death when, paradoxically, historians have noted a declin-
ing number of markets and fairs, a monetary slump, agrarian recession
and a crisis in towns. Population decline was perhaps already evident in
the early fourteenth century, but the Black Death of 1348–9 was a signifi-
cant exogenous episode, with up to 40–50 per cent of the population lost,
followed by more than a century of demographic non-recovery.52 Postan
did not regard the fifteenth century as conducive to market-oriented pro-
duction, because the compulsion to grow cereals for cash weakened.53
Instead, he viewed it as an ‘age of recession, arrested economic develop-
ment and declining national income’.54 Postan also noted a depression
in urban areas as well as a decline in corporate towns and marketing,
demonstrated by changing overseas trade, monetary shortage and urban
revenue crises.55 In addition, Hatcher highlighted a general recession in
the mid-fifteenth century, exacerbated by a shortage of coinage.56

48 Dyer, An Age, pp. 107–12. 49 Dyer, Making a Living, p. 168.

50 Britnell, Commercialisation, pp. 121–3; Bolton, Medieval English Economy, p. 137. For a
further discussion of peasants and the market, see Schofield, Peasant and Community,
pp. 131–56; Dyer, Making a Living, pp. 163–78.
51 Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, pp. 411–14, 424–30.
52 England’s population fell from a peak of 4.5–6 million in the early fourteenth century to
2–3 million during the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with little sign of recovery
during the latter period; Hatcher, Plague, pp. 25, 55–7, 68–9.
53 Postan, Medieval Economy, pp. 201–4. 54 Postan, ‘The fifteenth century’, p. 42.
55 Postan, Medieval Economy, pp. 201–5. 56 Hatcher, ‘The great slump’.
 Introduction 13

Anthony Bridbury, in contrast, saw the fifteenth century as a period of

widespread prosperity, ‘resurgent vitality and enterprise’, based mainly
upon the growth of new industries and the resilience of the urban sector
in comparison to rural England.57 He used subsidy returns to argue that
there was an increasing urban share of national wealth, as well as pros-
perity in areas of cloth production and rural industry. Indeed, although
the corporate base of prosperity diminished, the individuals of many
towns often benefited and some towns suffered only short-term fluctu-
ations in their fortunes. Subsequent debates of the 1970s and 1980s on
fifteenth- or sixteenth-century urban decline became embroiled in argu-
ments over evidentiary reliability and inadequacy. Urban documentation
was ambiguous and all too often historians seemed to forget that contrac-
tion was not necessarily commensurate with decline. Decline could be
relative in comparison with other towns or absolute compared to previ-
ous levels. Indeed, a town could be smaller and less wealthy in aggregate,
with decayed buildings, lower populations and falling rents, but its out-
put, trade and income per person might be buoyant. In some respects the
academic controversy floundered on the difficulty of quantifying ‘decay’
or ‘growth’ and on the wide regional and chronological variations which
defied generalisation. Some towns, notably York, Boston, Yarmouth and
Lincoln, suffered in the later Middle Ages, while others did well, particu-
larly London, Southampton, Norwich, Ipswich and Exeter. Many places,
like Colchester, experienced inconsistent fortunes during the post-Black
Death period. The causes of decline were complex, since towns differed in
their manufacturing specialities, regional networks, local circumstances
and overseas markets.58
Many English towns certainly suffered decline due to the fall in total
population and aggregate demand after the Black Death, but a few centres
developed vibrant specialisms and prospered, particularly those towns
which promoted the cloth industry. In the country as a whole, there was
a movement of wealth towards the south-west and south-east, where tex-
tile industries predominated. However, one result of the growing rural
cloth industry was that many erstwhile urban cloth centres struggled.
For places like York and Coventry, the realignment, caused by cheaper
rural manufacturing costs and the development of fulling mills, created
a period of decline. By contrast, Colchester and Ipswich benefited from

57 Postan, ‘The fifteenth century’, pp. 41–8; Bridbury, Economic Growth.

58 The debate on medieval urban growth and decline is extensive. Some of the more
notable contributions include: Dobson, ‘Urban decline’; Phythian-Adams, ‘Urban
decay’; Rigby, ‘Urban decline’; Reynolds, ‘Decline and decay’; Saul, ‘English towns’;
Rigby, ‘“Sore decay” and “fair dwellings”’; Rigby, ‘Late medieval urban prosperity’;
Palliser, ‘Urban decay revisited’; Dyer, Decline and Growth; Dyer, ‘Urban decline’.
14 Medieval market morality

acting as distributors for their surrounding hinterlands of cloth manufac-

ture, though Colchester also experienced short-term fluctuations in its
fifteenth-century economy.59
In general, the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries can best be char-
acterised as incorporating factors of both decline and prosperity. There
was a contraction in population, settlement and cultivation, as well as
evident decline in production, wool exports, grain prices and rents.60
However, Postan recognised that an aggregate decline in national wealth
was compatible with increasing freedoms and standards of living for
some groups. After the mid-1370s, as harvests became relatively plen-
tiful for the existing population, grain and land prices fell and, conse-
quently, demesne farming was less profitable than in times of demo-
graphic expansion. Lordly profits were hit hard by the general shortage
of labour, land abundance, falling grain prices and rising real wages.
Increasing amounts of demesne land were leased in response to these
economic pressures and landlord–peasant struggles also became more
commonplace.61 The manorial system of serfdom subsequently declined
and some peasants prospered by accumulating acres at lower rents and
using their new-found bargaining power to obtain freer copyhold tenure
in place of customary burdens.62 By the mid-fifteenth century there were
numerous substantial tenant farms producing for the market, while larger
demesne production had declined.63 The demographic plunge presented
the peasant elite with new opportunities, creating a divergence between
prosperous yeomen and labourers, but the market conditions still had to
be judged very carefully in order to make a profit.
The economic upheavals had significant implications for the marketing
networks of late medieval England. The demands for exchange facilities
in the thirteenth century had fed a proliferation and formalisation of mar-
kets. But the Black Death and subsequent demographic stagnation meant
that the total demand for grain fell significantly, lordly income decreased
and many rural markets declined or disappeared. In general, retail trade
also fell, but there was a rise per capita in demand for certain goods
and changes in consumption patterns. The labouring classes benefited

59 Britnell, Growth and Decline. 60 Dyer, An Age, pp. 8–9.

61 Dyer, Lords and Peasants, pp. 275–82. Neo-Marxist historians have stressed the social
structure and conflicts between lord and tenant, and have downplayed the part of
demographic changes. See below, pp. 19–22.
62 Bailey, ‘Historiographical’, 300; Britnell, Commercialisation, p. 223. There was a general
movement from customary to contractual tenures, though customary tenures still existed
well into the sixteenth century.
63 Britnell, Commercialisation, pp. 199–201; Dyer, ‘A small landowner’; Dyer, An Age,
p. 3. Postan called these farmers the English ‘kulak’ class; Postan, Medieval Economy,
pp. 138–41.
 Introduction 15

from the population decline through higher wages and a choice of work,
despite attempts by lords to limit their movements and payments. For
an average basket of cereals and peas the spending power of the average
wage-earner increased by 137 per cent from the 1330s to the 1470s, and
for meat and fish twofold.64 Ultimately, living standards increased, and
although the aggregate demand for basic cereals remained slack, there
was a heightened domestic, per capita demand for basic consumer and
manufactured goods, such as meat, cheese, butter, ale, leather, cloth and
pottery.65 Surviving wills for wealthier peasants in Worcestershire show
valuable landholdings and items such as pewterware, furred gowns and
silver spoons.66 Also, the diet of harvest workers developed to include
more fresh meat and stronger ale, while cheaper legumes and grains were
used for fodder rather than human consumption.67
With improved standards of living, consumerism spread slowly down
the social ladder and had profound effects on the goods and services avail-
able and the variety or specialisation of occupations practised. Maryanne
Kowaleski states: ‘The appearance of such occupations as beer-brewer,
butcher-grazier, pewterer and pinner, and increasing specialisation in the
leather, cloth and clothing trades, reflect the impact of growing consumer
demand’.68 Demand for produce from occasional retailers and craftsmen
decreased as consumers sought better-quality wares from professionals
who operated in larger units of production. A wider range of products
were offered and bought in the average market, including imported goods
of cloth, glass, pewter and linen. There were also decreasing transaction
costs and increasing specialisation and production by market traders.
Agricultural producers responded to market conditions by switching to
more commercial outputs like barley, wool and livestock.69
Judith Bennett has argued that the brewing industry was similarly
transformed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, from large
numbers of casual, small-scale and domestic operations to fewer pro-
fessionalised, regular and large-scale enterprises. This was partly driven
by socio-economic changes and technical improvements, including the
greater use of hops for beer-brewing, and also by the increased demand
for ale and beer in alehouses. The introduction of beer from the Low

64 Farmer, ‘Prices and wages’, pp. 491–3.

65 Dyer, Standards; Dyer, An Age, pp. 126–57.
66 Dyer, Lords and Peasants, pp. 352–4.
67 Dyer, ‘Changes in diet’. Bailey found that, in East Anglia, the rabbit altered from being
a luxury commodity in the early fourteenth century to a high-output, medium-priced
commercial concern in the fifteenth century. Bailey, ‘The rabbit’, 10–12.
68 Kowaleski, ‘A consumer economy’, p. 258.
69 Dyer, Lords and Peasants, p. 339; Britnell, Growth and Decline, pp. 144–6; Campbell, ‘A
fair field once full of folk’, 68–9; Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, pp. 430–40.
16 Medieval market morality

Countries and its increasing popularity during the fifteenth century was
surely aided by heightened consumer spending. In towns, in particu-
lar, and in the south and east of England, the brewing industry became
more capital-intensive and male-dominated. Women lacked both the cap-
ital and legal autonomy to compete in this growing industry and Ben-
nett argues that the reputation of the corrupt alewife also contributed
to their exclusion. Many women were forced out of the brewing pro-
cess, while others had to rely solely on retailing in the streets as tapsters
and hucksters.70 Although there are still some examples of women set-
ting up more permanent alehouses and brewing regularly, in both towns
and villages, they were usually supported heavily by their husbands who
were bakers, butchers, fishmongers or artisans. By the sixteenth century,
women brewers were seemingly fewer in number and brewing for sale
became a more full-time, male occupation.
Economic and social changes also precipitated an important realign-
ment in the hierarchy of local marketing centres. Village markets fre-
quently floundered in the new competitive environment, while many
larger boroughs also struggled. It was often small towns that survived and
prospered in this leaner marketing system, especially with the increased
spending ability of the middling peasantry.71 Many historians have turned
their attention away from large provincial towns towards the smaller mar-
ket towns that peppered the country. The importance of these places in
the marketing networks of medieval England has generated a spurt of
modern historical research.72 Hilton highlighted the importance of Eng-
land’s numerous small towns, containing less than 2,000 inhabitants, to
the medieval commercial environment.73 He cited Thornbury as a typ-
ical example of a small town, with a population of about 500 and some
thirty-five separate occupations.74 He recognised that a significant num-
ber of petty transactions took place in this local market town and that

70 Bennett, Ale; Dyer, Lords and Peasants, pp. 347–8; Postles, ‘Brewing’; Clark, Alehouse,
pp. 31–2; Mate, Women, pp. 38–45; Mate, Daughters, Wives and Widows, pp. 59–68;
Mate, Trade and Economic Developments, pp. 60–80. McIntosh examined this transition
in more detail across five market centres and concluded that the female-to-male shift
was fairly abrupt in the late fifteenth century. McIntosh, Working Women, pp. 170–81.
71 Bailey, ‘A tale of two towns’, 351–6; Hilton, ‘Medieval market towns’, 10; Dyer, ‘Hidden
trade’; Dyer, ‘Consumer’, 325; Britnell, Commercialisation, pp. 160–71; Dyer, Making
a Living, pp. 298–313.
72 For studies of small towns, see Bailey, ‘A tale of two towns’; Dyer, Bromsgrove; Hilton,
‘Small town and urbanization’; Postles, ‘An English small town’; Dyer, ‘Small towns
1270–1540’; Dyer, ‘Small places’; Lee, ‘The functions and fortunes of English small
towns’.
73 Hilton, ‘Medieval market towns’; Hilton, ‘Lords, burgesses and hucksters’.
74 Hilton, ‘Small town society’; Hilton, ‘Low-level urbanization’.
 Introduction 17

the development of Thornbury and other such small towns was a good
indication of the progress of commercialisation and urbanisation.
The distinction between a small town and a large village is some-
times uncertain, especially given that many inhabitants of the former
were still engaged in agrarian-based activities. However, the definition
of a small town depends mainly upon evidence of urban characteristics:
a formal market, diverse occupational structure and a non-agricultural
bias. Such urban characteristics have tended to displace the definitions
of early urban historians, such as James Tait, who concentrated upon
the constitutional definition of towns, highlighting their legal privileges
and borough status.75 A borough charter was granted by the Crown or
lord (‘mesne boroughs’), and gave burgesses certain privileges, such as
burgage tenure, freedom from servile dues, structures of self-government
and exemption from tolls.76 Burgage tenure was granted for small plots
of non-agricultural land, often of a standard long and narrow shape, fac-
ing onto a market or road. Such tenure freed burgesses from customary
dues, allowed freedom of transfer and a fixed money rent.77 Burgage ten-
ements, and their associated privileges, were grasped eagerly by traders
and artisans. Generally, larger boroughs gained a high degree of corpo-
rate autonomy, while smaller boroughs had less sophisticated structures
of government and fewer rights. Significantly, however, many other set-
tlements managed to acquire urban characteristics without being granted
borough status, while some boroughs never developed recognised urban
functions.78
Historians now define urban settlements primarily in terms of their
function, particularly focusing on the idea that a majority of the con-
centrated population was engaged in a multiplicity of non-agricultural
occupations.79 While a small-town community contained non-trade pro-
fessionals, such as lawyers and clerks, as well as vagrants, labourers and
servants, the bulk of the residents were petty retail traders and arti-
sans involved in small-commodity production that served local interests
and small purses.80 Additionally, the topography of a small town and
its marketplace, including modest tenement rows and a dense concen-
tration of buildings, were visible guides to urban status. Archaeological
evidence supports the assertion that most small towns were directed
towards processing low-cost agricultural surplus rather than large

75 Tait, Medieval English Borough. 76 Bailey, ‘Trade and towns’, 195.

77 Britnell, ‘Burghal characteristics’, 147.
78 Laughton and Dyer, ‘Small towns in the East and West Midlands’, 26.
79 Dyer, ‘Small places’, 8–9; Holt and Rosser (eds.), ‘Introduction’, pp. 3–4; Hilton,
‘Low-level urbanization’, p. 482.
80 Dyer, ‘Consumer’.
18 Medieval market morality

industrial production.81 Ultimately, there was an intimate interaction

between a market town and its rural surroundings, and a movement
of goods, people and skills that encouraged the commercialisation and
monetisation of society.
Late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century England thus witnessed a
realignment of marketing and consumer patterns. This included a greater
consumption of manufactured and imported goods, which were dis-
tributed through regional mercantile networks. Numerous pedlars and
chapmen supplied the country with goods and this brought them into
direct competition with sedentary merchants. Itinerant traders had lower
overheads, mobility and freedom from town restrictions, and took advan-
tage of the contraction of urban trade and the rise of rural industry.
Pamela Nightingale regarded them as entrepreneurial figures, working
outside traditional and official commercial forums in order to bypass
provincial wholesalers and deal with London dealers directly. This
advanced the distributive position of London at the expense of many
provincial centres. It also led to the greater use of inns as staging and
meeting posts and the need for fewer commercial centres.82
It is possible that individuals were increasingly prepared to trade
beyond the confines of official institutions during the fifteenth century,
where they could evade tolls and tight controls.83 In addition, there
is evidence that alehouses, shops and inns in small towns and villages
were becoming more prevalent. Wage-earners appear to have indulged
in more leisure time, particularly in the alehouse and tavern, and these
institutions grew in number and prominence.84 Tottenham, for example,
saw its first mention of common hucksters, inns and embryonic shops
in the fifteenth-century court rolls.85 However, informal trade activities
had been going on for centuries, including in permanent shops, sub-
urbs, inns and alehouses, and it is difficult to document any changing
balance between formal and informal trade.86 Britnell has argued that

81 Astill, ‘Archaeology and the smaller medieval town’, 48.

82 Nightingale, A Medieval Mercantile Community, pp. 364–9, 440–1.
83 Bailey, ‘Historiographical’, 307; Benton, ‘Archaeological notes’.
84 Hatcher, ‘Labour, leisure and economic thought’; Hatcher, ‘England in the aftermath’,
28–33; Mate, Daughters, Wives and Widows, p. 62; Kowaleski, ‘A consumer economy’,
p. 243. Hatcher suggests that we should not dismiss the medieval criticisms of idle
labourers as mere propaganda, but Dyer argues that the widening consumption possi-
bilities would have motivated peasants to work more, not less. Dyer, ‘Work ethics’.
85 Moss, ‘Economic development’, 112–13. See also McIntosh, Autonomy and Community,
ch. 6; McIntosh, ‘Local change and community control’, 222; Searle, Lordship and
Community, p. 365; Dyer, Lords and Peasants, p. 349; Bailey, Medieval Suffolk, p. 268;
Jeayes (ed.), Court Rolls, iii, p. 17 (1373); Bristol, ii, pp. 71–2.
86 Dyer, ‘Hidden trade’; Britnell, ‘Markets, shops, inns’; Keene, ‘Suburban growth’; Car-
lin, Medieval Southwark, pp. 201–4; Rosser, Medieval Westminster, pp. 121–9.
 Introduction 19

informal or ‘hidden’ trade may not have been superseded by formal prac-
tices during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and possibly even grew
in parallel with commercial developments at that time.87 Indeed, land-
lords are known to have long sold their produce in bulk direct from their
demesnes to woolmongers or cornmongers, avoiding formal marketing
institutions.88
There were, nevertheless, some significant commercial developments
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Even though aggregate demand
had fallen and the number of retailers had declined, it appears that more
of the remaining market traders were becoming full-time, permanent and
professional. They specialised more in their occupation, though often
diversifying in the products they processed and offered.89 The decline
in village markets was a natural consequence of population decrease,
but this local institution failed to recover because increasing demand and
incomes after the late fourteenth century meant that fixed traders in larger
settlements could be more profitable.90 By the fifteenth century, more
commercial products, such as ale, meat, dairy produce, leather and cloth,
were consumed per capita, even if the overall market had understandably
lessened since the early fourteenth century.91 A more substantial and
sustained consumer boom came in the seventeenth century, but its roots
were laid in the new prosperity for many of the post-plague peasantry.
This was a commercial demand that had to be matched by the marketing
strategies of traders.

The transition from feudalism to capitalism

The commercialisation of late medieval English society, including the
growth of petty trade and small-scale commodity production, is part of
a much wider discussion in economic history. In particular, commercial
developments and changes in attitudes towards the market are regarded
as aspects of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. For instance,
Rodney Hilton suggested that the transition from a feudal to a capital-
ist economy was helped as much by petty commercialisation in market
towns as by the growth of merchant capital in larger centres.92 Sim-
ple commodity production, based on small-scale household units, began

87 Britnell, ‘Markets, shops, inns’, pp. 109, 116–18, 121.

88 Britnell, ‘La commercializzazione’, 646–8.
89 Britnell, ‘Specialization’; McIntosh, Autonomy and Community, pp. 208–9, 249–52;
Postles, ‘An English small town’, 13.
90 Plattner, ‘Markets and marketplaces’, p. 190.
91 Dyer, Standards, pp. 158–60, 197–202.
92 Hilton, ‘Medieval market towns’, 22–3. See also Kowaleski, Local Markets, p. 1.
20 Medieval market morality

long before the thirteenth century, but it grew in size and specialisa-
tion as the demand for commodities extended. Hilton argued that feudal
restrictions on such production virtually disappeared by the fifteenth
century, giving free rein to larger-scale agricultural and industrial com-
modity producers. For example, yeomen farmers extensively employed
wage labour and craft production moved out of guild-dominated towns.
In this neo-Marxist argument, relatively unfettered commodity produc-
tion in the fifteenth century was the necessary precondition for later
capitalist production.93
There has been a long-lived debate regarding the ‘prime movers’ for
economic change, including the transition from feudalism to capital-
ism. This has generated three main schools of thought, espoused by
the various adherents of Karl Marx, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo
and Adam Smith.94 The Marxist school stresses property relations and
social crisis. These historians view the pre-industrial economy as driven
and shaped by the nature of property relations and class conflict. The
population-resources school, based on the economic theories of Malthus
and Ricardo, emphasises the stagnancy of the feudal system, the bal-
ance of resources and the prime mover of population change. Lastly, the
‘commercialisation’ viewpoint draws partly on the classical eighteenth-
century economics of Adam Smith, but encompasses many other the-
ories. It focuses on the development of markets, expanding trade and
urban growth as liberating, thus permitting the evolution of greater eco-
nomic efficiency. The proponents of these three schools of thought all
agree that a change in economic organisation took place, but they differ
on how this came about, when the main shift occurred and the prime
causal mover. In many ways, there can be reconciliation between the
theories, as population decline realigned market forces and allowed the
peasantry the bargaining power to more effectively resist lordly exactions
and gain freer conditions of tenure and trade.95
Part of the problem in understanding the process of transition from
feudalism to capitalism is that the term ‘capitalism’ has been accorded a
variety of differing criteria by historians. An old definition saw ‘capital-
ism’ primarily as a system of exchange relations and profit-accumulation,
driven by entrepreneurs and the rise of the market ethic.96 However,
the associated view that the late Middle Ages were fundamentally non-
commercial and dominated by a ‘natural economy’, to which markets and

93 Hilton, ‘Introduction’, pp. 21–7.

94 For a fuller discussion of these, and other, models, see Hatcher and Bailey, Modelling.
95 Hatcher, ‘England in the aftermath’, 5–6.
96 Dyer, ‘Were there any capitalists’, pp. 1–2.
 Introduction 21

money were alien, has long been discarded. Traditionally, towns and mer-
chants were viewed by historians as catalysts in undermining the feudal
system and bringing about a capitalist economy.97 The town, in partic-
ular, was seen as the dynamic harbinger of a new market ethic and as
inimical to feudalism. Postan viewed towns as ‘non-feudal islands in a feu-
dal sea’.98 Conversely, the countryside was static, inert and subsistence-
based, with the feudal system lacking the ability to be innovative and flex-
ible. However, historians now negate this stark opposition between town
and country and have argued that the two had a symbiotic relationship.
Money and credit were both widespread in the rural world and lords and
the peasantry understood market mechanisms very clearly.99 Equally, the
town was embedded in the feudal hierarchy through the structure of its
society, government and local trading networks.100 It is clear, then, that
there was not a straightforward dichotomy between a backward, stagnant
feudal countryside and an innovative, free and mobile urban economy.101
Many marketing transformations took place in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, in both urban and rural society.102 Feudal forces encouraged
trade as much as they were inimical to it.
According to Marxist theory, commerce itself did not transform feudal
society and the transition from a largely subsistence economy to a profit-
based commercial economy was only one aspect of capitalism.103 Change
was instead dependent on internal contradictions within society.104 In
Marx’s view, feudalism involved small-scale production for the use of the
producer or lord. It was predominantly agrarian, with a low level of out-
put and innovation, and the customary relationship between the lord and
tenant was exploitative in appropriating surplus rent and labour services.
In this model, craftsmen were small-scale, independent operators based
upon the household unit. Mostly, they and petty traders lay outside the
basic lord–peasant relationship and transactions between peasant and
trader could not be viewed as directly exploitative.105 In contrast, cap-
italism was an economic organisation where there was large-scale pro-
duction for exchange, with higher levels of accumulation and innovation.
The ownership of production and capital came to be concentrated in

97 Pirenne, Medieval Cities, pp. 213–34; Sweezy, ‘A critique’, pp. 33–56.

98 Postan, Medieval Economy, pp. 212–13, 239.
99 Briggs, Credit and Village Society; Stone, Decision-Making.
100 Hilton, ‘Towns in English medieval society’; Hilton, English and French Towns;
Merrington, ‘Town and country’.
101 For the traditional view, see Lopez, Commercial Revolution.
102 Britnell, Commercialisation; Masschaele, Peasants.
103 Kowaleski, Local Markets, pp. 1–2.
104 Hilton, ‘Capitalism – what’s in a name?’, pp. 268–71.
105 Hilton, ‘Introduction’, p. 21.
22 Medieval market morality

the hands of a few entrepreneurs and separated the labour force from the
means of production, as well as establishing contractual wage relations.106
The growth of commerce and a market economy themselves do not nec-
essarily lead to capitalist methods of production and relations. However,
a capitalist economy did presuppose an effective marketing system, a
money economy, private property and individualism. The commerciali-
sation of the twelfth to fifteenth centuries was perhaps an intermediate
stage in such a transition.107 Increasing levels of market transactions,
specialisation, petty trade and production could be viewed as solvents to
feudal structures.
The movement to capitalist economic production was complex, multi-
causal and far from smooth. Many market systems were already in place
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, while feudalism lingered well into
the early modern period. Indeed, the development of agrarian capital-
ism was drawn out, continuing well into the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, while a truly capitalist factory system of industrial production
did not develop until the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. Instead of
arguing for a direct transition from one economic state to another, some
economists and historians have suggested that there were intermediate,
piecemeal stages. The higher levels of demand and production by the fif-
teenth century led to an increasing division of labour and technological
process, yet only in the cloth industry was demand and capital exten-
sive enough to support the putting-out system and then an embryonic
proto-capitalist organisation based upon mercantile capital.108 Mostly,
there were ad hoc stages of economic organisation, as wage-labour, mar-
kets and mercantile capital developed, and as pre-industrial neo-capitalist
modes formed.

Morality in the pre-industrial marketplace

The transition debate has also involved the issue of a wider mental tran-
sition, whereby collective feudalism was dissolved by the cash nexus,
giving free rein to commodification, ambition, individualism and accu-
mulation. Some have asserted that the increasing market consciousness
of medieval and early modern society led to greater polarisation and a
markedly possessive individualism which displaced ‘common profit’ or
traditional ‘community’.109

106 Britnell, ‘Commerce and capitalism’, 360–1. 107 Ibid., 359–76.

108 Glennie, ‘A commercialising agrarian region’, pp. 367–9.
109 Aers, Community, pp. 15–16, 82–3; McIntosh, Autonomy and Community, pp. 136–
8, 152–66; Kermode, ‘Introduction’, pp. ix–xiii; Muldrew, ‘From a “light cloak”’,
pp. 156–7.
 Introduction 23

In Max Weber’s opinion, writing at the beginning of the twentieth

century, Protestantism (especially Calvinism) offered a rational mental
climate to facilitate the growth of capitalism, with the idea that the accu-
mulation of money was righteous and a sign of being predestined.110
Christopher Hill similarly argued that since the Reformation ‘the sor-
did sin of avarice has been transmuted into the religious and patriotic
duty of thrift’;111 hard work was thus a religious duty and the accumu-
lation of capital was good in itself. This Weberian theory of the ‘Protes-
tant work ethic’ was linked to the notion that Catholicism was tightly
bound to the distributive tradition and was unresponsive to external
forces and the needs of commercial growth. Conversely, Protestantism
was seen to be free to reject past doctrines and respond to secular needs,
thus encouraging a capitalistic and individual ethic (in combination with
structural changes). Yet, orthodox views of merchants frequently changed
in medieval times and there is little evidence to suggest that victuallers
and petty traders were any more or less vilified in the early seventeenth
century than in the Middle Ages. It is also arguable that Calvinist writers
responded to changes in the economy, rather than generating an innova-
tive, ethical stance.
On similar grounds, Richard Tawney disagreed with Weber’s causal
emphasis, but he suggested that there was a noticeable change in eco-
nomic ethics during the early modern period. Tawney argued that there
was general anxiety about salvation because the traditional Church’s atti-
tudes towards trade and money did not seem to reflect the actual changes
people were facing. The dominant contemporary ideology was based on
production for consumption and not trade, and there was no room for the
middle classes or market values.112 Similarly, Lester Little suggested that
commercial developments in the later Middle Ages raised problems of
impersonalism, money and moral uncertainty.113 We must certainly not
underestimate how much late medieval society was infused with a sense of
customary and fixed values, rather than negotiable, market rents. Many
medieval writers did subordinate matters of the economy to issues of
salvation and individual morality.114 However, the arguments of many
economic historians are overly seduced by medieval moral conventions,
and they belie the fact that many moralists, legislators and traders under-
stood market mechanisms and the need to balance ethical stringency
with a sense of pragmatism.

110 Weber, Protestant Ethic.

111 Hill, Puritanism and Revolution, p. 218; Todd, Christian Humanism, pp. 118–19.
112 Tawney, Religion, pp. 30–1; Bisson, Chaucer, pp. 171–2; Parry and Bloch, ‘Introduc-
tion’, pp. 2–3; Parry, ‘On the moral perils of exchange’.
113 Little, Religious Poverty, p. 19. 114 Tawney, Religion, pp. 30–1.
24 Medieval market morality

Several historians have assumed that moral and religious idealism con-
tinually clashed with the practicalities of everyday life in late medieval
England. The Church, in particular, has been characterised as a con-
straint on economic forces due to its conservative stance on credit and
interest and its negative attitude towards trade in general. Postan argued
that Church doctrine and official intervention linked prices with the
divinely ordained structure of society, thus presuming a natural, custom-
ary price. This implied that any changes in prices at times of difficulty
or crisis were deemed unjust.115 Aron Gurevich posited that the Church
stuck to traditional ethics and was slow to recognise any semblance of
market values.116 Similarly, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century his-
torians, such as William Ashley and William Cunningham, viewed the
attitudes of the medieval Church as restrictive and monopolistic. Chris-
tian ethics opposed market change and innovation, and consequently
there was a conflict between ‘restrictionist’ Church policies and the reality
of ‘homo economicus’.117 Based on this approach, many historians have
suggested that law and practice were so hampered by religious strictures
and social disapproval that economic growth was stifled. They argued
that the organisation of medieval trade was burdened by usury laws and
the ethical concept of the ‘just price’, which meant that traders had few
inducements for investment.118
To what extent was the development of market behaviour allied to
an increasing desire to accumulate; part of a supposed evolution from
communal cooperation to the ‘modern’ possessive and individualistic
attitudes of competitive capitalism?119 This paradigm assumes the exis-
tence of ‘organic’, harmonious medieval communities. Yet studies have
demonstrated a more complex picture of a balance between conflict
and compromise, self-interest and community; all part of the long-term
‘shifting boundaries between collective welfare and private property’.120
Another approach, based upon the ‘commercialisation’ model, argues
that there was little mental transition, merely a liberation of the forces
of economic maximisation, innovation and production from the fetters
of religious and social inhibition.121 Indeed, the uniqueness of the ‘mod-
ern’ acquisitive urge and exchange mentality has been questioned. Alan
Macfarlane posited that individualistic and profit-oriented people were

115 Postan, Medieval Economy, pp. 225–6. 116 Gurevich, ‘The merchant’, pp. 275–7.
117 Ashley, Introduction, i, ch. 3; Cunningham, Growth, pp. 9–10. See also Sombart,
Quintessence of Capitalism.
118 North and Thomas, Rise, p. 92; Bridbury, ‘Markets and freedom’, pp. 85–6.
119 Muldrew, ‘From a “light cloak”’, pp. 156–7. 120 Dyer, An Age, ch. 2.
121 Patterson, Chaucer, pp. 324–6; Aston and Philipin (eds.), The Brenner Debate; Hilton
(ed.), Transition.
 Introduction 25

already a significant part of English society in the thirteenth century.122

He and others regarded the repetition of laws and religious condemna-
tions as evidence of a society that ignored moral restrictions. Instead,
individuals were driven by an inherent accumulative and self-interested
streak, with little reference to moral strictures.
Classical economic theorists were proponents of the idea that self-
interest was an innate human characteristic. Adam Smith remarked that
‘human society has an innate propensity to truck, barter and exchange
one thing for another’.123 In the eighteenth century, Enlightenment
thinkers emphasised the inherent individualistic pursuit of profit and
gain, which in turn leads to a desire for greater efficiency in economic
practice.124 Smith was a champion of free-market competition, ‘laissez-
faire’ and ‘invisible hand’ economics, and a disparager of interventionist
regulation. He argued that economic forces and individuals, left to their
own devices, lead naturally to an efficient form of organisation: ‘It is not
from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we
can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest’.125
The market itself will thus bring general material good and benevolence
through the private pursuit of maximum profit: ‘led by an invisible hand
to promote an end which was no part of his intention’.126 The ‘moral
economy’ is superseded by a utilitarian ethic. In Smith’s view, competi-
tive forces should be freely allowed to set the agenda of exchange and all
will benefit.
However, conversely, many historians have argued that classical eco-
nomic theories, based upon free-market forces and the profit rationale,
do not necessarily fit into an age when commercial developments were
constricted by custom, privilege and theology. Cultural forces were cer-
tainly influential in medieval economic choices. For instance, custom-
ary or fixed rents for land could be based on traditional, non-market
relationships in medieval England. Craig Muldrew has also highlighted
how sixteenth-century ideas of debt, credit and trust were deeply bound
up with moral notions of God, sin and salvation.127 Medieval markets,
especially, were embedded in social and cultural controls and thus not
self-regulating and driven by maximising self-interest.128

122 Macfarlane, Origins, p. 163. 123 Smith, An Inquiry, i, p. 25.

124 Ibid., i, chs. 1–3, 9–10. For a short discussion about neoclassical economists who
adopted Smith’s notion of the self-interested, rational economic man, see Muldrew,
‘Interpreting’, 164–7.
125 Smith, An Inquiry, i, pp. 25–7. 126 Ibid., i, p. 456.
127 Muldrew, Economy of Obligation, pp. 130–4; Muldrew, ‘Interpreting’.
128 Polanyi, Great Transformation, pp. 55–76; Polanyi, ‘Our obsolete market mentality’;
cf. Muldrew, ‘Interpreting’, 167.
26 Medieval market morality

The extent to which individuals were always economically rational

and driven by acquisitive impulses, or whether they were constrained
by cultural and social forces, has thus been intensely debated. Were the
market attitudes of medieval man somehow different due to the cultural,
social and political conditions of their time? Similar arguments have been
applied to the absence of free markets, which were allegedly distorted by
‘a variety of non-economic forces, including custom, villeinage and reli-
gious teaching’.129 Consequently, like Weber and Tawney, many histori-
ans have tried to pinpoint when self-interested market relations usurped
traditional paternal and communal values;130 though, in the Smithian
model, this is regarded as a natural, teleological progression where man’s
acquisitive inclinations gradually facilitate the emergence of a true mar-
ket society and modern ‘capitalism’. Indeed, Smith’s analysis has been
highly influential and informed the way in which many view historical
market behaviour. However, the assumptions of Smith’s typology of a
homo economicus have been questioned. Muldrew stated that studies of
historical markets ‘should take into account the cultural meaning which
economic phenomena have for everyday people, and recognise that peo-
ple do make ethical decisions within the market’.131 In his study of early
modern economic relations, he argued that most transactions below the
level of wholesaling were undertaken on trust and credit, based on com-
munal reputation and contractual morals, which both emphasised and
reinforced reciprocal cooperation.132
The interaction between morals, culture, economic rationale, laws and
commercial development is undoubtedly complex. A number of studies
have looked further at this relationship, both in terms of how market
institutions and attitudes were shaped over time and also the connec-
tion to success and prosperity. In particular, those who seek to explain
economic growth often discuss the development of commercial facilities,
behavioural constraints, legal rights, and the rules that make up the ‘eco-
nomic system’. Such systems are not static, nor are human motivations,
despite the implications and assumptions of neoclassical theory. In the
1970s, Douglass North and Robert Thomas argued that the existence of
efficient institutions was a necessary prerequisite for economic growth.
Institutions are defined as sets of rules, procedures and norms designed
to constrain conduct and allocate resources. They are deemed economi-
cally efficient if they serve to equate private costs and benefits with public
costs and benefits. Capitalism has thus been viewed as more efficient for

129 Hatcher and Bailey, Modelling, p. 10.

130 Macfarlane, Origins, p. 163; Appleby, Economic Thought.
131 Muldrew, ‘Interpreting’, 168. 132 Muldrew, Economy of Obligation.
 Introduction 27

economic growth than feudalism and, indeed, North and Thomas con-
ceptualised a steady transition from less to more efficient institutions.133
Institutional arrangements can either restrain incentives for growth or
else enhance economic activity. However, they are not static and may not
always develop towards a more efficient form. An institution might be
the most appropriate to facilitate the lowest transaction costs in a cer-
tain time and conditions, but require active adaptation or innovation as
economic and social conditions change.134
Douglass North also outlined a ‘transaction costs framework’, whereby
the output of goods and services of a society was a function of both the
costs of production and the costs of transacting necessary to produce and
exchange those goods and services.135 The measurement of exchange
efficiency was related to the transaction costs of search, negotiation and
enforcement. The institution of the market itself presented a means of
lowering these costs through the agglomeration of buyers and sellers:
search costs derived from the finding of buyers and sellers with whom
to trade; negotiation costs involved the agreement of quality, price and
place; while enforcement costs accrued in ensuring a bargain was kept.136
It is the variation in these costs which must be borne in mind when study-
ing the efficiency of medieval market administration. To lower them, a
successful market needed to encourage into its midst as many exchanges
as possible, with a variety and quantity of goods. The market also needed
to reduce risk and uncertainty, both in reality and perception, in order
to encourage commercial interaction. To this end, administrative devices
were put in place to ensure a regular time and place for exchanges, a
secure environment, consistent trading guidelines, regulation of dishon-
est dealing, debt-recovery mechanisms, low enforcement costs and good
access. The laws of the market were a fundamental aspect of its efficiency,
in providing bodily and commercial protection to transactors.
However, market institutions are usually complementary to, or embed-
ded in, more traditional institutions. Cultural beliefs are an integral
part of the operation and effectiveness of institutions, such as collec-
tive norms and social networks that can act as a reinforcement for
more formal contract enforcement. North recognised the importance
of behavioural norms and culture in influencing the stability of insti-
tutional frameworks and lowering transaction costs.137 Similarly, Avner

133 North and Thomas, Rise; North, Structure and Change; Hatcher and Bailey, Modelling,
pp. 192–3.
134 Hatcher and Bailey, Modelling, p. 196. 135 North, ‘Transaction costs’.
136 Kowaleski, Local Markets, pp. 179–80.
137 North, ‘Transaction costs’, 559–60, 571–2; North, Structure and Change, p. 19; North,
Institutions; Persson, Pre-Industrial Economic Growth, p. 36.
28 Medieval market morality

Grief has argued that culture plays an influential role in determining the
nature of institutions.138 Traditional cultural forms were not necessarily
incompatible or less efficient than modern, formal market arrangements.
Institutions could be stable because parties found it in their own interests
to follow the rules, and this can refer to both economic logic and cultural
imperatives. Moral norms could modify the degree to which partici-
pants maximised at the margins of production, especially when there was
consensus as to accepted moral behaviour. In the absence of such moral
convictions, the costs of economic organisation increased markedly, espe-
cially given the problem of the free rider.139 In what has been termed
‘free-rider theory’, it was in the rational self-interest of a neoclassical
economic actor to both agree to rules of constraint, but also to disobey
those rules when a comparison of costs and benefits dictated as much.
However, in reality, people probably obeyed the rules even when eco-
nomic rationale suggested they should not. This was because of a wider
context of social opprobrium and the moral constraints of the cultural
milieu.140 Anthropologists have long recognised that the ‘invisible hand’
of rational self-interest alone cannot ensure that individuals will not use
fraud and illegal methods to make profit. Additional behavioural norms
will modify the degree to which participants engage in fair exchange and
hence the level of enforcement costs. These factors become even more
important in increasingly impersonalised marketplaces, where traders are
less open to informal, social constraints.
In the Middle Ages, the formation of ideological constraints was par-
tially embodied by the Church and literature, particularly in their stereo-
types of fraudulent and avaricious traders. Economic activity was viewed
through a general ethical system, extolled by the Church and drawing on
traditional assumptions of an agrarian society, a single Christian com-
munity and social order.141 Profits were expected to be directed towards
good causes and an individual’s own salvation, while profit-making itself
was discouraged as a temptation towards avarice. Assumptions of cor-
ruption underlaid the laws which provided the framework for stable mar-
keting institutions. The problem of the free rider was thus diminished
by communal institutions and ideological conditioning. Accepted moral

138 Grief, ‘Cultural beliefs’; Grief, Institutions.

139 North, Structure and Change, pp. 45–65, 201–5.
140 Dilley (ed.), Contesting Markets, p. 11. Social ideologies develop to understand
behaviour and surroundings, while ethics (or morality) concern what is considered
to be correct behaviour. Attitudes are more individualistic, empirical variations upon
basic ideology and ethics. Ideologies are formed both top-down and bottom-up and
thus there will be variations based on experience and particular perspectives, but there
are certain consensual principles.
141 Muldrew, ‘From a “light cloak”’, p. 157.
 Introduction 29

norms raised the margin at which it was beneficial for a trader to com-
mit flagrant fraud. Consequently, systems of law, morality and sociability
were often directed towards combating dishonesty and heightening the
level of trust. Exchanges required mutual trust and confidence could be
reinforced by both market laws and moral standards. These ideals go
beyond mere economic rationalism and are an important consideration
in discussing the regulation of petty traders. As Britnell suggested, it is
possible that medieval philosophy had a larger impact upon everyday life
than hitherto has been realised.142
The terminology of modern economics can therefore serve as a use-
ful model, but we must be careful not to misunderstand the social and
moral foundations of historic economic relationships and institutions. It
is hazardous to apply modern economic standards to a medieval context.
Farmer and Dyer have rightly pointed out that traders and consumers
were not bound completely by economic theory and modern determin-
istic notions. They often made decisions based upon attitudes, percep-
tions and local knowledge.143 Similarly, the distributive and communal
aspects of market ethics reflected the contemporary economic conditions
of unstable supplies and the widespread need for basic foodstuffs.144 A
fear of famine, dearth and social disorder meant that many town councils
desired detailed supervision of the victual trades, a policy often referred
to as ‘paternalism’. There were both ethical and practical pressures for
close regulation of the marketplace. It is therefore not self-evident that
the medieval authorities saw their role as encouraging or facilitating eco-
nomic exchanges to the exclusion of all other considerations. Civic har-
mony, social unrest, commercial privileges of burgesses and residents,
as well as vested political interests: all were prominent influences. There
was not a straightforward conflict between the Church and market forces.
Instead, society was attempting to reconcile itself to new economic con-
ditions.
Studies by Odd Langholm and Lianna Farber have stressed the sophis-
tication of medieval economic thought, particularly in relation to usury
and just price, which might even have anticipated more modern ideas.145
Similarly, Joel Kaye and Diana Wood both argue that medieval scholars
were prepared to adapt their economic ideas to the changing realities
of the marketplace, providing complex justifications for trade.146 At the

142 Britnell, ‘Price-setting’, 15.

143 Dyer, ‘Market towns’, 18; Farmer, ‘Marketing’; Farmer, ‘Two Wiltshire manors’.
144 Muldrew, Economy of Obligation, pp. 47–8; Dilley (ed.), Contesting Markets, pp. 3–4.
145 Langholm, Legacy of Scholasticism, pp. 1–11, 139–200; Langholm, Economics; Farber,
An Anatomy, pp. 6–8; Baldwin, ‘Medieval theories’.
146 Kaye, Economy and Nature, pp. 16–40; Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 206–9.
30 Medieval market morality

same time, many medieval writers and moralists remained tied to tra-
ditional condemnations of trade. This was the bewildering context in
which economic thought was shifting and contemporary writers tried to
fit changes into conventional justifications. Legislators also shaped laws
that could suit both moral assumptions and vested interests, and the
enforcement of law could be flexibly interpreted and enacted.
This book will demonstrate the complexity and intimacy of the interre-
lationship between morals, law and reality. New economic realities were
introduced into inherited values and behaviour patterns, while economic
developments were undoubtedly influenced by cultural norms.147 There
was no direct conflict between morals, law and reality, but neither was
there a cohesive harmony. Instead, there was a continual flux and realign-
ment in ideology, laws and behaviour, with moral commentary and law
often lagging behind the reality of economic circumstances.148 The ideo-
logical apparatus of the state, in law and religion, tended to extenuate
a particular viewpoint, perhaps to vindicate a particular social model.
However, any ethical consensus was not just formed in the considered
writings of moralists, preachers and poets, but also in the practices, ritu-
als and actions of everyday society. The reception and acceptance of ideas
was as important as their transmission.149 We also need to beware the
notion of a shared, dominant ideology common to all. Instead, we shall
see that there were varied discourses regarding market ethics and com-
mercial morality, which were sometimes contradictory and often involved
compromises between conflicting interests.
Nevertheless, we should not underestimate the importance of the
Church’s standards of morality in influencing market practice and acting
as a lubricant as much as a brake. Christian doctrines and beliefs perme-
ated everyone’s lives in the Middle Ages.150 But this was no simple and
single moral code, imposed from above, which was blindly accepted by
all. The interactions between literary and legal texts from the late Middle
Ages were much more complicated, with writers and compilers drawing
upon a variety of experiences and assumptions. Church moralists, for
instance, often drew directly upon statute law as an exemplar of practi-
cal order. There was a continual process of modification and filtration,
as the practitioners, lawyers and moralists adapted to changing circum-
stances and to one another, deciding what could and should be legislated
and enforced. The Church perhaps became more flexible as commercial
practices developed from the thirteenth century onwards, particularly

147 Chartier, Cultural History, pp. 12–40. 148 Bourdieu, Logic of Practice.
149 Rigby, English Society, pp. 305–6, 320–2. 150
Lilley, Urban Life, pp. 11–12.
 Introduction 31

since, as landholders, they were intricately linked to the developing mar-

ket practices.151 However, there were also aspects of their strict ethics
that aptly suited the circumstances of the medieval marketplace.

Summary
Too many historians and literary scholars have assumed either com-
plete agreement or, conversely, opposition between medieval morals and
practices. Yet, influences upon petty trade were complicated and often
determined by vested interests and shared assumptions. By comparing
different categories of sources, it may be possible to achieve a greater
understanding of the experiences of medieval petty traders, as well as
reveal how these sources can be utilised in social and economic history.152
This book examines the ideological and legal representations of traders
in late medieval England, providing a critical comparison to the practi-
calities of everyday trade. Three different types of evidence are used to
reveal the attitudes and regulations that pervaded the medieval market
and affected the lives of local traders.
Firstly, literary, artistic and didactic sources frequently touched upon
the vices and figures of the marketplace. Chapter 1, in addition to consult-
ing the well-known texts of John Gower, Geoffrey Chaucer and William
Langland, examines a broad range of other cultural productions, such as
sermons, plays, poems, liturgical handbooks and artists’ images. From
the scholarly debates of the thirteenth century through to the secular
complaint poetry of the fifteenth century, the activities of the everyday
marketplace and retail traders were intermittently touched upon as part
of a rhetorical discourse that sought to address more fundamental issues
of virtue and salvation. The writers were seeking to engage with eth-
ical issues and moral concerns, and on occasion the marketplace and
its users provided an expedient explanatory tool. Many of these sources
have been under-used by historians even though they reveal a multiplic-
ity of conceptual and pragmatic attitudes towards the market and trade.
This is partly because the relationship between these cultural outputs and
reception, attitudes and practice is complex. We cannot hope to reveal
the mindset of medieval men in all its diffusion and idiosyncrasies, merely

151 Gilchrist, Church and Economic Activity, pp. 23–47; Little, Religious Poverty, pp. 3–41;
Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 2–6.
152 The approach is analogous to that of the Annales School of historians in the 1950s
and 1960s, such as Jacques le Goff and Georges Duby, who studied medieval social
attitudes (or mentalités) by drawing on a wide range of sources, including literature, in
order to write a history of popular attitudes and behaviour.
32 Medieval market morality

the cultural environment that helped shape their general principles and
influenced their decision-making.
Some of these literary notions and perceptions are mirrored in the
second category of sources, namely statutes, laws and ordinances at both
a central and municipal level. Legislation was a means of expression for
the primary concerns of certain social groups and as a basis for order and
communal trust. In many ways, law itself generated concepts of a mar-
ket ethic. Commercial law was constituted through a variety of forums,
from national statutes and proclamations to civic and guild ordinances.
Chapter 2 provides an overview of the main regulatory developments in
late medieval England and attempts to draw out the prominent themes
and concerns.
However, legislation cannot necessarily be regarded as evidence for
everyday practice, reliant as it was on interpretation and enforcement.
In this context, case studies from towns in Suffolk provide the third tier
of evidence for this comparative study. The court rolls of the Suffolk
towns of Newmarket, Clare and Ipswich form the basis of the empiri-
cal research in Chapter 3, investigating retailers, pedlars and middlemen
in their everyday environment. These case studies concentrate on the
late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and on only one county,
which inevitably compresses our viewpoint into a short chronological
and regional span. However, this level of detail allows us to view the
tangled links between morals, law and practice at a formative time of
economic and social upheaval when many of the debates about a devel-
oping market economy were intense. A thorough reconstruction of small
town and borough retail markets is required in order to understand the
complex environment in which medieval buyers and sellers operated and
interpreted moral discourses about their activities.
Finally, in Chapter 4, a brief examination of early modern market
morality raises questions about longer-term commercial ethics, high-
lighting debates about the apparent continuities of a ‘moral economy’ in
eighteenth-century food markets. Many aspects of medieval commercial
legislation and morality appear to have persisted into the early mod-
ern period, but they represented a more market-oriented outlook than
perhaps some historians have recognised.
The main focus of medieval market laws concerned such concepts as
just price, dishonesty and fraud, middlemen practices and responsibilities
towards the consumer. The retailers and middlemen of basic foodstuffs
and small-scale manufactures undoubtedly bore the brunt of commercial
regulation after the Black Death, as well as having their responsibilities
outlined in great detail by religious commentators and secular moral-
ists. Subsequently, the dominant debate in economic history has been
 Introduction 33

whether medieval theory and practice were in complete alignment or

else divergent and antagonistic. The relationship between morals and
behaviour was certainly complex, with a continual interplay between the
ideas expressed in different forums of religion, literature and law. This
was to lead to flexibility in when and how regulations were implemented
in the marketplace. A greater understanding of how moral perceptions
shaped law and practice is needed, as well as a better sense of whether
the changing social and economic environment forced moralists and leg-
islators to adapt their preconceived ideas to create a distinctive medieval
market morality.
1 Images of market trade

The conduct of market traders, customers and officials was informed

by shared moral concerns, which were reinforced and reflected by the
educated elite of Church and state. Ethical and economic issues relat-
ing to the marketplace were addressed in a variety of sources, by the-
ologians, friars, canonists, moralists and secular complaint poets. They
discussed money, justice, value, profit, contracts, usury and other com-
mercial activity, primarily with moral issues in mind and a focus on the
spiritual salvation of the individual.1 To this end, certain moral prin-
ciples were recurrent throughout the late medieval period, and traders
were reminded continually of their communal responsibilities, especially
towards the poor and vulnerable. In particular, petty victuallers who
supplied the necessities of life were expected to adhere to a consensus
regarding the ‘common good’ and social justice.
Most medieval writers viewed economic practices in terms of moral-
ity, ethics and the values of the Christian Church. However, this should
not lead us to assume that they were ignorant of market forces and the
economic processes that determined the circulation of goods. Indeed,
there was an underlying economic dilemma in many medieval writings
about how to achieve equity and benefit in markets. How were moral
concerns and justice to be met while not inhibiting or undermining
market prosperity and the livelihood of traders? Medieval moralists also
grappled with the seeming contradictions of commercial life. Trade was
often regarded as counter to the Christian ideal of an agrarian subsis-
tence lifestyle, as well as providing unavoidable temptations to sin. Yet,
many medieval writers also recognised that commerce was economi-
cally necessary and even beneficial for the common good. In the context
of growing commercialisation and a developing market society, some

1 For an in-depth discussion of scholarly works, see Langholm, Economics; Langholm,

Legacy of Scholasticism; Langholm, The Merchant; Baldwin, ‘Medieval theories’; Baldwin,
Masters; Gilchrist, Church and Economic Activity; Wood, Medieval Economic Thought;
Kaye, Economy and Nature.

34
 Images of market trade 35

writers demonstrated certain anxieties as they discussed the role of mar-

ket trade within medieval society. They often reacted to the contemporary
economic environment by emphasising the potential sinfulness of com-
mercial pursuits and the constant clash between private motivations and
public duty, between personal interest and the common good. Not all
writers agreed on the relationship of trade to society, or what market
activities were justified; nor did they approach the subject in the same
manner, particularly those writing within different genres.2
This chapter examines prevailing moralistic attitudes towards petty
traders through a range of cultural sources, such as poems, sermons, pas-
toral works, drama and art. These texts and images cannot be divorced
from the social and economic worlds in which they were created and
are therefore valuable residues of contemporary beliefs and assumptions.
This chapter concentrates mostly on texts and images that circulated in
late medieval England, but examples will be drawn from further afield
where appropriate, such as the formative scholastic debates concerning
just price. In studying literary, religious, scholarly and artistic sources,
which have a moralistic content or function, we can uncover some of
the mentalities and cultural attitudes that pervaded late medieval Eng-
land and examine how these views influenced both the regulation and
activities of commerce. However, using literary and religious sources to
determine ‘popular’ attitudes can undoubtedly be problematic and the
methodological pitfalls of such an approach need to be firstly explored
before the substance of the texts can be discussed.

History and literature

The use of literary sources has provoked intense debate in the field of
social history. At the centre of the discussion lies the problem of how
to distinguish conventions of literature from the conditions of real life,
as well as how the differing roles of literary criticism and history should
interact. Literary critics were traditionally interested in explaining the
meaning of a text on the basis of its own content, language and struc-
ture, as exemplified by the ‘new criticism’ of the 1960s and 1970s. This
methodology rendered history superfluous to literature and the mean-
ing of a text was seen to transcend its historical context. However, the
orthodoxy of literary critics over the past forty years has been to dis-
cuss medieval literature more in terms of its broader social context, in an

2 Farber, An Anatomy, p. 5.
36 Medieval market morality

attempt to discern contemporary reception.3 Modern critics now increas-

ingly accept the need to establish a writer’s perception of moral values
and social principles within a specific historical context. This approach
has been termed by some as ‘new historicism’ and involves a careful tex-
tual reading of literary and historical sources, as well as an understanding
of the semiotics, symbolism and other influences which contributed to a
text’s construction.4
By contrast, many historians traditionally considered literature to be
redundant as historical evidence or else concentrated on looking for allu-
sions to real people or events.5 Peter Laslett warned that literary evidence
and conventions can be a trap for the unwary social historian, especially
those who intend to use literary sources as an illustrative and mimetic
adjunct to empirical evidence.6 Such texts are not passive mirrors of
reality, but active and distorting interpretations of society and morality,
embedded in ideological aims and vested interests.7 Historians have now
moved away from purely mimetic schemes and more towards the use
of literature as an historical source which should be interpreted within
the limitations of rhetorical and semiotic conventions.8 Literary texts are
used to reveal a general understanding of social, cultural and political
attitudes.9 The theoretical approaches of literary critics and historians
have become partly reconciled, based upon recognition of the interrela-
tionship and textual qualities of all sources.10
Literary and didactic moral texts do not provide historians with a
straightforward, realistic depiction of society or political events, but such
texts can be used as a gauge for past mentalities and concerns.11 At the
very least, they provide us with a refracted sense of the most prominent
social and moral questions of the day.12 After all, these writers were
attempting to make sense of the world around them, even if traditional
concepts, paradigms and assumptions shaped their way of thinking.13

3 Rigby, ‘English society’, p. 25.

4 Hanawalt, ‘Introduction’, p. xi; Spiegel, ‘History, historicism’; Simpson, ‘Literary criti-
cism’; Sponsler, ‘Society’s image’. Green suggested that this ‘new historicism’, and the
recognition of social context in re-creating the meanings of texts, was an exercise in
reinventing the wheel for historians; Green, ‘John Ball’s letters’, pp. 178–9.
5 Rigby, ‘England: literature and society’, p. 497.
6 Laslett, ‘The wrong way through the telescope’; Mann, Chaucer, pp. 8–9.
7 Rigby, Chaucer in Context, p. 2; Rigby, ‘England: literature and society’, pp. 497–8.
8 See also Davis, Fiction in the Archives, pp. 3–4; White, Content of the Form.
9 Thomas, History and Literature; Fleming, ‘Historians’.
10 Patterson, ‘Critical historicism’; Patterson, Negotiating the Past, p. 44; Aers (ed.),
Medieval Literature, p. 3.
11 Rigby, ‘England: literature and society’; Aers (ed.), Medieval Literature, p. 3.
12 Rigby, Chaucer in Context, pp. 15–16. 13 Stevenson, Praise and Paradox, pp. 3–5.
 Images of market trade 37

Some historians have argued that such texts were often the unrepresen-
tative products of a ruling elite, who were attempting to impose their
doctrines on the majority in order to force conformity and order.14 The
Church and the landholding classes of late medieval England relied upon
the labour and services of the majority and their self-interests were thus
served by legitimising the social model upon which their wealth and sta-
tus depended. However, it is not self-evident that the moralistic ideology
and literature of the clergy was continually divergent from the practice
and beliefs of the people. Some texts partially represent a transmission of
culture from a popular to intellectual level, as in the stories and exempla
of the preachers and the articles of the confessional.15
The extent to which the ideology and ethics of the elite were shared
by all is difficult to ascertain. However, we should remember that the
representations in many cultural artefacts were themselves important
generators of ideologies and daily attitudes, which were bolstered by reg-
ulation and prejudice.16 As a result, we can look at the books, poems and
sermons of the late Middle Ages, which both created and drew upon con-
temporary and traditional beliefs, in order to understand shared habits
of ideology, thought and behaviour.17 Although the thoughts and beliefs
of the average ‘popular’ medieval man cannot be necessarily reproduced,
there are remnants of the formal cultural context within which society
operated. Ultimately, in the absence of letters, diaries and other self-
written texts by market traders from late medieval England, historians
are reliant upon the opinions and cultural productions of the literate
elite. This chapter will therefore draw upon sermons, compilations, trea-
tises, plays, poems, satire and pastoral works to understand how they
presented the moral ‘mentality’ that underlay medieval trade and the
inherent paradoxes of commercial activity.
There has been a long tradition of academic work on the ‘merchant
class’ and their social ambitions, pious anxieties and literary portray-
als. Sylvia Thrupp, Jenny Kermode, John Thomson and others have
examined the mercantile class and religious justifications for trade based
upon criteria of national prosperity, risk and charitable offerings.18 The
medieval merchant was thus portrayed as courageous and enterprising,

14 Strohm, Social Chaucer, pp. 2–9; Duby, The Three Orders, pp. 76–109, 271–92.
15 Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture, p. 2; Karras, Common Women, p. 105.
16 Spiegel, ‘History, historicism’, 77; Bennett, Ale, p. 123; Mann, Chaucer, p. 8.
17 Platts, ‘South Lincolnshire’, pp. 18–20; Chartier, Cultural History, pp. 27–9, 47–8.
18 Thrupp, Merchant Class; Kermode, ‘The merchants’; Kermode, Medieval Merchants;
Gurevich, ‘The merchant’; le Goff, Time, Work and Culture, pp. 29–42; Thomson,
‘Wealth, poverty’. For a discussion of justifications provided for merchant endeavours,
see pp. 90–5.
38 Medieval market morality

undertaking long, risky journeys and reconciling their apparent acquis-

itive urge with a moral and social conscience. Mercantile endeavours
were appreciated in terms of financial benefits accrued to the kingdom
as a whole. This was linked to actual developments within the mercantile
community, as many had become owners of landed property, married
into knightly families and acted as moneylenders to the princes and
nobles of Europe. These wealthy businessmen and burgesses aspired to
the position and trappings of the gentry, as well as to traditional indicators
of social status.19
The lives and images of these prosperous wholesale merchants were
a far cry from the portraits of petty traders, often characterised as
grotesques or figures of ridicule or shame. These ranged from lecher-
ous alewives and faux-friendly innkeepers, to flirtatious peddlers and
stinking tanners. There has been an increasing interest in the literary
portrayals of petty traders and in their importance for social historians.
Rodney Hilton’s work on small towns is a case in point. He compared
William Langland’s ‘Rose the Regrator’ (from Piers Plowman, written
c.1360–87) with court cases in the borough of Thornbury and decided
that ‘Langland’s world was not a world of low life, but of normality’.20
Another significant study was Bennett’s examination of alewives, in which
she highlighted the often virulent fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century
depictions of female traders.21 Yet, representations of retailers, hawk-
ers, peddlers, stallholders and minor middlemen as a group merit fur-
ther attention, particularly as a means to uncovering prevalent attitudes
towards market trade.
Several scholars have examined the portrayal of brewers and bakers in
Piers Plowman from a literary perspective. David Aers, in keeping with
‘new historicism’, realised the need for a greater awareness of the real
commercial environment in studying the emotional responses of Lang-
land and other moralists to petty traders.22 Aers has argued that the
changing social and economic circumstances of medieval England influ-
enced writers of moral texts. In this viewpoint, society became increas-
ingly steeped in market values and this was reflected in the increasing

19 Horrox, ‘Urban gentry’; Kermode, Medieval Merchants, pp. 110–18; Thrupp, Merchant
Class, pp. 290–3; Rigby, English Society, p. 193.
20 Hilton, ‘Women traders’; Hilton, ‘Lords, burgesses and hucksters’; Hilton, ‘Small town
society’.
21 Bennett, Ale, pp. 122–44; Bennett, ‘Misogyny’. Hanna argued that Judith Bennett
had succumbed to mimetic tendencies in her views on the representations of alewives.
Hanna, ‘Brewing trouble’. For Bennett’s response, see Bennett, Ale, p. 226. Also, for a
brief comparison of the ale trade in literature, law and court rolls, see Britnell, ‘Morals’.
22 Aers, Chaucer, pp. 1–37; Aers, Community, pp. 1–20.
 Images of market trade 39

representations of money, avarice and merchants in clerical and lit-

erary texts.23 Patricia Eberle has similarly argued that such commer-
cial language and values infiltrated all social groups, rather than simply
merchants, by the late fourteenth century.24 Other literary critics have
commented on Geoffrey Chaucer’s seemingly conflicting attitude in
accepting the ambiguities of the post-Black Death market while he also
condemned the supposedly rampant cash nexus.25 New historicists often
stress the interaction between texts and contemporary power relations,
and whether authors sought to challenge or reinforce the existing social
hierarchy.26 They have, however, tended to overstate the context of com-
mercial changes after the plague, which in turn informs their reading of
Chaucer and Langland. Historians now tend to agree that such commer-
cial changes occurred long before, with the main expansions in urban
society, money and trade taking place during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.
Nevertheless, the Church and moralists were not as at variance with
contemporary economic practice to the extent that some historians and
literary critics have previously suggested. It must be remembered that
the Church in England was a prominent landowner and the clergy were
actively involved in commercial matters, selling agricultural produce and
buying a variety of commodities.27 They knew well enough the changes
that were taking place in the market between 1200 and 1500, at least
from the perspective of a landlord, producer or consumer. It is clear that
conventional stereotypes and imagery dominate many texts. Ecclesias-
tical writers and moralists were certainly presenting ideals of behaviour
within traditional ideological models and were not seeking to directly
reflect reality, but the market and traders were useful rhetorical devices
to pinpoint areas of contemporary concern. Commercial developments
from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries were a vibrant context. The
petty trader was also a strong presence in society throughout these cen-
turies and presented challenges to theological thought and conventions.
Such traders were a class apart from the gentrified aspirations of the
provincial and city merchants, and much more relevant to the majority
of the population. There are references to market traders and victuallers

23 Aers, Community, pp. 171–3, 176; Yunck, Lineage, pp. 185–6, 235–6, 273; Shoaf, Dante;
Murray, Reason and Society; Coleman, English Literature, p. 64. The personification of
money was an increasingly common theme in medieval compositions, such as ‘Sir Penny’
(fifteenth century). Greene (ed.), Early English Carols, p. 261, no. 392; Sisam and Sisam
(eds.), Medieval English Verse, pp. 441–2, no. 196; BL, MS Sloane 2593, fol. 26v.
24 Eberle, ‘Commercial language’.
25 Knight, Geoffrey Chaucer; Patterson, ‘No man his reson herde’, pp. 114–15.
26 Rigby, ‘England: literature and society’, p. 498; Rigby, ‘English society’, pp. 25, 30.
27 Gilchrist, Church and Economic Activity.
40 Medieval market morality

in a host of medieval works, such as William Langland’s Piers Plowman

and John Gower’s Mirour de l’Omme.
This chapter concentrates primarily on sources of English provenance,
though this includes a broad sweep of secular, religious, elite and pop-
ular material. From the sermons, devotional handbooks and exempla of
clerics and friars to the literature of Langland and Chaucer, via the mis-
ericords and wall-paintings of parish churches and the satirical poems of
John Lydgate and John Skelton, we can begin to piece together the moral
framework that influenced and reflected the thoughts of all medieval
market users.

Sources of morality
The Church was the dominant cultural force in medieval English soci-
ety, forming opinions and shaping attitudes. From the scholars who
passed through the monastic, cathedral and university doors to the priests
preaching from the pulpit and taking confessional, Christian doctrine
permeated all sectors of life. In everyday life, the Christian calendar
and church bell marked time, while the Church courts had jurisdiction
over a host of daily sins, from oaths to Sabbath-breaking.28 Within the
Church, the apparatus of liturgy, sermons, pastoral texts, wall-paintings
and sculptures was a continual reminder of God’s ultimate jurisdiction
over men’s souls. Images of the Last Judgement and damnation in Hell
were evocative reminders of the eternal pains of secular sin and the need
for spiritual salvation. For medieval people bombarded with such con-
cepts, it is likely that religious and moral undercurrents could not be
easily separated from their everyday material concerns.
One of the foundations for many didactic and pastoral texts, as well
as the categorisation of trading abuses, lay in the Church reforms of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which sought to reinvigorate the interest
of congregations. Such motivations were abundantly clear in the procla-
mations of the Fourth Lateran Council, convened in 1215. The prime
aim of the Council was for a clearer and more effective transmission of
Church doctrine to the general laity. The delegates feared that congrega-
tions misunderstood basic doctrines. The Council thus demanded com-
petent preaching, regular confession and better-educated clergymen.29
For instance, the Lambeth Council of 1281, summoned by John Peck-
ham, Archbishop of Canterbury, commanded parish priests to teach
their flock the main doctrines of Christianity: articles of the creed, Ten

28 Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 2–3.

29 Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections, pp. 229–30.
 Images of market trade 41

Commandments, two angelic precepts, seven works of mercy, seven chief

virtues, seven deadly sins and seven sacraments.30 Various manuals were
written for the clergy to aid them in their pastoral duties, as illustrated by
the Summa Confessorum by Thomas de Chobham (c.1216), William of
Pagula’s early fourteenth-century Oculus Sacerdotis and a popular cate-
chism by Archbishop Thoresby of York in 1357.31 These works provided
guidance for priests in how to communicate with their unlearned con-
gregations, adapting the dogma of Christian morality to the practicalities
of daily life.
Many of these works were conventional, basic and derivative in their
formulation. However, simultaneously, the growing mendicant move-
ment of Franciscans, Dominicans and others developed popular rhetor-
ical ideals within the framework of the vernacular sermon.32 To aid
this purpose, many mendicants produced devotional manuals (for exam-
ple, Somme des Vices et des Vertues (c.1279) by Dominican friar, Lorens
d’Orléans) to forge a link between theology and secular morality, and
to integrate pastoral doctrines with popular proverbs and humorous
anecdotes.33 These friars provided a new impetus for preaching in
English, with their emphasis upon clear, entertaining sermons that could
both interest and educate. Anxious to engage with their listeners, preach-
ers increasingly drew upon popular oral culture,34 while their attempts
to empathise with their lay audience left a legacy of socially relevant
stories, exempla and admonitions of supposedly real abuses.35 Preach-
ers launched direct attacks upon everyday life when tackling the sins of
human conduct, which mixed together conventional tales with popular
observations that appealed to the layman. As Stephen Langton said in
the early thirteenth century, ‘very often a popular story is more effective
than a polished subtle phrase’.36

30 Powicke and Cheney (eds.), Councils and Synods, ii, pp. 886–918 (see also, i, p. 268);
Wilkins (ed.), Concilia, ii, p. 54.
31 Broomfield (ed.), Thomae de Chobham; Simmons and Nolloth (eds.), Lay Folks’ Cat-
echism. See also Newhauser, Treatise, pp. 142–7; Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections,
pp. 232–4; Langholm, The Merchant.
32 Pfander, Popular Sermon, pp. 1–14; Spencer, English Preaching; d’Avray, Preaching.
33 Dan Michel’s Ayenbite of Inwyt (c.1340) and The Book of Vices and Virtues (c.1400) were
later English translations of Somme des Vices et des Vertues.
34 Thompson, ‘Popular reading tastes’, pp. 83–9; Smalley, English Friars, pp. 41–4;
Spencer, English Preaching, pp. 80–1; Withington, ‘Braggart’, 124–5.
35 Tubach, Index Exemplorum; Grisdale (ed.), Three Middle English Sermons, pp. x–xxviii;
Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections, pp. 288–96. An exempla collection was compiled by
John Bromyard (d. 1352), an English Dominican, and was widely used by preachers.
Bromyard, Summa Predicantium. See also Crane (ed.), Exempla of Jacques de Vitry;
Little (ed.), Liber Exemplorum; Swan (ed.), Gesta Romanorum; Wenzel, Latin Sermon
Collections, pp. 322–5.
36 Roberts, Studies, p. 47.
42 Medieval market morality

Numerous English sermons survive from the fourteenth and fifteenth

centuries, such as the Festial sermon collection (c.1400) of John Mirk,
an Augustinian canon from Shropshire.37 Festial was produced to aid
clergy in their own preaching: ‘so that whoever wishes to study in it shall
find readily for all the principal feasts of the year a short sermon that is
necessary for him to teach and for others to learn’.38 By including simpli-
fied examples from daily life, clerics perpetuated popular stereotypes and
reinforced them by continual exposure. Emphasis on the penitential pro-
cess reinforced categorisation and was responsible for a clerical approach
that was preoccupied with outlining sin and repentance. Works for private
moral instruction included Handlyng Synne, Somme le Roi and the Book
of Vices and Virtues, all of which classified sins and virtues so that laymen
could examine their own consciences regarding transgressions commit-
ted in their everyday lives. Ayenbite of Inwyt, written in c.1340 by a monk
named Dan Michel, was specifically intended for popular consumption,
stating:

þis boc is ywrite

uor englisshe men þet hi wyte
hou hi ssolle ham-zelue ssriue
and maki ham klene ine þise lieu39

The laity was therefore continually bombarded from the pulpit and the
confessional with an ‘authorised’ view of conduct, sin and morality, which
they absorbed into their thinking and basic assumptions. Because most
people were illiterate, the images that adorned church walls, pews and
stonework were equally effective devices in transmitting summarised cul-
tural messages. ‘Psychomachia’ (Battle of the Vices and Virtues), the
‘Seven Deadly Sins’, the ‘Wheel of Fortune’ and the ‘Dance of Death’
were all popular images in the churches of medieval England, and acted
as visual aids for preachers.40 Dives and Pauper (c.1405–10), an English
didactic treatise, stated, ‘for often man is more steryd be syghte þan be
heryng or redyngge’.41 For many people, the iconography of church
painting and sculpture, alongside sermons, was the only formalised

37 Erbe (ed.), Mirk’s Festial. 38 Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections, pp. 58–9.
39 (This book is written / for English men that they know / how they shall themselves
confess / and make them pure in this life), Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 5. See also Handlyng
Synne, pp. 2–3, ll. 43–4, 54–6 – ‘For lewde men y vndyr-toke / On englyssh tunge to
make þys boke’ (For unlearned men I undertook / In English tongue to make this book’).
40 Katzenellenbogen, Allegories; Anderson, History and Imagery, pp. 83, 145–53, fig. 90;
Anderson, Imagery of British Churches, pp. 164–71.
41 (for often man is more stirred by sight than by hearing or reading.) Dives and Pauper, i,
i, p. 82, ll. 41–2.
 Images of market trade 43

education they received. They were certainly the only explicit moral
codes they were expected to follow.
Many images were simply aesthetic or humorous in purpose, and it
is all too easy to over-interpret their relationship to morality lessons or
everyday life. Certain works, such as illuminated manuscripts, were also
aimed at more prosperous levels of society, including the upper com-
mercial class, and their broader appeal may be questioned. However, the
wider influence of many religious images and moral messages can be dis-
cerned. For instance, a varied audience attended the mystery plays and
morality plays that flourished in the fifteenth century. These plays often
highlighted the struggle for man’s soul between good and evil, using alle-
gorical figures of particular vices to emphasise the message. The Castle
of Perseverance, a morality play written in c.1425, illustrates the struggle
between the seven deadly sins and the seven moral virtues, and each
vice or virtue appears as an allegorical figure.42 The influence of the
local environment and contemporary social debates in such plays is also
notable, and the use of the alewife in the early sixteenth-century Chester
Mystery Play demonstrates how everyday life could be incorporated as a
didactic and humorous device.43
Other works, often more secular in nature or author, also reinforced
medieval moral codes. It is in the complaint poetry, debate prose and
satirical literature, which blossomed in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen-
turies, that we find explorations of numerous social issues, including
the problems of trade. Examples include The Simonie, Wynnere and Was-
toure and Song of the Husbandman. These poems highlighted the evils
of society and made topical allusions within conventional paradigms.
Often, they called for the correction of sins in vitriolic and bitter terms.44
Although the writers presented themselves as espousing the common
will, they were usually intellectuals or clerics who had the technical
skills to produce verse and reflect the stock phrases and methods of the
pulpit.
William Langland’s Piers Plowman is an exceptional example of com-
plaint verse combined with theological allegory, and in his work can be
found all the emotions of anger, lamentation, bitterness and despair that
were so resonant of the genre. The author, about whom we know little,
was concerned with the condition of society and the redemption of men’s
souls. He and many complaint poets argued for reforms of Church and

42 Bevington (ed.), Medieval Drama, pp. 227–35, 637, 791–2, 822–9.

43 See below, pp. 106–7.
44 Maddicott, ‘Poems of social protest’; Kinney, ‘Temper of fourteenth-century English
verse’.
44 Medieval market morality

society, advocating a nostalgic return to a traditional social order which

was based on tripartite or estates ideology.45 They wanted people to turn
away from excessive material desires, for such actions had apparently
corrupted social relations and spiritual salvation. Each estate or profes-
sion was criticised for falling short of the required standards for social
harmony, from fraudulent traders to cheating lawyers, vain nobles and
bribable officials.
English literary texts may have regurgitated clerical concerns about
sin, confession and penance, but there was also a more subtle recogni-
tion of social and economic realities that conflicted with Christian ide-
als. Traditional ideology and stereotypes could be adapted to changing
circumstances and writers could disagree on their significance.46 Com-
plaint poems are saturated with references to civil law, political events
and everyday activities. The audiences for written texts, both secular
and clerical, were also both widening and deepening. Increasing lay lit-
eracy, especially among the merchant class, meant that many writers
sought to appeal to the sensibilities of their audience. They proffered
contemporary social commentary while also plundering the resources of
traditional rhetoric.47 However, the extent to which well-known writers
like Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower found audiences among mid-
dling merchants and urban burgesses is difficult to ascertain.48 Gower
addressed his works to Richard II, the Archbishop of Canterbury and
courtly nobility, and the use of French in Mirour de l’Omme (c.1376–9)
certainly limited its audience. Copies of Confessio Amantis (c.1386–93)
were seemingly disseminated via stationers and the use of the vernac-
ular in this text suggests that Gower intended it to be read aloud to
knightly and gentry audiences.49 However, the issues of strict morality,
law and order, religious piety and conservative reform that dominated his
texts showed no affinity for the common people, and were intended to
appeal mainly to the concerns of the nobility and aspirant local worthies.
Even ‘lesser’ writers of complaint poems, and other cultural outputs that
reached a wider audience, were rarely themselves merchants and certainly
not petty traders. Authors, therefore, viewed the local markets from the

45 See below, pp. 46–9. 46 Rigby, ‘England: literature and society’, p. 507.
47 Justice, Writing and Rebellion, pp. 31–3; Middleton, ‘Audience and public of Piers Plow-
man’, pp. 101–3; Edwards, ‘Manuscripts and readers’; Thrupp, Merchant Class, pp.
162, 248–9. For the commonplace books of Richard Hill, a grocer, and John Colyn, a
mercer of London, containing a variety of poems, romances, petitions and other texts,
see Gray (ed.), Oxford Book, p. xviii; BL, MS Harleian 2252.
48 Strohm, ‘Social and literary scene’.
49 Yeager, ‘Gower’s French audience’; Edwards and Pearsall, ‘Manuscripts’; Coleman,
‘Lay readers’.
 Images of market trade 45

vantage point of the consumer, producer or landlord, supporting their

needs above all others, and were perhaps suspicious of certain market
mechanisms.
Sources that reveal contemporary attitudes towards traders were there-
fore wide-ranging in their form, audience and style, leading to divergent
conceptions of the market. Some texts made great use of satirical humour
in order to contrast social realities with traditional ideals of morality and
spirituality. Geoffrey Chaucer was impressive in his subtle use of irony,
satire and individualistic traits to highlight estate stereotypes in The Can-
terbury Tales (c.1388–1400). He concentrated on the pomposity and self-
importance of figures such as the Merchant, Sergeant of Law, Physician
and Guildsmen, as well as the ways in which their occupations shaped
their character and implied dubious practices. John Gower was more
didactic and verbose in his approach. He sought to explore the moral
and religious failings of all degrees of society and couched his traditional
rhetoric within the schema of a world turned upside-down and the loss of
a golden past. Vernacular literature, in general, demonstrated an increas-
ing tendency to incarnate traditional ‘types’ as realistic personifications
located in contemporary settings, which appealed to the audience’s own
sense of propriety and ideological assumptions.
However, the broader social rhetoric and moral goals of all these works
tended to be similar.50 Ultimately, the Church provided the official reli-
gious and social framework that medieval writers drew upon. We must
therefore avoid falling into the trap of believing that English society was
deteriorating and that commercial fraud was omnipotent. Many of the
exempla and doctrines were merely copied from older manuals, while
vernacular works rarely strayed beyond generalisations and conventions.
Additionally, although parishioners were confronted with Church doc-
trines on a regular basis and probably accepted many of the basic prin-
ciples, we cannot know how they actually interpreted the details. One
preacher suggested that the laity viewed the world through practical eyes:
‘If a preacher speaks about the contempt of the world, a host of worldly
thoughts cries out in opposition: “How is that so? The more goods you
will have, the more good you will be able to do”. And so they do not allow
the voice of God’s counsel to be heard.’51 The set formulae and ideal-
istic aspirations of moral writings are not an open window into men’s
thoughts, and merely provide us with the contexts and teachings that
helped to shape medieval mentalities.

50 Rigby, ‘England: literature and society’, pp. 499–500, 508.

51 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laudian Misc. 511, fol. 61v; translated by Spencer,
English Preaching, p. 95.
46 Medieval market morality

Medieval social theory

Basic, long-held tenets of faith and structures of thought were integral to
the moralists’ view of trade. Medieval notions of justice, work ethics and
social order were thus important elements in any discussion of trading
behaviour. The main model of social organisation was the three estates
theory. In this model, society was divided into three orders: the clergy
(oratores: those who prayed), the nobility (bellatores: those who fought)
and the labourers (laboratores: those who worked). This tripartite social
theory was based on assumptions of stability, order, privilege and con-
formity, rather than individualism and social mobility. The ideal was
for harmonious, stable interrelationships within a strict social hierarchy,
based more upon feudal concepts of the insolubility of land and rent
than the fluidity of money and commerce. This was not intended to be
a straightforward reflection of reality but rather an ideological abstrac-
tion. The rhetoric of the three estates was primarily a tool to consolidate
the powers and vested interests of the ruling orders, and Georges Duby
and Maurice Keen have argued that the concepts of the model were
largely accepted and internalised.52 Differences in rank were regularly
defined, whether in lists of precedence or taxation.53 Medieval people
were encouraged to accept their given role in society and perform accord-
ing to their degree. Inequality was an integral part of the model and those
who questioned the hierarchical structure were seen as committing the
sin of pride.
However, in reality, society was much more fluid than medieval social
theories implied, with retailers and artisans aspiring to the mercantile life
and peasants ambitious for improvements in their status.54 Such ambi-
tion was evident before the Black Death, but the plague provided new
opportunities for social mobility. As Stephen Rigby has argued, people’s
actual behaviour did not suggest a society that deferred to traditional
social models.55 Later legislation, in the form of the Statute of Labour-
ers of 1351 and sumptuary laws of 1363, 1463 and 1483, as well as
the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, show both raised tensions and attempts to

52 Duby, The Three Orders, pp. 76–109, 271–92; Keen, English Society, pp. 1–15. For exam-
ples of such rhetoric in the late fourteenth century, see Bromyard, Summa Predicantium,
‘Civitas’; Stockton (ed.), Major Latin Works, ‘Vox Clamantis’, bk. iii, ch. 1, p. 114,
bk. v, ch. 15, p. 215.
53 Furnivall (ed.), Babees Book, pp. 186–95, 381. This placed merchants as being above
gentlemen and equal with squires, preachers, masters of chancery, franklins, and ser-
jeants of law. Mann, Chaucer, appx a, pp. 203–6.
54 Rigby, ‘English society’, pp. 26–30; Du Boulay, An Age, pp. 61–79; Keen, English Society,
pp. 22–3, 40–1.
55 Rigby, ‘English society’, p. 34.
 Images of market trade 47

preserve an idealised social and feudal hierarchy.56 The sumptuary laws

defined what clothes and apparel could be worn, and conceptualised the
social strata as being based on detailed criteria of either landed income
or urban wealth. The precedence and security of landed wealth remained
paramount, with merchants needing five times the value of goods that
an equivalent gentleman had in annual rents from land in order to dress
to the same standard. The sumptuary laws, however, were difficult to
enforce and the 1363 statute was actually repealed the following year.57
Such legislation illustrates that recurrent attempts were made, some-
times unsuccessfully, to defend the established hierarchy from upstarts
and social upheaval. Social mobility and tension was also consistently
highlighted in literature. Peter Idley, in a mid-fifteenth-century moral
treatise, complained that it was hard to tell ‘a tapester, a cookesse, or a
hostellers wyffe [wife] ffro [from] a gentilwoman’, while Chaucer por-
trayed the guildsmen pilgrims being adorned with daggers and clothes
that presumed to a higher status than they deserved according to sump-
tuary legislation.58
Some medieval models of traditional estates theory were modified to
include finer gradations of other classes and occupations, notably mer-
chants and craftsmen.59 In the late fourteenth century, Thomas Brinton
(c.1330–89), Bishop of Rochester, included merchants and artisans as
the left hand of the social body, while citizens and burgesses formed the
heart.60 Each part of the body was assigned a particular task necessary
for the health and common good of the whole. This organic metaphor

56 Statutes, i, pp. 311–13, 25 Edw III st.2 cc.1–7, ‘Statute of Labourers’ (1350–1); i,
pp. 379–81, 37 Edw III c.5–11 (1363); ii, pp. 399–402, 3 Edw IV c.5 (1463); ii,
pp. 468–9, 22 Edw IV c.1 (1482–3).
57 Rigby, ‘English society’, p. 34.
58 Scattergood, ‘Fashion and morality’; Hodges, Chaucer and Costume, pp. 135–6; Chaucer,
Canterbury Tales, ‘General Prologue’, p. 29, ll. 361–78; d’Evelyn (ed.), Peter Idley’s
Instructions, p. 163, Liber Secundus, ll. 267–9; Lisca, ‘Chaucer’s guildsmen’, 321–4.
The statute of 1363 stated that artisans and yeomen should not wear cloth of a higher
price than 40s., nor stone, silk, silver, girdle, knife, ring, garter, riband, chains, gold or
embroidered. Merchants, artisans and burgesses, with goods worth more than £500,
could wear clothing akin to esquires, but with no gold, embroidered, ring, and buttons,
nor silk, silver, riband, girdle or fur, unless they had goods over £1,000. Statutes, i,
pp. 380–1, 37 Edw III cc.9–11 (1363).
59 Hilton, ‘Status and class’.
60 Devlin (ed.), Sermons of Thomas Brinton, pp. 109–17, sermon 28. The head was formed
by the king, princes and prelates, the eyes by judges and councillors, the ears by the
religious, the tongue by doctors, the right hand by soldiers, and the feet by farmers and
labourers. This drew upon John of Salisbury’s social model in Policraticus (c.1159) that
failed to include merchants, whom he regarded as involved in a sordid, selfish occupation
and unable to contribute to the public good. See also Rigby, English Society, pp. 306–
9; Mohl, Three Estates; Dickinson (ed.), Policraticus; Nederman, ‘Virtues of necessity’;
Brodie (ed.), Tree of Commonwealth, pp. 46–7; Nottingham University Library, MS 50
48 Medieval market morality

was intended to stress the reciprocal and complementary structure of

hierarchical society, where all have to work justly and assiduously in their
role in order for the body to function properly. Thomas Wimbledon’s
sermon at Paul’s Cross in 1388 declared: ‘And so eueri man trauayle
[labour] in his degre, for whanne þe euen is come þat is þe ende of þe
world, þanne euery man shal take reward, good oþer euyl, after þat he haþ
trauayled here’.61 Sin was the disruptive force that disrupted the unity of
the ‘body’. Individuals were directed to reform and turn away from sin
in order to return society to a golden age of justice and harmony;62 this
was considered to be as important for merchants and traders as for any
other class. In the 1320s, the writer of The Simonie stated:

Fore somtyme were chepmen þat trewly boзt and solde;

Now is þe sise ybroke, and was noзt зore yholde.
Cheffare was woneþ to be ymaynteneþ al with trewþe;
And now is al torneþ to trecherie; and þat is moche rewþe.63

Similarly, John Gower declared: ‘In olden days everyone acted well, with-
out deceit and without envy. Their buying and selling was honest, without
trickery. But now everything is changed; if one speaks the truth, another
lies. Very few are good companions. Therefore, one sees nowadays that
everything is getting worse – both trades and merchandise.’64 This con-
vention of lamenting a lost ‘Golden Age’ not only emphasised the sins
and corruption supposedly current in late medieval England, but also the
possibility of reform with divine help, providing people performed their
pre-ordained duties. Such accusations against merchants and traders
were therefore part of a wider discourse that blamed social disruption on
evils that were palpable within every part of society, even if their sins were
manifest in differing ways.65 The remedy was not institutional change but
individual redemption.
The theory of social interdependence was also transposed onto the
image of the town as a body corporate. This was emphasised in civic cer-
emonies and myths, particularly Corpus Christi processions in which the

(previously Lincoln Cathedral Library, MS a.6.2), fols. 68v–69v; Kail (ed.), Twenty-Six
Political and Other Poems, pp. 64–8, ‘The Descryvyng of Mannes Membres’.
61 Owen, ‘Thomas Wimbledon’s sermon’, 180, ll. 74–6.
62 Rigby, ‘England: literature and society’, pp. 505–9.
63 [Before a certain time were traders that truly bought and sold; / Now is the assize broken,
and was not long held. / Trade was accustomed to be maintained with truth; / And now
is all turned to treachery; and that is much lamented]. Embree and Urquhart (eds.),
The Simonie, p. 99, b469–72.
64 Gower, Mirour, p. 339, ll. 25801–12.
65 For a similar discourse (c.1419–20), see Heyworth (ed.), Jack Upland, pp. 55–6,
ll. 40–4, p. 65, ll. 251–4.
 Images of market trade 49

structure and unity of the town hierarchy was stressed. In Coventry, the
order of the procession reflected the precedence of certain crafts in the
town polity, with humble fishmongers and victuallers leading the way
and wealthy drapers occupying the prestigious rear ranks.66 Guild regu-
lations often required all members to attend such festivities and pageants,
to reaffirm their solidarity and craft status. Social theories were therefore
subsumed and accepted by the urban authorities, and this was to influ-
ence the way in which such communities were governed.

Avarice and trade

The sins of the individual were therefore decried in estates theory as
a cause of dissension in society, and traders and craftsmen came to be
associated with particular vices.67 Traders were particularly apt figures to
exemplify the deadly sin of avarice (or covetousness), which encouraged
acquisitiveness and selfishness to the destruction of others.68 Covetous-
ness was interpreted as an inordinate and selfish love of worldly goods,
leading the avaricious man to use deceits, usury, theft, violence, false
claims, sacrilege, simony, treachery, wicked crafts (such as prostitution
or professional fighting) and gambling to gather riches. The avaricious
did not think about God, their soul, the poor or the unfortunate in their
pursuit of excessive gain.69 It was a vice that could never be satisfied and
knew no bounds: ‘þe see drinkiþ al þe watres of þe world; so þe couetous
mannes wille swoleweþ [swallow] alle þe richessis of þe world, þerfore he is
þus vnsaciable (þat is, vnable to be fulfilled)’.70 Another fifteenth-century

66 Hilton, ‘Status and class’, pp. 14–15; James, ‘Ritual’; Rubin, Corpus Christi, ch. 4;
Phythian-Adams, ‘Ceremony’; Justice, ‘Trade symbolism’.
67 Nottingham University Library, MS 50, fol. 80r; Gallagher (ed.), Doctrinal, pp. 147–8;
Jacob’s Well, p. 137, ll. 19–23.
68 Little suggested that the rising importance of money and the commercial economy by
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries promoted avarice as the primary vice above pride,
which had been the traditional vice of the feudal nobility. However, Newhauser argues
that this overlooks precedents for the importance of avarice in earlier moral writings,
particularly in the fourth and fifth centuries. Little, ‘Pride’; Newhauser, Early History of
Greed. See also Bloomfield, Seven Deadly Sins, p. 95; Yunck, Lineage, pp. 185–6, 235–6,
273; Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, p. 54.
69 Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 34–5, 44–5; Vices and Virtues, p. 30, ll. 5–23, p. 40, l. 14 –
p. 41, l. 9; BL, MS Harleian 2398 (‘Memoriale Credencium’), fols. 3v, 21v, 22r, 100v.
Ross (ed.), Middle English Sermons, p. 264, l. 34 – p. 265, l. 25; Blake (ed.), Quattuor
Sermons, p. 54, ll. 6–14; Jacob’s Well, p. 117, ll. 12–25, p. 119, l. 32 – p. 120, l. 2;
Fasciculus Morum, pp. 336–7; Dives and Pauper, i, ii, p. 254, ll. 26–31; Nelson (ed.),
Myrour, p. 131, ll. 30–4 (BL, MS Harleian 45, fol. 63v); Power (ed.), Goodman of Paris,
pp. 82–3, 89.
70 Cigman (ed.), Lollard Sermons, p. 144, ll. 476–82.
50 Medieval market morality

Lollard sermon viewed the temptations of covetousness in typically rus-

tic fashion, likening the vice to a dunghill. When gathered together a
dunghill is stinking and rotten, but when the dung is spread on the fields
it can bear fruit. Similarly, accumulation of wealth leads to a rotten soul,
but remission can be gained by distributing riches to the poor.71
Most moral texts used avarice and covetousness as interchangeable
terms.72 The Book of Vices and Virtues (c.1400) declared, ‘þe synne of
couetise and auarice, þat is roote of alle yueles [evils], as seiþ seynt
Poule’.73 However, Robert of Brunne’s Handlyng Synne (1303) distin-
guished subtly between covetousness and avarice, regarding avarice as
an overarching, insatiable and consuming appetite, while covetousness
was specific to an individual’s love of the things of the world.74 In a
similar manner, Gower described Covetousness as the first of five daugh-
ters of Avarice (the others being Rapine, Usury, Simony and Stingi-
ness), who selfishly desires worldly riches, subverts justice and neglects
her soul in that pursuit.75 Generally, however, avarice and covetous-
ness were both vices that usurped both moderation and self-control.76
Avarice was therefore regarded as a common motivation for the abuses of
all estates, for it overcame Truth and seduced men from their traditional
obligations.
John Trevisa, in his late fourteenth-century Middle English translation
of Giles of Rome’s De Regimine Principum (c.1270–85), declared: ‘a man
is to[o] coueitous of money зif al his workes bygynnen [begin] at money
and endeþ at money’.77 Avarice and covetousness were often personi-
fied as money-grubbing merchants or usurers. The Romance of the Rose
(c.1230) declared:

I say no merchant ever lives at ease.

He has for life enlisted in the war
Of gain, and never will acquire enough
Though what he has he fears to lose, he runs
After the remnant which he’ll never possess.
His only thought’s to get his neighbour’s goods.78

71 Ibid., p. 146, ll. 525–32. See also Morris (ed.), Old English Homilies and Homiletic
Treatises, pp. 102–3; Fasciculus Morum, pp. 314–15.
72 Peacock (ed.), Instructions, p. 39, ll. 1281–2; BL, MS Harleian 2398 (‘Memoriale Cre-
dencium’), fol. 22r.
73 Vices and Virtues, p. 30, ll. 5–6; I Timothy 6:10: ‘For the love of money is the root of
all evil’. See also Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 34–5; Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘Parson’s Tale’,
p. 313, ll. 739–47.
74 Handlyng Synne, pp. 174–5, ll. 5325–42; Furnivall (ed.), Pilgrimage, pp. 461–89.
75 Gower, Mirour, p. 86, ll. 6181–216. 76 Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 53–6.
77 Fowler, Briggs and Remley (eds.), Governance, bk. ii, pt. iii, p. 269, ll. 10–12.
78 Lorris and Meun, Romance of the Rose, pp. 108–11, ll. 4975–5182.
 Images of market trade 51

Sculptures and other images of avarice depicted rich men surrounded

by chests and sacks of money, or with full moneybags hanging from
their necks. Indeed, a purse or a pile of money was often the illustrative
accoutrement for richly attired merchants, such as in an accompanying
picture for a 1427 manuscript of Piers Plowman.79 A fifteenth-century
mural of the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ at Hesset Church (Suffolk) appears
to show the sin of Avarice represented by a humble retailer or baker
grasping a bag of money. Avarice might also be depicted sitting at a
counting table or before a money chest covered with coins.80 This image
was easily construed as a merchant, as implied by Chaucer’s description
of the merchant at his counting table in the ‘Shipman’s Tale’.81
The Castle of Perseverance outlined the intimate association of merchan-
dise, avarice and sin:

And whanne thou vsyste marchaundyse, merchandise

Loke that thou be sotel of sleytys; subtle; sleights
And also swere al be deseytys; deceits
Bye and sell be fals weytys; false weights
For that is kyndë coueytyse.82 natural

The play suggested that traders readily used deceits, oaths, cunning and
false measures, because they were close attributes to the sin of covetous-
ness and the selfish desire for gain. Mankind in the play becomes beguiled
by Covetousness’s knowledge of money and the world:

Thi purs schal be thi beste frende purse; friend

...
If thou have a peny to pey, penny; pay
Men schul to thee thanne lystyn and lende.83 listen; lend

It is only on his deathbed that Mankind finally realises that Covetous-

ness has led him astray and that he will pay a bitter price.84 Similarly,

79 Pearsall and Scott (eds.), Piers Plowman, pp. lxxv–lxxvi, ‘Merchant’, fol. 102v; Scott,
‘Illustrations’, 69–70. Purses could also be depicted on noblemen.
80 BL, Additional MS 28162, fol. 9v, ‘La Somme le Roy (Paris, c.1290–1300); Oxford,
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 283, fol. 59r (‘The Mirrore of the Worlde’, c.1470–80);
Grössinger, World Upside-Down, p. 132.
81 Little, ‘Pride’, 26, 37–8; Gardner, Minor English Wood Sculpture, p. 25; Anderson, Drama
and Imagery, plate 4a (Avarice at his counting table, Ingatestone, Essex); Chaucer,
Canterbury Tales, ‘Shipman’s Tale’, p. 204, ll. 75–88; Katzenellenbogen, Allegories,
p. 58.
82 Adams (ed.), Chief Pre-Shakespearean Dramas, ‘The Castle of Perseverance’, p. 273,
ll. 851–5.
83 Ibid., ‘The Castle of Perseverance’, p. 279, ll. 2522, 2525–6.
84 Ibid., ‘The Castle of Perseverance’, p. 282, ll. 3018–20.
52 Medieval market morality

a fifteenth-century Lollard sermon stated: ‘þe þridde synne is coue-

tise . . . þere lernen also in þis cursid scole marchauntis and artificeres
to be perfite in þis lore, wiþ wilis and wiþ falsede, for to gete good’.85
Influenced by the same convention, William Langland personified Cov-
etousness as a shabby miser who confessed to all the traditional sins of
the trader (‘wikke chaffare’).86
Ultimately, theologians had long warned traders that it was difficult not
to incur the sin of avarice through the buying and selling of goods, and
this in turn led to fraud, deceit and lying. They cited biblical texts such as
Ecclesiasticus 26:29, ‘A merchant shall hardly keep himself from doing
wrong’.87 Many medieval scholars viewed merchants as invariably sinful,
who could not desist from dishonesty and greed and who also under-
took an occupation lacking any transformative skill or extensive labour.
Instead, they made shameful profit (‘turpe lucrum’) through watching the
market in order to buy and sell articles unaltered.88 Even ascetic guides
for anchorites in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries warned female
recluses that involvement in commerce incited avarice and fraud.89 Sim-
ilarly, in the late fourteenth century, John Wyclif denounced clerics who
acted as merchants and conducted themselves like crafty and false men
of the world.90
Coin and money became supplementary symbols of materialistic greed
and any process that made money was considered by moralists to be
inherently grubby and sordid. This was aptly illustrated in the many
depictions of misers counting money, while apes, the personification of
debased man, were sometimes depicted as defecating or vomiting coins.91

85 (the third sin is covetousness . . . there are taught also in this cursed school merchants
and artisans to be perfect in this learning, with wiles and with falsehood, for to gain
well.) Cigman (ed.), Lollard Sermons, p. 142, ll. 382, 409–11. See also Gallagher (ed.),
Doctrinal, pp. 147–8; Royster, ‘Middle English treatise’, 22.
86 Piers Plowman, a.v.107–30, b.v.188–212, c.vi.196–219.
87 Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, p. 112 (also Ecclesiasticus 27:2: ‘As a nail sticketh
fast between the joinings of the stones; so doth sin stick close between buying and
selling’); Lefébure (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas, ii–ii, q.58, a.11; Broomfield (ed.), Thomae
de Chobham, pp. 290, 301; le Bras, ‘Conceptions’, iii, pp. 554–75; Haren, Sin and
Society, p. 163; Bisson, Chaucer, pp. 172–3; Melitz and Winch (eds.), Religious Thought,
pp. 15–38; Gilchrist, Church and Economic Activity, pp. 50–1.
88 Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 112–13; Langholm, Economics, pp. 128–9, 573–
4; Langholm, The Merchant, pp. 23, 29, 38, 44, 70, 113, 124, 234–5.
89 Ayto and Barratt (eds.), Aelred of Rievaulx’s De Institutione Inclusarum, p. 2, ll. 54–5,
66–70; Millett and Wogan-Browne (eds.), Medieval English Prose, pp. 134–5; Shepherd
(ed.), Ancrene Wisse, pp. x, xxxv; Bozire and Colledge (eds.), Chastising, p. 207, ll. 11–20.
See also Piers Plowman, A.Prol.58–63, C.Prol.59–64.
90 Matthew (ed.), English Works of Wyclif, p. 172.
91 Little, ‘Pride’; BL, MS Additional 29253, fol. 410v; Murray, Reason and Society,
pp. 27–30, 59–107.
 Images of market trade 53

Theologians argued that money enabled the acquisitive urge. However,

they also recognised that money was an important tool for traders, as
an artificial measure of value by which to compare very different com-
modities and equalise their exchange. Money facilitated the exchange of
necessities, particularly those transported over great distances, as well as
permitting commodities to be divided into smaller lots for different buy-
ers. In the late fourteenth century, following Aristotelian commentators
such as Giles of Rome, the French scholar Nicholas Oresme remarked:
‘It was necessary, therefore, to find some medium, small in quantity, so
that it may be transferred readily from place to place, and its depreci-
ation or diminution easily weighed’.92 Money was considered merely a
human convention for balancing exchange and could not itself be bought
and sold.93 This conventional scholastic approach was tempered dur-
ing the fourteenth century, as bullion shortages forced the debasement
of coinage. Such debasement led theorists, such as Oresme and Giles
of Rome, to recognise that coins had a precious metal content that
was in demand and thus had an inherent value. Money was itself a
commodity.94
Nevertheless, scholarly debates encouraged the idea that money was
an added temptation towards avarice and venality. Moralists decried the
development that all things were seemingly for sale, from property to
salvation.95 The power of money to submerge virtues was dramatised in
Langland’s depiction in Piers Plowman of ‘Lady Mede’, who tempered
justice and oppressed the poor. She was the enemy of Truth and the
Holy Church, and embodied the use of money for inordinate gain. How-
ever, she also represented the dual function of money in the economy
and a recognition that money could be used for just reward for labour or
service.96 Church writers attempted formally to delineate the boundaries
of trading behaviour, but this was complicated by their paradoxical view
of trade as an embodiment of necessary endeavour as well as the accumu-
lative urge. Most moralists increasingly argued that money-making could

92 Burke (ed.), Treatise, pp. 19–21; Fowler, Briggs and Remley (eds.), Governance, bk. ii,
pt. iii, pp. 266–7; Farber, An Anatomy, pp. 32–7; Lefébure (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas,
pp. 232–53, vol. 38: Injustice, ii–ii, q.78.
93 This notion was important for the theory of usury. See below, pp. 65–8.
94 For a fuller discussion of medieval theories about money, see Wood, Medieval Economic
Thought, pp. 69–88 (esp. 80–1).
95 Greene (ed.), Early English Carols, pp. 261–3, no. 393; Robbins (ed.), Historical Poems,
pp. 134–7, no. 51; BL, MS Royal 17.b.xlvii, fols. 160v–162r; Cambridge, Gonville and
Caius College, MS 261, fol. 234r; Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, ‘Avaritia’; Yunck,
‘Medieval French money satire’; Camille, The Gothic Idol, pp. 258–63.
96 Yunck, Lineage, pp. 5–10; Mitchell, ‘Lady Meed’; Baldwin, Theme of Government,
pp. 24–31.
54 Medieval market morality

be legitimised by justifiable intent, just as Mede might be controlled by

Conscience and Reason. However, if the principal object of a merchant
was cupidity then his trading activities were sinful.
Medieval portraits of merchants, and commerce in general, almost
inevitably had connotations of avarice, selfishness and corruption.
Although trade could be ostensibly undertaken without sin and for the
common good, medieval moralists suggested that men of business in their
pursuit of profit were disposed towards covetousness and thus, in turn,
fraud, deceit and theft.97 John Gower stated: ‘I will not except a single
one as not attending on Fraud – neither merchant nor victualler, nor
retail shopkeeper. Everyone who knows how to beguile, beguiles others
in his trade.’98 Merchants and traders had become literary emblems of
certain vices and through such images moralists sought to reinforce the
message that everyone ought to be more aware of their social and spiritual
responsibilities.
Medieval writers generally considered the sinful temptations associ-
ated with market trade to be rampant and rarely avoidable by a fallible
mankind. The marketplace itself was depicted as a highly competitive
forum in which exaggeration and fraud were expected on a daily basis:
‘It is in the nature of a marketplace that everything is sold and bought
there and that the sellers and buyers cheat each other’.99 A Lollard ser-
mon of the fifteenth century similarly described the market ‘in whiche
is miche [much] byinge and sellynge and deceite of hire breþeren as
custummabli falleþ in such place’.100 Several writers also suspected that
apprentices were being indoctrinated in the secrets of fraudulent prac-
tices. Gower remarked: ‘Just as an old whore trains and starts her young
girls in the trade, I notice that Fraud likewise first teaches his young
apprentice trickery and fraud, and then trains him to bargain and sell
too’.101 Wyclif deplored the situation where any apprentice or servant
who was honest and truthful was held to be ‘but a fool and vnþrifty’.102
Bishop Brinton (late fourteenth century) summarised the standard moral
view of traders in the medieval world:

97 BL, MS Harleian 2398, fols. 3v, 100v; BL, MS Harleian 4894, fols. 68v, 180v; Piers
Plowman, b. v.201–27; Gower, Mirour, p. 90, ll. 6505–13; Handlyng Synne, p. 193,
ll. 5945–50; du Méril (ed.), Poésies Populaires, p. 131 (‘Frequenter cogitans’); Mozley
and Raymo (eds.), Nigel de Longchamps, p. 48, ll. 785–90; Ross (ed.), Middle English
Sermons, p. 124, l. 24 – p. 125, l. 21 (BL, MS Royal 18.b.xxiii, fol. 94r); Oxford,
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 95, fol. 6r.
98 Gower, Mirour, p. 346, ll. 26341–52. See also Stockton (ed.), Major Latin Works, ‘Vox
Clamantis’, bk. v, ch. 14, pp. 214–15.
99 Fasciculus Morum, pp. 558–9. 100 Cigman (ed.), Lollard Sermons, p. 81, ll. 41–5.
101 Gower, Mirour, p. 335, ll. 25741–7.
102 Matthew (ed.), English Works of Wyclif, pp. 185–6, 238.
 Images of market trade 55

false traders, in these days, infringe the rule of justice. In every craft so much trick-
ery is employed – in measures, in usury, in weight, in the balance, in mendacious
mixtures and false oaths – that each man strives to deceive his neighbour, whom
he should rather serve in mutual charity . . . Therefore let traders beware!103

Such a stark image of deceit and falsity reinforced the message that
common justice was being undermined. Fraud in trade was deliberately
depriving one party of pertinent information that both buyer and seller
had a moral and legal duty to disclose. This could include the inten-
tional use of improper weights and measures, spoken deceptions, sell-
ing adulterated goods, counterfeiting and substituting good commodities
for bad.104 The Simonie and Fasciculus Morum suggested that there was
scarcely any man in trade and crafts who was not dishonest.105
In several manuals concerning faith and penance, the sins of trade
were categorised as the eighth branch (of ten) within the overall vice
of avarice (alongside usury, theft, rapine, false claims, sacrilege, simony,
treachery, wicked crafts and gambling).106 The sins of buying and selling,
as outlined by medieval moralists, can be summarised as:
r Unjust Prices – selling as dear as possible, but buying as cheaply as
possible;
r Usury – giving usurious credit;
r False Oaths – swearing and lying in order to sell goods;
r False Wares – selling a different and inferior article from that first
bargained for;
r Concealment – hiding the faults of an article;
r Misrepresentation – making merchandise look better than it was;
r False Weights and Measures;
r Lyther Bargaining – profiting by a purchaser’s need.
We will examine these specific condemnations in turn.

Price and profit

The problem of what constituted a ‘just price’ or ‘reasonable profit’ was
discussed by some of the most eminent medieval scholars. At a basic level,
profit-making was considered a short step away from avarice and all the

103 Devlin (ed.), Sermons of Thomas Brinton, pp. 214–15, sermon 48; cf. Owst, Literature
and Pulpit, p. 353.
104 Langholm, The Merchant, pp. 238–9.
105 Embree and Urquhart (eds.), The Simonie, p. 100, b475–80, a361–6, c439–44; Fasci-
culus Morum, pp. 344–7. See also Jamieson (ed.), Ship of Fools, ii, pp. 222–3; Zeydel
(ed.), Ship of Fools, pp. 327–30.
106 See Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 44–5; Vices and Virtues, p. 40, l. 14 – p. 41, l. 9; Jacob’s Well,
p. 133, l. 17 – p. 134, l. 7; BL, MS Harleian 45, fol. 71r–v.
56 Medieval market morality

accompanying vices this entailed. Such sinful pursuit of gain might be

particularly detrimental to the more vulnerable sectors of society. Indeed,
for petty traders who served the poor with the necessities of life, excessive
profits were deemed to be akin to theft and even homicide. Yet, the service
provided by retailers to lowly consumers was often vital. In order to have a
healthy marketplace and encourage a level of competition, traders needed
to be allowed to make a fair living and maintain their households: thus
profit-making was an integral part of their work.
Some of the contradictions of this commercial world were starkly laid
out in Langland’s personification of ‘Lady Mede’, through which he
tackled the issues of just price and measurable reward.107 Mede repre-
sented payments and rewards, the accepted glue of a materialistic world;
yet she was also the destroyer of just price and the creator of venality
and bribes.108 In Piers Plowman, Holy Church feared that all corruptions
stemmed from a union of False with Mede. Conversely, Theology argued
that Mede was a potentially good force in society, representing the hire of
labour, the medium of commerce and reward for good service. Instead
of being intrinsically evil, she was, according to Theology, an innocent
led astray by False. Thus, Mede’s own personality is ambivalent;109 she
epitomises the ambiguous nature of a money economy, with its inordi-
nate rewards, bribes and acquisitiveness of wealth (‘mesurles’), but also
its proportionate payments for service and simple exchanges in trade
(‘mesurable hire’; ‘a penyworth for anoþer’).110 Ultimately, Conscience
rejects the role of money and materialism in ‘good’ society arguing that
the only true mede was heavenly reward. Langland perhaps yearned for
an idealistic, simpler society which drove out the corrupting power of
wealth, but his works also suggest that he recognised the futility of such
idealism.111 Consequently, it could be argued that his own strict ideol-
ogy seems to have ‘fragmented’ as he attempted to reconcile the role of
money and exchange with his sense of justice and community. Langland
refined part of his argument in the C-Text of Piers Plowman, regarding

107 Piers Plowman, c.iii; Mitchell, ‘Lady Meed’; Griffiths, Personification, pp. 26–35; Yunck,
Lineage; Stokes, Justice, pp. 165–9.
108 This is very similar to Gower’s description of Covetousness. Gower, Mirour, pp. 86–7,
ll. 6181–240.
109 Godden, Making, pp. 34–7; Griffiths, Personification, p. 29; Murtaugh, Piers Plowman,
pp. 40–3.
110 ‘In marchaundise is no Mede, I may it wel auowe; It is a permutacion apertly [open
exchange], a penyworth for anoþer’; Piers Plowman, b.iii.257–8. This does not neces-
sarily imply ‘mutual exchange for use’ based on pre-market subsistence ideology, as
suggested by Aers, Chaucer, p. 10. Instead it was a reiteration of the scholarly theory
of commutative justice, see p. 58.
111 Aers, Chaucer, pp. 1–37.
 Images of market trade 57

‘mede’ as unjust and declaring that there should be merely an exchange

of one thing for another, directly proportionate in value. However, he
also stated that traders should receive rightful ‘mercede’ for their ser-
vices, and mercede was measurable according to the needs of their social
degree. In this way, Langland appears to have accepted a compromise for
the conduct of trade, constructed upon traditional social and religious
theories, but disassociated from the corrupting power of Mede.
Langland’s arguments relating to the nature of reward and justice are
largely based upon traditional medieval theories of the ‘just price’ and
commutative justice in exchanges. The just price was a guiding principle
of economic ethics in the late medieval world and was one of the few
ostensibly commercial topics which preoccupied theologians (together
with usury). The commonplace deceits of traders were more often tack-
led in clerical manuals and secular satire than in the writings of Church
academics. Nevertheless, medieval scholars discussed the just price not
only in the context of theological preoccupations but also as a practical
concern in applying ethical principles to the affairs of men. The basic
principles of just price and equality in exchange were drawn from theolo-
gians, canonists and scholars of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, such
as Thomas Aquinas (1226–74) and Albertus Magnus (1193–1280), and
continued to underlay the works of later centuries, even if there was still
much debate. These scholars drew upon various influences, including
the scriptures, classical theory, law and metaphysical theories of reason
and justice. For instance, Roman law regarded free bargaining as the
determinant of price, as long as there was no force or fraud, and extolled
the maxim ‘res tantum valet quantum vendi potest’ (a thing is worth
the amount for which it can be sold).112 Aristotle’s theory of exchange
in Nicomachean Ethics (c.350bc) played down market forces and instead
emphasised need or demand as the criterion of value. He was suspi-
cious of business, acquisition and money, and saw only trade for neces-
sities as natural. He was, nevertheless, interested in how the exchange
of different, necessary articles could be achieved in ‘commensurate’ or
just fashion and how money could be a useful intermediate in such
exchanges.113 Additionally, early medieval theologians, such as Augus-
tine of Hippo (354–430), posited the ontological theory that objects
had an inherent, constant value distinct from exogenous influences. This
did not necessarily preclude fluctuating valuation for the purposes of
human utility, but these theologians regarded unfettered market forces
as incapable of determining a just price. There were moral standards and

112 Langholm, Legacy of Scholasticism, pp. 20–42, 77–82.

113 Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 133–5; Kaye, Economy and Nature, pp. 54–5.
58 Medieval market morality

estimations, external to the market, against which just exchanges ought

to be judged.114
Thomas Aquinas attempted to reconcile these different sources of
inspiration. In Summa Theologiae, he discussed whether something could
be legitimately sold for more than its cost of production and identified
two types of business exchange. The first was natural, necessary and vir-
tuous, and involved the direct exchange of one commodity for another
in order to allow the necessities of life to circulate. The second largely
concerned traders and was the exchange of money for goods. This had
the potential to be unnecessary and sinful since it fed the acquisitive
urge. For such dealings, Aquinas stressed the connection between trade
and justice: ‘justice is first of all and more commonly exercised in vol-
untary interchanges of things, such as buying and selling’.115 Drawing
on the theories of Aristotle, Aquinas wanted commercial exchanges to be
ruled by a twofold system of justice: commutative and distributive justice.
Commutative justice was the achievement of arithmetic equivalence in
exchanges, whereas distributive justice was geometric and related to the
medieval theory of a hierarchical society in which everyone was accorded
wealth according to their status.116
Aquinas recognised that the idea of an item with an absolute natural
value was irreconcilable with the needs of everyday life: ‘sometimes the
just price cannot be determined absolutely, but consists rather in a com-
mon estimation, in such a way that a slight addition or diminution of price
cannot be thought to destroy justice’.117 Thus, he took into consideration
the practical mechanisms of the marketplace and suggested that the just
price was an estimation relating to the overt criteria of the market. Need,
utility, labour, scarcity, risk, supply and demand were all recognised as
legitimate comparative tools in calculating the extrinsic value of a com-
modity in the marketplace.118 Aquinas did not give an exact formula

114 Nederman, ‘The monarch and the marketplace’, 54–6; Langholm, The Merchant,
pp. 235–7.
115 Lefébure (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas, pp. 212–31, vol. 38: Injustice, ii–ii, q.77.
116 Justice itself was the cardinal virtue of theology, divided into ‘jus naturale’ (natural
justice) and ‘jus positivum’ (human or social justice). Every man was guaranteed
a share in justice provided he ensured that others also received their particular share
within the social structure (i.e. the common good). Lilley, ‘Moral and spiritual factors’,
pp. 46–52; Langholm, The Merchant, p. 235.
117 Lefébure (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas, ii–ii, q.77.
118 Baldwin, ‘Medieval theories’, 74; Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 137–8;
Lefébure (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas, pp. 216–21, vol. 38: Injustice, ii–ii, q.77, a.2.
Albertus Magnus also reached this conclusion, eventually combining cost, supply and
demand in his theory of value. Farber, An Anatomy, pp. 43–4; Langholm, Economics,
p. 187; Kaye, Economy and Nature, pp. 68–9. For a further discussion of the theological
debates concerning how an object might be valued (e.g. usefulness, work in making
 Images of market trade 59

for calculating the just price, arguing simply that both parties should
find it acceptable and mutually advantageous. This meant expenses and
a livelihood for the seller and a utility cost-benefit for the buyer. Both
sides should benefit from an exchange while still maintaining justice.119
According to Aquinas’s theory, the just price effectively oscillated within
a range determined by market forces. This accorded with the standards
of commutative justice; equality of value between goods exchanged could
be achieved by common estimation (‘communis aestimatio’). Alexander
of Hales (c.1186–1245) similarly stated that trade should be conducted
‘by a just estimation of the thing, and by commerce, according to the way
it is commonly sold in that city or place where trade occurs’.120 Aquinas
effectively argued that the market price could answer communal needs
and social justice if reached without fraud or collusion.
Despite Aquinas’s writings, some early twentieth-century historians
argued that medieval theologians espoused a rigid just price based upon
a labour and production theory of value alone, with no reference to
market mechanisms of supply and demand. In this context, the just
price supposedly protected producers from losses by establishing a price
which stemmed from their costs and sustenance needs but also protected
the poor from being overcharged.121 William Ashley, Richard Tawney,
George O’Brien and others viewed the just price as having been firmly
entrenched in the feudal world and argued that it encumbered market
development by protecting the inefficient producer and preventing the
free flow of market forces.122 In response, John Baldwin and Raymond
de Roover instead asserted that the majority of medieval theologians had
advocated a just price based upon free-market criteria of utility, scarcity
and demand. Indeed, in their opinions, far from being a restriction upon

it, transportation, individual or communal need), see Farber, An Anatomy, pp. 50–65;
Langholm, The Merchant, pp. 244–55.
119 A stance supported by scholars such as Richard of Middleton (late thirteenth century).
See Farber, An Anatomy, pp. 26–30.
120 Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, p. 135. See also Langholm, The Merchant,
pp. 245–6.
121 Their theory was based largely upon a misreading of Henry de Langenstein (1325–97),
who actually stated that the producer should charge enough to maintain his status and
expenses. He did not suggest that the producer should expect to get this price, above
the market estimation, nor did he contradict the workings of the market in formulating
price. Indeed, Langenstein, like other medieval scholars, held that the just price should
be determined by human needs and scarcity or abundance. De Roover, ‘Concept’,
418–20; Langholm, Economics, p. 583.
122 For these early views see Ashley, Introduction, i, pp. 391–3; O’Brien, An Essay,
pp. 111–12; Kaulla, Theory, pp. 37–44; Tawney, Religion, p. 40. Max Weber and Werner
Sombart viewed guilds as the upholders of this ideal, protecting customers, preventing
unfair competition, and providing the buyer with an assured standard of living. For a
discussion about Weber and Sombart, see de Roover, ‘Concept’, 418–19.
60 Medieval market morality

practice, just price theory largely reflected the reality of competitive price-
making in a free market.123 The just price did not protect inefficient
craftsmen or merchants or penalise the efficient and there was always
competition and consumer resistance.124 However, de Roover and Bald-
win did accept that non-economic and institutional forces still played a
part in price formation, and that the conditions of medieval marketing
encouraged restrictions and intervention to ensure supplies of necessi-
ties at the lowest possible price. Medieval scholars may have accepted
market practices and the forces of supply and demand in basic price
formation, but their uncompromising views of commercial justice did
not allow them to accept absolute competitive freedom for individual
traders. Prices within the same market for the same commodity were still
expected to be equivalent.
Ultimately, the ideal espoused by Aquinas was that of an open mar-
ket, where participants were aware of their social and moral obligations
and dealt without collusion and deception. However, the teachings of
scholars and moralists emphasised human fallibility and avaricious ten-
dencies, and they knew that a real marketplace could not be entirely free
from sin and fraud. Individual morals would not be enough to main-
tain a just price for essential foodstuffs, but neither would competitive
forces. Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444) and John Buridan (1300–58)
suggested that there should be a general estimation of usefulness and sup-
ply for the whole market by a panel of prudent and knowledgeable men.
Such men would base their statement of the just price upon a common
estimation, probably established by the activities of wholesale bargain-
ing. This theory may well have drawn upon actual urban practices.125
There was thus an increasing acceptance of governmental intervention
in the marketplace, plus an assumption by some moralists that govern-
ments would support Christian principles of social justice. When the free
market failed to function properly, particularly during times of crisis,
moralists began to argue that public authorities had the right to step in
with price regulation and that a legal price would supersede the market
price. This was, however, usually only applicable to necessities, for which
the aim was to secure abundant supplies as cheaply as possible and elim-
inate middlemen or other price-raisers. Scholars like Alexander of Hales
condemned monopolists as ‘abominable’, while Wyclif cursed combi-
nations of merchants or victuallers who ‘conspired wickedly together’

123 Baldwin, ‘Medieval theories’; Gilchrist, Church and Economic Activity, pp. 58–9; Barath,
‘Just price’, 413–30; de Roover, ‘Concept’; de Roover, ‘Scholastic economics’, 163–5.
124 Gilchrist, Church and Economic Activity, pp. 58–61.
125 Langholm, Economics, pp. 261–2; Farber, An Anatomy, pp. 26–7. See below, pp. 222–
31, for the actual workings of price-fixing in the market.
 Images of market trade 61

that none of them ‘schal bie over a certeyn pris’.126 The poor and hon-
est consumers had to be protected in purchasing the necessities of life.
By comparison, luxury and manufactured goods had a lower ceiling of
demand and wider price variation was allowed, often dependent upon
individual, free bargaining.127
The process of bargaining was expected to take into account the level
of personal need and use appropriate to each party. The price estimated
through free bargaining was therefore not strictly arithmetical; thirteenth-
century scholars also took into account distributive (geometrical) justice
for individually negotiated bargains, as long as both parties felt that they
had gained from the deal and neither had taken advantage of the other’s
need (‘lyther bargaining’). If the buyer valued an article more highly than
the seller, the seller was still to abide by the principles of justice and thus
sell at the lower valuation. However, this scheme of valuation also meant
that a seller could charge above the normal market price if he would
otherwise suffer loss through selling at a lower price.128
Indeed, although the theory of the just price was allied to market
forces, not all medieval writers rejected every element of production
costs and reasonable livelihood in their calculations. ‘Distributive justice’
was important in Aquinas’s arguments and a distinction must be made
between just price and just profit. Acceptable profits were based upon
the level of improvements made to a commodity, either by skill, trans-
portation or labour, as well as the means of subsistence required for a
man of certain status. Aquinas understood riches to be either natural
or artificial. Natural riches were those that supplied the natural needs
of sustenance, housing and family. Artificial riches were sought for no
purpose but the accumulation of riches themselves and these he classed
as avaricious and unnecessary. Consequently, Aquinas considered unjust
any intention to trade for self-gain or to profit beyond the maintenance
of natural household needs.129 Those who merely bought at a lower
price and sold at a higher one, either during the same day or by hoard-
ing goods and waiting for a price rise, were not deemed to have made
any noticeable improvements on goods. Thus, regraters, forestallers and

126 Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 138–43; Arnold (ed.), Select English Works,
p. 333, ch. 28 (‘The Grete Sentence of Curs Expounded’).
127 De Roover, ‘Concept’, 425–8.
128 Kaye, Economy and Nature, pp. 79–115; Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 149–52;
Langholm, Economics, pp. 232–3. See below, pp. 63–4.
129 Sigmund (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas, pp. 73–4; Baldwin, Masters, i, pp. 263–4; Lefébure
(ed.), St Thomas Aquinas, pp. 225–31, vol. 38: Injustice, ii–ii, q.77, a.4. The theory that
traders should only gain what is necessary to their livelihood is reiterated in fifteenth-
century sermons. Blake (ed.), Quattuor Sermons, p. 32, ll. 17–34.
62 Medieval market morality

engrossers were disparaged because their services were not recognised

within the traditional schema of identifiable labour or improvement, and
because of suspicions that they caused unreasonable price hikes to the
deception of their customers.130
Medieval theories on just profit can be partially regarded as economi-
cally sound by modern standards. Nevertheless, writers of the late Middle
Ages considered most production costs, expenses and living costs to be
fairly static, even as levels of supply fluctuated; only variations in sup-
ply and demand should produce proportionate changes in the market
price.131 In other words, the just price was the market price because
other additional elements in price formation were expected to be con-
stant, particularly for foodstuffs and necessities. Medieval theologians
thus supposed that there were measurable criteria upon which moderate
profits could be calculated. This notion was even more important for the
petty retailer than for the producer, since officials in the market had less
control over the base price of wholesale goods (determined by bargaining
and supply) than they did over the activities of local retailers and arti-
sans. Retailers’ profits could be strictly controlled according to the level
of market prices.132
Medieval theories of the just price need to be understood in the con-
text of actual economic practices. Market prices were a major part of
the ‘just price’, which could vary with time and place, while aspects of
production costs and expenses were also applied to medieval justifica-
tions of profit.133 However, in essence, the just price was accepted as
the market price that both vendor and purchaser were willing to accept,
provided that any deceit, manipulation or coercion had been excised
130 See below, pp. 117–20.
131 See below, pp. 231–48. The assizes operated on this theory of stable costs and living
expenses.
132 Secular lawyers draw upon Roman law in suggesting that market traders made a gross
error (‘leasio enormis’) if they sold goods in excess of 50 per cent above the mar-
ket ( just) price. Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 148–9; Langholm, Economics,
p. 55; Baldwin, ‘Medieval theories’, 67–8. However, there is little indication that
English market officials applied this specific margin in their assessment of ‘exces-
sive price’, while moralists were often more stringent in their admonitions. Thomas
de Chobham (c.1158–1235) stated: ‘the secular law says that no seller is allowed to
receive above half the just price for the goods he sells, but it is a sin if he has received
anything above the just price’. Broomfield (ed.), Thomae de Chobham, p. 302 (cf. Wood,
Medieval Economic Thought, p. 149).
133 Langholm sees this as part of the ‘double rule’ elucidated by medieval scholars, whereby
a seller may increase the normal market price in order to cover a loss. In other words,
the seller can justly claim indemnity if it is rightly associated with legitimate labour and
costs, though this may be to their own disadvantage in a competitive marketplace. In
contrast, a seller should not raise the price above the market estimation if the buyer
gains advantage from the bargain, nor exploit the buyer if they are in great need.
Langholm, The Merchant, pp. 253–5; Langholm, Economics, pp. 579, 583.
 Images of market trade 63

from the deal.134 William of Pagula, in his Speculum Regis Edwardi III
(c.1331), also advanced principles of market liberty, free contract and
a ‘true price’, as the best means to protect producers from economic
exploitation and to aid the common good.135 For William, the true price
was that achieved when both buyer and seller had reached amicable
agreement; an unregulated market price that depended on locality, sup-
ply and demand. In a similar vein, Alain de Lille, in the late twelfth
century, had stated: ‘A thing bought by the laws of the market place is
not dearly bought for there the buyer and seller are equal in the deal’;
though he also warned against those who might knowingly use flattery
and guile to influence a bargain: ‘there is nothing under heaven more
dearly bought than what long wheedling buys with a blushing face’.136
Medieval moralists thus attempted to impose an ethical rationalisation
and moral framework upon normal market activity, rather than taking a
proactive interventionist stance.
There was also discussion regarding the flow of information and
attempts to take advantage of the necessity or weakness of the seller
or buyer. Aquinas asked whether a merchant with a load of grain to sell
in a famine-stricken area, where prices were high, was obliged to tell
customers that ample supplies were on their way and thus lower the price
and his profits. Aquinas’s solution was that the merchant was not obliged
to tell according to strict justice, though a virtuous merchant probably
would.137 This was an explicit acceptance of the competitive and imper-
sonal urges of the marketplace as a practical means to ascertain the ‘just’
price, but also involved an additional appeal to individual morals. As
long as trade was conducted within certain moral parameters, theolo-
gians approved of buying in cheap markets and selling in dear markets at
prevailing prices.
Pragmatic theological attitudes towards pricing and marketing filtered
down to confessional manuals and sermons in a simpler, more concise
form. The Dispute between a Good Man and the Devil (c.1400) discussed
the issues of justifiable profit, particularly focusing on the concept that a
trader should provide first for his own needs and, beyond that, for church
offerings and for the poor.138 A late fourteenth-century text, Memoriale

134 Baldwin, ‘Medieval theories’, 43; Bolton, Medieval English Economy, p. 335; Kaye,
Economy and Nature, p. 98; Langholm, The Merchant, pp. 246–7.
135 Nederman, ‘The monarch and the marketplace’, 56–8.
136 Thomson and Perraud (eds.), Ten Latin Schooltexts, ‘Parabolae’ of Alain de Lille,
p. 301, 2.13.
137 Lefébure (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas, pp. 222–5, vol. 38: Injustice, ii–ii, q.77, a.3; de
Roover, ‘Concept’, 422; Gilchrist, Church and Economic Activity, p. 60.
138 Horstmann (ed.), Minor Poems, p. 342, esp. ll. 521–7.
64 Medieval market morality

Credencium, similarly justified profits provided they are made without

covetousness and fraud.139 Pastoral guides also reiterated the need for
just prices and equal exchange. Some works, such as the prose dialogue
Dives and Pauper, understood Aquinas’s reasoning that traders needed to
sell goods for more than they bought them or else they would not be able
to make a living or give alms.140 In fact, it appears that the writer of Dives
and Pauper had access to Aquinas’s work, since he drew almost directly
upon Aquinas’s arguments and effectively summarised some of his main
conclusions. Pauper castigates Dives for pursuing worldly gain at the risk
of ‘heuene blysse’, but reassures him that God does not hate the rich,
only those who are niggardly and fail to dispense alms and keep the Ten
Commandments. Selling goods for more than they are worth is necessary
for a trader to sustain himself and for him to help the poor: ‘Sent Powyl
[St Paul] seith þat no man is holdyn to trauaylyn [labour] on hys owyn
costys [own costs] for þe comounte [community], neyþer in knyзthod
ne in chapmanhod ne in warcmanchepe’.141 Dives personifies the newly
literate, worldly, yet pious layman, striving to understand theological
injunctions. Indeed, the text of Dives and Pauper appears to question the
conventional understanding of market mechanisms. Dives complains that
it is hard to know the ‘ryte value of a thing’. The reply is that a just price
can be obtained by ‘comoun estymacion’, with ‘a thing is as mychil worth
as it may ben sold to be comoun merket’ at the time (‘tanti valet quanti
vendi potest’), reflecting the Roman maxim that was also incorporated in
Corpus Iuris Civilis (529–34).142 This was also the concept adopted and
adapted by Aquinas.
Dives and Pauper asked whether a commodity could be sold for more
than it was worth ‘be comoun estimacion’ and the answer is a mixture
of pragmatism and moral stricture. As long as no fraud was involved,
a trader might sell a commodity to one man for more than he might
to another, if the man needed it greatly and the seller could not sell it
for less because it would cause loss. However, if no loss occurred to the
seller then he should sell it by common estimation and not for greater
profit. The author also suggested that the buyer should recompense the
seller if the former made a great gain while the latter made a loss, but
recognised that the law as it stood could not compel such an act; only
conscience could do so.143 Dives and Pauper thus reflects very similar
teachings to those espoused by Aquinas, indicating that certain ethical
principles remained significant throughout the late Middle Ages.

139 BL, MS Harleian 2398, fol. 100v. 140 Dives and Pauper, i, ii, pp. 149–56.
141 Ibid., i, ii, pp. 155–6. 142 Farber, An Anatomy, p. 44.
143 Dives and Pauper, i, ii, pp. 153–5.
 Images of market trade 65

Usury
Theories of justice, or more precisely injustice, were also applied to argu-
ments about usury in the late Middle Ages, which was a sin often asso-
ciated with merchants and traders.144 Usury was strictly defined as any
gain beyond the principal in a loan or sale, and was prohibited by the
Second Lateran Council (1139).145 It was considered to be a sin against
natural justice because the lender was seeking profit without any requisite
input or labour and money itself cannot reproduce.146 Money was merely
a medium for exchange, not a commodity in itself. Any money borrowed
should be therefore returned in the same amount to the lender.147 No
charge was to be levied upon the use of money, because money could
only perform one service for its owner and its ownership was transferred
when borrowed.148 As John Trevisa stated, ‘in vsura þe vse is raveysched
and wrongfullich itake’.149
Usury was therefore attacked vigorously in early canon law as an
immoral means of gaining something from nothing.150 Manifest usurers
were seen as having made money from money without labour or service
and at the expense of the poor and needy. Fasciculus Morum stated that a

144 E.g. Fasciculus Morum, pp. 348–53; BL, MS Harleian 2398, fol. 21v (‘Memoriale
Credencium’ – for a different version of the same text, see Kengen (ed.), Memoriale
Credencium, p. 100, ll. 5–17); Royster, ‘Middle English treatise’, 29–30; Handlyng
Synne, p. 181, ll. 5539–52.
145 The main categories of usury were: (1) lending against collateral, (2) lending without
collateral, but expecting and receiving interest, (3) using inherited money originally
acquired by usury, (4) lending at interest through agents or servants, (5) lending
another’s goods supposedly kept in safety, (6) speculation by buying cheap and selling
dear, (7) taking advantage of urgent needs of the poor, (8) buying on speculation before
the proper time for selling, (9) retention of profit on money originally taken for surety,
(10) retaining the deposit even after the full sum had been paid, (11) demanding full
security with half the profits that may accrue to the borrower, (12) accepting excessive
work in the payment of a bad debt. See Lefébure (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas, pp. 232–53,
vol. 38: Injustice, ii–ii, q.78; Dives and Pauper, i, ii, p. 200, ll. 59–83; Fasciculus Morum,
pp. 348–53; Vices and Virtues, pp. 30–1; Jacob’s Well, p. 122, l. 26 – p. 124, l. 28;
Peacock (ed.), Instructions, p. 12, ll. 372–83.
146 Fowler, Briggs and Remley (eds.), Governance, bk. ii, pt. iii, p. 268, l. 36 – p. 269,
l. 37.
147 Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 69–88.
148 This was based upon the Roman law notion of money as a fungible (i.e. consumed
during use). See Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 75–6; Lefébure (ed.), St Thomas
Aquinas, pp. 232–53, vol. 38: Injustice, ii–ii, q.78; Dives and Pauper, i, ii, p. 197,
ll. 42–8.
149 (in usury the use is ravished/rapined and wrongfully taken.) Fowler, Briggs and Remley
(eds.), Governance, p. 269, ll. 40–1.
150 Baldwin, ‘Medieval theories’, 36; Haren, Sin and Society, pp. 164–5. For a discussion
of the theories behind the prohibition of usury, see Langholm, Economics; McLaughlin,
‘Teaching’, i, 81–147, and ii, 1–22; Baldwin, Masters, chs. xiv and xv; Gilchrist, Church
and Economic Activity, pp. 62–70; Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, ch. 7.
66 Medieval market morality

usurer was sinful, ‘because he sells to his poor neighbour what he owes
him freely by the law of nature, namely help in his need’.151 Usury was,
in effect, theft. The intention to make a profit was the deciding factor in
determining the usurious nature of certain transactions: ‘what is freely
given and freely accepted does not lead to usury, as long as there is no
corrupt intention, for usury always rests upon such expectation or inten-
tion. Thus, whoever loans money with such expectation, whatever profit
he makes is usury.’152 As regards trade and exchange, those who sold
something for more than it was worth at the time, or bought it for much
less than its value, were accused of usury. These usurious traders, as
much as the moneylenders, were seen as taking advantage of the needs of
the poor.153 Through such compulsion, usurers were ignoring their duty
to the common good.
Memoriale Presbiterorum, dating from the mid-fourteenth century, dis-
cussed the selling of merchandise on credit, as well as the idea that delayed
payment should be higher than the price at the time of sale because the
merchant could otherwise gain goods from the money in the meantime.
However, the author rejected this approach as unjustifiable profit.154
Usurers were, in effect, selling time, which was a violation of natural and
divine law. As Thomas de Chobham stated: ‘The usurer does not sell the
debtor something which is his own, but time, which belongs to God’.155
However, Diana Wood and Odd Langholm have posited that the Roman
maxim that time could be owned by individual sellers was revived and
debated by scholars in the fourteenth century.156 In this view, time could
alter an article’s value or quality and this therefore allowed merchants to
speculate on future prices in credit sales without incurring the accusation
of usury. Seasonal variations, natural reproduction and changes in supply
and demand could all mean a natural increase or decrease in the price

151 Fasciculus Morum, pp. 346–7. See also Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, ‘Usura’.
152 Fasciculus Morum, pp. 350–3. ‘It is vsure for to lene for wynnynge’ [It is usury to lend
for gain], from Gallagher (ed.), Doctrinal, pp. 146–7; ‘usurie is qwan a man lenyth
for wynning be couenaunt preuy or opyn’ [‘usury is when a man lends for gain by
private or open agreement’], from BL, MS Sloane 3160, fol. 20r. See also Ayenbite of
Inwyt, pp. 35–7; van Zutphen (ed.), A Litil Tretys, p. 8, ll. 29–34 (BL, MS Royal 8.c.i,
fol. 148r); Dives and Pauper, i, ii, pp. 195–8.
153 Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 35–7; Vices and Virtues, p. 31, ll. 23–32, p. 32, ll. 2–17; Fasciculus
Morum, pp. 348–51; Zeydel (ed.), Ship of Fools, pp. 302–3; Bowers, ‘A Middle English
mnemonic poem’, 226–32; Dives and Pauper, i, ii, pp. 202–3, ll. 58–67.
154 Haren, Sin and Society, p. 166.
155 Broomfield (ed.), Thomae de Chobham, p. 504, cf. Wood, Medieval Economic Thought,
p. 174. For ‘selling time’, see Furnivall (ed.), Pilgrimage, pp. 473–7, ll. 17689–822;
Wood, ‘Lesyng of tyme’, pp. 107–16.
156 Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 174–7; Langholm, Economics, pp. 311–15, 369–
70.
 Images of market trade 67

of goods borrowed. This was not, it should be noted, the same as asking
for a higher repayment simply because time had passed, which was still
regarded as unjust and usurious.
The main concern of medieval moralists was intention. Transactions
escaped accusations of usury if a fair risk and doubt was involved in ascer-
taining the value of the goods at a future date.157 For instance, usury was
not involved if the creditor bore his fair share of the risks as well as the
profits in a similar way to partners in a business contract or a merchant on
his voyage. Consequently, upon the basis of intention, justifications were
developed for ‘interest’. It could be legitimised as: a penalty for the late
payment of a loan; a charge to compensate another investment lost; a fee
for labour (such as travel and accounting); and compensation for the risk
of possible loss and the uncertainty of enterprise.158 In essence, interest
was legitimate where it was a means to avoid loss.159 There were thus
increasing numbers of loopholes in canonical sanctions, especially for
traders rather than manifest moneylenders.160 Fasciculus Morum allowed
claims for damages in contracts, provided this was used to enforce the
payment of a debt or to punish an illegal creditor rather than to increase
the debt. Also, damages could be claimed if a loan had not been repaid
on a requested date, thus causing loss to the creditor in their own busi-
ness dealings.161 As with trade, usurers could justify their profits upon
the basis of risk or losses. Such accommodation was widespread by the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as a means of allowing trading credit to
exist within the fundamental prohibition of usury.162 Consequently, at an
international level, many devices were employed to hide interest.163 Even
at a local level, it appears that commercial creditors found ways around
prohibitions, which were often enforced only in exorbitant cases.164 By
the fifteenth century, Dives and Pauper recognised that the sin of usury,
while still evil and unlawful, was suffered in practice in order to encourage
rich men to lend to the needy and poor.165

157 McLaughlin, ‘Teaching’, 117; Haren, Sin and Society, p. 167.

158 Gilchrist, Church and Economic Activity, p. 67, McLaughlin, ‘Teaching’, 125 (from
Hostiensis); Fasciculus Morum, pp. 348–53.
159 This included a developing concept of ‘opportunity costs’, which relates to the value of
the next-best alternative use for a resource that is passed up when making a (business)
decision. Epstein, An Economic and Social History, p. 136.
160 Thomson, ‘Wealth, poverty’, pp. 271–8; le Goff, Your Money, p. 92.
161 Fasciculus Morum, pp. 348–51.
162 Gilchrist, Church and Economic Activity, pp. 65–7. For canonical law on usury, see
ibid., pp. 165, 173, 182–3, 189–92, 194–6, 206. See also Friedberg (ed.), Corpus Iuris
Canonici, ii, cols. 812–15, 1081–2 (Decretal Gregor. ix, Lib. v, Tit. xix, De Usuris;
Sexti Decretal, Lib. v, Tit. v, De Usuris).
163 Gilchrist, Church and Economic Activity, pp. 64–5. 164 See below, pp. 213–15.
165 Dives and Pauper, i, ii, p. 202, ll. 58–65.
68 Medieval market morality

Many modern historians have claimed that the Church misunderstood

the mechanisms of interest and thus hampered the flow of credit that was
so vital for economic growth.166 In fact, it is likely that the Church was
attempting to protect the consumer credit for the more vulnerable sectors
of society. Early incarnations of usury law were therefore related more
to the need for consumption loans for poorer sectors rather than to the
transactional requirements of traders.167 Indeed, the economic theories
of Church scholars were not entrenched in traditional feudal notions
to the exclusion of the expanding market economy. Theologians give
every indication that they took account of the mechanisms of the market
and continued to do so, addressing such issues as flexible prices, com-
petition, middlemen, capital accumulation, speculation and functioning
credit systems. The Church modified its attitudes significantly to com-
mercial matters, such as usury, throughout the medieval period. How-
ever, this does not mean that writers could escape the need to espouse
traditional Christian ethics.

Bargaining and oaths

The theory of the just price and honest profit was based upon the opera-
tion of market forces without avarice, fraud, usury and other vices. Hence,
many moralists devoted their energies towards the elimination of fraud-
ulent and dishonest practices. As already discussed, William Langland
highlighted the need for justice in transactions, both in proportionate gain
and honest dealing. One particular passage from Piers Plowman, involv-
ing Gluttony’s expedition to the tavern, parodies commercial exchange,
price-setting and the principle of one pennyworth for another. It is a bur-
lesque and humorous episode, but the passage can be also interpreted
as an indictment of wasteful and petty sectors of society.168 In one sec-
tion, the customers take part in a game of ‘newe feire’.169 This consists
of evaluating the values of a cloak and a hood, belonging respectively
to Clement the cobbler and Hikke the hosteler. The unequal value of
the goods that are to be exchanged has to be made ‘feire’ by the man

166 Melitz and Winch (eds.), Religious Thought, pp. 85–91.

167 Gurevich, Categories, pp. 271–3; Tawney, Religion, pp. 37–9.
168 See below, pp. 112–13 for a further discussion of the Gluttony passage and of Lang-
land’s preoccupation with petty traders and other lowly sectors of society.
169 A so-called ‘Newe Feire’ developed informally as a market in the Cheapside area of
London. This informal market had attracted disreputable elements of society and led to
numerous fights, thefts and murders, before being abolished by the City authorities in
1297. It is possible that the reputation of this ‘Newe Feire’ still resided in the common
memory. Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae, ii, ‘Liber Custumarum’, pp. 96–7.
 Images of market trade 69

who gains the more valuable object. The two protagonists choose two
chapmen to appraise the items, but they find that they cannot agree on
their valuations so they ask Robin the rope-maker to adjudicate. When
agreement is reached, the receiver of the greater priced item is required
by the mediator (‘noumpere’) to make up the debt by standing a round of
drinks.170 Anyone who wants his property back, and thus defaults on the
game, has to pay for a gallon of ale for everyone. In this parody of a com-
mercial transaction, there is exchange, common bargaining, evaluation
by independent witnesses, adjudication of a dispute, the idea of just price
and a distribution of excess profit to the common ‘good’. Marketplace
morality was a commonplace for these characters. However, by staging
this scene in an alehouse, Langland highlighted the potential corruptibil-
ity of scholarly ethics in exchange, as well as the conflict between moral
ideals and practical behaviour.171
Medieval clerics and moralists found actual market mechanisms dis-
quieting, especially the process of exchange and bargaining which lay at
the heart of many commercial transactions. In marketplace haggling, sell-
ers often extol their goods while buyers denigrate them; both parties have
to be on their guard.172 Bargaining is described in a very realistic style in
various medieval ‘dialogues’.173 These texts were used to teach languages
and consisted of lines of conversation, much as can be found in mod-
ern language textbooks. The two-handed cut and thrust of a commercial
transaction was obviously an ideal format for practising a language and,
consequently, aspects of the dialogue appear to be based in realism. In
1483, William Caxton reprinted a fourteenth-century dialogue and sug-
gested that merchants would find it of great use in their dealings: ‘And
to knowe many wares / which to hym shalbe good to be bouзt [bought] /
Or solde for riche to become. / Lerne [learn] this book diligently; /
Great prouffyt [profit] lieth therin truly’.174 The text included repar-
tee in a cloth shop, with the buyer and seller haggling over the price,
cut and measuring of the cloth, as well as delivery costs and the type
of money to be exchanged. A typical extract includes an exaggeration
of the price, an appeal to the need to make a profit, a declaration of a
better market price elsewhere and the tying of the price to the quality of
the cloth:

170 Piers Plowman, a.v.166–82, b.v.318–44, c.vi.372–99; see Stokes, Justice, pp. 170–1.
171 See pp. 112–13 for a discussion of literary portrayals of alehouses and inns.
172 Langholm, The Merchant, p. 239.
173 See Bradley (ed.), Dialogues; CUL, MS ii.vi.17, fols. 100v–106v; Kristol (ed.), Manières
de Langage.
174 Bradley (ed.), Dialogues, p. 4, ll. 3–7.
70 Medieval market morality

‘Dame, what hold ye the elle of this cloth? Or what is worth the cloth hole? In
shorte to speke, how miche thelle?’
‘Syre, resone; I shall doo to you resone; Ye shall haue it good cheep.’
‘Ye, truly, for catell, Dame, me must wynne [gain]. Take hede what I shall paye.’
‘Four shelynges [shillings] for the elle, Yf it plese you.’
‘Hit ne were no wysedom. For so moche wold I haue Good scarlete!’
‘Ye haue right yf ye maye. But I haue yet somme whiche is not of the beste, which
I wold not yeue [give] for seuen shelynges.’
‘I you bileue [believe] well; But this is no suche cloth of so moche money, that
knowe ye well! This that ye shall leue shall be solde.’
‘Syre, what is it worth?’
‘Dame, it were worth to me well thre shellyngs.’
‘That is euyll boden [evil offer], or to moche axed [too much asked]; yet had I
leuer [given] that it were gold in your cheste.’
‘Damoyselle, ye shold not lese theron neuer a crosse [i.e. penny]; but saye cer-
tainly how shall I haue it withoute thynge to leue [give].’
‘I shall gyue it you at one worde: certaynly, if ye haue it, ye shall paye fyue [five]
shellyngs for so many elles which ye shall take; for I wyll abate no thyng.’175

The deal is concluded by a process of haggling, exaggeration and possi-

bly downright lying. The parties continue to discuss measurements and
the type of coinage, but Caxton eventually describes them as content
with the bargain. They even trust one another enough not to call on the
services of the official measurer, though this potential recourse is men-
tioned at one point and the seller calls the bluff. Although bargaining is
an informal process, such dialogues hint that it was informed both by
knowledge of etiquette and the potential support of official enforcement
when required. Caxton argued that the text could provide guidance to
traders and customers on how to bargain for any sort of merchandise
and, presumably, how to reach an amicable agreement.176
Similarly, other late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century dialogues pro-
vide an elementary guide to how a conversation in an inn might proceed,
including the ordering of rooms and meals. There is little moral guidance
involved here since it is intended more as a practical guide to language.
Consequently, in one dialogue the female innkeeper is presented in a

175 Ibid., pp. 14–18.

176 For a brief discussion of how early modern bargaining was viewed in a similar fashion,
see Muldrew, Economy of Obligation, p. 43.
 Images of market trade 71

fairly straightforward light. She haggles over certain prices, but her inn
provides a range of services (looking after the horses, washing clothes),
her ale is declared worthy of the payment and she provides numerous
types of food (meat, bread, cheese, fruit).177 The male hosteler in another
script is more discourteous at first, thus livening up the dialogue, but soon
reverts to the innkeeper’s traditional flattery.178 He describes his accom-
modation as ‘good and honest, fit for the king if he should please to lodge
here’, and the rooms prove to be clean and well-kept. He also provides
a fire and a variety of poultry, which is freshly purchased from the mar-
ket, though again the dialogue provides an opportunity for haggling over
the price. In this instance, the traveller openly accuses the innkeeper of
charging much more than he originally paid for the poultry. This is not
the clean-cut hosteler of the previous dialogue. Indeed, the ostensibly
clean room hides a multitude of rats and mice that the innkeeper claims
will be caught, while the implication that the traveller will find at the inn
‘two beautiful girls, as you usually have’ perhaps draws upon accusations
that many inns doubled as brothels.
Such matter-of-fact representations of the usefulness of the bargaining
procedure are far removed from traditional depictions in religious works.
A homily of the twelfth century saw market processes as inherently fraud-
ulent and evil:
The seller priceth his goods dear and saith they are well worth it or better worth
it. The buyer biddeth little for them and saith they are not worth it, and they
both lie; the seller bateth somewhat of his price, and sweareth that he will not sell
it for less; the buyer increaseth his bid and sweareth he will not give more. Then
cometh the devil and communeth with the thoughts of each, and causes the seller
to take less than he swore and then the buyer to give less than he swore.179

Here, haggling is presented in a different way; the practical trading pro-

cesses are condemned as deceitful and ‘hindering’. They are even akin to
perjury because often the parties involved have sworn the truth of their
assertions: ‘and with this snare catcheth the devil all who thus buyeth and
selleth’.180 In the late fourteenth century, John Gower similarly lamented
the bargaining techniques of traders:
As for the selling, the price will be doubled or trebled more than the article is
worth. To accomplish this, he swears by his God and by all His names, until he
is able to deceive the customer by vain words. Thus the young apprentice, taught

177 CUL, MS ii.vi.17, fols. 100v–106v. See also Bradley (ed.), Dialogues, pp. 49–50.
178 Kristol (ed.), Manières de Langage; Myers (ed.), English Historical Documents, pp. 1212–
13.
179 Morris (ed.), Old English Homilies of the Twelfth Century, pp. 212–15.
180 Ibid., pp. 214–15.
72 Medieval market morality

by his master Fraud, defrauds others in selling; that which costs him five or six
he offers to you at ten or twelve, swearing and saying that lower he cannot go
without losing a great deal. So he leads you on until he has confused you so much
that you believe him.181

The bargaining process, with its integral deceptions and oaths, eluded
the moralists’ sense of what was right. John Gower was not prepared
to accept the methods involved in comparing the measures of quality,
supply, quantity and added value in order to reach a just price. Instead,
he wondered why a fair price could not just be estimated and accepted
between the parties, based on known criteria.
The spiritual quandary remained that, in practice, bargaining involved
a number of aspects that were vilified by the Church. In the eyes of
moralists, traders were renowned for tricks of flattery, false oaths and
‘tongis dowble’.182 In particular, oath-breaking and false swearing were
vilified as frequently used elements of the traders’ verbal armoury in
assuaging the doubts of customers. A mid-fifteenth-century Lollard ser-
mon described how traders might use oaths in the bargaining process in
order to support their claims about original prices.183 However, such use
of oaths took God’s name in vain through their frequent application, and
also endangered traders’ souls when they pushed the margins of truth.
The persistent image was of chapmen who cared not what they swore
provided they made a profit. Wyclif decried those who beguiled their
customers through swearing by Christ and God that their commodities
cost so much and were true and wholesome. Yet, those that deceived
the people by tricks and subtleties were also seemingly praised for their
skill in using these tactics.184 In such writings there was recognition that
lying and concealment of the truth were essential facets of the traders’
make-up even though they were also morally deplorable.
Jacob’s Well (c.1440) explained the trader’s own situation starkly: ‘I
muste swere nedys and forswere me in chaffaryng and in other wyse;

181 Gower, Mirour, p. 338, ll. 25741–64 (also p. 332, ll. 25333–44). For guile becoming the
apprentice of the shopkeeper, see Piers Plowman, a.ii.173–6, b.ii.214–17, c.ii.221–4.
182 ‘Tongis dowble’ [tongues double] is from a late fourteenth-century moral stanza: Kane,
‘Middle English verse’, 60, l. 14. For false oaths, see also Royster, ‘Middle English
treatise’, 22, 30; BL, MS Harleian 4894, fols. 180v–181r (Robert Rypon); BL, MS
Harleian 2398, fol. 100v (‘Memoriale Credencium’); Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 44; Stockton
(ed.), Major Latin Works, ‘Vox Clamantis’, bk. v, ch. 13, pp. 213–14; Piers Plowman,
b.xiii.379–82.
183 Cigman (ed.), Lollard Sermons, p. 47. See also Morris (ed.), An Old English Miscellany,
p. 76, ll. 139–44; Fasciculus Morum, pp. 370–3; BL, MS Harleian 2398, fol. 100v
(‘Memoriale Credencium’).
184 Matthew (ed.), English Works of Wyclif, p. 238. See also Haren, Sin and Society, p. 170
(for ‘Memoriale Presbiterorum’); Owst, Literature and Pulpit, pp. 414–25.
 Images of market trade 73

ellys no man wyll beleuyn me’.185 In other words, traders argued that they
were not able to sell anything without swearing oaths and exaggerating.
An early thirteenth-century exemplum from a Dominican friar, Jacques
de Vitry, repeated in Jacob’s Well some 200 years later, highlighted the
dilemma faced by traders. In the story, a knight became a monk and,
because of his secular past, was considered the perfect candidate to send
to a fair to sell some old horses and asses and buy young ones in their
place. However, at the fair he proceeded to tell intending purchasers the
truth about their age and condition and subsequently failed to sell any:
‘In the feyre [fair] men askyed hum yif the horse and the assys were yunge
and clene of lymmes [young and fine of limbs]. The munke seyde, “nay,
it arn olde and feble, and crokyd [crooked], wel more ye wyten [know],
yyf they haddyn be yunge gode with-outyn defawte [without default],
we wolde not haue brougt hem hyder to selle, for oure hows [house]
hath noзt so gret nede”’. Upon his return to the monastery he was
upbraided, even though he declared he was unwilling to lie and injure his
soul by deceiving his neighbours. He was never sent out of the monastery
on secular business again.186 Similarly, Caesarius of Heisterbach in The
Dialogue on Miracles (c.1220–35) related how two merchants felt ‘we can
scarcely buy or sell anything without being compelled to lie and swear,
and often to swear falsely’.187 The personified Covetousness in Piers
Plowman also learnt guile, fraud and lying while an apprentice under
‘Symme at þe nok’. These deceits were deemed to be the only means to
sell their wares at the fairs of Winchester and Weyhill or else they would
remain unsold.188 The implication was that ethics were being usurped
by the competitive demands of the marketplace.

False words and false wares

Some moralists recognised the utility of advertising for vendors. Reginald
Pecock, Bishop of Chichester (from 1450 to 1460), revealed an aware-
ness of the need for traders to promote and display their wares when
he compared mercantile endorsements with his own extolling of spiri-
tual ‘goods’. He compared his position to a merchant who had brought
precious and important goods from across the sea, but would not be

185 [I must swear of necessity and forswear myself in selling/trading and in other manner;
else no man will believe me]. Jacob’s Well, p. 261, ll. 15–16.
186 Crane (ed.), Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, pp. 21, 156, no. liii; Jacob’s Well, p. 311, l. 24
– p. 312, l. 28.
187 Scott and Bland (eds.), Dialogue, i, pp. 177–8, ch. xxxvii; Banks (ed.), An Alphabet,
no. 485; Tubach, Index Exemplorum, no. 3267.
188 Piers Plowman, a.v.115–22, b.v.199–206, c.vi.204–11.
74 Medieval market morality

able to sell them unless ‘he wolde denounce and proclame that he had
such chaffre [merchandise]’. Should he not therefore ‘holde a proude
avaunter [boaster] of him silf or of his chaffare’ without blame?189 How-
ever, most writers were suspicious of traders who lavishly praised their
own wares, particularly if such words emanated from humble stallholders
and hawkers in the marketplace. Even the basic advertising of wares was
considered to be a trick of flattery and lying, upheld by blasphemous
oaths. Gower stated:

Standing outside before the door the youthful Fraud shouts her different wares,
whatever you might wish to have. She will say the names of this and that, of as
many things as there are stars in the sky, as she calls and allures you . . . Indeed,
when old Fraud utters her tricky words, no one can go away uncheated. If a smart
man enters, she is smarter than he; and if a fool goes in, he goes away a bigger
fool.190

Gower’s mercer was even more aggressive in hawking his wares: ‘he
shrieks more than a sparrowhawk. When he sees unknown folk, he
pushes and pulls, calls and cries out, saying, “Step up and come in!
Beds, kerchiefs, ostrich feathers, silks, satins, imported cloths”.’191 Once
the customer was in his shop the merchant was then portrayed as polite,
entertaining and subtle in his talk ‘to make vain people foolish, so that
he can get their money’.
Flattery and bluster were considered tools of the trade. John Mirk
warned against using ‘fals countenans and glosynge’ when bargaining.192
Peter Idley compared his flattering counsellor to the village chapman who
advertised his goods with fine words, but ‘vndir hony he hideth galle’.193
The taverner in the late fifteenth-century religious play Mary Magdalene
boasted loudly of his wit and wisdom as well as his unrivalled selection of
wines: ‘ther be no bettyr as ferre [far] as зe can goo!’; which was probably
regarded as a commonplace example of commercial exaggeration. He
goes on to extol the restorative powers of his wines: ‘To man and woman
a good restoratyff, зe xall [shall] nat thynk your mony spent in wast[e] –
From stodyys [firmness?] and hevynes [heaviness] it woll yow relyff!’194
Such exalting of their own virtues and abilities was a common style for

189 Hitchcock (ed.), Donet, p. 83, ll. 16–27.

190 Stockton (ed.), Major Latin Works, ‘Vox Clamantis’, bk. v, ch. 13, pp. 213–14.
191 Gower, Mirour, p. 332, ll. 25285–96. See also Gray (ed.), Oxford Book, ‘London Lick-
penny’, pp. 18–19, ll. 50–98 (BL, MS Harleian 367, fols. 126r–127v).
192 Peacock (ed.), Instructions, p. 40, ll. 1299–306. See also Bornstein (ed.), Middle English
Translation; Nelson (ed.), Fifteenth Century School Book, p. 54, no. 232.
193 D’Evelyn (ed.), Peter Idley’s Instructions, Liber Primus, p. 87, ll. 400–6.
194 Baker, Murphy and Hall Jr (eds.), Late Medieval Religious Plays, pp. 39–40, ll. 470–88.
 Images of market trade 75

certain characters in plays, but the audience would have readily associated
traders with such characteristics.
Traders were regarded as unscrupulous in what they did in order to
make a deal. For instance, moralists warned against traders’ use of drink
to lubricate a deal.195 Handlyng Synne stated:
Or þou ledyst any man to þe ale leads
And madest hym drunk with troteuale idle talk
And he solde hys þyng to þe thing
More þan he wulde yn soberte196 sobriety

Similarly, scorn was directed at the false friendship of hostelers and

innkeepers, who fêted approaching customers but cared nothing for them
once they had paid their bill or if it became clear that they had lost all
their money.197 In the minds of preachers, such actions were ultimately
linked to the insatiable nature of covetousness and to how this sin could
lead men to ignore honesty, courtesy and charity.
Moralists often emphasised the trivial, frivolous and unnecessary
nature of the pedlar’s trade, for their wares could seemingly only be
sold by the use of deceit or lies. William Lichfield, a preacher in the early
fifteenth century, wrote that ‘a pore peddelere makiþ oftmore noise to sel
his sope [soap] and his nedyll [needle] þan doiþ þe rych marchaunte with
al þis dere worþi [dear worthy] ware þus þay þat do but lityl gode spekyn
mych more þerof þen men of gret vertue don of hir god dedis [good
deeds]’.198 The ‘chapmen lyght of fote’ were thus seen as dishonest, and
as John Heywood’s pedlar, in the play ‘The Foure PP’ (c.1521–5), tells
his companions, the apothecary, palmer and pardoner:
And all ye thre can lye as well lie
As can the falsest deuyll in hell
And, though afore ye harde me grudge
In greater maters to be your iudge,
Yet in lyeng I can some skyll lying
And, yf I shall be iudge, I wyll199

The pedlar thus declares himself the archetypal liar among others who
have some knowledge in the matter. He has no luck in selling goods to

195 Fasciculus Morum, pp. 436–7; Mozley and Raymo (eds.), Nigel de Longchamps, p. 47,
l. 743 – p. 48, l. 790, esp. p. 48, ll. 781–8.
196 Handlyng Synne, p. 194, ll. 5969–72.
197 Ross (ed.), Middle English Sermons, p. 85, ll. 26–37 (BL, MS Royal 18.b.xxiii, fol. 80r);
Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, ‘Amor’.
198 BL, MS Royal 8.c.i, fol. 124v.
199 Adams (ed.), Chief Pre-Shakespearean Dramas, ‘The Play called the Foure PP’, p. 373,
ll. 442–7.
76 Medieval market morality

these fellows, even though they all enjoy each other’s company, because
they can apparently discern his peddling deceits by drawing on their own
experience of lying.
Flattery, subtle words and lies were thus considered part of the duplic-
itous armoury of all avaricious traders. Such deception was closely allied
to selling a good despite prior knowledge that it was essentially flawed
and yet still not openly declaring this fault.200 Dives and Pauper stated: ‘if
man or woman sell a þing [thing] for good and he knowe defaute þerynne
be whyche defaute þe byere is deceyuyd he doþ gyle and þefte [guile and
theft]. And also if þe byere begyle so þe sellere . . . For зif he selle an
halt [lame] hors for a swyft hors and a ruynous hous [ruinous house]
for a strong hous it is perylous and harm to þe byere and he is holdyn
to restitucioun.’201 Horse-sellers, or ‘coursors’, were portrayed as espe-
cially corrupt for they were supposedly inclined to hide the faults of the
goods they sold.202 Jacques de Vitry’s early thirteenth-century exempla
portrayed horse-sellers as unscrupulous and liable to give buyers equiv-
ocal advice: ‘If the horse turned out badly, he said: “I warned you not to
buy it.” If the horse turned out a good one, he said: “I advised you to
buy it.”’203 Another exemplum described how a trader praised a horse
he was selling by claiming that the horse ate everything and would not
climb trees; the buyer found that the horse bit everything and would not
cross wooden bridges.204
Jacques the Grete, in his fifteenth-century The Book of Goode Maners,
implored traders not to hide the faults of their merchandise and asked
them to declare openly any blemishes. He recognised the paradox in that
it was a ‘gret foly a marchaunt to dyspreyse hys owne marchaundyse’,
but concluded that truth should remain the most significant factor. No
trader should seek to deceive their neighbours and they ‘shuld suche wyse
dresse her marchaundyse that yt myght sownde treuly to euery party’.205

200 Lefébure (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas, pp. 216–21, vol. 38: Injustice, ii–ii, q.77, a.2.
Aquinas recognised that sellers might be ignorant of faults and sell their wares honestly.
In such cases, the trader committed no sin, though he was still bound to make restitution
once the true facts were uncovered.
201 Dives and Pauper, i, ii, pp. 154–5, taken from Lefébure (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas,
pp. 222–5, vol. 38: Injustice, ii–ii, q.77, a.3. See also Power (ed.), Goodman of Paris,
p. 82. For a court roll entry that mirrored this moral indictment, see p. 344.
202 Furnivall (ed.), Pilgrimage, p. 484, ll. 18100–2; Nelson (ed.), Myrour, p. 140 (BL, MS
Harleian 45, fol. 71v); Jacob’s Well, p. 134, ll. 2–7; Crane (ed.), Exempla of Jacques de
Vitry, pp. 80–1, 211, no. cxciii; Zeydel (ed.), Ship of Fools, p. 328; Bromyard, Summa
Predicantium, ‘Falsitas’; Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 44; Vices and Virtues, p. 41, ll. 2–3.
203 Crane (ed.), Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, pp. 129, 268, no. cccix.
204 Tubach (ed.), Index Exemplorum, no. 2616.
205 BL, MS Harleian 149, fol. 239r–v. See also Dives and Pauper, i, ii, pp. 154–5; Bromyard,
Summa Predicantium, ‘Mercatio’; Furnivall (ed.), Minor Poems, ‘Truth ever is best’,
 Images of market trade 77

Verbal misrepresentation went hand in hand with the alleged alacrity of

traders in deceiving customers through physical sleights. Moralists gave
examples of trickery that made wares look better than they actually were.
For instance, drapers were often accused of using tricks of the light and
darkened rooms to make their cloth seem of higher quality than it was:
‘false schewynge [showing], as when a marchant can sotelliche [subtly]
adresse his ware to make hit seme better than it is, and scheweth it in
derke place, to hyde the defaute therof, or to make seme the better, as
doth drapers, mercers, and many other suche’.206 They might also stretch
cloth using needles and a press.207 Tawyers might sell old, rotten skins as
new by cleansing and adorning them in a superficial manner and by using
sly words.208 A fifteenth-century treatise on the Ten Commandments
(c.1420–35) summarised the deceitful activities of such artisans: ‘þat
maketh euel werke and selleth it for good þinge and good werke, knoinge
wel þat he dooth defraude and begylynge to his euyncristen and so he
selleth with oothes his good falsly and be gilith his broþer untruly’.209
According to the preachers and moralists, these traders were not merely
negligent but deliberately fraudulent. By engaging in such activities they
were disregarding their Christian duty towards their fellows.

False weights and measures

Most trading fraud was related to lying, perjury, false-witness and
guile.210 Traders were often accused of trying to bulk out or falsify the
quantity of their goods. John Gower wrote about butchers who used
wooden skewers to add fat to lean meat, so that there was more wood
than flesh in the sold victual.211 In the mid-fourteenth century, John

pt. 2, p. 699; Nelson (ed.), Myrour, p. 139, l. 30 – p. 140, l. 11 (BL, MS Harleian 45,
fol. 71r–v); Harrison (ed.), Examples, pp. 97–8; Larson (ed.), King’s Mirror, pp. 80–1.
206 BL, MS Harleian 45, fol. 71v, cf. Owst, Literature and Pulpit, pp. 354–5. See also
Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 45; Vices and Virtues, p. 41; Gower, Mirour, p. 332, ll. 25321–
32; Stockton (ed.), Major Latin Works, ‘Vox Clamantis’, bk. v, ch. 13, pp. 213–14;
Furnivall (ed.), Pilgrimage, pp. 483–4, ll. 18088–99; Nelson (ed.), Myrour, p. 140, ll.
4–7; Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, ‘Mercatio’; Zeydel (ed.), Ship of Fools, p. 328;
Furnivall (ed.), Jyl of Breyntford’s Testament, pp. 21–2.
207 Piers Plowman, a.v.123–8, b.v.207–12, c.vi.212–17.
208 Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, ‘Luxuria’.
209 (that make evil work and sell it for a good thing and good work, knowing well that
he does defraud and beguile his fellow Christian, and so he sells with oaths his goods
falsely and beguiles his brother untruly.) Royster, ‘Middle English treatise’, 30.
210 One late medieval poem stated that ‘gyle is chapman’. Cambridge, St John’s College,
MS 37 / b15, fol. 56v.
211 Gower, Mirour, p. 345, ll. 26233–44.
78 Medieval market morality

Bromyard (d. 1352) claimed that traders would ‘mingle bad and extra-
neous matter with the stuff that is to be weighed in sly fashion, like those
who mix sand with wool, or wet the wool to make it weigh heavier, or else
blend old and bad stuff with new and good samples’.212 If they could not
alter their weights and measures directly then it was assumed that they
had other means to deceive the scales.
Numerous biblical references mention good and just measurement,
which is equated with God’s justice and also the scales that weighed
men’s souls on the Day of Judgement.213 A proper use of weights and
measures was considered to be divinely ordained. Aquinas stated: ‘if
somebody knowingly uses a defective measure in a contract of sale, he
is committing fraud and the sale is illicit’ and this was considered ‘an
abomination to the Lord your God’.214 The denunciation of false weights
and measures was thus a commonplace in texts railing against medieval
traders.215 John Wyclif charged: ‘for þei lyuen comynly [live commonly]
bi falsnesse as bi false swerynge [swearing], false mesure and false weitis
[weights]’.216 Jacob’s Well enunciated the main deception ‘in bying be
the more, and selling be the lesse; and thowgh thi mesure or weyghte
be trewe, git thou takest it large inward and gevyst it scarse outward,
agens trewthe [against truth]’.217 In other words, traders deceitfully used
a large measure to buy with and a small measure to sell with, even though

212 Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, ‘Mercatio’. There is a case in the Lincolnshire Ses-
sions of the Peace, in 1373–5, where John Borde of Spalding mixed his wool with sand
to increase the weight. Sillem (ed.), Records, p. 220 (Roll H), no. 1. See also Leicester,
i, pp. 202–3 (1287).
213 Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 91, 98 (who quotes Isaiah 40:12; Proverbs
16:11; Matthew 7:2; Leviticus 19:35–6).
214 Lefébure (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas, pp. 216–21, vol. 38: Injustice, ii–ii, q.77, a.2.
215 In the twelfth century, priests were instructed to warn their congregations against the
use of false measures, Peacock (ed.), Instructions, p. 22, ll. 704–14, p. 32, ll. 1051–8.
Such warnings can be seen through the following centuries. See Simmons and Nolloth
(eds.), Lay Folks’ Catechism, p. 51, ll. 796–801; Ross (ed.), Middle English Sermons,
p. 24, ll. 17–21 (BL, MS Royal 18.b.xxiii, fol. 94r); Royster, ‘Middle English treatise’,
29; Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 44–5; Vices and Virtues, pp. 40–1; Bromyard, Summa Pred-
icantium, ‘Falsitas’ and ‘Mercatio’; BL, MS Harleian 4894, fol. 68v (Robert Rypon);
BL, MS Harleian 2398, fols. 3v, 21v, 100v (‘Memoriale Credencium’); Devlin (ed.),
Sermons of Thomas Brinton, p. 77, sermon 19, pp. 147–8, sermon 35, p. 259, sermon
56, p. 289, sermon 63; Swinburn (ed.), Lanterne, p. 107, l. 18 – p. 108, l. 9; Gower,
Mirour, p. 88, ll. 6301–12, p. 331, ll. 25261–72; Macaulay (ed.), Complete Works of John
Gower, iii, ‘Confessio Amantis’, Lib. v, ll. 4396–9; Piers Plowman, a.v.131–2, b.v.208–9,
c.vi.213–14; Furnivall (ed.), Pilgrimage, p. 483, ll. 18073–9; BL, MS Harleian 149,
fol. 239r–v; Zeydel (ed.), Ship of Fools, pp. 328–9.
216 Matthew (ed.), English Works of Wyclif, pp. 185–6, also p. 25.
217 Jacob’s Well, p. 133, ll. 28–31, also p. 19, ll. 8–13, p. 60, ll. 2–5. This drew on a
biblical injunction against having both small and great weights: Deuteronomy 25:13–
15. Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, p. 98. See also Dives and Pauper, i, ii, p. 154,
ll. 43–9; Nelson (ed.), Myrour, p. 139, l. 40 – p. 140, l. 3 (BL, MS Harleian 45,
fol. 71r–v); Jamieson (ed.), Ship of Fools, ii, p. 222; Morris (ed.), Old English Homilies
 Images of market trade 79

they might ostensibly look the same. In the late thirteenth century, Walter
of Henley advised stewards and estate managers to buy and sell in the
presence of witnesses because ‘theare is much fraude to such as cannot
espie it’. Walter also warned traders and consumers to ‘beware off hym
that holdithe the balaunce for he may do you grete fraude’.218
The scales and beams used by traders might be balanced in their own
favour, or could be easily controlled by a sleight of the hand. Brom-
yard expressed the fear that traders (such as spicers) misused the auncel
balance: ‘with a certain trick they manipulate the balance and thus put
weight on it, to press it down without good and true weight’, and Jacques
the Grete complained of the ‘balaunce that ys falcely guyded’.219 In the
late fifteenth century, a merchant handbook, The Noumbre of Weyghtes,
outlined the ban on the use of the auncel: ‘Aunsell weyght is for boden
[forbidden] be the parlement and also holy cherche [church] hath cursyd
all theym þat by or sell by þat weyghtes ffor itt is a dysseyvabyll [deceiv-
able] weyghtes and a ffalse’.220 Sebastian Brant’s The Ship of Fools (1494)
summarised these anxieties about the users of scales:

The seller gives the scale a shove,

That toward the ground it lunge and move
And asks: ‘How much of this, I pray?’
And with the meat his thumb does weigh.221

Ultimately, traders were expected to keep good measure according to

parliamentary statutes and the king’s standard and not to use deceitful
weighing practices.222 Depictions of good merchants and traders thus
often included a balance or yardstick in their hand, emphasising their
commitment to true weights and measures (see Figure 1, below).

Customers and ‘lyther bargaining’

Market traders who took direct advantage of a customer, particularly
those in need, were charged with ‘lyther bargaining’. This accusation

of the Twelfth Century, pp. 212–15; Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, ‘Mercatio’; Vices
and Virtues, p. 40, ll. 19–27.
218 Oschinsky (ed.), Walter of Henley, pp. 340–1, c. 108 and p. 384.
219 Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, ‘Mercatio’; BL, MS Harleian 149, fol. 239r. See also
Nelson (ed.), Fifteenth Century School Book, p. 54, no. 230. See below, pp. 195–6, for a
discussion of the auncel. Simplified images of a balance can be seen in Figures 1, 12,
18.
220 BL, MS Cotton Vespasian e.ix, fol. 86v.
221 Zeydel (ed.), Ship of Fools, pp. 328–9. In 1509, this work was translated into English
by Alexander Barclay and printed by Richard Pynson.
222 Jacob’s Well, p. 60, ll. 2–5; MacCracken (ed.), Minor Poems, ‘Mesure is Tresour’,
pp. 776–9, no. 62.
80 Medieval market morality

was part of broader anxieties regarding how vendors and customers inter-
acted. Traders were frequently held in suspicion and medieval allegories
depicted them as foxes, full of cunning and sly deceits, as seen in Jacob’s
Well:

the coueytous man is as a fox, for he, wyth dysseygtys [deceits], wyth false othys
[oaths] and auncerys [auncels], and false weygtys and mesurys, harmyth and
hynderyth more symple folk, that arn his neyghbourys and kan no wyles [know
no wiles], þan he doth straungerys, þat arn slye and as wyly as he.223

Such imagery was even used in legislative sources. In the London Letter-
Book for 1335, inquiries were made against ‘fraudulent bakers who carry
on their business secretly, hiding themselves like foxes’.224 Traders were
generally associated with worldly knowledge and a pragmatic realism
that allowed them to advance their aims, usually at the expense of others.
Bromyard described the subtle deceptions of shopkeepers who counted
out change so fast that the customer lost count and took less than they
should.225 Customers were thus portrayed as ‘simple men’, unknowing
in the ways of commerce and in need of protection from traders who were
cunning and sly and more than prepared to beguile their neighbours.
The purpose of medieval clerical and literary texts was thus as much
didactic as condemnatory. They informed consumers about the pitfalls
and deceptions of the marketplace and outlined the moral codes to
which traders and purchasers should adhere. Such advice and warn-
ings, whether elucidated through the media of the pulpit, poems, plays,
sculpture, or wall-paintings, shaped the medieval moral environment.
Customers were frequently warned about their own need for prudence
against deceptions. John Gower delivered the advice: ‘you should remem-
ber one thing: if you enter the shop, you should be very prudent about
buying; for Fraud never reveals himself fully; rather, by his sly flattery he

223 Jacob’s Well, p. 118, ll. 21–33. See also BL, MS Royal 8.c.i, fol. 130r (theological
tract by William Lichfield, rector of Allhallows the Great, early fifteenth century);
Wilson (ed.), English Text, pp. 57–8; Morris (ed.), An Old English Miscellany, p. 14,
ll. 444–51; Randall, Images in the Margins, pp. 8–19; Thomson and Perraud (eds.),
Ten Latin Schooltexts, pp. 334–5; Rendell (ed.), Physiologus, pp. 22–4; Furnivall (ed.),
Pilgrimage, pp. 385–6. Foxes were traditionally associated with flattery, cunning and
deceit. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘Nun’s Priest’s Tale’, pp. 252–61; Sisam and Sisam
(eds.), Medieval English Verse, pp. 24–35, no. 16, pp. 509–11, no. 239, pp. 511–12,
no. 240; Robbins (ed.), Secular Lyrics, p. 43, no. 48, pp. 44–5, no. 49; BL, MS Royal
19.b.iv, fol. 97v; Sands (ed.), History of Reynard the Fox, p. 45; Varty, ‘Reynard the Fox’;
Varty, Reynard the Fox, p. 21; Blake, ‘Reynard the Fox’; Fox (ed.), Robert Henryson,
pp. 76–84.
224 CLB, e, pp. 6–7 (1335); Liber Albus, p. 314.
225 Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, ‘Mercatio’. See also Harrison (ed.), Examples,
pp. 128–9.
 Images of market trade 81

will give you chalk for cheese. You will think by his language that this wild
nettle is a precious rose – so courteous a face he will put on for you – but
if you will escape unhurt, do not trust yourself to his paperwork.’226 In
the prologue to his printed edition of Reynard the Foxe in 1481, Caxton
hoped that the text would help lords, prelates, merchants and common
people to understand some of the subtle deceits that were daily used in
the world, to ‘kepe hym from the subtyl false shrewis that they be not
deceyuyd’.227
John Bromyard provided a subtle slant on the traders’ traditional bar-
gaining skills and their excuses for deceiving their customers: ‘The buyers
have their own senses and intellect . . . they can buy the things or leave
them!’ Bromyard’s traders even argue that they often purchase goods
that turn out false, so why should they not put the same wares up for
sale and hide the defects.228 Aquinas advanced the theory that all faults
in a seller’s goods should be announced, otherwise the contract could
be declared null and void and the seller forced to make restitution.
In particular, they should declare any faulty goods that might lead to
harm or loss for the purchaser, ‘as where one sells another a lame horse
instead of a good runner, a tumble-down house instead of a solid one,
or mouldy or even poisonous food instead of food in good condition’.
Pragmatically, however, Aquinas suggested that, if a flaw was obvious and
open, ‘as where a horse has only one eye’, and if the seller had already
reduced the price fairly, he was justified in keeping quiet about the flaw in
case the buyer tried to lower the price even further than was warranted.229
In this way, traders were seen as relocating some of the responsibility for
the conduct of the deal onto the consumer. Aquinas did, however, suggest
that although a seller was not bound by strict justice to disclose anything
further (if the commodity was not harmful and set at a fair market price),
it was still virtuous to do so. Most moralists were not so ambivalent and
traditionally dismissed any notion of caveat emptor. They declared that
it was the duty of traders to reveal all and thus help and not deceive
their neighbours. Sellers were expected to trade according to ideals of
communal justice, whereas such ‘lyther bargaining’ took advantage of
the buyer’s ignorance or lack of bargaining skills as well as the urgency of
their needs. Some customers had to buy or sell goods in order to obtain
necessary victuals or money for dues, and moralists berated any trader

226 Gower, Mirour, p. 332, ll. 25297–308.

227 Crotch (ed.), Prologues and Epilogues, p. 60.
228 Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, ‘Mercatio’, cf. Owst, Literature and Pulpit, p. 357.
229 Lefébure (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas, pp. 222–5, vol. 38: Injustice, ii–ii, q.77, a.3; Dives
and Pauper, i, ii, pp. 154–5, ll. 52–68.
82 Medieval market morality

who tried to benefit from such desperation by charging undue prices.230

The Noumbre of Weyghtes remarked: ‘euery merchaunt to make hys barg-
ynnes trewly, sadly and wysly so þat he may haue resonabyll wynnynges
[gain] and dysseyve [deceive] noone Innoceyntes with noone vntreue
chaffyre [untrue selling] for þer dyspleasauns [displeasure] of god’.231
The poor and innocent should be protected not exploited. Fasciculus
Morum likened ‘simulating the truth’ or dissembling during commer-
cial deals to the poison of an asp which enters the body imperceptibly,
spreads secretly, but then kills openly.232 Ultimately, such practices led
to ‘hidden and deceitful traps for the innocent’ and could have profound
consequences.
Yet, deception was not only a sin of which sellers were guilty. Late
medieval writers also warned traders that they might too fall victim to
the frauds of their customers. For instance, a buyer might know that
a certain commodity was worth more than the seller realised. Keeping
silent about this was considered sinful and the purchaser was bound to
make restitution.233 Other customers might be very slow to pay their
debts, as suggested by John Lydgate: ‘A shrewed payer maþe muche
longe delaye / With fals byhestis [behests] and fals flatterye’.234 Bromyard
similarly lamented deceitful debtors who failed to repay despite having
the requisite funds.235 Traders were advised to keep careful records of
their transactions and debtors so that recompense in the courts would
be easier. A sermon from the fifteenth century warned wasters and the
untrustworthy that craftsmen and traders made tallies of their sales or
wrote them in their account books, and emphasised that if the waster
tried to evade his debt the trader would ‘takyþe an accion [action] a
зenste [against] þe vntrew man and so puttiþe hym in preson [prison]
schewyng un to hym teyle [tally] or els his proper writyng’.236
The Noumbre of Weyghtes provides some brief guidance to those engaged
in commerce. Most of the discourse concerns weights, measures, various
sorts of merchandise and other technical matters. There is, however, a

230 Jacob’s Well, p. 133, ll. 17–21, and p. 211, l. 28 – p. 212, l. 5; Nelson (ed.), Myrour,
p. 139, ll. 36–40 (BL, MS Harleian 45, fol. 71r); Bowers, ‘A Middle English mnemonic
poem’, 230–2. See also Langholm, The Merchant, pp. 39–40, 65, 109–10, 117–18,
153–4, 160–2, 177, 192.
231 BL, MS Cotton Vespasian e.ix, fol. 96r.
232 Fasciculus Morum, pp. 346–7. For deceiving the simple and innocent through the devices
of false cheer and exaggerating a ware’s quality and price, see also Furnivall (ed.),
Pilgrimage, pp. 483–4, ll. 18061–99; Jamieson (ed.), Ship of Fools, ii, pp. 167–8.
233 Lefébure (ed.), St Thomas Aquinas, pp. 216–21, vol. 38: Injustice, ii–ii, q.77, a.2.
234 MacCracken (ed.), Minor Poems, ‘Every Thing to His Semblable’, pp. 801–7,
esp. ll. 137–8.
235 Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, ‘Usura’.
236 Nottingham University Library, MS 50, fol. 73r–v.
 Images of market trade 83

short section that advises traders on how to undertake their dealings

and what to beware.237 Firstly, the trader should look to where he can
buy and sell wares to make a reasonable gain, making sure that he is
not targeting places that already have adequate supplies, like sending
stockfish to Norway. They should also carefully inspect what they buy
to prove that it is good and whether the wares can be stored or need to
be hastily sold. All traders should beware what they buy, when, where
and from whom: ‘yf a man by [buy] chaffor [merchandise] in suche a
place as he may haue no delyuerauns [delivery] þeroff and he pay for ytt
afore [before] and haue ytt nott he is dyseyved [deceived] or els yf he bye
goodes of hym þat hath no power to sell ytt he ys dysseyved and þerfore
euery man be ware howe he bye and sell and in whatt place and of whom’.
The writer thus appears to reinforce the importance of franchised, open
markets, where formal mechanisms are in place to redeem debts and
to check for stolen or adulterated goods. Lastly, traders must inquire
about the prices of all merchandise that they see or hear about, because
such information was the source to better goods and prices. Within such
guidance, traders are not only warned about possible deceptions by their
fellow traders, but also about the importance of the transaction costs of
search, negotiation and enforcement, and how these might be lessened
by the use of formal markets. Some texts thus recognised that traders
needed to be careful and knowledgeable in order to succeed in their
profession. Even William Langland accepted that merchants and traders
were given skills and a keen eye by God so that they could earn a living
through buying and selling.238

The merchant
The wealthy merchant was the stock figure employed in most medieval
writings that discussed trade, and he encapsulated the sins of avarice
and fraud. Representations of such dealers thus provided the foundation
for any discussions of more humble retailers. In contemporary litera-
ture, merchants were regularly grouped together with their petty trade
counterparts, as well as with the artisanal classes.239 However, despite
an overlap in general accusations of avarice and types of fraud, lead-
ing merchants were also increasingly represented as a world apart from

237 BL, MS Cotton Vespasian e.ix, fols. 96r–97r. 238 Piers Plowman, b.xix.234–5.
239 Artisans were often grouped together with retailers in texts, particularly when they were
selling their own products direct to the consumer. However, they were also praised for
their hard work, sobriety and craftsmanship, and their labours were easier to justify
than those of retailers. Piers Plowman, b.xix.234–5; Bornstein (ed.), Middle English
Translation, pp. 186–9; Gower, Mirour, p. 335, ll. 25501–12.
84 Medieval market morality

Figure 1: Merchant.
Notes: The woodcut shows a merchant, or money-changer, wearing a
money-pouch and holding a balance (a rigid beam suspended at the
centre and with identical weighing pans) and weight. This was an illus-
tration for the fourth pawn in The Game of Chess (1483), which ordered
society according to the layout of a chessboard.
Source: Cessolis, De Ludo Scachorum, bk. 3, ch. 4 (Cambridge, Trinity
College Library, vi.18.3, fol. 47v).

retailers in their wealth, status and international endeavours. Images that

depict their clothes and demeanour certainly imply that these men were
above the normal ranks of traders, perhaps even more akin to the gentry.
William Caxton’s edition of The Game of Chess (late fifteenth century),
presents a merchant or money-changer in very fine attire, possibly fur-
lined, holding a balance and weight, and bearing a dignified expression
(see Figure 1). The accompanying text describes ‘at his gurdell [girdle]
a purse fulle of monoye [money] redy for to gyue to them that requyre
hit’.240
The most well-known literary representation of a merchant is the
solemn, dignified and well-dressed figure in the General Prologue to

240 Cessolis, De Ludo Scachorum, bk. 3, ch. 4. The text was originally written by Jacob de
Cessolis, a Dominican friar, in the early fourteenth century.
 Images of market trade 85

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.241 In his portrayal of the

‘Marchant’, Chaucer subtly drew upon tensions between the commer-
cial world and conventional social ideology.242 With his usual sense of
irony, he presented justifications for the prosperous mercantile commu-
nity yet also encapsulated many of the negative mercantile stereotypes
that pervaded medieval literature. The Merchant is explicitly presented
in a fairly positive light, but this portrayal is leavened by Chaucer’s stylis-
tic ability to provide a variety of implicit, unresolved discourses.243 His
choice of phrases and words implies that the Merchant’s’ façade of vir-
tuous respectability might actually be hiding dishonesty and fraud.244
Medieval audiences would have surely grasped the underlying questions
of morality that accorded with the accepted ideology of the day, which in
turn would have informed their understanding of the text.245
The Merchant of the General Prologue was involved in the inter-
national wool and cloth trade, as implied by his concerns for the sea
route between Orwell and Middleburg.246 The decorated and colourful
apparel of Chaucer’s Merchant in the early fifteenth-century Ellesmere
manuscript presents an image of a man made rich by the proceeds
of international commerce (see Figure 2). However, as Laura Hodges
noted, the clothes described by Chaucer were perhaps not as publicly
ostentatious or sumptuous as suggested by the Ellesmere illustration:

A Marchant was ther with a forked berd, beard

In mottelee, and hye on horse he sat; motley (type of cloth)
Upon his heed a Flaundryssh bever hat, head; beaver
His bootes clasped faire and fetisly. neat/well-made
His resons he spak ful solempnely,
Sownynge alwey th’encrees of his wynnyng.247 increase; gain

According to Hodges, the Merchant’s footwear and hat were conserva-

tive and respectable, while the choice of a ‘mottelee’ patterned fabric
reflected developments in the domestic cloth trade. This all matched his
bearing, which was described as ‘solempne’ and ‘estatly’, indicating a
discrete and prudent character.248 Hodges argued that funeral brasses
of merchants often depicted them with forked beards, buckled shoes
and fine clothes, intended to demonstrate well-being and elicit respect.

241 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘General Prologue’, pp. 27–8, ll. 270–84; Bowden,
Commentary, pp. 146–53.
242 Mann, Chaucer, pp. 99–103. 243 Rigby, Chaucer in Context, pp. 40–53.
244 Woolf, ‘Chaucer as a satirist’; Ladd, ‘Mercantile mis(reader)’.
245 Rigby, Chaucer in Context, pp. 168–71.
246 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘General Prologue’, p. 27, ll. 276–7.
247 Ibid., p. 27, ll. 270–5. 248 Hodges, Chaucer and Costume, pp. 75–89.
86 Medieval market morality

Figure 2: Chaucer’s Merchant.

Notes: This marginal manuscript illustration is next to a passage relating
to the Merchant in the General Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Source: San Marino, Calif., Huntington Library, el 26 c9, fol. 102v
(Ellesmere manuscript, early fifteenth century).

However, these same brasses show money-pouches as a standard mer-

cantile emblem; this did not make purses immune from symbolic connec-
tions with avarice. A number of literary critics have argued that Chaucer
was implying self-importance in his portrait of the Merchant, interpret-
ing ‘ful solempnely’ as pomposity. Kenneth Cahn, Muriel Bowden and
John Manly all viewed the Merchant’s garb as expensive and designed
to impress onlookers with a sense of wealth (‘wynnyng’) and status.249
For them, a ‘Flaundryssh’ beaver hat and boots ‘clasped faire and fetisly’
suggested a sense of finery and international fashion. Beyond notions of
well-being and respectability, such dress could be construed as Chauce-
rian hints at prosperity, vanity and ambition, as also indicated by the
Merchant sitting ‘hye on horse’. Indeed, pride was a characteristic tra-
ditionally associated with merchants in French fabliaux.250 Admittedly,

249 Cahn, ‘Chaucer’s merchants’, 118; Bowden, Commentary, pp. 150–1; Manly, Some
New Light, p. 513.
250 Stillwell, ‘Chaucer’s “sad” merchant’; Hellman and O’Gorman (eds.), Fabliaux, pp. 17–
21, 182–93; Eichmann and DuVal (eds.), Cuckolds, pp. 77–9. Fabliaux were humorous,
often bawdy, verse tales.
 Images of market trade 87

Chaucer may have been merely portraying what he regarded as typical

attire for such men, as seen in surviving funeral brasses. However, this
medieval writer seldom wrote lines without purpose and often saturated
his verse with sharp satire.
In another passage from the General Prologue, the Merchant’s seri-
ous and dignified manner was seemingly undercut by Chaucer’s use of
language:
Wel koude he in eschaunge sheeldes selle. exchange; currency units
This worthy man ful wel his wit bisette: mind is set/arranged
Ther wiste no wight that he was in dette, knew; person; debt
So estatly was he of his governaunce stately/dignified; conduct
With his bargaynes and with his
chevyssaunce. profit/agreement
For sothe he was a worthy man with alle, truth
But, sooth to seyn, I noot how men hym
calle.251 true to say; know not

In this verse, Chaucer emphasises the ambiguous nature of outward

appearance and raises the possibility that the Merchant might still be in
debt beneath the façade of respectability. There has been much debate
over the meaning that the above lines were intended to convey. Some
have argued that the merchant was greatly in debt, just as Gower com-
plained of debt-ridden merchants in Mirour de l’Omme.252 A more subtle
reading would suggest that if the Merchant was in debt, no one explic-
itly knew it as his respectable dress and dignified bearing presented a
confident and prosperous man who could attract credit (but also hide
misdemeanours).253 Chaucer was tempting his audience to reappraise
the Merchant’s own view of himself. The use of the word ‘wight’ can
be interpreted as a signpost to Chaucer’s habitual use of ironical dou-
ble meaning. His phraseology here would have raised questions in the
audience’s mind, based upon their traditional assumptions about traders
regarding fraud and avarice. Also, by the late fourteenth century at the
latest, the word ‘debt’ in medieval texts had both commercial and reli-
gious connotations. The latter were based upon notions of penance and
restitution, whereby sinners were expected to repay their debts to God
and others and uphold notions of natural justice. Usurers and fraudulent
merchants were particularly upbraided for failing to provide restitution

251 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘General Prologue’, p. 28, ll. 278–84.

252 Gower, Mirour, p. 339, ll. 25813–72.
253 Literary scholars have rightly pointed to the prevalence of credit in medieval com-
merce. Knott, ‘Chaucer’s anonymous merchant’; Stillwell, ‘Chaucer’s merchant’;
Mann, Chaucer, p. 102. Johnson noted the ambiguity of line 280 on debt. Johnson,
‘Was Chaucer’s merchant in debt?’.
88 Medieval market morality

for wrongs committed during their trading lives.254 Chaucer was alluding
to both a profound spiritual debt as well as to monetary transactions.
The Merchant is depicted not only as concealing debts, but also engag-
ing in shady dealings. Again, Chaucer makes no direct slurs, but uses
weighted terminology to imply a darker side. He does not give the Mer-
chant a name (‘I noot how men hym calle’) and this in itself could imply
secrecy and dishonesty.255 The references to money and commerce in the
Canterbury Tales can be construed as an unspoken attack on avarice.256
His dealings in ‘sheeldes’, which were currency units employed in money-
changing, and his ‘chevyssaunce’ (profit/agreement) also suggest he was
a trader who engaged in overtly legal transactions that were nevertheless
morally suspect. The use of the word ‘chevyssaunce’ as a euphemism
for usury or dishonesty was widespread in medieval texts.257 This has
led many scholars to view the merchant as deceitful in line with tradi-
tional estates satire.258 Indeed, the implied transgressions and references
to ambiguous legitimacy would have been readily picked up by audiences
who were already immersed in stereotyped images of mercantile abuses.
In the ‘Shipman’s Tale’, Chaucer identified other conflicts between the
mercantile world and traditional social institutions. This story concerns
another merchant, who is presented as hardworking, prudent and trust-
ing. Indeed, his main crime appears to be his complete ignorance of his
wife’s adultery. The story revolves around the movement of a loan that
the merchant makes to a young clerk, Daun John, who uses the loan to
pay the merchant’s wife to sleep with him. Upon the merchant’s return
from a business trip the clerk informs him that he has repaid the loan to
his wife, thus tricking them both. In turn, the merchant’s wife tells him
she has already spent the money, but then suggests an implicit deal by
which she will be more readily acquiescent in bed. The ‘Shipman’s Tale’

254 Adams, ‘The concept of debt’. See also below, pp. 125–9.
255 There has been much debate about whether Chaucer based his pilgrims upon real peo-
ple. Reale, ‘A marchant’, pp. 97–8; Crane, ‘An honest debtor?’, 85; Rickert, ‘Extracts’,
111–19, 249–56; Bowden, Commentary, pp. 151–3. Geoffrey Chaucer was a controller
of wool customs from 1374 to 1386, as well as the son of a wealthy Ipswich vintner.
He thus had dealings with merchants. Brown Jr, ‘Chaucer’, 252–3. Nevertheless, the
most reasonable conclusion is that his portraits were not based on any one individual
but were formed from a conglomeration of fiction, experience, estates ideology and
literary convention.
256 Nevo, ‘Chaucer: motive and mask’; Eberle, ‘Commercial language’; Bisson, Chaucer,
pp. 181–2. Paul Olson similarly regarded Chaucer’s Merchant as a critique upon
commercial values and unabashed materialism. Olson, The Canterbury Tales, p. 39.
257 Gower, Mirour, p. 100, ll. 7225–48; Piers Plowman, c.vi.249–50. Conversely, Park
and Cahn defended the legitimacy of the Merchant’s ‘eschaunges’ of ‘sheeldes’ as
neither moneylending nor usury. Cahn, ‘Chaucer’s merchants’; Park, ‘The character
of Chaucer’s merchant’.
258 Mann, Chaucer, p. 100; Knott, ‘Chaucer’s anonymous merchant’.
 Images of market trade 89

is both an enjoyable fabliaux, where a supposedly respectable member

of society is cuckolded, and a critique of the commodification of human
relations. The language of commerce permeates the tale, especially in the
puns that reduce marital sexuality to a commercial contract:

For I wol paye you wel and redily

Fro day to day, and if so be I faille,
I am youre wyf; score it upon my taille259

The ‘Shipman’s Tale’ is full of double entendres; ‘taille’ or tally related to

the rendering of accounts, but it also had an explicit sexual meaning.260 A
similar image of marriage and sex, immersed in the world of commerce,
was presented in the ‘Merchant’s Tale’, where the costs of a wife are
quantified.261 Social and marital relations were apparently determined
by market forces. Helen Fulton remarks how the merchant’s use of a
bill of exchange in order to finance his dealings is analogous to the type
of sexual bargain between his wife and Daun John.262 Lee Patterson
argues that each of the three parties in the ‘Shipman’s Tale’ profited
from the tale: the wife repays her creditors, the clerk enjoys the mer-
chant’s wife and the merchant gets an eager sexual partner. There is
thus a sense of an equilibrium achieved in the exchange. However, the
commodification of sexual relations undermines any theory of absolute,
inviolable values. Everything can be subject to exchange value, a notion
that had long concerned theologians.263 Several scholars, such as Janette
Richardson, Robert Adams and Albert Silverman, have regarded the
tale as a conventional attack on market materialism, profit-making and
the corrupting effects of money. Natural law, justice and spiritual truth

259 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘Shipman’s Tale’, pp. 203–8, esp. p. 208, ll. 414–16.
260 King, ‘A shipman ther was’, p. 216; Silverman, ‘Sex and money’; Richardson, ‘Façade
of bawdry’, 307–9; Woods, ‘A professional thyng’; Fichte, ‘Chaucer’s “Shipman’s
Tale”’; Hahn, ‘Money, sexuality’; Hamaguchi, ‘“Debt” and the wife’; Abraham, ‘Cosyn
and cosynage’; Scattergood, ‘Originality’, 212–13; Schneider, ‘Taillynge ynough’. For
a discussion of the tally, see below pp. 200–1.
261 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘The Merchant’s Tale’, pp. 154–68. The Wife of Bath
also uses sex as an instrument to acquire money out of rich old husbands, cynically
declaring, ‘Wynne whoso may, for al is for to selle’. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘Wife
of Bath’s Prologue’, p. 110, l. 414. Shoaf described the Wife of Bath as a ‘figure of the
commercial idiom and the commercial imagination’. This is encapsulated in the Wife’s
basic understanding of forces at work in the marketplace: ‘With daunger oute we al
oure chaffare [trading]; Greet prees [Great crowds] at market maketh deere ware [dear
goods], And to greet cheep [plenty] is holde at litel prys [low price]: This knoweth
every womman that is wys [wise].’ Ibid., p. 112, ll. 521–4; Shoaf, Dante, p. 175; Brown
Jr, ‘Chaucer’, 251; Amsler, ‘The Wife of Bath’, 67–8, 75.
262 Fulton, ‘Mercantile ideology’, 318.
263 Patterson, Chaucer, pp. 349–58; Farber, An Anatomy, pp. 69–77.
90 Medieval market morality

were usurped.264 However, Chaucer is a subtle writer and he interweaves

well-known condemnations and justifications of merchants in order to
highlight the moral ambiguities of commercial endeavours. The ‘Ship-
man’s Tale’ is not a straightforward and unrelenting attack on either the
merchant or the market.
The merchant in the ‘Shipman’s Tale’ is presented as a man of probity
and honesty, who represents a justification of mercantile values. He is not
jealous and trusts his wife, believing that he has given his wife sufficient
income for a ‘thrifty’ household. He is also open and honest with Daun
John, as well as keeping his oath to honour his financial contract.265
But his serious and hard-working lifestyle is disparaged by his wife, who
complains that the merchant spends too much time at his account books
and not enough with her.266 This elicits the merchant’s reply that he must
be careful because of so many uncertainties in his business life. Stillwell
identified these careful and hard-working characteristics as a bourgeois
‘sadnesse’ determined by Fortune’s Wheel.267 Thus, in business matters
the conduct of the ‘Shipman’s Tale’ merchant appears exemplary. The
merchant seemed to understand the risks of trade (‘hap and fortune in
owe chapmanhede’) and how profits needed to be accrued to make up
for possible losses in the next deal: ‘Ye knowe it wel ynogh [enough] /
Of chapmen, that hir moneye is hir plogh [plough] . . . / But goldlees for
to be, it is no game’.268 His skill was in avoiding and tempering such
misfortunes.
John Gower similarly had an intrinsic respect for merchants and the
risky overseas exchanges that brought wealth to England:
he who conducts himself well and trades honestly is blessed by God and man.
The law allows, and it is only right, that he who can lose in a venture should also
be allowed to gain from it when his fortune brings it about. Therefore I say to
you that he who wants to become a merchant and risk his money is not to be
blamed if he earns a profit, provided he can earn it in moderation and without
fraud.269

Similar distinctions were made by earlier moralists between the sins of

excessive profit and making a justifiable livelihood. Generally, a mer-
chant’s ability to supply (mostly luxury) goods for the realm provided

264 Richardson, ‘Façade of bawdry’; Silverman, ‘Sex and money’; Adams, ‘The concept
of debt’; Finlayson, ‘Chaucer’s Shipman’s Tale’.
265 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘Shipman’s Tale’, p. 206, ll. 245–8.
266 Ibid., p. 205, ll. 215–23; Copland, ‘The Shipman’s Tale’, 18–19; Joseph, ‘Chaucer’s
coinage’.
267 Stillwell, ‘Chaucer’s “sad” merchant’, 3.
268 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘Shipman’s Tale’, p. 206, ll. 287–90.
269 Gower, Mirour, p. 330, ll. 25192–212.
 Images of market trade 91

some level of vindication for their profession. Examples of this are found
in Aelfric’s Colloquy (late tenth century) and Thomas de Chobham’s
Summa Confessorum (early thirteenth century), where it is maintained
that the merchant is useful to the king and nobility in supplying luxuries
not found in England.270 Fifteenth-century poems, such as The Libelle of
Englyshe Polycye, praised the role of wool and cloth merchants in bringing
prosperity and rare commodities to the realm.271 The early sixteenth-
century The Play of the Wether also stated how merchants transferred
commodities from one country where they were abundant to another
where they were scarce:
We fraught from home thynges wherof there is
plente, freighted; plenty
And home we brynge such thynges as there be
scant.
Who sholde afore us marchauntes accompted be? accounted
For were not we, the worlde shuld wyshe and want
In many thynges, whych now shall lack rehersall.272

The play goes on to stress how such trade presented ‘dayly daunger of
our goodes and lyfe’, as well as the ‘great care and stryfe’ needed to bring
these endeavours to fruition.273 Both Aelfric’s Colloquy and a fifteenth-
century school-book similarly emphasised the likelihood of shipwreck
and piracy faced by merchants on long sea voyages.274 Such extensive
labour and risks were an added justification for mercantile activities and
their gains. Indeed, Chaucer’s ‘Parson’s Tale’ was to provide a relatively
straightforward contrast between a merchant who is honest and lawful,
moving goods that are abundant in one country to another where they
are scarce, and a merchant who is dishonest and unlawful, filled with
fraud, deceit and false oaths.275

270 Gem (ed.), An Anglo-Saxon Abbot, p. 189; Swanton (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Prose, pp. 107–
15; Broomfield (ed.), Thomae de Chobham, p. 301.
271 Furnivall (ed.), Political, Religious, and Love Poems, ‘The Hors, the Shepe, and the
Gosse’, by John Lydgate (c.1421), pp. 15–22, esp. p. 16, ll. 36–42; Warner (ed.),
Libelle; Gower, Mirour, p. 333, ll. 25369–92. Christine de Pizan valued merchants
for providing the foundation for learning and culture; Bornstein (ed.), Middle English
Translation, pp. 8–14, 184–9.
272 Adams (ed.), Chief Pre-Shakespearean Dramas, ‘The Play of the Wether’ (c.1533),
pp. 403–4, ll. 357–61. See also Bevington (ed.), Medieval Drama, pp. 1003–4; Roberts,
Studies, p. 115.
273 Adams (ed.), Chief Pre-Shakespearean Dramas, ‘The Play of the Wether’ (c.1533),
p. 403, ll. 349, 351.
274 Swanton (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Prose, pp. 107–15; Nelson (ed.), Fifteenth Century School
Book, pp. 54–5, no. 233, p. 90, no. 377. See also Scattergood (ed.), John Skelton, ‘The
Bowge of Courte’ (1498), p. 49, ll. 120–4.
275 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘Parson’s Tale’, pp. 314–15, ll. 775–80.
92 Medieval market morality

The merchant and his licit activities had become accepted by the
majority of medieval religious commentators. The fickle nature of Lady
Fortune loomed large in such portrayals, as with the merchant in
the ‘Shipman’s Tale’, but also provided a partial exoneration for their
endeavours.276 Martindale, Patterson, Cahn, Scattergood and McGal-
liard have all argued that there were few hints of dishonesty or immorality
in the practices of the merchant in the ‘Shipman’s Tale’.277 This busi-
nessman was diligent, prosperous and honest, in contrast to his own
wife and Daun John, and Chaucer’s portrayal could be interpreted as a
justification for the commercial life.
However, literary depictions of merchants are typically steeped in
ambiguity and uncertainty, perhaps reflecting the moral dilemmas of
merchants themselves. For instance, the ‘Shipman’s Tale’ merchant’s
notion of money as a plough which could be used for making more money
lay at the heart of scholarly prohibitions of usury, even if his financial deals
were strictly within the parameters of secular law.278 There is also con-
sternation regarding the notion of equity in exchange and whether suffi-
cient repayment or restitution has been made.279 There is a complexity
and plurality in Chaucer’s constructs that ambiguously both valorises
and criticises commercialism.280 This is not necessarily at variance with
conventional approaches. In a similar manner, in many moral texts, the
basic mercantile virtues of care in profit-making, thrift in spending and
tenacity in the face of hardships were also interpreted as the signs of an
avaricious man. Fasciculus Morum noted that the avaricious were eager to
grasp riches and slow to give them. Avarice led to three qualities: ‘hard
work in acquiring, fear in possessing, and pain in losing . . . so that he [an
avaricious man] never ceases by day or night, early or late, to satisfy the
disorderly, indeed wretched lust of his eyes, whether by journeying about
or riding or sailing, whereby he places himself in the greatest physical

276 For the ‘Wheel of Fortune’, see Silverstein (ed.), Medieval English Lyrics, p. 58.
277 Martindale Jr, ‘Chaucer’s merchants’, 315; Patterson, Chaucer, p. 352; Cahn,
‘Chaucer’s merchants’; Scattergood, ‘Originality’, 225–6; McGalliard, ‘Characteri-
zation’, 10–17.
278 In this analogy, money could not reproduce itself, like seeds in a field, except through a
perversion of its true nature (e.g. usury). Burke (ed.), Treatise, pp. 7–10. Wood argues
that this was a medieval misreading of Aristotle’s theory, who nevertheless argued
that making profit from money was an unnatural abuse of its role as a medium of
exchange. Wood, Medieval Economic Theory, pp. 84–7. Bills of exchange avoided charges
of usury because of the level of risk involved. Hunt and Murray, History of Business,
p. 72.
279 Mair, ‘Merchants and mercantile culture’, pp. 192–4.
280 Fulton, ‘Mercantile ideology’, 313.
 Images of market trade 93

as well as spiritual dangers’.281 The character of ‘Medill Elde’ in The

Parlement of the Thre Ages (late fourteenth century) avidly accumulated
worldly possessions even while dressed in grey and serious attire.282
The criticisms of late medieval moralists were thus balanced against
portrayals of merchants as sober, responsible, reliable and hardworking.
This was part of their attempt to reconcile the mercantile way of life with
the values asserted by the Church. Several justifications were advanced
in favour of the mercantile way of life: honest intent, the risk and labour
involved in making a profit and the contribution of the merchant to the
prosperity of the realm.283 Trade was no longer condemned as inher-
ently sinful and instead it was the individual who erred, tempted by
commercial opportunities to make gain. Jacques le Goff, Aaron Gure-
vich and Diana Wood have argued that, by the thirteenth century, trade
had been ‘morally rehabilitated’, and that, although there were still fears
of damnation, merchants had also developed an ideological view of their
worth based upon pragmatism and social prestige.284 Many of these com-
mercial men were powerful and wealthy, as well as consumers of urban
culture, and were thus seemingly able to influence a reworking of the
traditional stereotype of the avaricious merchant. From the thirteenth
century, writers certainly developed a number of justifications for mer-
chant activity, which demonstrate attempts to incorporate elements of
the mercantile world into their ethical framework. Yet, the justifications
formed were also based upon those very elements of the merchant’s life –
risk, instability, prudency – that bred cynicism, secrecy and sly tactics
on the borders of legality. In The Canterbury Tales even the virtues of
hard work and good reputation had the potential to be interpreted as
instruments of avarice, which, in turn, gave way to an ignorance of the
perilous state of the soul or else pride and vanity which disguised debts
and dishonesty. A religious poem from the thirteenth century similarly
described the extensive travels of a chapman, who neglected sleep, risked

281 Fasciculus Morum, pp. 312–15. See also Vices and Virtues, p. 30, ll. 5–23; Nelson (ed.),
Myrour, p. 131, ll. 19–34 (BL, MS Harleian 45, fol. 63r–v); Trigg (ed.), Wynnere and
Wastoure; Warren (ed.), Dance of Death, p. 44, ll. 337–44, p. 45, ll. 489–96.
282 Conlee (ed.), Middle English Debate Poetry, pp. 110–11, ll. 136–51.
283 Thomson, ‘Wealth, poverty’. See also Larson (ed.), King’s Mirror, pp. 79–86. The
King’s Mirror was a thirteenth-century Norwegian dialogue and included passages
intended as a code of conduct for aspiring merchants. They were expected to be
courageous on their travels, pious, careful, hardworking, honest, studious and even-
tempered.
284 Le Goff, Your Money; Gurevich, ‘The merchant’, pp. 243–83; Wood, Medieval Economic
Thought, pp. 115–20. This was in contrast to the unequivocal denunciations of mer-
chants by John of Salisbury in the twelfth century. Nederman, ‘Virtues of necessity’,
62.
94 Medieval market morality

great perils and often lost his goods. One of the implications of the poem
is that he took these risks for ‘catel’ (i.e. gain), with little care for his
wife and children if he were lost.285 A fifteenth-century sermon similarly
placed a negative slant on the privations and hard work of traders:

so þese covetyse pepyll [people] for the grete love of worldly ryches some men
put theyre bodyes to grete labor and grete travell bothe on londe [land] and on
water / and many men sufferythe some tyme grete hynger and thurste and all is
for þe riches of þis worlde.286

In this interpretation, the virtues of hard work, solemnity and risk were
the by-products of a selfish and unscrupulous desire for profit. From as
early as the thirteenth century, writers were beginning to depict a more
competitive and individualistic environment in which hard work was
not always a virtue but sometimes a vice leading to personal, excessive
gain.287
Wynnere and Wastoure (c.1352–70) was a complaint poem that directly
criticised acquisitive, selfish, miserly and sober accumulators (‘Wyn-
nere’), akin to merchants, who might be building up financial capital
but were derided as hoarders. They were diverted from their duty to
the community and their own salvation. On the other hand, however,
there were the idle, gluttonous and profligate wasters (‘Wastoure’), who
were equally detrimental to the common good and social order. The text
was thus condemning both avarice and prodigality.288 However, as Lois
Roney argued, the poet was also advocating moderation and the need
for a state of equilibrium in the flow and exchange of commodities.289
Merchants were expected to perform an honest communal service (in
line with estates theory) which would reasonably sustain their family.
Any excess profit was not to be accumulated but rather redistributed for
the common good, particularly through charitable acts.
Service to the community and fair distribution of gains provided
a central justification for mercantile activity. In Piers Plowman, Truth
would not grant merchants a pardon ‘a poena et a culpa’, because they
worked on Sundays and Holy Days and swore by God’s name in order
to sell goods and make extra profits. Nevertheless Truth recognised the
necessity of the merchant in providing essential foodstuffs, goods and

285 Horstmann (ed.), Minor Poems, p. 344, ll. 576–83. See also Owst, Literature and Pulpit,
p. 352; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 649, fol. 44r; BL, MS Harleian 2398,
fol. 22v.
286 Nottingham University Library, MS 50, fol. 60v. 287 Baldwin, Masters, i, p. 264.
288 Bestul, Satire; Jacobs, ‘Typology of debate’.
289 Roney, ‘Winner and Waster’s “wyse wordes”’; Trigg (ed.), Wynnere and Wastoure, p. 13,
l. 390.
 Images of market trade 95

services and thus allowed them a dispensation based on utility. As long

as they dealt according to justice and distributed their profits (beyond
their own sustenance) to charity, then they could continue to trade.290
The exoneration of sins by giving was based upon traditional clerical
moralism, whereby the vices of avarice and covetousness were opposed
by the virtues of mercy and charity. In William Caxton’s Dialogues (1483),
for example, Fraunseys the draper represents an ideal trader who gave
gladly ‘for goddes sake’ to the ill, prisoners, widows and orphans.291
Similarly, in Piers Plowman merchants were expected to use some of their
profits for hospitals, roads, bridges, prisons, religious institutions and
in alms for the poor.292 Truth promised them heaven ‘vnder his secret
seal’ (an equivalent to a papal dispensation) and would overlook minor
offences against spiritual honesty as long as they benefited the commu-
nity. Myra Stokes has suggested that merchants were therefore offered a
practical solution to excessive profit.293 Piers Plowman implied that there
were margins of acceptability in commercial practice provided traders
accepted certain responsibilities. If they contributed to social justice they
could further the cause of Truth and be included in the list of honest
livings.
A number of positive and virtuous characteristics were associated with
merchants in late medieval literature, but these same portrayals were also
frequently tinged with ironic or suspicious overtones. Gower suggested
that the merchants of his time not only tried to justify their ‘faults’,
but dealt in large sums which were well beyond a sufficient and honest
living.294 Similarly, in the late fourteenth century, Christine de Pizan
warned merchants against ‘pompe or pryde’ and told them to turn their
earnings towards God and the poor rather than social ambitions and
fashion.295 Church scholars and moralists defended merchant profits on
the basis of distribution, service and risk, and attempted to disentangle
the sinfulness of trade and the fragility of man from the conduct of
commerce itself. Mercantile endeavours could be thus legitimised, but
merchants themselves were still presented as inclined towards sin.

290 Piers Plowman, c.vii.24–33.

291 Bradley (ed.), Dialogues, p. 34. Many works also exhorted merchants to pay tithes they
owed, e.g. Jacob’s Well, p. 40, l. 28 – p. 41, l. 3.
292 See below, pp. 377–80, for a discussion of traders making bequests to such beneficiaries.
293 Stokes, Justice, pp. 216–18.
294 Gower, Mirour, p. 339, ll. 25811–24. A hankering for richly adorned possessions and
dress was an allegation often made against the socially mobile, such as merchants,
knights and lawyers.
295 Bornstein (ed.), Middle English Translation, pp. 185–6. Christine de Pizan wrote Livre
du Corps de Policie in late fourteenth-century France, and it was translated into English
in 1521.
96 Medieval market morality

Market traders, hawkers and victuallers

Mercantile sins and suspicions were readily applied to petty market
traders, but there was seemingly more reticence when it came to justifi-
cations. This was perhaps partly due to the difference in wealth accrued
from their professions, but there was also something more fundamen-
tal in the divergent depiction of their aspirations and demeanour. John
Gower, in particular, regarded retailers as utterly fraudulent in seeking
profit:
They are the ones who mostly sell to poor people, and they are called retail
shopkeepers. Fraud is their chief; this is seen often when they make a penny out
of a farthing. The retail shopkeeper is very villainous.296

Images of market traders drew heavily upon contemporary notions of

the common good, justice and their essential service to poorer sectors of
society. Compared to merchants, there are perhaps fewer specific literary
references to retailers, hawkers, brewers, bakers, pedlars and other hum-
bler mainstays of the medieval marketplace. However, there is enough
material to allow us to draw out both comparisons and contrasts with
images of the wholesale, international dealer.
Early medieval depictions of petty traders are hard to find. The baker
and cook in Aelfric’s late tenth-century Colloquy were concerned mostly
with the production of good quality food for the nobleman’s table and
the writer says little about the selling of such foodstuffs.297 Fitzstephen’s
‘Description of London’ in the late twelfth century provides a mouth-
watering sample of the victuals on offer by the bank of the Thames: ‘a
public eating-house: there every day, according to the season, may be
found viands of all kinds, roast, fried, and boiled, fish large and small,
coarser meat for the poor, and more delicate for the rich, such as venison,
fowls, and small birds’.298 Other early representations of petty traders,
dating from the twelfth century, describe petty trade as either a sideline
or a stepping-stone to better things. These depictions often adhered to
the literary conventions used for ‘merchants’, before this term became
synonymous with international wholesalers. Consequently, petty traders
were also initially portrayed as hardworking, honest and successful. One
of the earliest images of petty trade can be found in the Lay of Havelok the
Dane, translated into English in the thirteenth century. In this tale, Grim
fished off the coast of east England, in the community that was to become

296 Gower, Mirour, p. 345, ll. 26305–20.

297 Gem (ed.), An Anglo-Saxon Abbot, pp. 190–1; Swanton (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Prose,
pp. 107–15.
298 Wheatley (ed.), Stow’s Survey, p. 504.
 Images of market trade 97

Grimsby, while he and his foster-son, the prince Havelok, sold the catch.
The poem describes them travelling door-to-door in town and country,
eventually returning home with bread, corn and beans. If they managed
to catch a lamprey, Havelok would go to Lincoln market, and with the
proceeds from the sale he could return with simnel bread, meal, meat,
hemp and rope.299 Further tales from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
suggest that men could make their fortunes through hard work as traders,
rising up from humble hawkers to wealthy wholesalers. Walter Map’s De
Nugis Curialium (late twelfth century) described the advancement of
Ollo and Sceva from hawkers to packmen and, lastly, to partners in a
successful merchant business. Similarly, St Godric of Finchale (c.1070–
1170) famously rose from selling small wares around villages and farms
to become a city merchant, before giving all his goods away to become a
hermit.300
In twelfth- and thirteenth-century mentalities, then, medieval retail-
ers and wholesalers were expected to be honest and hardworking and
this would be rewarded by success. In later texts, these characteristics
were most often associated with the merchant. Written sources of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries rarely ascribed such qualities to petty
traders, but instead disparaged them for having turned away from vir-
tuous behaviour in preference for a life of venality, dishonesty and self-
ishness. There was an increasing separation in how wholesale merchants
and petty traders were viewed. Compared to the wholesale merchants,
one could argue that there was a deterioration, or at least a lack of reha-
bilitation, in the petty traders’ reputation since the twelfth century. Petty
traders were a ubiquitous presence in English towns and villages, partic-
ularly given the commercial developments during the twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries. The very prevalence of retailers could provoke abuse,
especially against victuallers, who were hampered by inelastic demand
and variable supplies, but also by expectations of low prices. For moral-
ists, there appeared to be little inherent risk in petty trade. If small-scale
traders became wealthy, it was assumed by moralists that this could only
have been achieved by fraudulent means. Equally, if petty traders were
not contributing to the communal need for essential items, then they were
considered to be peripheral and fraudulent. Many retailers appeared to
provide only negligible improvement to products.

299 Skeat (ed.), Lay of Havelok, pp. 28–9, ll. 760–84, pp. 30–1, ll. 811–25. See also Smithers
(ed.), Havelok, pp. 25–7.
300 James, Brooke and Mynors (eds.), Walter Map, pp. 392–403, Dist.iv, c.16; Stevenson
(ed.), De Vita. The Life of St Godric was written in the mid-eleventh century by
Reginald, a monk of Durham.
98 Medieval market morality

The petty trader was a generalised figure in literary texts, with lit-
tle in the way of characterisation or individuality. Even when they were
ascribed personal names, such as Rose the Regrator, Beton the Brewstere
or Haukyn in Piers Plowman, they remained sin-laden stereotypes. While
Gower appeared to respect the honest merchant, his attitudes towards
petty traders barely concealed his disgust for them and he charged all vict-
uallers with fraud.301 The fraudulent vices of petty traders become uni-
fied and personified in Piers Plowman and Langland’s portrait of ‘Rose the
Regrator’, who was the wife of Covetousness (‘Coveitise’). She cheated
in cloth-making and brewing, with poor quality, over-pricing, false mea-
sures, loosely spun yarn and favouritism in her vending. Covetousness
is similarly represented as a trader with a beetled brow, puffy lips,
baggy cheeks and bleary eyes, wearing dirty clothes which are torn and
covered with lice. This image incorporated characteristics from carved
figures of avarice and misers, as well as from contemporary depictions
of Jews.302 A 1427 manuscript of the C-Text of Piers Plowman provides
a vivid marginal illustration of Covetousness and draws heavily on the
accompanying passage (see Figure 3), though the clothes are not as
threadbare and torn as the text exerts. Nevertheless, the eyes, lips and
stubble are emphasised with red pigment, while the figure grasps a hang-
ing purse that is redolent of both money-making and pendulous cheeks:
‘And as a letherne pors lollede his chekes’.303 According to Langland,
Covetousness had been an apprentice and learned to lie, weigh falsely
and use fraud in stretching cloths in order to make a profit.304
Another trader in Piers Plowman is ‘Haukyn’, the hawker cum min-
strel, who personifies the whole body of the sinning, penitent laity in
the ‘Fair Field’. His form of ‘Activa Vita’ (Active Life) was far removed
from Langland’s vision of the honest toil of the saintly Piers Plowman.
However hardworking and industrious Haukyn is, his coat is still stained
with the seven deadly sins; he ultimately resorted to false measures, false
oaths and cheating.305 Stella Maguire sees Haukyn as being central to
Langland’s resignation that a good practical life would never be sufficient
for salvation, because of man’s ultimate inability to refrain from sin when
material temptations are present.306 Haukyn could not help but cast his

301 Gower, Mirour, p. 345, ll. 26305–28.

302 Covetousness refers to lessons from the Jews and Lombards later in the C-Text passage;
Piers Plowman, c.vi.243–4. For depictions of the wandering Jew, see Wolfthal, ‘The
wandering Jew’; Camille, The Gothic Idol, ch. 4.
303 Piers Plowman, c.vi.199. See Pearsall and Scott (eds.), Piers Plowman, pp. xlviii–xlix;
Scott, ‘The illustrations’, 34.
304 Piers Plowman, a.v.107–45, b.v.188–229, c.vi.196–233.
305 Ibid., b.xiii (esp. 355–61, 379–98), c.xvi.
306 Maguire, ‘The significance of Haukyn’; Piers Plowman, b.xiii.355–61, 383–98. The
name ‘Haukyn’ might be a pun on ‘hawking’.
 Images of market trade 99

Figure 3: ‘Coveitise’ in Piers Plowman.

Notes: This marginal manuscript illustration of Covetousness is part of
a 1427 version of William Langland’s Piers Plowman.
Source: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 104, fol. 27r.

love ‘moore to good[s] þan to god’.307 Malcolm Godden claimed that

Haukyn should be seen as a trifling pedlar considered wholly periph-
eral to society’s needs, unlike the industrious Piers in the fields.308 If
the personification of Haukyn incorporates temptations and superficial-
ity, it is possible that Langland wished for an idealistic return to what
he perceived as old-fashioned, simple self-sufficiency. For moralists like
Langland, the practice of trade was probably difficult to reconcile with
spiritual redemption, and therefore the only solution was to turn to spir-
itual guidance and voluntary poverty.

307 Piers Plowman, b.xiv.325–6. 308 Godden, Making, pp. 111–12.

100 Medieval market morality

Figure 4: Sleeping pedlar robbed by apes.

Notes: This English marginal illumination is part of the ‘Smithfield
Decretals’, produced c.1325–50.
Source: BL, MS Royal 10.e.iv, fol. 149v.

At the most humble end of the marketing scale were pedlars and itin-
erant chapmen, who were portrayed in a uniformly negative way. These
mobile tradesmen were presented as exterior to the social body, poten-
tially disorderly, fraudulent and frivolous. Many pedlars are represented
in late medieval literature as habitual liars pandering to the vanities and
fashions of women in order to sell them trifling, unnecessary knick-
knacks. Several poems commented on the feminine goods and lecherous
intentions of chapmen ‘lyght of fote’.309 In a sermon from c.1390, John
Wyclif complained of friars who became pedlars, carrying purses, pins,
girdles, spices, furs and silks to give to women in order to foster more
amorous ambitions.310 The friar in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales also had
a hood ‘ful of knyves [knives] and pynnes [pins], for to yeven [give] faire
wyves’.311
A bestiary illustration of the fable of the ‘Pedlar and the Apes’, from
the early fourteenth-century Smithfield Decretals, shows apes ransacking
the goods of a sleeping pedlar and a miscellany of goods are strewn upon
the ground, such as gloves, caps, mirrors and small musical instruments
(see Figure 4). Against the backdrop of humorous vignettes, the moral

309 Greene (ed.), Early English Carols, p. 279, no. 416; BL, MS Sloane 2593, fols. 26v–27r;
Robbins (ed.), Secular Lyrics, p. 6, no. 7.
310 Matthew (ed.), English Works of Wyclif, p. 12. See also Wright (ed.), Political Poems, i,
pp. 264–5; Piers Plowman, A.Prol.58–63, C.Prol.59–64.
311 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘General Prologue’, p. 27, ll. 233–4. See also Adams (ed.),
Chief Pre-Shakespearean Dramas, ‘The Play called the Foure PP’, p. 370, ll. 214–15,
235–42; Randall, Images in the Margins, p. 555, plate cxv, fig. 551 (pedlar with silver
beakers); Gardner (ed.), New Oxford Book of English Verse, p. 167, no. 169.
 Images of market trade 101

Figure 5: An ape as pedlar.

Notes: This marginal manuscript illustration from an English Book of
Hours (early fourteenth century) depicts an ape carrying a board full of
trinkets to sell.
Source: BL, MS Harleian 6563, fol. 100r.

messages are the sloth of the pedlar and the pride of the apes.312 This
image, drawing upon an episode in Roman de Renart, can be seen in
numerous contexts, from marginal illustrations to misericords.313 In a
different marginal image, one of the roles is inverted as an ape is repre-
sented as the pedlar (see Figure 5). The use of apes for humorous effect
again serves to emphasise the debased nature of these activities, since

312 Janson, Apes, pp. 216–22; Grössinger, World Upside-Down, pp. 100–2.
313 Randall, Images in the Margins, plates vi–vii, figs. 20–4. Misericords depicting apes
robbing the pedlar can be found at Manchester Cathedral (early sixteenth century); St
George’s Chapel, Windsor (c.1477–83); Bristol Cathedral (c.1520); Beverley Minster
(c.1520). Remnant, Catalogue, p. 7, no. 4, p. 46, no. 4, p. 82, no. 8 (plate 9b), p. 173,
no. 6; Varty, ‘Reynard the Fox’, 350–1; Varty, Reynard the Fox, pp. 72–3.
102 Medieval market morality

Figure 6: Pedlar or tinker.

Notes: This marginal image from the Luttrell Psalter (c.1320–40) shows
a pedlar or tinker carrying his wares and bellows on his back, while a
dog seemingly bites his ankle.
Source: BL, MS Additional 42130, fol. 70v.

they were identified with fraud and deceit.314 The association of pedlars
with apes and thieves only served to reinforce their own suspect activities
on the very boundaries of acceptability. The Luttrell Psalter (c.1320–
40) includes a marginal illustration of a wandering pedlar or tinker (see
Figure 6); the latter is implied by the bellows on his back, which was used
when making repairs to pots and pans, although humble pedlars and tin-
kers were often engaged in similar trading activities. In this image, the
dog biting at his ankle is symbolic of both marginality and slander, with
the pedlar’s own lowly status emphasised by the dog apparently chasing
him away. In addition, the movement towards another marginal image of
a mermaid holding a mirror and comb is perhaps related to the pedlar’s
frivolous and flirtatious wares. It was assumed that only through fraud
and lying could such wares be sold.315

314 For the ape as a baker, see Randall, Images in the Margins, plate xv, fig. 69.
315 Davis, ‘Men as march with fote packes’.
 Images of market trade 103

Figure 7: Bakers.
Notes: This is a marginal manuscript image from the ‘Smithfield Decre-
tals’ (c.1325–50) and shows two bakers loading balls of dough into an
oven.
Source: BL, MS Royal 10.e.iv, fol. 145v.

Another itinerant trader was the ‘tynker’ or ‘sprongbolle’ who wan-

dered the countryside and towns offering his services as a repairer of
household vessels, and ‘when he sees a jar, cooking pot, bowl, cup, or
plate that is cracked or in pieces, he is at once joyful and expects to make
some money from it’.316 In the mid-fourteenth century, John Bromyard
highlighted the humble nature of these tinkers and pedlars by claim-
ing that it was their own clothes and pots that often needed mending
most of all.317 Hawkers, hucksters, pedlars and tinkers were regarded as
marginals in society, prone to dishonesty, frauds and lies.
However, trade itself, of course, served a useful communal purpose
and could not be regarded as inherently dishonest, whether it was mer-
chants involved or more humble retailers. Trade was an important part
of everyday life and local market ethics needed to be reconciled with
traditional morality. Indeed, William Langland recognised the utility of
trade and included business abilities in the list of talents bestowed on
men by Grace to facilitate honest living.318 A few images show orderly
and uncontroversial retail trading practices, particularly when linked to
regulation. There are illustrations of hard-working, clean bakers with
uniform ranks of loaves and no sign of deception (Figure 7), or butchers
and fishmongers working from bloodless stalls.319 There are also depic-
tions of tapsters and victuallers serving contented customers, such as in

316 Fasciculus Morum, pp. 158–9. 317 Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, ‘Correctio’.
318 Piers Plowman, b.xix.234–5.
319 E.g. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 5, fol. 8r; BL, MS Additional 18852,
fol. 13r (Book of Hours, Bruges, late fifteenth century), cf. Basing, Trades and Crafts,
p. 88; Hammond, Food and Feast, plate 5.
104 Medieval market morality

Figure 8: Victualler or taverner.

Notes: The woodcut shows a victualler, hosteler or taverner on the left,
with keys at his waist, holding out a piece of bread and a cup of wine
to a customer. The victualler represented the sixth pawn in Caxton’s
translation of The Game of Chess (1483).
Source: Cessolis, De Ludo Scachorum, bk. 3, ch. 6 (Cambridge, Trinity
College Library, vi.18.3, fol. 57r).

Caxton’s The Game of Chess, or even customers helping themselves from

the barrel (Figures 8 and 9).320 Robert Wyer’s early sixteenth-century
book about the assize of bread included woodcuts that showed a well-
organised bakery with uniform loaves and prominent scales.321 Similarly,
Caxton’s dialogues intermingled honest, hard-working traders among the
corrupt; the former included Eustace the tailor (‘good diligence that he
doth to the peple’), Fraunseys the draper (‘he gyueth gladly for god-
des sake’), Forcker the cordwainer (‘put more lether to werke than thre
othir’) and Gombert the baker (‘He selleth so well his flessh’).322
Nevertheless, in the majority of literary depictions, petty traders were
regarded as sinful and degenerate members of the community, holding

320 See also BL, Additional MS 27695, fol. 7v (fifteenth century).

321 Wyer, Assyse of Breade, vii. The assizes of bread and ale were standardised laws for
price, quality and quantity, based on agreed custom. See below, pp. 231–48.
322 Bradley (ed.), Dialogues, pp. 34–46.
 Images of market trade 105

Figure 9: ‘Tapster’.
Notes: This wood carving is part of a mid-fifteenth-century misericord
(a small shelf on the underside of a hinged seat in the choir stalls). The
style of dress suggests that this is a man filling a tankard of ale or wine
from a barrel, though it is traditionally called ‘The Tapster’.
Source: St Laurence’s Church, Ludlow.

little regard for their neighbours or clientele. Victuallers, in particular,

were traditionally disparaged by medieval commentators. John Gower,
for example, accused bakers, brewers, taverners, butchers and poulterers
of regularly selling at excessive prices, and of failing to fulfil their divinely
ordained station of providing the community with food and drink at a
reasonable price.323 Bakers, brewers and other victuallers were especially
prone to accusations that they harmed the community through poor-
quality and adulterated foodstuffs. The late thirteenth-century Lutel Soth
Sermun denounced false chapmen, bakers and brewers for caring only
about money. They would end up in Hell for their sins of false measures
and poor quality.324 Gower similarly accused the brewer of often making
bad ale from rotten grain, so that even ‘God himself hates him’, and of

323 Gower, Mirour, p. 345, ll. 26305–20.

324 Morris (ed.), An Old English Miscellany, p. 189, ll. 33–48; Sisam and Sisam (eds.),
Medieval English Verse, pp. 11–12, no. 7, ll. 5–12.
106 Medieval market morality

supplying good ale to gain customers, but then mixing good and bad ale
thereafter to regulars without lowering his price. Even with good ale, the
combination of both false measures and high prices meant that it was
almost as expensive as wine.325
Langland’s Rose the Regrator was an archetypal alewife who was
depicted as adulterating ale:
I bouзte hire barly; heo breuз it to
selle. bought; she brewed
Penyale and pilewhey heo pouride
togidere. Penny-ale; spring water?; poured
For laboureris and louз folk þat lay
be hymselue; humble folk
þe beste in my bedchaumbre lay be
þe wouз. wall
And whoso bummide þerof, bouзte
it þeraftir, tasted thereof
A galoun for a grote, god wot no
lasse, gallon; groat; knows no less
Whanne it com in cuppemel; þat
craft my wyf vside. cupfuls
Rose þe regratour was hire riзte
name;
Sheo haþ yholde huxterie elleuene
wynter. 326 huckstery [ for] eleven winters

She is thus depicted as watering down her cheaper ale (‘penyale’), which
is sold to labourers and the poor. Rose kept her best ale hidden in her
bedchamber so that it could be served to favoured customers by unstan-
dardised cups, at the excessive price of a groat (4d.) for a gallon. These
were violations of trading regulations. The cheating alewife, who adul-
terated her ale and sold by irregular measures, became a commonplace
stereotype by the fifteenth century and can be seen in drama and the
visual arts. In a surviving early sixteenth-century text of the Chester Mys-
tery Play, an alewife or tapster was included in the pageant of cooks and
innkeepers as an optional comic interlude.327 Such mystery plays were
usually staged by guilds during the fifteenth century, combining a major
religious feast (such as Corpus Christi) with civic pageantry. The reali-
ties of trade were never far from the presentations of each guild and the
scenes might include figures, such as the alewife, with which the audi-
ence could readily associate. Left behind in Hell after all the other souls

325 Gower, Mirour, p. 343, ll. 26137–72.

326 Piers Plowman, a.v.133–41, b.v.217–25, c.vi.221–9.
327 Lumiansky and Mills (eds.), Chester Mystery Cycle, i, pp. 337–9, play xvii, ‘Harrow-
ing of Hell’, ll. 277–336; Lumiansky, ‘Comedy and theme’; Axton, European Drama,
pp. 183–4; Bennett, Ale, p. 125.
 Images of market trade 107

had been delivered, and about to be wedded to a demon, the alewife

laments her several misdemeanours, including the use of short measures
(‘of kannes I kept no trewe measure’), excessive pricing for poor ale (‘My
cuppes I sould at my pleasure, deceavinge many a creature, thoe my
ale were nought’), brewing watery ale (‘bruynge so thinne’),328 and the
use of prohibited additives to hide the ale’s weakness (‘esshes [ashes]
and hearbes I blend amonge and marred so good malt’). She warns her
audience that others will face cruel torments in Hell because of their
fraudulent activities, for offending against the statutes of the realm and
for ‘hurtinge the commonwealth’. The dramatists were thus drawing
upon actual regulations and laws, such as the assize of ale:329
Tavernes, tapsters of this cittye
shalbe promoted here with mee
for breakinge statutes of this contrye,
hurtinge the commonwealth,
with all typpers-tappers that are cunninge,
mispendinge much malt, bruynge so thinne,
sellinge smale cuppes money to wynne,
agaynst all trueth to deale.330

It might appear to be counter-productive advertising for cooks and

innkeepers to highlight the corrupt alewife since they themselves were
associated with similar trading abuses, while the innkeepers probably
employed tapsters. Indeed, the sins of the tavern are mentioned repeat-
edly in this scene, referring to both sellers of ale and wine within per-
manent premises. However, the damned alewife was a stereotype by the
late fifteenth century.331 The image seemingly amused audiences, and
by recognising this character the cooks and innkeepers were actually
emphasising their own watchfulness over such misdemeanours, particu-
larly those committed by humbler retailers, and the need to uphold the
law for the common good.
There is a significant number of surviving depictions of alewives that
highlight the reinforced image of these female traders. A fifteenth-century
misericord from St Laurence’s Church, Ludlow, depicts a dishonest
alewife holding her measuring cup and being cast into the mouth of Hell
by demons, while a third demon reads from a scroll of misdemeanours

328 For poetic complaints about ‘small ale’ (weak or watered-down), see Chambers and
Sidgwick (eds.), Early English Lyrics, pp. 229–31, no. cxxxiii.
329 Market laws, including the assize of ale, are discussed further in Chapter 2.
330 Lumiansky and Mills (eds.), Chester Mystery Cycle, i, p. 338, play xvii, ‘Harrowing of
Hell’, ll. 301–8.
331 Robert Reynes, a local official in Acle (Norfolk), included in his commonplace book a
satirical verse: ‘A fryer [friar], an heyward, a fox, and a fulmer [polecat] sittyng on a
rewe [row], / A tapster hym sytting by to fylle þ cumpany, þ best is a screwe [wretch]’.
Louis (ed.), Commonplace Book, p. 299, no. 96.
108 Medieval market morality

Figure 10: A dishonest alewife being cast into Hell.

Notes: This mid-fifteenth-century misericord shows an alewife, with a
horned headdress and tankard, being carried over the shoulder of a
demon, while another demon plays the bagpipes. Flanking this central
wood carving are a demon reading a list of the alewife’s offences and
a depiction of the alewife disappearing into the mouth of Hell. The
carver’s mark is just visible above the alewife’s mug.
Source: St Laurence’s Church, Ludlow.

(see Figure 10). Carvers of misericords had a great deal of freedom in

the subjects and designs they chose and many carvings were taken from
bestiaries, satires and fables. They were often intended to be amusing
vignettes of society, and carvers drew on their own experiences of daily
life as well as the exempla of preachers.332 The whole tableau in the Lud-
low misericord reflects the admonitions and ridicule of the pulpit and
stage. The alewife wears a fashionably ‘horned’ headdress, but is almost
completely naked, perhaps highlighting her female vanity or drawing on
images of lechery that commonly accompanied portrayals of alewives.333

332 Anderson, ‘Iconography’, pp. xxiii–xxxix; Grössinger, World Upside-Down, p. 13.

333 Anderson, History and Imagery, no. 65; Mullaney, ‘Fashion and morality’, pp. 81–
2. For horned headdresses, see Stevens and Cawley (eds.), Towneley Plays, i, p. 412,
ll. 391–2, where Tutivillus the demon reads out a list of offenders, including one who
‘is hornyed like a kowe [cow] – a new-fon syn’.
 Images of market trade 109

Images of the Last Judgement were widespread in the parish churches

of late medieval England, reminding people of their eternal fate for sins
committed in this world.334 Many were located above the chancel arch
as part of Doom paintings, emphasising that the souls of the good would
enter Paradise but that the sinful would burn in the flames of Hell.
The early fifteenth-century mural at Holy Trinity Church, Coventry,
vividly depicts the fate of sinners. This includes three alewives, again
adorned with horned headdresses and tankards, who are in chains and
being led by a demon to their fate (see Figure 11). The earlier Holkham
Bible Picture Book (c.1325–30), in its illustration of the Last Judgement,
similarly includes a baker (with a paddle and scales) and alewife (with
a jug of ale) being carried by devils to a boiling cauldron fuelled by
the mouth of Hell (see Figure 12). Below them is a barrow full of lost
souls, perhaps symbolic of the tumbrel or dung-cart in which alewives
were often punished.335 A similar use of a demon and cart to carry
such sinners to the mouth of Hell is seen on a fifteenth-century roof
boss at Norwich Cathedral.336 The link between spiritual and temporal
punishment for sinful behaviour was thus being reinforced in the minds
of both congregations and readers.
Such negative portrayals of alewives were widespread in early sixteenth-
century texts. In John Skelton’s satirical poem, The Tunnyng of Elynour
Rummyng, Elynour is an alewife who serves a multitude of drunken and
lecherous female customers. Like the Chester Mystery Play alewife, Skel-
ton says of Elynour ‘The devyll and she be syb’. She serves anyone who
can provide payment and a variety of goods are offered in exchange for a
mug of ale: ragged clothes, brass pans, wedding rings and even a cradle.

She breweth noppy ale, rough ale

And maketh thereof port-sale sale at the door?
To travellars, to tynkers,
To sweters, to swynkers, toilers; labourers
And all good ale drynkers,
That wyll nothynge spare,
But drynke tyll they stare
And brynge them selfe bare.337

334 Images of alewives in Doom paintings can be found at: Bacton (Suffolk), Barking
(Essex), Brooke (Norfolk), Croughton (Northamptonshire), Mears Ashby (Northamp-
tonshire), St Thomas’s Church, Salisbury (Wiltshire), St Michael’s Church, St Albans
(Hertfordshire), Stoke-by-Clare (Suffolk), Wymington (Bedfordshire). See Ashby,
‘English Medieval Murals of the Doom’. Diana Wood has noted how some depic-
tions of the Last Judgement also included St Michael weighing souls in the balance,
akin to a commercial transaction. Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, p. 3.
335 See below, pp. 263–4. 336 Rose and Hedgecoe, Stories in Stone, pp. 113–14, 137.
337 Scattergood (ed.), John Skelton, p. 217, ll. 102–9; Wyrick, ‘Withinne that develes
temple’. The existence of a real ‘Alianora Romyng’ in Leatherhead in 1525 lends
110 Medieval market morality

Figure 11: Alewives in a medieval Doom painting.

Notes: These three alewives, with their horned headdresses and
tankards, are being led by devils on the Day of Judgement. They are
part of a larger Doom wall-painting (c.1430s).
Source: Holy Trinity Church, Coventry.

Her customers are represented as being so obsessed about acquiring

ale that they will frequent a dirty establishment which is run by an

a veneer of authenticity to Skelton’s misogynistic satire. Alianora was a ‘common

tippellar of ale’ who was fined 2d. for selling ale in small measures for an excessive
price. Scattergood (ed.), John Skelton, p. 450.
 Images of market trade 111

Figure 12: The Last Judgement: the blessed and the damned.
Notes: This is an illustration from the Holkham Bible (1325–30). In
contrast to the peaceful entrance to Heaven on the left, the devil is
taking a chained group to Hell’s mouth (centre), including a baker with
his paddle and scales, and an alewife with her drinking jug.
Source: BL, MS Additional 47682, fol. 42v.

unscrupulous dealer. The grotesque humour of Skelton’s poem is

intended to highlight the absurdity of drunkenness, but it also touches
upon familiar criticisms of the alewife.338 For example, John Lydgate
emphasised the womanly wiles and wantonness of the alewife in his
Ballade on an Ale-Seller. Through flirtatious laughter, kissing and ‘coun-
terfett cheer, medlid withe dowbilnesse’, Lydgate’s alewife used guile to
lure men to pay more money for their ale.339 The Chester Mystery Play
alewife is described as a ‘gentle gossippe’, implying that she was an affa-
ble companion, but also later as someone who used ‘many false othes to
sell thy ale’.340 In a similar way, the tapster, Kitt, in The Tale of Beryn

338 Bennett, ‘Misogyny’, 169–71. In her study of alewives, Bennett identified the threads
of general antipathy towards victuallers, fears about drunkenness and gluttony (partic-
ularly in the alehouse), and misogyny. See also Bennett, Ale, pp. 122–44.
339 MacCracken (ed.), Minor Poems, ‘A Ballade on an Ale-Seller’, pp. 429–32, no. 9, esp.
ll. 46–52.
340 Lumiansky and Mills (eds.), Chester Mystery Cycle, i, pp. 337–9, play xvii, ‘Harrowing
of Hell’, ll. 286, 335.
112 Medieval market morality

(an anonymous fifteenth-century continuation to the Canterbury Tales),

leads on the Pardoner with seductive talk in order to pry money out of
him:
As tapsters, and oþer such, þat hath wyly
wittis wily wits
To pik mennys pursis, and eke to bler hir
eye; pick; purses; blear his eye
So wele they make seme soth, when þey
falssest ly.341 true; lie
The implication of all this was that women were universally duplicitous
and that an alewife embodied female vices.
If those running alehouses were roundly criticised, the alehouse itself
was also widely denigrated in literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries where it was associated with the vices of gluttony, drunkenness,
idleness and lechery.342 It also drew people away from church, as Dives
and Pauper claimed:
þey han leuer gon to þe tauerne þan to holy chirche, leuer to heryn a tale or a song
of Robyn Hood or of some rybaudye þan to heryn messe or matynys or onyþing
of Goddis seruise.343
Indeed, an alehouse or a tavern was regarded as the devil’s church. The
Book of Vices and Virtues remarked:
þe tauerne is þe deueles scole hous [devil’s school house], for þere studieþ his
disciples, and þere lerneþ his scolers [scholars], and þere is his owne chapel, þere
men and wommen redeþ and syngeþ and serueþ hym [serve him], and þere he
doþ his myracles as longeþe deuel to do.344
In the Gluttony passage from Piers Plowman, Beton the Brewster’s ale-
house is a hive of temptation, gaming and drinking. Many of the activities
are in direct contrast to Church liturgy, as signified by the luring of Glut-
tony from his journey to Mass by promises of ale and food. During his
time in the alehouse, the ale-cup is passed around like a holy chalice

341 Furnivall and Stone (eds.), Tale of Beryn, p. 15, ll. 442–6, also p. 2, ll. 22–9, p. 21,
ll. 652–5.
342 There were also secular songs which celebrated the drinking of ale; Chambers and
Sidgwick (eds.), Early English Lyrics, p. 226, no. cxxx, p. 230, no. cxxxiii; Sisam and
Sisam (eds.), Medieval English Verse, p. 564, no. 319; see also Seymour (ed.), Selections,
p. 15, ll. 121–52.
343 (They rather go to the tavern than to holy church, rather hear a tale or a song of Robin
Hood or of some ribald than to hear Mass or Matins or anything of God’s service.)
Dives and Pauper, i, i, p. 189, ll. 38–41 (also, i, i, p. 199, ll. 4–6).
344 Vices and Virtues, p. 53, l. 29 – p. 54, l. 7. See also Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 56–7; Jacob’s
Well, p. 147, l. 25 – p. 148, l. 12; Handlyng Synne, p. 37, ll. 1017–34 (‘Tauerne ys þe
deuylys [devil’s] knyfe’); Britnell, ‘Morals’, p. 21.
 Images of market trade 113

and the rowdy songs are sung like hymns.345 If the alehouse was tradi-
tionally the antithesis of the Church, then the people who frequented
Beton’s alehouse represented those groups that were seen as perverting
the traditional structures of society – petty traders, wasters, labourers,
cooks, cobblers, tinkers, butchers, millers, hostelers and clerics – with
their ‘service’ provided by the alewife. This was the commercial world
parodied and set against the values of the Church.
Judith Bennett has identified much fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
misogynistic literature against alewives and alehouses, perhaps reflecting
social anxieties in that period. She argued that male victuallers received
less virulent and personal criticism than alewives. Attacks upon male
victuallers centred on their business practices rather than their person,
physical appearance, establishments, piety, sexuality or likely salvation.346
Bennett also argued convincingly that there were few medieval depic-
tions of male victuallers or petty retailers that matched the personalised
description of Elynour Rummyng. The closest were those personifica-
tions created by William Langland in the form of Haukyn and Cov-
etousness. However, a lack of such literary images before the fifteenth
century was perhaps related more to the type of literary output at this time
than to any difference in treatment between male and female victuallers.
Medieval texts usually involved generalised stereotypes rather than indi-
vidual portraits, which only began to appear with Chaucer. Bennett has
perhaps overstated her case for the different treatments of alewives and
victuallers, mostly based on evidence from sixteenth-century sources
since many portrayals of late medieval male victuallers appear no less
vitriolic than those for female alewives.347 Indeed, John Lydgate’s attack
on male bakers and millers is quite extreme. He suggested that these
traders should build their guild chapel under the pillory, since so many
were sent there to be punished, and he called for persistent offenders to
be hanged.348 Literary texts, as we have seen, do not exactly bristle with
virtuous or positive representations of male petty traders.

345 Piers Plowman, a.v.146–92, b.v.296–344, c.vi.350–406; Gray, ‘The clemency of cob-
blers’; Aers, Community, p. 39; Owst, Literature and Pulpit, pp. 434–41. The passages
from Ayenbite of Inwyt and The Book of Vices and Virtues were simpler versions of Lang-
land’s later work, with Glutton entering a tavern upright but leaving without speech,
reason or the ability to walk. The writers described these as the devil’s miracles and
the tavern as a den of thieves. Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 56–7; Vices and Virtues, p. 53,
l. 26 – p. 54, l. 19.
346 Bennett, Ale, pp. 131–2; Bennett, ’Misogyny’.
347 Bennett did note a gradual change in alewife depictions over the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. Bennett, Ale, pp. 136, 140.
348 MacCracken (ed.), Minor Poems, ‘Put Thieving Millers and Bakers in the Pillory’,
pp. 448–9, no. 15 (BL, MS Harleian 2255, fol. 137r). Millers were often depicted as
having a ‘golden thumb’, which they used to take more toll than they were actually
114 Medieval market morality

This is not to disagree with Bennett that depictions of women drew on

earlier male stereotypes, to which extra female-associated vices of gos-
sip, lechery and unfaithfulness were appended. John Gower displayed an
unconcealed misogyny in Mirour de l’Omme, arguing that women retailers
connived more than men and had an inherent coldness and covetousness
in their desire for profit.349 Interestingly, Lydgate’s depiction of a beauti-
ful alewife who tempts male customers with ‘counterfett cheer’, but then
discards them when they run out of money, has many parallels with an
earlier tradition of male innkeepers who used flattery and false friendship
to sell their foodstuffs.350 Similarly, the alewife’s bogus mugs are paral-
leled by Dan Michel’s taverners who falsified their measures by filling
the bottom of them with scum.351 Gower accused male tavern-keepers
of deceitfully mixing new wines with old, or even water, in order to gain
more money. They, like the innkeepers, are faux-friendly and ingenious in
the ways of deceit when they need to conceal the defects of their wines.352
The early fourteenth-century image of the innkeeper in the Holkham
Bible is an unflattering portrayal, complete with a snout-like nose, broad
chin and grasping hands (see Figure 13). This image, of course, has par-
ticular connotations due to the innkeeper that turned Mary and Joseph
away (Luke 2:7). However, the taints of such a religious association may
have been influential in other depictions, and the outward appearance is
meant to suggest corruptness or trickery within.
In the same way, Skelton parodied these conventions by making the
alewife, Elynour, an aged, drowsy and scurvy-ridden woman, with a
hooked nose, bleary eyes, slavering lips and slack skin, wrinkled ‘lyke a
rost pygges eare, brystled with here’.353 Her customers are all women,
drawn to the alehouse not only by ale but an atmosphere of gossip and
lechery. These developments thus drew upon a variety of conventions,
not least the prominence of women in the ale trade and the association
of the alehouse with prostitution.354 The sexualised imagery was also
intended to provoke humour, perhaps drawing upon the audience’s own

allowed. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘General Prologue’, p. 32, ll. 562–3; Jones,
‘Chaucer and the medieval miller’.
349 Gower, Mirour, p. 345, ll. 26329–40.
350 See above, p. 71. Chaucer’s host or innkeeper, Harry Bailly, was tactful, sensible
and genial, even perhaps overbearingly merry. Bowden, Commentary, p. 292; Page,
‘Concerning the host’.
351 Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 44–5.
352 Gower, Mirour, pp. 341–3, ll. 25993–6124.
353 (like a roast pig’s ear, bristled with hair.) Scattergood (ed.), John Skelton, pp. 214–
16, ll. 1–90. This has remarkable parallels to the description of Covetousness in Piers
Plowman, see p. 98.
354 For a preacher’s discussion of taverners’ wiles in attracting customers, compared to
the use of clothes and kisses to stir someone to lechery, see Ross (ed.), Middle English
Sermons, p. 234, ll. 22–31, p. 235, ll. 19–34, p. 236, ll. 1–9.
 Images of market trade 115

Figure 13: The innkeeper.

Notes: This illuminated illustration from the Holkham Bible (1325–30)
shows Mary and Joseph approaching the innkeeper and his wife for a
room.
Source: BL, MS Additional 47682, fol. 12v.

prejudices. However, Elynour was also subject to the same, traditional

criticisms that many victuallers faced. For instance, she sold bad ale,
made under the roosts of hens so that the subsequent brew was deliber-
ately thickened by the ‘donge [dung] of her hennes’.355
These images were partly an appeal to the sensibilities of an audience
which expected its prejudices to be reinforced. Some texts went further
and accused victuallers of potentially harmful, even homicidal, activities.
The Chester Mystery Play complained of mixtures of wines and inadequate
fermentation of ale that led to ‘sycknes and disease’.356 Such adulteration

355 Scattergood (ed.), John Skelton, p. 219, ll. 190–215.

356 Lumiansky and Mill (eds.), Chester Mystery Cycle, i, p. 339, play xvii, ‘Harrowing of
Hell’, ll. 317–20.
116 Medieval market morality

caused concern in other sources. The Ship of Fools illustrated the anxieties
felt about adulterated wine:

Saltpeter, sulphur, bones of dead,

Potash, milk, mustard, herbs ill-bred
Through bungs are pushed into the kegs.
The pregnant women drink these dregs,
That they bear children premature,
A wretched sight one can’t endure.
From out such drink diseases grow,
Some people to the churchyard go.357

A tongue-in-cheek passage from Jacques de Vitry tells of a butcher who

sold cooked meat and was asked by a customer to lower his price, on the
grounds that he had bought meat from no one else for seven years. The
butcher answered in great wonder, ‘Have you done that for so long a time
and yet live?’358 In a similar vein, Bromyard complained about sellers of
corrupt mutton who smeared and coloured sheep’s eyes with blood to
make the carcasses appear fresh.359 Even Chaucer’s Cook, whose culi-
nary skills were praised, had a festering mormal (ulcer) on his shin in a
recognisable Chaucerian juxtaposition that suggested a lack of personal
hygiene behind his tempting dishes. This forewarns us of the Host’s
claims that the Cook had actually sold many twice-cooked pies, owned
a fly-ridden shop and was cursed by pilgrims for selling food that made
them sick.360 In the early sixteenth-century Wyll of the Deuyll, the vict-
ualler is associated with thin, stale meat; rotten, stinking fish; and mouldy,
maggoty pies, which all provide work and profit for the physician.361
There was almost an expectation of unhygienic practices in victualling
trades.362
Victuallers as a whole, whether male or female, were thus subject to
negative depictions and suspicions of cheating, verbal duplicity and low

357 Zeydel (ed.), Ship of Fools, p. 328. See also Gower, Mirour, pp. 341–2, ll. 25993–6016.
358 Crane (ed.), Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, pp. 70, 201, no. clxii.
359 Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, ‘Ornatus’.
360 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘General Prologue’, p. 29, ll. 379–87, and ‘Cook’s Prologue’,
p. 84, ll. 4336–52; Hieatt, ‘A cook’, pp. 203–4; Lisca, ‘Chaucer’s guildsmen’, 322–4.
361 Furnivall (ed.), Jyl of Breyntford’s Testament, pp. 26–7. See also BL, MS Harleian 463,
fol. 15r–v.
362 Other practices were complained of as unwanted by-products of trade, such as butchers
and fishmongers leaving stinking waste in the streets, the smells of the tanning and meat
industries, and the noises of the blacksmiths. Baildon (ed.), Poems of William Dunbar,
‘To the Merchantis of Edinburgh’, pp. 34–6; Furnivall (ed.), Early English Poems, pp.
154–5; Wright and Halliwell (eds.), Reliquiae Antiquae, ii, pp. 174–7; BL, MS Harleian
913, fol. 7v; Davies (ed.), Medieval English Lyrics, p. 213, no. 115; Spearing and
Spearing (eds.), Poetry, pp. 220–1; Robbins (ed.), Secular Lyrics, pp. 106–7, no. 118.
 Images of market trade 117

hygiene, while alewives faced supplementary accusations relating to tra-

ditional female vices. The very ubiquity and importance of such traders
in supplying everyday staples meant that they were a readily identifiable
and perhaps easy target for moral condemnation. All were warned of the
potential fires of Hell as punishment for their deceptions. By adulterating
and over-pricing their foodstuffs, victuallers were regarded as having dis-
regarded their social responsibility at the expense of the common good.

Middlemen and hoarding

Cornmongers who stored grain in the hope of profiting during times
of scarcity were similarly vilified for taking advantage of the necessities
of their neighbours.363 Robert Rypon (sub-prior of Durham) preached
in the early fifteenth century about those who ‘suspect that things will
be very dear in the future, and, in hope of future gain, withhold corn
from the market, which if sold would be a timely benefit to the whole
country. Without doubt such men harm not one person only, but the
whole countryside’.364 Wynnere and Wastoure, Jacob’s Well and Handlyng
Synne also drew upon the same themes, universally condemning those
who bought up needful things in times of plenty to sell at times of scarcity,
damning them for theft, covetousness, usury and even murder.365 Jacob’s
Well even implied that the merchants themselves could be the cause of
dearth: they ‘gadryst to-gedere corn or vytayles for to makyn a derthe,
and that the poore peple schulde nedys bygge of the at thi prise be thi
lust, thou synnest horrybely’.366 Hoarders were seen as vile because they
profited from the misery of their fellows and kept back the fruits of the
earth while the poor went hungry.367 Caxton, in his 1483 dialogues,
alluded to the same practice of hoarding among bakers. Fierin the baker
‘hath vpon his garner lieng an hondred quarters of corn. He byeth in tyme
and at hour, so that he hath not of the dere chepe.’368 Gower decried those
who were even more devious in their manipulative activities, sending their

363 Langholm, The Merchant, p. 241.

364 BL, MS Harleian 4894, fol. 36r; cf. Owst, Literature and Pulpit, p. 356.
365 Trigg (ed.), Wynnere and Wastoure, p. 13, ll. 368–78; Handlyng Synne, p. 176,
ll. 5377–98. See also Ayenbite of Inwyt, pp. 35–7; Furnivall (ed.), Pilgrimage,
pp. 472–3, ll. 17645–88; Dives and Pauper, i, ii, pp. 201–2, ll. 24–47.
366 (gather together corn or victuals to make a dearth, and that the poor people should by
necessity buy from thee at the price thy desires, thou sins horribly.) Jacob’s Well, p. 212,
ll. 22–6.
367 Jordan, Great Famine, prologue.
368 (has lying in his granary a hundred quarters of corn. He buys up in time and ‘at hour’,
so that he has not a dear purchase.) Bradley (ed.), Dialogues, p. 35, ll. 28–34.
118 Medieval market morality

own wheat to be sold in the market and then offering more money to buy
it themselves, thus increasing the price.369
Such disparagement of hoarding and market manipulation was, of
course, a useful pulpit device to condemn miserly, avaricious behaviour
and exhort generosity. Jacques the Grete went even further by asking
of traders: ‘why desyrest [desire] thou to desseyue [deceive] thy neygh-
bours, why desyrest thou famyne, or why desyrest thou the tyme of nede.
Certeynly thou demest thy self subtyl, but yf thou do thus or desyrest
thus, yt ys no subtylte, but ys very schrewdnes [shrewdness] and euelnes
[evilness].’370 He argued that many traders sought personal prosper-
ity despite the poverty and adversity of others and that, through these
actions, they ignored notions of truth and justice. This drew upon similar
themes developed earlier in the fourteenth century and perhaps reflected
memories of the Great Famine of 1315–18. In Wynnere and Wastoure,
Wynnere also hopes for bad harvests so he can make a great profit from
grain stored the previous year. But if the harvest is good he wants to hang
himself in despair.371 Several writers lamented that corn kept back from
the poor often ended up merely as food for mice or rotting in the barns,
thus meaning that grain merchants were both oppressors of the poor and
profligate in their use of earth’s bounty.372
The poor were commonly portrayed as victims of middlemen’s guile,
with the latter represented as cold-hearted about the plight of those in
distress. A thirteenth-century poem saw hoarders of grain as pitiless and
uncaring, ignoring the weeping, hungry, sick and unclothed poor. They
sent the needy on their way with the words: ‘Goþ or wey, corn is dere!’
God’s reply was to send the hoarders and usurers to Hell.373 The poor,
as one of the most vulnerable sectors of the community, proved ideal
rhetorical victims for dishonest traders.374 Langland described how those
who grew rich on mercantile trickery were seen to have established their
fortunes on ‘that the poure puple shoulde putten in hure womben’.375
Memoriale Credencium implied a responsibility for the poor that should
be adhered to by all: ‘man is iugged [judged] coueytous þat wiþholdeþ to
him self more þan him nedeþ. eynge a pore man deye [die] for hungere

369 Gower, Mirour, p. 88, ll. 6289–300 (also p. 343, ll. 26197–208, for those who conceal
their stocks of wheat in order to see the market price increase).
370 BL, MS Harleian 149, fols. 238v–239v.
371 Trigg (ed.), Wynnere and Wastoure, p. 13, ll. 368–78. See also Crane (ed.), Exempla of
Jacques de Vitry, pp. 71, 202, no. clxiv.
372 Handlyng Synne, p. 176, ll. 5377–98; Jamieson (ed.), Ship of Fools, ii, pp. 166–9; Jacob’s
Well, p. 212.
373 Horstmann (ed.), Minor Poems, p. 171, ll. 47–62, p. 172, ll. 75–86.
374 Langholm, Economics, pp. 578–9; Langholm, The Merchant, p. 241.
375 Piers Plowman, c.iv.83.
 Images of market trade 119

oþer for defaute þat he myзte helpe him’.376 Any harm that came to them
was seen as a slight on the whole community.
Overall, conventional criticisms were laid at the door of cornmongers
concerning hoarding, speculation and failure to heed their communal
responsibilities. Britnell has suggested that such fears about the activities
of middlemen might have caused problems for traders, since they made
the enterprise to seek out scarce supplies morally dubious.377 The storing
of grain was also potentially immoral, even though manorial accounts
show that landlords, both lay and ecclesiastical, often sold late in the
agricultural year when prices were higher.378 However, not all literary
portrayals were wholly negative about the functioning of the grain trade.
The author of Dives and Pauper (drawing on Aquinas) recognised the
potentially beneficial purpose of cornmongers, declaring: ‘but зif it be
don pryncipaly for comoun profyt and for saluacion of þe contre it is
medful’.379 The writer drew a pertinent biblical parallel with Joseph
feeding the people of Egypt at a time of hunger (Genesis 47): ‘þou he
selle forth in tyme of nede to helpe of oþere as þe merket [market]
goth he doth no synne [sin] in þat’. In this line there is an implicit
understanding of the power of market forces (‘as þe merket goth’) and
thus a recognition that a trader had a right to make a living: ‘Also it
may be don be comoun rygt [common right] of merchandye, thei to
wynnyn [gain] therby her lyuynge [living], so that thei causyn no derthe
[dearth] be her byyne [buying]’. As long as their prime intention was not
avaricious in seeking to worsen the market conditions by manipulation,
then there were conditions whereby merchants could trade legitimately
in grain. The writer understood the unreliability of grain supplies when
harvests were bad and that generally middlemen did have an important
role to play in supply and distribution at times of dearth, as long as they
adhered to notions of social responsibility.
However, the only means of supply for the average consumer, espe-
cially in towns, was through the petty retailers and middlemen, and they
subsequently received the brunt of criticism.380 The Simonie particu-
larly complained of brewers and bakers who, through their deceptions,
stole the hard-earned wages of simple labourers. Gower similarly accused
butchers of refusing to sell their meat in amounts of less than a penny,
thus disadvantaging poor people.381 He also disparaged those traders

376 BL, MS Harleian 2398, fol. 22r. 377 Britnell, Commercialisation, p. 174.
378 See Stone, Decision-Making. 379 Dives and Pauper, i, ii, pp. 201–2, ll. 24–47.
380 Bennett suggested that such depictions served as a safety valve for the release of social
tensions; Bennett, Ale, pp. 136–7.
381 Embree and Urquhart (eds.), The Simonie, p. 98, b439–44; Gower, Mirour, p. 344,
ll. 26221–32. See also King (ed.), Life of Marie D’Oignies, p. 83, no. 52.
120 Medieval market morality

who sought to buy large quantities of goods at a low price from people
in distress, or who sold small quantities at a high price to the poor on
credit, since such practices damaged the commonalty.382 Any profits so
accrued were considered to be against justice, reason and truth, since
it seemed that any petty trader who became rich must have been avari-
cious and fraudulent. Indeed, William Langland berated urban traders
for their pretences, luxuries and large houses, which he claimed had
been acquired at the expense of others.383 Petty traders were expected
to live as moderately as their customers, otherwise the principles of both
commutative and distributive justice had been usurped.
Readers were encouraged to identify with or imagine themselves as a
victim of trading abuses, while the writer highlighted the responsibili-
ties of petty victuallers and middlemen in the increasingly commercial
environment of late medieval England. The trader’s denial of respon-
sibility for customers, especially the poor, was regarded as a rejection
of the common weal and traditional hierarchies. Only an acceptance of
their communal and ‘natural’ duty would lead to Christian salvation.384
Consequently those who personally prospered were seen to have done
so illegally or at the expense of others, for all excess gains should have
been distributed for charitable uses: to restore the debt that someone else
must have lost in the trader’s dealings. The poor were therefore viewed
in medieval literature as the beneficiaries of restitution and redistribution
as well as the victims of fraud and avarice.

Livelihood and credit

Unusually, Jacob’s Well provided a justification for a trader’s deceit on the
basis of the needs of subsistence:

I muste nedys weyin falsly chese and wolle, spyserye and othere thinges, and selle
be false mesurys as othere don; ellys schulde I loose ther-on . . . I muste nedys
be wyles, defraude and falsnesse dysseyven my neygboure. For yif I dede truthe,
I shulde nevere thryve, but ben a beggere. And nedys I and my wyif and my
chylderyn and my meyne muste lyve!385

382 Gower, Mirour, p. 91, ll. 6553–64.

383 Piers Plowman, a.iii.65–84, b.iii.76–94, c.iii.77–122.
384 Yunck, ‘Satire’, pp. 151–2.
385 (I must by necessity weigh falsely cheese and wool, spices and other things, and sell by
false measures as others do; else should I lose therein . . . I must by necessity by wiles,
fraud and falseness deceive my neighbour. For if I was true, I should never thrive, but
be a beggar. And by necessity I and my wife and my children and my household must
live!) Jacob’s Well, p. 261, ll. 13–20.
 Images of market trade 121

This is one of the few instances where the poverty of the petty traders
themselves was espoused and it drew attention to their need to operate
on the margins of acceptability just in order to survive. Another rare
example was proffered in a late medieval Norfolk sermon regarding a
lender of money: ‘according to his view of things, he lays all the blame on
God, saying, “There’s nothing else we can do. Times are hard. Unless we
cheat like this, and extort interest when we lend money, we wouldn’t be
able to live.”’386 Some moralists therefore addressed the idea that honest
traders might be spiritually saved but, because of their virtue, might well
go out of business. Caxton alluded to this in his 1483 Dialogues, where his
character, Gombert the butcher, is honest yet poor: ‘He selleth so well his
flessh that to hym it appereth [harms/impairs]; For I sawe hym so poure
[poor] that he knewe not what to put in his mouth’. By comparison, Guy
the fishmonger sells all manner of fish (perhaps implying rotten as well as
wholesome) and owns a prosperous property.387 Successful traders were
implicated as corrupt and dishonest people, while poor, hard-working
dealers were struggling to survive. This was perhaps why Langland was
unusually pragmatic in his acceptance of minor offences like oath-giving
and Sunday trading, as long as trade was otherwise undertaken according
to social justice.388 There was also a realisation that traders might be
tricked by fellow traders, especially through the unwitting purchase of
stolen goods. However, as soon as a trader discovered that a ware was
stolen they were expected to return it to the rightful owner and bear the
cost (though they could track down the seller), or else they too would be
branded a thief. Profits made while the buyer held the commodity in good
faith could be kept, but restitution should be made to the true owner for
any other profits.389 Ultimately, intention and reputation determined the
validity of a trader’s actions.
In Caxton’s Dialogues, the hosier made clothes so badly shaped that the
writer counselled that no man should buy from him; while the brewer
had large quantities of ale unsold because he was renowned for ‘euyll
drykne’.390 Medieval writers realised that a seller’s good reputation was
an increasingly important attribute that determined the success of his
business and the extent of his credit.391 For Caxton, word of mouth and

386 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laudian Misc. 77, fol. 37r–v, cf. and trans. Spencer,
English Preaching, p. 96.
387 Bradley (ed.), Dialogues, pp. 37, l. 31 – p. 38, l. 8. 388 See pp. 94–5.
389 Dives and Pauper, i, ii, pp. 149–50, ll. 70–100.
390 Bradley (ed.), Dialogues, pp. 34–46.
391 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, ‘General Prologue’, p. 28, ll. 280–1; Knott, ‘Chaucer’s
anonymous merchant’; Reale, ‘A marchant’, pp. 95–6. Christine de Pizan advised that
‘marchauntes ought to be true of their woorde and soueraynly of their promysses’,
122 Medieval market morality

reputation were influential factors in deciding quality and vendors. Some

of his stereotyped traders did maintain a solid reputation. Eustace the
tailor worked diligently throughout the night to deliver clothes at the
promised time, while Forcker the cordwainer worked more leather than
any other because his good shoes sold well. This need to maintain a
trustworthy reputation was also alluded to in the Christian precept of
acting towards your neighbour as you would expect them to act towards
you: ‘And yf thou wold he shold be trewe to the and pay his dettis [debts]
and begyle the not wyth subtiltees [subtleties] and sleyghtis [sleights] in
byyng and sellyng, do the same thyself to hym’.392 Those who failed to
heed this advice were likely to find their reputation difficult to redeem.
In Caxton’s translation of Aesop’s fable of the wolf, fox and ape, the fox’s
past deceptions and sleights mean that even when he offers to undertake
a deed profitable to all, he is derided as a thief and knave: ‘For they that
ben customed to doo ony frawde or falshede / shall euer lyue ryзte heuyly
[heavily] and in suspycion’.393 Within the broad moral conceptions of
medieval England, traders continually operated on the cusp of accept-
ability. They were viewed as treading a fine line between honest profit
and covetous deceit, so it is unsurprising if actual reputations were fragile
and easily lost.

Repentance and punishment

Market trade was often depicted as inordinately dominated by worldly
matters to the neglect of salvation. Religious texts commonly upbraided
markets and fairs that were held on a Sunday or in a church, criticising
traders who worked through religious festivals.394 They not only missed
divine services for the sake of material profit but encouraged others to do
so. Dives and Pauper was, however, more circumspect in its approach and
exempted victuallers from the prohibition of working on Sunday, pro-
vided they were serving those attending Christian services.395 Nonethe-
less, there were vibrant biblical pretexts for the suspicion of trading activ-
ities on Sundays and in churches.396 The Book of Vices and Virtues, for
example, quoted the passage from the Bible in which Jesus drove buyers

as this led to the establishment of trust. Bornstein (ed.), Middle English Translation,
pp. 184–9.
392 Blake (ed.), Quattuor Sermons, p. 47, ll. 15–21.
393 Lenaghan (ed.), Caxton’s Aesop, p. 101.
394 Swinburn (ed.), Lanterne, p. 91, ll. 1–6, p. 92, ll. 18–25; Matthew (ed.), English Works
of Wyclif, p. 280; Fasciculus Morum, pp. 370–1; Stockton (ed.), Major Latin Works, ‘Vox
Clamantis’, bk. v, ch. 11, pp. 210–11.
395 Dives and Pauper, i, i, p. 10, l. 31, and p. 291, ll. 24–34.
396 Langholm, Economics, pp. 102–3; Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 112–13.
 Images of market trade 123

Figure 14: The cleansing of the Temple.

Notes: The manuscript illustration from the Holkham Bible (1325–30)
shows Jesus driving traders from Jerusalem’s Temple.
Source: BL, Additional MS 47682, fol. 26r.

and sellers out of the Temple.397 This image of retailers being driven from
the Temple by Christ can be seen twice in the early fourteenth-century
Holkham Bible, including a butcher, a stock-dealer, a money-changer
and an unusual illustration of a female poulterer selling doves (based on
Matthew 21:12; Mark 11:15; John 2:14) (see Figure 14).398 The context
of their trading indiscretions and the physical berating of Jesus are only
too clear in the scriptures: ‘but you have made it a den of thieves’ (Luke
19:46; Matthew 21:13). ‘He told those who were selling the doves. “Take
these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”’
(John 2:16).
Traders’ disdain for God and salvation was also highlighted in dis-
cussions of those who dealt in sacred relics. Sacrilege and simony were
placed alongside trading fraud and theft in moral texts that discussed
avarice. John Lydgate asserted that many sellers of relics had stolen them
from churches and repainted them, as well as making holes for blood and

397 Vices and Virtues, p. 237, l. 26 – p. 238, l. 5; Matthew 21:12, Mark 11:15–17, Luke
19:45–6, John 2:14–16. See also Erbe (ed.), Mirk’s Festial, pp. 115–16; Lefébure (ed.),
St Thomas Aquinas, pp. 225–31, vol. 38: Injustice, ii–ii, q.77, a.4.
398 BL, Additional MS 47682, fols. 20r, 26r; Hassall (ed.), Holkham Bible Picture Book.
124 Medieval market morality

milk to run out as if by a miracle and using sham cripples to demonstrate

their efficacy.399 In a late fifteenth-century Suffolk play, The Play of the
Sacrament, Aristory, a Christian merchant of Aragon, steals the Eucharist
to sell to the Jews.400 They proceed to desecrate the sacrament; a com-
mon accusation against Jews. However, it is the wealthy, well-travelled
merchant who is deemed to err more. The play initially emphasises how
much he has to thank God for the riches he has accrued during his life.
His outwardly pious nature is noted: ‘I wyll atteyn to wourshyppe my God
that dyed on þe roode [cross]’. The sacrilegious nature of his deal with
the Jonathas the Jew is thus put into stark contrast. Aristory succumbs
to the deal after a lengthy bargaining process that persuades him to take
and sell the Eucharist for a hundred pounds. Avarice has outweighed the
spiritual risks:401 ‘To fullfyll my bargayn haue I ment, / For þat mony
wyll amend my fare’. However, Aristory’s conscience is not allayed by
the money and he eventually confesses his crime. As punishment, the
merchant is forbidden to ever sell or buy again and has to undertake a
strict penance of fasting and praying. His action, partly reluctant, partly
avaricious, parallels that of Judas, who was sometimes compared to mer-
chants: ‘for he made marchauntyse by false menys [means] when he solde
cristes [Christ’s] owne persone and so solde himselffe to þe devyll bothe
body and sowle [soul]’.402 It also drew on a popular image of the traders’
own predilections, whereby avarice and material gain took primacy over
spiritual salvation.403
Late medieval moralists commonly portrayed traders who ignored the
plight of their souls. Langland’s ‘Fair Field Full of Folke’, with its many
petty traders, was located between the tower of Truth and the Deep Dale,
essentially metaphors for salvation and damnation. Yet, the people of the
‘Fair Field’ seemed unaware of either destination and continued busily
in their material activities.404 The inclination of traders to ignore the
instructions of the Church and so commit sacrilege and sins in the pursuit
of profit was a common theme. Devotional literature often pinpointed
the temptations of covetousness to the neglect of salvation. Gower even
suggested that some merchants were ambivalent towards the fate of their

399 Furnivall (ed.), Pilgrimage, pp. 484–5, ll. 18104–165; Ross (ed.), Middle English Ser-
mons, p. 125, ll. 1–21 (BL, MS Royal 18.b.xxiii, fol. 94r); Fasciculus Morum, pp. 336–7;
Royster, ‘Middle English treatise’, 29–30.
400 Davis (ed.), Non-Cycle Plays, pp. 58–89.
401 Similar accusations were made by preachers against covetous men who profess virtue,
but whose actions are ultimately dictated by greed. Ross (ed.), Middle English Sermons,
p. 264, l. 34 – p. 265, l. 25.
402 Nottingham University Library, MS 50, fol. 198v.
403 Ross (ed.), Middle English Sermons, pp. 98–9.
404 Piers Plowman, A.Prol.97–109, B.Prol.217–31, C.Prol.221–32.
 Images of market trade 125

soul compared to material pleasures: ‘one of them said to me the other day
that he who can have the sweetness of this life and turns it away would,
in his opinion, commit folly, for afterwards no one knows truly where
we go nor by what way’.405 John Wyclif accused traders of hypocrisy
for, despite their busy and hard-working lives, their efforts went towards
worldly gain, using subtleties and false oaths, and nothing was spared
for spiritual salvation.406 One sermon disparaged the way in which some
traders falsely believed they could pacify God: ‘I wil gyffe [give] a boke
or a chalys [chalice] to the chyrche, or a bell or a vestment, and so schall
I be prayed for every sonday, or ells I wyll do some other good deede lyke
to the same’.407 However, moralists insisted that giving ill-gotten gains
as alms and church offerings would not necessarily save a man’s soul or
be pleasing to God. Ultimately, their lies and frauds would be revealed
on the Day of Judgement and they would go to Hell.408 The bakers and
brewers of the Lutel Soth Sermun cared only for silver and were warned
that, unless they relinquished their sinful practices and covetousness,
they would never enjoy the kingdom of heaven.409 In the Chester Mystery
Play, when everyone else had left Hell, the alewife, with her false weights
and measures, remained.410
Traders were expected to relinquish any unreasonable profits during
their lifetime through alms or gifts to the Church. Jacob’s Well provides
a list of abuses for which traders needed to make immediate restitution
under the pain of eternal damnation. This included the selling of adul-
terated or defective goods, the use of false weights and measures, the
artificial inflation of corn prices to the harm of the poor, the hiding of
faults through false words and oaths, and the myriad sins of usury.411
A merchant’s last opportunity for repentance and restitution was on his

405 Gower, Mirour, p. 340, ll. 25915–20; Piers Plowman, b.xiii.383–98, c.vi.258–77. See
also Nelson (ed.), Fifteenth Century School Book, p. 54, no. 230.
406 Matthew (ed.), English Works of Wyclif, pp. 24–5. Paradoxically, Italian merchants often
wrote ‘In the name of God and of profit’ at the head of their ledgers. Origo, Merchant
of Prato, p. 9.
407 Nottingham University Library, MS 50, fol. 198r.
408 Ross (ed.), Middle English Sermons, pp. 125, 182; Dives and Pauper, i, i, pp. 17–18,
ll. 14–20; Fasciculus Morum, pp. 344–7; Cigman (ed.), Lollard Sermons, p. 228, ll. 746–
53; Warren (ed.), Dance of Death, p. 44, ll. 329–44, p. 45, ll. 481–96, p. 47, ll. 497–512,
pp. 51–2, ll. 393–416; Zeydel (ed.), Ship of Fools, p. 67; Gower, Mirour, pp. 90–1,
ll. 6517–64, p. 340, ll. 25933–44; BL, MS Harleian 149, fol. 239r–v; Handlyng Synne,
p. 176, ll. 5377–98 (‘To þe deuyl, body and bone’).
409 Morris (ed.), An Old English Miscellany, p. 189, ll. 33–48; Sisam and Sisam (eds.),
Medieval English Verse, pp. 11–12, no. 7, ll. 5–12.
410 Lumiansky and Mills (eds.), Chester Mystery Cycle, i, pp. 337–9, play xvii, ‘Harrowing
of Hell’, ll. 277–336.
411 Jacob’s Well, p. 212, ll. 6–29 (also p. 66, ll. 3–27; p. 138, ll. 6–11; p. 208, l. 14 – p. 209,
l. 4).
126 Medieval market morality

deathbed.412 However, some did not recognise their peril until it was too
late. The Chester Mystery Play alewife despaired that she had dealt so
deceitfully in life: ‘Sorrowfull maye I syke [sigh] and singe that ever I so
dalt [dealt]’.413 Another scene in the play cycle lists the damned souls’
laments, including that of a merchant who finally understood that his
worldly actions of false ‘winning’ brought him nothing but torment in
Hell:
Alas, alas, now woe is me!
My foul body, that rotten hath be,
and soul together now I see.
All stinketh, full of sin.
Alas! Merchandise maketh me –
and purchasing of land and fee –
in Hell-pain evermore to be,
and bale that never shall blin.414 sorrow; cease

The lament continues by highlighting the misery he had caused to the

poor during his dealings in merchandise and land and as a court official.
He had also failed to pay his tithes to the Church because he felt this
was a waste of his gains.415 Such neglect of social duties and spiritual
salvation reflected many of the concerns expressed in the wills of medieval
people.416 Indeed, the seven corporal works of mercy were prominent in
the teachings of the medieval Church, and all were expected to show
mercy and relieve the poor, sick and vulnerable before they faced the
ultimate judgement.417 It was hoped, in sermons, devotional literature
and plays, that stressing the fate of sinners in the afterlife would encourage
immediate repentance because death could come at any time. In the
Chester Mystery Play, the warning to the merchant was stark:
To work in world so wickedly
and now burn in the Devil’s belly?
Alas, that ever I was born!418

Illustrating the fate of the body and soul after death was a widely used
device against those who worried about their worldly wealth. There were

412 Borgström, ‘The Complaint of God’, 519, ll. 345–52; Vices and Virtues, p. 42, l. 14 –
p. 43, l. 2; Gallagher (ed.), Doctrinal, pp. 146–7.
413 Lumiansky and Mills (eds.), Chester Mystery Cycle, i, p. 338, play xvii, ‘Harrowing of
Hell’, ll. 299–300.
414 Mills (ed.), Chester Mystery Cycle, pp. 425–6, ll. 325–32.
415 Ibid., pp. 425–6, ll. 333–52. 416 See below, p. 379.
417 Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 357–9. The seven corporal works of mercy are: feeding
the hungry; giving drink to the thirsty; clothing the naked; visiting the sick; visiting the
prisoner; sheltering the stranger; and burying the dead.
418 Mills (ed.), Chester Mystery Cycle, p. 426, ll. 354–6.
 Images of market trade 127

many vivid descriptions of the torment of merchants and usurers after

death and in Hell.419 A conventional scene was the unrepentant usurer
who was buried with his money; he was later uncovered to reveal demons
filling the dead man’s mouth with red-hot coins.420 Many exempla con-
tain tales of usurers who refused to repent or to provide restitution
for their usurious gains and who subsequently went to Hell, with their
corpses stinking, full of burning coins and fed on by toads. Preachers
told traders and usurers that temporal goods were transient and that to
make a god of them was sin. They should care more for their soul or
else it would exist in pain after death, while ‘wormes schul eten [eat] þe,
and sone schalte þou be for-зeten [forgotten]’.421 Wyclif recognised that
those who practised usury did it so subtly that few would be able to prove
it, but this merely meant that the usurer would not be amended ‘bi-fore
þe day of do[o]m’ and would be condemned to eternal damnation.422
The figure of Covetousness in Piers Plowman confesses his sinful ways
and claims he will no longer use short measures or beguile his customers.
Instead, he offers to go on pilgrimage to Walsingham, so that his spiritual
debt might be cleared.423 However, in the C-Text, pardon or absolution
is only offered if he makes full restitution to all those that he has deceived
and stolen from.424 All debts must be paid and proportionate exchange
given.425 In Langland’s writings, Fraud and Avarice were the main cor-
rupters of ‘iustitia’ and just price, and anyone who succumbed to these
vices was expected to make full restitution if they wanted salvation for
their souls. At one point, Covetousness misunderstands a question about

419 ‘The XI Pains of Hell’ (thirteenth century), in Morris (ed.), An Old English Miscellany,
p. 214, ll. 105–17 (usurers suffered here with those who gave false measures); Sinclair
(ed.), Divine Comedy, i, ‘Inferno’, pp. 19, 147.
420 Crane (ed.), Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, pp. 71–2, 203, nos. clxvii and clxviii. See
also Scott and Bland (eds.), Dialogue, ii, pp. 270–3, chs. xxxix, xlii; Barnicle, ‘Exem-
plum’; Crane (ed.), Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, pp. 49, 178, no. cvi; Fasciculus Morum,
pp. 352–5; Bromyard, Summa Predicantium, ‘Gloria’; Tubach, Index Exemplorum, no.
1143; Moffat (ed.), Complaint of Nature, p. 67, ll. 36–43. For an image of heated coins
being poured down the throat of Avarice, see Green, ‘Virtues and vices’, 151.
421 Horstmann (ed.), Minor Poems, p. 343, ll. 540–51, especially ll. 550–1.
422 Matthew (ed.), English Works of Wyclif, p. 238. See also Fasciculus Morum, pp. 350–3;
Gallagher (ed.), Doctrinal, pp. 146–7; BL, MS Additional 37677, fol. 100v; Dives and
Pauper, i, ii, pp. 203–4, ll. 2–13; Crane (ed.), Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, pp. 75, 206,
no. clxxvii, pp. 90, 221, no. ccxvi; Handlyng Synne, pp. 92–4; Jacob’s Well, p. 197, l. 9 –
p. 199, l. 13; BL, MS Additional 11284, fol. 91r; Tubach, Index Exemplorum, no. 375.
A long verse of the fifteenth century concerned a usurer who would not give anything
to the poor or needy and thus died without repentance or restitution. It was left to the
son to reconcile the wrongs of the father before the latter’s soul could rest in happiness.
Hopper (ed.), Childe of Bristow. See also Ross (ed.), Middle English Sermons, p. 210,
l. 21 – p. 211, l. 5.
423 Piers Plowman, a.v.142–5, b.v.226–9, c.vi.230–3. 424 Ibid., c.vi.234–57, 331–49.
425 Stokes, Justice, pp. 165–6.
128 Medieval market morality

restitution and instead tells of a time he robbed a merchant while he slept,

rifling through his bags.426 This was obviously not the kind of restitu-
tion to which Repentance referred; rather, Covetousness was expected to
repay his debts of sin in satisfaction of justice (‘redde quod debes’). This
formed part of a system of obligations to God, the poor, neighbours and
the self, rooted in divine and natural law. The lack of care for the poor
and needy in the pursuit of material gain needed to be redressed. Cov-
etousness states: ‘I haue as muche pite of pouere [poor] men as pedlere
haþ of cattes [cats], / That wolde kille hem if he cacche [catch] hem
myзte for coueitise of hir skynnes [skins]’.427 He fails to comprehend
the extent of his sins. However, without restitution and justice, penance
and repentance could not take place, nor could Covetousness use any of
his ill-gained capital for future deals. Jacob’s Well similarly declared that
sellers of defective goods should provide restitution to their victims:
зyf þou selle copyr [copper] for gold, wyne medlyd [mixed] wyth watyr for wyn,
or makyst ony oþer suche fals dysseyзtys [deceits], þe muste restore. зif þou
dysseyue oþere with aunserys [auncels], weyзtis, or mesurys, þou art boundyn to
restore in peyne [pain] of dampnacyoun.428

Merchants were sometimes depicted as recognising the perilous spiritual

dilemmas of undertaking commerce. Langland’s merchants, for example,
expressed tearful relief (‘many wepe for ioye [joy]’) when they received
a conditional pardon for their deeds.429 But the most infamous medieval
example of a commercial life confronting spirituality was that of Margery
Kempe. She was born in Lynn in c.1373, of middle-class parents. Her
father, John Brunham, was a burgess, alderman and mayor, while she
herself was married to a merchant whom she seemingly regarded as
beneath her social status. She was nevertheless immersed in the ways
of the market, even as a female, and was able to become economically
autonomous and exercise commercial authority.430 The Book of Margery
Kempe (dated to 1436), which may have been dictated by Margery her-
self, briefly summarises her life before her spiritual transformation, pil-
grimages and hysterical devotion. The text describes Margery as full of
pomp, pride and covetousness, which inspired her to start a brewing busi-
ness. However, she found her ale went flat, her brewings were lost and her

426 Piers Plowman, c.vi.234–57. This scene recalled the fable of the ‘Apes and the Sleeping
Pedlar’, see pp. 100–1 and Figure 4.
427 Piers Plowman, b.v.255–6.
428 Jacob’s Well, p. 212, ll. 6–11. See also Fasciculus Morum, pp. 338–9; Simmons and
Nolloth (eds.), Lay Folks’ Catechism, p. 51, ll. 800–1; Morris (ed.), Old English Homilies
and Homiletic Treatises, pp. 30–1.
429 Piers Plowman, a.viii.10–44, b.vii.10–42, c.ix.12–42.
430 Ashley, ‘Historicizing Margery’; Aers, Community, pp. 77–8; Jewell, Women, pp. 98–9.
 Images of market trade 129

servants left. A second enterprise of a horse-mill to grind corn also failed

because the horses would not pull and another servant left her. This was
all interpreted by the author as God’s punishment for her pride and sin,
and it was implied that she should forsake her secular desires.431 This
might at first appear to be an entirely negative appraisal of the mercantile
endeavour, reflecting the difficulties in reconciling trade with religious
norms. Yet, her commercial values were not completely excised, for she
bargained with God for forgiveness in return for works and prayers. This
was the same ‘economy of salvation’ which was implicit in chantries and
Masses.432
Salvation was often described in commercial language, as demon-
strated by a fifteenth-century sermon: ‘þan it is necessarie to men þat
shall make a bargayn for to acorde [agree] of couenauntes [covenants],
þan what will зe зeue [give] to God oþer to me in [h]is name, and I
shall take hym to you?’433 The Church became imbued with commer-
cial values, despite condemning many aspects of the marketplace, bar-
gaining and mercantile ‘urges’. This paradox mirrored the traditional
spiritual unease of the trading classes about their way of life, but also
how moralists were subtly transforming traditional clerical assertions.434
Many writers sought to validate the mercantile and commercial life in
light of both market developments and emerging, wealthy merchants.
There was an accommodation between the need to emphasise traditional
moral concerns and Church doctrines and the changing requirements
of the marketplace. However, this was not a blanket acceptance of mar-
ket values and there was still a firm sense that market conduct, like all
earthly activities, should be subsidiary to the salvation of the soul. In the
medieval mindset, the realities of Hell appeared as lucid as the realities
of the market.
There was a pragmatic recognition by moralists that the fears of spir-
itual punishment had to be matched by everyday enforcement of law.
The perceptions of the marketplace as a den of iniquity, of traders as
inherently corrupt and untrustworthy, and of poor customers needing
protection, were natural precursors to the moralists’ demand for strict
and close intervention in the marketplace and an end to leniency. The
Simonie highlighted the sins of victuallers, and feared that the authori-
ties were lax in their punishments: ‘þe pilory and þe cukkyng-stole beþ

431 Windeatt (ed.), Book of Margery Kempe, pp. 38, 44–5.

432 Atkinson, Mystic and Pilgrim, pp. 16, 59–60, 80; Ellis, ‘Merchant’s wife’s tale’, 609–12;
Fienberg, ‘Thematics of value’, 136; Aers, Community, pp. 79–82.
433 Ross (ed.), Middle English Sermons, p. 33, ll. 30–4; also ‘By þre maner of wyze men is
delyvered from dette’, ibid., p. 43, ll. 11–20.
434 Thrupp, Merchant Class, pp. 169–81.
130 Medieval market morality

moche mad[e] fore no[u]ght’.435 The writer also complained that brew-
ers and bakers seemed only to receive minor amercements and could do
40s. worth of shame and pain upon the poor for only a 12d. penalty
imposed by the court.436 William Langland similarly suggested that
officials were often bribed to allow corrupt traders to continue unhin-
dered. He urged officials to punish all fraudulent traders in the pillory or
cucking-stool:
As to punisshen on pillories – on
pynyng-stolis cucking-stools
Breweris – bakers, bocheris – cokes, butchers; cooks
For þise arn men of þise molde þat most
harm werchiþ this earth; harm do
To þe pore peple þat parcelmel biggen.437 poor people; buy piecemeal

This was an allusion to mid-thirteenth-century regulations that governed

the victual trades, with Langland almost quoting verbatim the statute
Judicium Pillorie.438 Similarly, the Chester alewife accepted the ‘statutes
of this contrye [country]’ as the upholders of moral law.439
Other poets and moralists were vehement in their demands for harsh
punishments. A satirical verse on Kildare (c.1308) warned both bakers
and brewers to avoid fraud or else be sent to the pillory or cucking-
stool where ‘þe lak is dep and hori’.440 In 1509, Alexander Barclay was
adamant that the covetous and fraudulent should be judged by the law
‘with extreme rygour and mortall punysshement’.441 John Lydgate hoped
that all false bakers would be placed in the pillory and be pelted with eggs,
‘body, bak, and syde’.442 John Gower was equally vitriolic about taverners
who sold spoilt wine, as well as fraudulent brewers and bakers, and
demanded that they all be hanged, especially bakers ‘for bread is man’s
sustenance, and he who offends against bread contrary to the common
laws takes people’s lives away’.443 The moralists expressed stark views on

435 Embree and Urquhart (eds.), The Simonie, p. 98, b428. For a discussion of the pillory
and cucking-stool, see below, pp. 263–70.
436 Ibid., p. 99, b445–450. An ‘amercement’ was a financial penalty levied by a court. For
the relevance of these figures to real amercements, see Chapter 3.
437 Piers Plowman, a.iii.67–70, b.iii.78–81, c.iii.79–82.
438 Statutes, i, p. 201, Judicium Pillorie.
439 Lumiansky and Mills (eds.), Chester Mystery Cycle, i, p. 338, play xvii, ‘Harrowing of
Hell’, l. 303.
440 (the lake is deep and dirty.) Furnivall (ed.), Early English Poems, pp. 154–5; Wright
and Halliwell (eds.), Reliquae, ii, pp. 174–7; BL, MS Harleian 913, fol. 7v.
441 Jamieson (ed.), Ship of Fools, ii, p. 167.
442 MacCracken (ed.), Minor Poems, ‘Put Thieving Millers and Bakers in the Pillory’,
pp. 448–9, no. 15 (BL, MS Harleian 2255, fol. 137r).
443 Gower, Mirour, pp. 341–6, ll. 25981–6353; Stockton (ed.), Major Latin Works, ‘Vox
Clamantis’, bk. v, ch. 14, pp. 214–15.
 Images of market trade 131

Figure 15: The market official.

Notes: This woodcut depicts the seventh pawn in The Game of Chess
(1483), the town or market official. He is holding keys and an ell (a
stick for measuring cloth), as well as carrying a pot on his back for
measurements and an open purse for collecting tolls and customs.
Source: Cessolis, De Ludo Scachorum, bk. 3, ch. 7 (Cambridge, Trinity
College Library, vi.18.3, fol. 62r).

the application of secular law as well as spiritual ethics, and expected town
authorities to support their own ardent admonitions of market abuses.
Whether officials did so in practice is another matter, and the extent to
which market laws and enforcement were actually influenced by shared
moral assumptions will be explored in Chapters 2 and 3.
William Caxton’s Game and Playe of the Chesse (1483), which describes
society in terms of the pieces on a chessboard, placed victuallers
and hostelers in front of judges and law-enforcers, because they ‘ofte
tymes amonge hem contencion noyse and stryf whiche behoueth to be
determyned and trayted [treated] by the alphyn, whiche is Iuge [judge]
of the kynge’. The accompanying woodcut depicted a town official hold-
ing an ell and carrying a pot on his back to measure with, and a purse
to collect fines and tolls (see Figure 15). They were expected to watch
the victuallers and traders diligently, wisely and as ‘louers of the comyn
132 Medieval market morality

prouffit and wele’.444 There was, however, recognition that the author-
ities were fallible and negligent. In Piers Plowman, Lady Mede bribed
the mayor to allow dishonest craftsmen and traders to take advantage
of the law, ‘to sulle sumdel aзeyn resoun’ (to sell something against rea-
son). She was patently unaware that she was doing anything wrong and
suggested that punishments should be lightened or the law strained to
help traders make a bit more profit.445 Lady Mede was irredeemable
because she could not accept her own sin in transactions, nor that her
actions made the law ineffective and left the poor unprotected. Mede
corrupted government and prevented impartial justice. Yet, Langland
implied that such indiscriminate help made Mede popular in the world
and that consequently everything was for sale, including government and
the law.
Although the confessional and penitential emphasis of moral works
meant that they demanded personal repentance and legal reforms, there
was nevertheless a resignation that little would actually change. Langland
clearly despaired of petty traders ever achieving salvation, abandoning
their vices or accepting traditional moral values:

Thauh thei take hem vntydy thyng. thei hold hit no treson,
And thauh thei fulle nat ful. that for lawe is seled,
He gripeth ther-for as greet. as for the gete treuthe.446

In the B-Text of Langland’s Piers Plowman, Haukyn the Active Man,

who is presented as a wayfarer or pedlar, tried to work for salvation, but
his coat remained stained with sin and could not be cleaned by way of
penance alone. This suggests a rejection of the active life or work ethic
and a realisation that working in the world inevitably led to sin. Later in
the text, ‘Conscience’ suggests a new way of life of voluntary poverty, but
the common people, represented by the brewer, reject such spiritualism.

444 (lovers of the common profit and weal.) Caxton’s Game and Playe of Chess, pp. 128–9,
138–9, 143: ‘for as moche as the byars and sellars haue somtyme moche langage, they
ought to haue with them these vertues, that is to wete pacience and good corage with
honeste’.
445 Piers Plowman, a.iii.65–84, b.iii.76–94, c.iii.77–122; Mitchell, ‘Lady Meed’, p. 23;
Baldwin, Theme of Government, pp. 27–30. The C-Text includes an additional section
that has the victims of profiteering calling for God’s vengeance, which is sent in the
form of a fire in which both good and bad men suffer. The implication is that the
community is indivisible and that all will suffer if the law is not upheld.
446 (Though they deliver to them a dishonest quantity. they consider it no craft, and though
they fill it not full. that by law is sealed, they grasp there for as much. as for the true
gain.) Piers Plowman, c.iv.87–9.
 Images of market trade 133

Langland pessimistically bowed to the realistic nature of the marketplace

through the words of a brewer:

‘Ye? baw!’ quod a Brewere, I wol noзt be ruled,

By Iesu! for al your Ianglynge, with Spiritus
Iusticie, chatter
Ne after Conscience, by crist! while I kan selle
Boþe dregges and raf and drawe at oon hole dregs; waste
Thikke ale and þynne ale; þat is my kynde thick; thin
And noзt hakke after holynesse; hold þi tonge,
Conscience!447 struggle

Conscience had appealed to the trader’s own responsibilities to his cus-

tomers, especially the poor and labourers who depended upon his sup-
plies, as well as to the traditional boundaries of moral integrity. But the
brewer, representing those imbued with commercial values, reverted to
‘kynde’ or nature, and so perhaps justified the suspicions of customers
about professional practices and mores. The brewer argued that he would
lose more in earnings than he would gain in absolution. He thus rejected
the principle of justice (‘Spiritus Iusticie’) in his measures, quality and
dealings; he would go on mixing dregs with good ale to make money as
long as no one stopped him.448 Spiritual salvation was thus ignored in
favour of economic self-interest and profit at the margins of acceptability.
He placed personal gain above the common weal and rejected the social
and penitential principle of ‘redde quod debes’.449 In effect, moralists
regarded the market and commerce as blinding forces that prevented
traders from seeing that their actions were morally wrong and spiritu-
ally hazardous.450 Conscience and clerical teachings were often ignored
and only hunger or imminent death might compel them to obey the
law.
The despair and resignation of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century com-
plaint poets forms part of conventional rhetoric, but other writers
also expressed the futility of their criticisms. Bishop Thomas Brinton
of Rochester upbraided traders and merchants in several of his late
fourteenth-century sermons, but in a sermon of July 1382–3 he despaired
that anyone heeded his messages:

447 Ibid., b.xix, 396–400, c.xxi.396–400. 448 Stokes, Justice, pp. 274–6.
449 Yunck, ‘Satire’, pp. 150–2; Aers, ‘Justice and wage-labor’; Piers Plowman, b.xix.396–
408, c.xxi.396–408.
450 Pearsall referred to this as the ‘remorseless ethic’ of money; Pearsall (ed.), William
Langland, p. 14.
134 Medieval market morality

I say for my part with tears that for these past ten year I have preached against
the sins prevalent in my diocese, nor, however, have I seen anyone rise effectually
from sin . . . For what adulterer having given up his mistress is faithful to his lawful
wife? What usurer restores what he has unjustly taken? What unjust maintainer or
false witness refrains from his sins? What user of fraudulent weights and measures
through which he has deceived his neighbours and poor wayfarers has broken or
burned them?451

Conclusion
Richard Britnell has argued that many literary texts and sermons were
uncomplicated in their content, misrepresenting everyday moral values
and overstressing the seriousness of offences.452 Certainly, the images
presented were not intended as a passive reflection of reality. They were
steeped in traditional values and stereotypes, either idealistic or deroga-
tory, and were grounded in broader questions of morality and social
theory – what should or should not take place, rather than what actually
did.453 According to medieval moralists, avarice, fraud and an inordinate
desire for money were the bedfellows of the average trader. Vendors were
reminded of sin involved in even the simplest trading malpractices, while
customers were continually alerted to the potential deceits they might
face in market transactions.
It is possible that traders and customers identified with the traditional
condemnations and theories of moralists, viewing some of their fellow
traders and consumers as dishonest and selfish, to the detriment of the
whole community. Indeed, many of the comments of the moralists appear
intended to pander to the concerns and practical experiences of their
audience. They also reinforced negative and moral perceptions, which
may have influenced everyday market interactions and how society con-
strued their marketplaces. What is striking is that there are virtually no
positive references in the literary and religious sources to capital accumu-
lation, middlemen and retailers, entrepreneurship, product development
or even economic growth. Instead, texts and images are remarkably con-
sistent in their adherence to familiar principles. Many writers continued
to denounce petty traders and middlemen as irredeemably fraudulent
and dishonest, and criticised them for being scornful of the requirements
for salvation. They indicated that petty traders were reluctant to disrupt

451 Devlin (ed.), Sermons of Thomas Brinton, p. 465, sermon 101 (trans. p. xxiv).
452 Britnell, ‘Town life’, pp. 164–5; Britnell, ‘Urban economic regulation’, ch. xix,
pp. 1–2.
453 Rigby, ‘England: literature and society’, p. 502.
 Images of market trade 135

their personal profit margins and market practices for any abstract ide-
ologies of social justice and communal welfare. Those writers who did try
to understand the dilemmas of traders at the bottom of the commercial
ladder found it difficult to accommodate elements of petty trade with the
greater needs of social order, and thus demanded extensive intervention
by the authorities.
It is significant that Langland chose petty traders, alongside wasters,
labourers and friars, as targets of his indignation. These figures were a
pervasive presence in medieval towns and villages and thus useful exam-
ples through which to explore broader issues of society and salvation:
And somme chosen chaffare [trade], they cheueden [succeed] the
bettere,
As it semeth to owre syзt [sight] that suche men thryueth [thrive]454
For Langland, social disorder was caused by the traders’ rejection of
their personal and communal obligations, in favour of more selfish and
acquisitive needs. It does appear that there was a vibrant debate amongst
medieval moralists about the developing market economy throughout
the twelfth to fifteenth centuries. David Aers was, however, wrong in
suggesting that Langland dismissed the market and commercial economy
as peripheral to a feudal, fixed social order.455 Langland in fact accepted
‘mercedem’ as a reward for trade undertaken honestly and reasonably.
He both acknowledged that commerce was of ever-growing importance
in providing necessities and services yet he despaired that it might never
truly be reconciled to traditional Christian ethics.
Generally, moralists recognised that society was often dependent upon
market mechanisms for the basic necessities of life, but that trade had
operations and intrinsic values that potentially ran counter to the ethics
and doctrines of the Church. One compromise was the view that trade
in itself could be utilitarian and beneficial, but it was the individual
who was sinful and whose intentions should be fully examined.456 Con-
sequently, some texts began to examine the possibility of an ideological
reconciliation between the two institutions of Church and market, within
the parameters of heavenly salvation. Theologians of the twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries attempted this for merchants, price formation and usury,
accommodating secular social and economic changes within their divine
conceptions.457 Moralists found ways to accommodate the market within
their teachings, as long as the intention was not avaricious and gain was

454 Piers Plowman, a.prol.31–2, b.prol.31–2, c.i.33–4.

455 Aers, Chaucer, p. 8. Aers quoted Hilton on this subject (Hilton, English Peasantry,
pp. 43–57, 82–94, 196–214).
456 Farber, An Anatomy, pp. 15–18. 457 Wood, Medieval Economic Thought.
136 Medieval market morality

matched by charity.458 By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, there

was a continuing process of adaptation and modification in literary atti-
tudes and an acceptance that traders could make reasonable profits and
that the realities of market forces were unavoidable. However, there was
still a reluctance to allow petty market traders much leeway in compari-
son to wholesaling merchants. Although representations of traders were
increasingly allied to the realities of market values, flexible law enforce-
ment, competition and self-interest, they ultimately remained negative
and pessimistic because the acquisitive urge compromised the basis of
traditional Christian ethics. Petty traders were on the cusp of moral
acceptability, but simultaneously remained in the margins of suspicion.
If unremitting suspicion reflected the opinion of all medieval market
users then exchange would have been very difficult, lacking in mutual
trust and requiring constant (and costly) surveillance. However, the
reception of these images and their influence upon attitudes and action
was much more complex. Literary portrayals attempted to influence
attitudes in society but were also influenced by the social context in
which they were written. The very condemnations of moralists constantly
reminded market-goers of the need for both self-regulation and commu-
nal responsibility, and these accepted ethical conceptions may have bol-
stered confidence in market transactions. Even if the edicts of the Church
and moralists were not followed to the letter, they informed and reflected
an accepted cultural context for behaviour in the marketplace.
By the later Middle Ages, writers were demanding greater self-
regulation by traders, more self-awareness by consumers and effective
deterrents by the authorities in support of the admonitions of the Church.
If two principal themes have emerged from the literary sources it is those
of social justice and communal responsibility. Members of society at all
levels were acutely aware of religious and literary condemnations of mar-
ket misdemeanours and the means by which moralists wished to redress
them. Late medieval society was also intensely concerned with matters of
law and order and it is likely that legislation was formulated with religious
ideals in mind.
458 Langholm, The Merchant, pp. 234–5.
2 Regulation of the market

Medieval attitudes towards market traders can be discerned further

through an analysis of the legal pronouncements and jurisdictions that
sought to regulate their behaviour. The enactment of medieval law was
intimately connected to the predominant moral assumptions of the age,
and notions of social justice and the common good figure prominently.
Legislation represented the most covert means by which society could
control the behaviour of its members and codify common expectations.
While moral and religious strictures defined the wider context of human
behaviour, often within a spiritual context, the creators of trading legis-
lation established more exact and tangible guidelines for secular offences
and implemented a number of administrative mechanisms to enforce
conformity.
The growth of markets and petty trade in the late Middle Ages
was accompanied by a multitude of laws. From the thirteenth century
onwards, traders were confronted by a proliferation of statutes, town
ordinances and manorial by-laws, which sought to outline the standards
of commercial practice. Such laws and ordinances were also a reminder
of the authority vested in the king, lord or corporation, but commercial
law was shaped as much by the needs and morals of market-goers as by
the state. As Richard Britnell has stated, ‘urban commercial regulations
has complex origins in early English royal traditions, in canon law, in the
privileges of chartered boroughs and in ad hoc pragmatism’.1
The use of legislative texts requires a similarly cautious approach to
that used for literary evidence. The enactment of an ordinance or statute
did not necessarily elicit compliance nor directly mirror the practice of
traders in the market. David Farmer rightly stated: ‘Royal proclamations,
statutes both parliamentary and informal, and even Magna Carta, usu-
ally exemplify the aims of those in power, rather than the practicalities of
the market place’.2 Some historians have gone further and suggested that

1 Britnell, ‘Town life’, p. 164. 2 Farmer, ‘Marketing’, p. 326.

137
138 Medieval market morality

the continual reiteration of particular laws merely indicated their ineffec-

tiveness and the lack of stigma attached to offences. In a similar manner
to medieval moralists, historians like Eric Hirshler, Joel Rosenthal and
Louis Salzman have described medieval trading communities as rife with
dishonesty, fraud and moral indifference, which the authorities could do
little about except increase punishments, repeat regulations and reiterate
theological condemnations.3 In essence, many of the commercial laws
were ineffectual and ignored, with inadequate legal and moral barriers
to dissuade the free rider. Other historians, such as Anthony Bridbury,
viewed medieval trading regulations as very narrow-minded and disad-
vantageous to traders because of the dominant Christian ideology that
underpinned them.4 According to this theory, the law was intrusive and
obstructive; medieval man was encumbered by the moralistic intransi-
gence of officialdom. Customary restraints thus worked in conflict with
the developing complexities of market forces.
The argument that medieval authorities were highly restrictive and
exclusive in their commercial outlook has been a dominant theme, par-
ticularly in studies of institutions like boroughs and guilds. Charles Gross
regarded the Merchant Guild as a body that hampered free commer-
cial intercourse, diminished the spirit of mercantile enterprise, and was
utterly hostile to merchant strangers.5 Vested interests were paramount
and consumer interests were only met when they coincided with mer-
chant interests.6 Munia Postan regarded local monopoly as the mainstay
of urban policy; townsfolk dominated the local commercial hinterland
and were supported by elaborate rules limiting the activities of outsiders.7
Rodney Hilton argued that the mercantile elites of large towns were also
uneasy about retail traders more generally and that they were closely
controlled.8
Thus, a number of historians have viewed the regulations of medieval
trade as either defunct and ineffectual, or restrictive and exclusionary.
However, just because medieval commercial laws and morality did not

3 Hirshler, ‘Medieval economic competition’, 52; Rosenthal, ‘Assizes’, 418–19, 422; Salz-
man, English Life, pp. 75, 83, 241; Postan, Medieval Economy, p. 255; Bolton, Medieval
English Economy, p. 329; Farber, An Anatomy, pp. 170–1, 178, 184; Mate, Trade and
Economic Developments, pp. 26, 35–6.
4 Bridbury, Economic Growth, pp. 56, 73–4; Bridbury, ‘Markets’; Bridbury, ‘English provin-
cial towns’, 2; Lipson, Economic History, pp. 616–18; Dyer, Standards, p. 198; Langholm,
Economics, pp. 38–9, 64–5.
5 Gross, Gild Merchant, i, pp. 50–1. See also Pirenne, Economic and Social History,
pp. 179–86; Unwin, Gilds and Companies, pp. 38–46.
6 Hibbert, ‘Economic policies’, pp. 201–6.
7 Postan, Medieval Economy, pp. 214–17. See also Thrupp, ‘Gilds’.
8 Hilton, ‘Women traders’, p. 208.
 Regulation of the market 139

coincide with classical economic theory regarding the efficacy of free

markets, we should not assume that they were impotent, useless or
damaging.9 There was certainly a degree of dishonesty and fraud in the
medieval commercial world, but the evidence can be somewhat deceptive
when evaluating the effectiveness of the law. Indeed, a long list of offend-
ers may imply that the law was being enforced strictly and well; equally,
many cases might simply involve legal rhetoric or local interpretations
that hid much more mundane administration. Even complaints in litera-
ture and royal mandates that the law was being inadequately administered
need to be considered carefully as regards particular interest groups and
their priorities. As Gwen Seabourne has suggested, the ‘success’ of mar-
ket laws cannot be determined purely by the number of prosecutions or
a failure to impose the strictest sanctions, since their enforcement and
effect may have been influential beyond the formal courts. Similarly, a
reiteration of law does not necessarily imply that it is ineffective, since it
may have been repeated for purposes of permanency or refinement.10
Several studies of medieval commercialism have provoked a reap-
praisal of the regulatory standards of marketing. Maryanne Kowaleski
contended that an efficient market needed effective law and enforcement
to engender the confidence of its buyers and sellers.11 Both she and
Richard Britnell agreed that the prime object of the medieval market was
to operate for the benefit of the burgesses and to the disadvantage of other
participants.12 However, such beneficial treatment was not incompatible
with regulations for consumer protection, especially since the burgesses
were consumers as well as traders. Heather Swanson went further and
stated that the ‘principle behind much of the regulation was consumer
protection’.13 For some historians, then, trade regulations were imple-
mented in the interests of the consumer, by ensuring adequate supply,
honest measures, reasonable prices and minimum standards, and by
circumscribing the practices of middlemen and monopolists.14 Such reg-
ulations were motivated by fears of scarcity and instability within the
economy, but were also steeped in contemporary moral ideology and in
themselves effectively constituted a commercial ethic.
Britnell has argued that the internalisation of ‘moral’ factors in town
regulations should not be easily dismissed.15 In studying the regulations
of medieval trade, it is too simplistic to suggest that they were imple-
mented purely for self-interest or communal benefit. Instead, we need to

9 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, p. 15. 10 Ibid., pp. 15–16.

11 Kowaleski, Local Markets, pp. 179–221. 12 Britnell, ‘Price-setting’.
13 Swanson, British Towns, p. 78. 14 Thrupp, Merchant Class, pp. 92–4.
15 Britnell, ‘Urban economic regulation’.
140 Medieval market morality

consider the ideological context in which the laws were created and, in
turn, the economic theories that the legislators applied to them. When
drawing up commercial regulations, officials were undoubtedly influ-
enced by not only the social, economic and political conditions that
faced them, but also by the prevailing medieval market morality. How-
ever, this was a morality shaped by many more influences than simply
the teachings of the Church and scholastics.16
The laws of medieval England were constructed in several forums,
from Parliament and the royal courts of central government, through to
borough courts, craft guilds and even manorial courts. These different
legislating bodies did not necessarily produce distinct codifications, and
mutual influences are starkly evident. The customs and ordinances of
London, in particular, were a strong influence upon both royal govern-
ment and other towns.17 The following examination of market laws draws
upon five principal groups of sources: statute law and royal ordinances,
borough charters, town custumals and ordinances, guild ordinances, and
law manuals. Much of the detailed evidence derives from borough and
guild ordinances and it is likely that not all of their regulations were
applicable to smaller market towns and village markets. The particular
circumstances and requirements of larger towns do not always overlap
with each other, let alone with more humble rural marketplaces. In addi-
tion, many of the laws were directed more towards wholesaling merchants
than petty retailers. Generally, this book is not concerned with delving
into the complexities of overseas trade, manufacturing and industry, and
these specific regulations will not be considered in depth.
A study of medieval market regulation is extremely instructive since
law encapsulated the authorities’ notions of ideal practices. In turn, their
official commercial outlook can be viewed as the culmination of an amal-
gam of interests. Medieval law was not a static entity, but a flexible body
of rules that were continually modified and redefined in official forums
in response to the changing needs and mores of society. However, leg-
islation was also a formalised code. This very formality meant that laws
could, and did, lag behind more dynamic social and economic changes.
Redefinition did not always lead to innovation. Instead, laws reflected
the assumptions and wishes of the ruling classes to a greater extent than
the remainder of society, and once established they were easier to modify
than to usurp.

16 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 21–2.

17 R. Braid, ‘Laying the foundations for royal policy: economic regulation and market
control in London before the Black Death’ (unpubl. paper, 2010), with thanks to
Robert Braid; Casson, ‘A comparative study’, pp. 69–72, 89–98.
 Regulation of the market 141

PA RT I : T H E F O R U M S O F R E G U L AT I O N

National legislation
The Crown was increasingly involved in matters of commercial regula-
tion during the twelfth to fifteenth centuries. Kings expressed an early
interest in the maintenance of weights, measures and the coinage, which
were regarded as symbols of strong and secure royal government. There
was an associated desire for social order, leavened by financial interests,
which meant that the Crown also intervened increasingly in primary
victual trades, particularly bread, ale and wine. In addition, fiscal needs
drove royal interference in export trades like wool (and later cloth) from
the thirteenth century onwards. Consideration towards other prices and
wages was put on the agenda in the fourteenth century, motivated partly
by the pervading crises of that century but also by local petitions. All
these royal legal interventions were invariably more reactive than proac-
tive, driven by the king’s vague duty to uphold justice, morality and the
common good, but more specifically by the need to maintain social order,
royal rights and authority, crown revenue and the economic well-being
of the realm.18
However, the motivations behind state commercial regulations are not
easily generalised, and we should not be overly eager to dismiss appeals
to morality and justice as mere trappings to conceal aspirations to self-
interest, revenue and political power. Indeed, different motivations could
often work together in concert, and the proclamations of statute law
and royal ordinances were tempered by the realities of local customs.
Nevertheless, there was a general recognition that the authority of local
courts in manors and towns ultimately derived from the Crown and
common law, even if borough custom and Merchant Law gave a different
texture to some aspects.
The statutes created by the authority of king and Parliament thus
formed a body of national legislation to which the towns and markets
of England were expected to adhere. One of the most fundamental and
ancient national customs relating to commerce was the freedom and
security to travel and trade throughout the kingdom. Magna Carta stated:
All merchants are to be safe and secure in leaving and entering England, and in
staying and travelling in England, both by land and by water, to buy and sell free
from all maletotes [unjust taxes] by the ancient and rightful customs, except in
time of war, such as come from an enemy country.19

18 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 19–23.

19 Holt, Magna Carta, pp. 326–7, c.41; Statutes, i, p. 11.
142 Medieval market morality

This freedom was extended and reconfirmed by a number of statutes

throughout the later Middle Ages.20 A statute of 1335 stated that all
traders ‘of whatever estate or condition’ could ‘freely and without distur-
bance sell to whomsoever they please’.21 Any customs or grants contrary
to this, and thus to the ‘common detriment’ of the people, were to be
overturned, and no market official was to interfere with the open and
honest sale of victuals.22 Borough charters often stated that there should
be liberty of access to the market for whoever wished to buy, reassert-
ing the provision of Magna Carta. A charter for the borough of Dunwich
(Suffolk), in 1285, stated that all the merchandise of burgesses coming to
Dunwich by sea or land should be sold and bought openly by those mer-
chants and that there should be no brokers (‘abrocatores’), who impeded
buyers and sellers to the damage of the town.23 However, foreign traders
were still expected to pay any due customs and there were occasionally
restrictions regarding what they could buy.24 Merchants from overseas
were also restricted in some of their marketing practices. According to
a statute of 1378, alien and foreign traders were free to ‘buy and sell,
in gross and by retail, provisions and small wares’, but aliens could sell
great wares by gross only and the retailing of such goods had to be left
to the inhabitants of the towns. Similarly, a statute of Richard II stated
that no merchant aliens were to trade wholesale with other aliens, nor to
retail any merchandise except victuals (but not wine).25 Freedom to move
between markets, and to buy and sell in general terms, did not mean that
traders were free of restrictions. The statutes merely confirmed privileges
granted to Merchant Guilds and burgesses in royal charters during the
previous two centuries.
From the thirteenth century, statutory legislation regarding market
traders noticeably increased and expanded, beginning with the assizes of
bread and ale and then extending into other areas of price regulation,
forestalling, the cloth industry, the herring industry and market days.
Such legislation was supported by numerous royal commissions that
sought to maintain regulations regarding reasonable prices and standards

20 Statutes, i, p. 117, 25 Edw I c.30 (1297); i, pp. 314–15, 25 Edw III St.3 c.2 (1350–1);
ii, pp. 6–8, 2 Ric II St.1 c.1 (1378); ii, pp. 23–4, 5 Ric II St.2 c.1 (1382); ii, p. 28, 6 Ric
II St.1 c.10 (1382); ii, p. 83, 16 Ric II c.1 (1392–3); ii, p. 118, 1 Hen IV c.19 (1399);
ii, p. 197, 4 Hen V St.2 c.5 (1416).
21 Statutes, i, pp. 267–71, 9 Edw III St.1 (1335).
22 Parl. Rolls, c.43, February 1351; RP, ii, p. 249 (1351).
23 CChR, ii, p. 315 (Dunwich, 1285).
24 BBC, 1042–1216, pp. 197–216; BBC, 1216–1307, pp. 289–90; Maitland and Bateson
(eds.), Charters, pp. 6–7; Liber Albus, pp. 249–50 (1284–5).
25 Statutes, ii, pp. 6–8, 2 Ric II St.1 c.1 (1378); ii, p. 83, 16 Ric II c.1 (1392–3); Parl. Rolls,
c.33, January 1393.
 Regulation of the market 143

of weights and measures.26 For instance, in December 1307 the sheriffs

were ordered to appoint two men in every borough and market town
(‘villa mercatoria’) to proclaim and enforce such commercial legislation
and detain offenders.27 There was a developing central concern for local
affairs, spurred on by petitioners, the expanding economy and, later, the
changing labour resources of post-Black Death England.28 After 1349,
the central government sought to restore the socio-economic status quo
to its pre-plague condition. The control of wages and prices was an
important element of these efforts, particularly through the ‘Ordinance
of Labourers’ (1349) and ‘Statute of Labourers’ (1351). Subsequently,
royal justices were given wide powers of enforcement which augmented
local supervision and they often used local men for investigation and
enforcement. For instance, in 1353, justices of the peace and of labourers
were appointed from worthy men in the counties ‘to punish innkeepers
for their outrageous prices, and the regraters of victuals. And that they
shall inspect the measures, ells and weights in each county.’29
Consequently, by the fourteenth century, there were increasing
attempts to nationalise trading regulation and intervene in everyday life,
either by standardising old customs or enforcing new laws.30 Statute
law was particularly important in providing an overarching context upon
which local authorities could draw, even though it was perhaps inter-
preted in a variety of ways in the local marketplace. Nonetheless, in
larger towns, these regulations spurred the creation of more detailed
laws concerning traders and many parliamentary statutes were entered
into town custumals. In smaller towns, the effect was less obviously intru-
sive, but a certain increase in trading regulation can be discerned in the
later fourteenth century and most courts referred to the requirements of
statute law. These were related to new economic circumstances, such as
the rising cost of labour and new patterns of consumption and demand.
General trading principles were thus promulgated by the state and town
authorities drew regularly upon familiar sources such as royal charters
and statutes. However, the statutes themselves rarely advanced drastic
innovation, but rather summarised existing customs, responded to local

26 Rosenthal, ‘Assizes’, 414–15.

27 CPR, 1307–13, pp. 29–31. See also CPR, 1313–17, pp. 688–9.
28 Britnell, Growth and Decline, pp. 134–5; Seabourne, Royal Regulation, p. 120.
29 Palmer, English Law, pp. 14–22, 139–41; Parl. Rolls, c.36, September 1353; Statutes, i,
pp. 312–13, 25 Edw III st.2 cc.5–7, ‘Statute of Labourers’ (1350–1); ii, p. 63, 13 Ric II
st.1 c.7 (1389–90); Kimball (ed.), Rolls, pp. lxiv–lxv.
30 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 4, 6. Palmer has argued that the Black Death had
a significant and new impact for the intervention of government regulation upon the
activities of the lower orders. Conversely, Musson suggests that there was merely a
quickening of pre-existing trends. Palmer, English Law; Musson, ‘New labour laws’.
144 Medieval market morality

petitions, or exemplified vague ideals.31 In addition, while local legisla-

tive bodies rarely contradicted statute law, they were mostly concerned
with the non-statutory minutiae of everyday trade, such as the details
of time, place and administration of a market, as well as the privileges
of the burgesses and townsfolk. Enforcement remained in local hands
and the interpretation of the law reflected local concerns. Many retailing
rules were not intended to account for trade beyond the region, the hin-
terland or the town itself. Trading regulations thus became increasingly
uniform in their general approach, driven by pressure from central gov-
ernment, but borough and market ordinances could show variation in
the detail, based upon the degree of autonomy granted to them in royal
and seigneurial charters.32

Seigneurial markets
One of the most basic commercial institutions that demonstrated man-
ifest royal authority was the market franchise itself. The markets of
medieval England varied in their size, role and authority, from small
village markets controlled by a lord up to large urban boroughs under
the auspices of self-governing corporations. Nevertheless, they were all
maintained by general principles of governance emanating from their
market charters, statute law and leet or frankpledge jurisdiction. Peri-
odic markets, whether in boroughs, towns or villages, were legalised
entities and were granted by the crown (or occasionally a lord) upon
the condition that beneficiaries maintained certain trading regulations.
A market charter gave a lord or corporation the right to organise, control
and profit from trade at a specific place and time. By the reign of King
John (1199–1216), the grant of a market or a fair was treated as a royal
franchise with commensurate customs and liberties. Such grants stated
the day of the week for a market, or the time of year and duration of
a fair. Any markets held without licence could be shut down, though
the Quo Warranto proceedings of Edward I also confirmed those markets
that claimed prescriptive rights, meaning that the market had existed pre-
1199.33 Equally, any market or fair overstepping the remits of its charter,
such as a fair overrunning its prescribed length, was liable to have its
franchise seized back into the king’s hands.34

31 Kiralfy, ‘Custom’, 27–8. 32 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, i, pp. ix–xvii.

33 Britnell, ‘King John’s early grants’; Salzman, ‘Legal status’, 205; Sutherland, Quo
Warranto.
34 Statutes, i, p. 260, 2 Edw III c.15 (1328); i, p. 266, 5 Edw III c.5 (1331).
 Regulation of the market 145

This was all part of continuing efforts by the Crown to draw trading
(and other) activities into the regal pot. The assertion of franchisal con-
ditions was as much a means of justifying royal claims to these lucrative
rights as a serious attempt to enforce minimum standards. Nevertheless,
by the later Middle Ages, the royal Clerk of the Market was a prevalent
force in many small towns, making irregular visits to uphold the national
standards of weights, measures and commercial practices within mar-
ketplaces. When John Sibill was appointed in 1484 he had ‘supervision
of all artificers, labourers, victuallers, bakers and brewers with power to
imprison those . . . found guilty of fraud in the exercise of their crafts’.35
Although his jurisdiction stretched only as far as the verge of the royal
household (twelve-mile radius), this was a moveable jurisdiction and the
Clerk of the Market could still act as a potential check upon the activ-
ities of local markets and lords, ensuring that they were operating their
franchises correctly and following statute law in matters of commerce.36
Yet, although the institution of the market was designed to reduce
transaction costs, set competitive prices and eliminate fraud and manip-
ulation, we should be wary of seeing the market as policed solely for the
public good of traders and consumers.37 Most seigneurial market fran-
chises were regulated in such a way that they protected the rights of a
lord and maximised his revenue. A condition for the grant of markets
and fairs was that new foundations should not be a nuisance to neigh-
bouring establishments (‘nisi sit ad nocumentum’).38 This was intended
to protect a lord’s toll revenue for an existing chartered market from
the vagaries of economic competition. Seigneurial markets could also
offer singular opportunities to lords. The charter for Dunster in 1254–7
allowed the lord to have first access to market wares before the burgesses
and they in turn had primacy over outsiders.39 The costs of running a
medieval market or fair were far from negligible, with regulation, hygiene,
stalls and maintenance of the marketplace typically encroaching upon a
lord’s purse. However, a market could also benefit the lord, providing an

35 CPR, 1476–85, p. 436, cf. Williams, ‘Sessions’, 78.

36 Britton, i, p. 4, ch. 1, c.6, pp. 189–93, ch. 31, cc.5–10 (1291–2); Fleta, ii, pp. 117–22, bk.
ii, cc.8–12 (late thirteenth century); Willard and Morris (eds.), English Government at
Work, pp. 245–8; Parl. Rolls, c.87 [37], April 1376 and c.35, January 1390; Seabourne,
Royal Regulation, pp. 92–3. The Clerk of the Market mostly visited small towns, since
many larger boroughs were exempted from his authority; e.g. CChR, iii, pp. 487–8 (Bury
St Edmunds, 1326); Bristol, i, pp. xvi, 122–3 (c.1373); Maitland and Bateson (eds.),
Charters, pp. 32–9 (Cambridge, 1385).
37 Britnell, ‘Price-setting’, 2–3.
38 Masschaele, ‘Market rights’; Britnell, ‘King John’s early grants’.
39 BBC, 1216–1307, pp. 265, 299 (Dunster, 1254–7).
146 Medieval market morality

outlet for demesne produce as well as income from tolls, rents, stallage
and the profits of jurisdiction.
Charters, however, required market franchise holders to administer
trade closely, according to statutes and specified rules, and implied the
right to hold a market court in which to enforce regulations and resolve
trading disputes.40 For instance, although not strictly part of the market
franchise but rather of the view of frankpledge, markets needed the judi-
cialia of a pillory and tumbrel in order to punish breaches of the assize of
bread and ale.41 Additionally, lords were not allowed to exploit market
traders to excessive levels by imposing unreasonably high toll and stal-
lage. A statute of 1275 threatened the seizure by the king of any market
franchise where excessive toll had been taken.42 The provision of a mar-
ket also included the duty of providing safe and unencumbered access,
provided traders upheld the peace and paid the customs of the market.
The charter for Woodbridge in 1447 stated ‘that all persons coming to
the said markets and fairs shall be in the king’s protection’.43
The broad base of the medieval marketing system consisted of small
town and village markets, usually still under the control of a lord. These
markets proliferated dramatically during the twelfth and thirteenth cen-
turies as lords sought out market charters, partly to profit from the com-
mercial opportunities at this time.44 These markets included seigneurial
boroughs, where residents might have privileges of burgage tenure or
freedom from toll in their market. A few small towns gained extra privi-
leges, such as the right to farm market tolls.45 Otherwise they were little
different to rural settlements in their structures of control and adminis-
tration; indeed, tenants in village markets might expect the same right
to trade without paying toll.46 Other small towns never attained even the
nominal status of borough, especially in the east of England. Many of
these places were still controlled mostly or entirely by a lord and their
appointed nominee. The landlord had rights to rents from landhold-
ings, tenement plots and market stalls, as well as the profits of tolls
and petty jurisdiction. Many towns were effectively unchartered or
received minimal privileges, and had developed an urban economy with-
out the active patronage of a lord. These included relatively large towns

40 Britnell, ‘English markets’; Britnell, Commercialisation, pp. 10–19, 81–5; Bailey, ‘Trade
and towns’, 199; Kowaleski, Local Markets, pp. 41–2.
41 Sutherland, Quo Warranto, pp. 75, 135, 137, 155, 217, 248, 298, 370, 372, 380, 410,
414; Coates, ‘Origin and distribution of markets’, 93–4; Seabourne, Royal Regulation,
pp. 94–5.
42 Statutes, i, p. 34, 3 Edw I c.31 (1275).
43 CChR, vi, p. 81 (Woodbridge, 1447), see also, p. 59 (Lowestoft, 1445).
44 Britnell, ‘Proliferation’. 45 Dyer, Making a Living, p. 219.
46 Britnell, ‘Town life’, p. 156.
 Regulation of the market 147

like Bury St Edmunds, St Albans and Durham, all of which were con-
trolled by powerful ecclesiastical institutions and resisted townsmen’s
demands for more extensive liberties.
Seigneurial boroughs and markets still needed established administra-
tive systems to ensure that urban administration and trade regulations
were enforced. These systems differed from place to place, depending
upon urban size and occupational profiles. Small-town and village market
activities tended to be controlled through manorial courts and presided
over by the lord’s steward, in which juries and officials were chosen
from local, leading men.47 The leading townspeople, usually indepen-
dent craftsmen and petty traders rather than the substantial merchants
seen in larger boroughs, thus served as bailiffs, constables and jurors.
Indeed, they often constituted a local elite who effectively ran everyday
affairs, though the degree of freedom and compromise varied between
communities.
Leet courts were perhaps the most significant official bodies that dealt
with various trading offences and public nuisances in small towns and
market villages. These courts were royal franchises, usually held in con-
junction with the view of frankpledge which inquired into tithing groups.
In the shires, jurisdiction of the view of frankpledge generally lay with
sheriff’s tourns. However, in most boroughs and many manors, enforce-
ment had been franchised out to corporate bodies or lords and they were
responsible for holding the view in their annual or biannual leet courts.
For lords, the leet court provided both revenue and a means to maintain
order. Indeed, in smaller towns and manors, the tithing system was an
important means of local control throughout the medieval period since
it was inexpensive and reliant on communal enforcement.
The view was a collective system of policing, whereby all males over the
age of twelve were placed in a ‘tithing’ (decenna) for mutual security and
control. Within each tithing it was the duty of a ‘capital pledge’ to present
the offences of his fellow members, usually once or twice a year, and to
ensure that alleged offenders appeared in the leet court. Capital pledges
and their tithings could be fined for concealment. The most significant
body in these courts was the jury of presentment, which was chosen from
the most ‘sufficient men’ of the town or village. They had a significant
say in how the court dealt with offences, no doubt influenced by their
own morals and attitudes. Indeed, there was no necessity to provide
witnesses in presentments of offences to the court, which were considered
conclusive testimony if the leet jury accepted them. In private leet courts,

47 Holt, Early History of the Town of Birmingham, pp. 12–13.

148 Medieval market morality

the jury was often not formally empanelled and simply comprised of the
capital pledges, so that the two bodies of men were interchangeable.48
Thirteenth-century compilations of precedents, such as La Court de
Baron, provided stewards with information on how to proceed in enforc-
ing jurisdiction and answering pleas.49 The potential articles that fell
under the jurisdiction of the view of frankpledge and the leet court
covered a multitude of public offences against the peace: petty mis-
deeds, nuisances, minor assaults, the hue and cry, and market regula-
tions. These included trading offences such as counterfeiting, clippers of
money, usury, selling stolen meat, bleaching or selling skins of stolen ani-
mals, buying stolen clothes and recutting them, breaches of the assizes of
bread and ale, unwholesome victuals, excessive price, faulty workman-
ship, use of double measures and false or unsealed weights and mea-
sures. These phrases were the standard formulae used by local courts
and their clerks and officials, and were also included in many law manu-
als and statutes.50 Thus, court proceedings were increasingly formalised
and standardised, driven by the professionalism of the clerks and the
competition of common law practice.51
Any statutory requirements were interpreted at manorial level by both
the lord’s steward and court jurors, and in the town by senior town
officials, probably in association with articles of inquiry.52 Since local
officials drew upon the same formulaic statutes and articles, leet court
rolls usually recorded the offences of traders in a generalised and rhetor-
ical fashion. For instance, tourns for Nottingham in October 1395 and
1396 listed market offences as:53
r Bakers and brewers taking excessive profit from the common people.
r Butchers keeping meat too long and selling corrupt meat.
r Fishers selling long-dead fish and forestalling.
r Taverners selling against the assize.
r Poulterers and hucksters selling garlic, flour, salt, tallow, candles, but-
ter, cheeses and other goods against statute, as well as making candles
without wicks and being common forestallers at street ends.

48 Schofield, ‘Late medieval view of frankpledge’. See also DeWindt and DeWindt, Ram-
sey, ch. 5.
49 Maitland and Baildon (eds.), Court Baron, pp. 23–7, 50–1 (thirteenth century); Maitland
(ed.), Select Pleas in Manorial, pp. xxxii–xxxiii; Hearnshaw, Leet Jurisdiction, p. 115.
50 Britton, i, pp. 179–80, ch. 30, c.3 (1291–2); Maitland and Baildon (eds.), Court Baron,
pp. 71–106; Hilton (ed.), Stoneleigh, pp. 98–100 (fourteenth century); Myers (ed.),
English Historical Documents, pp. 548–53 [BL, MS Harleian 773, fol. 39r] (c.1440);
Beckerman, ‘Articles of presentment’.
51 Smith and Razi, ‘Origins of the English manorial court rolls’.
52 Statutes, i, pp. 246–7. See also Hilton, English Peasantry, p. 45.
53 Nottingham, i, pp. 268–73 (1395), 316–19 (1396).
 Regulation of the market 149
r Tanners selling leather badly tanned and in secret.
r Shoe-makers charging too much and mixing leathers and cloths.
r Cooks selling badly prepared and reheated meat and fish, harmful to
man’s body.
r Hostelers receiving guests against the assize and selling hay and victuals
against the assize.
r Weavers and fullers charging too much.
r Dyers and tanners causing pollution and blocking highways.
r Spicers selling by unfaithful weights and mixing old and new spices.
r Common forestallers.
This borough leet court was dominated by concern for victuallers, and it
is likely that similar concerns were predominant in small markets where
food-sellers and producers were the majority of traders, though some
occupations might not have been as common.
The conventional condemnations of moralists can be clearly seen in
these regulatory formulae. However, an even more stark expression of
the intersection between law and literature is provided in the treatises
that sought to illustrate the proceedings in a manor or leet court. One
particular version was written in dialogue form, in French, in the late
thirteenth or early fourteenth century. Although partly humorous, and
almost certainly creative in its text and characters, it was intended to pro-
vide precedents for the conduct of a court.54 One case concerns William
le Peister, the baker, who admits to breaking the assize of bread. In pass-
ing judgement, the court extract quotes from the New Testament: ‘thou
wicked servant, out of thine own mouth I judge thee’ (Luke 19:22).
Another passage condemns Thomas le Folour for selling stinking and
putrid fish in the market because he had kept it so long ‘whereby folk
may receive damage or hurt or bodily ill’. The defendant is keen to
clear his name through a jury rather than see his reputation tarnished.55
Although such cases were probably artificial, they do highlight the moral
opprobrium heaped upon certain offences, particularly foodstuffs that
might cause bodily harm.
In addition to the basic articles covered by all leet courts, there are
examples of by-laws for small market towns and villages, framed either
through the mechanism of the manor or leet court.56 As long as they
did not contravene common law, such by-laws were a useful local sup-
plement to statutory legislation. They were proclaimed in order to meet

54 Briggs (ed.), ‘Here may a young man see’.

55 Ibid., pp. 1–2, 9, 10. See also Maitland and Baildon (eds.), Court Baron, ‘La Court de
Baron’, pp. 26–7, 50–1.
56 Briggs, Credit and Village Society, pp. 55–6.
150 Medieval market morality

local needs, such as gleaning or pasture rights, and often had communal
or moral undertones. They could also be applied to market matters. For
instance, a by-law ‘per commune consilium’ (suggesting common con-
sent, at least from the capital pledges) was passed in the leet of Walsoken
(a manor of the abbey of Ramsey) in 1299. It followed the amercement
of six fishmongers and stated that no fishmongers should take fish out
of the vill to sell if anyone of the parish still wanted to buy their fish,
under penalty of half a mark.57 The court of Petworth (Sussex) drew up
some basic trading regulations in 1440, related to commercial activities
both at market and fair time. Tolls were summarised for cattle-dealers
(1/2d. for every horse, cow and ox, 1/4 d. for each pig and sheep), corn
merchants, butchers and fishmongers, and also for buyers of animals,
brassware, pewterware and saddles. Cartloads of victuals and salt, being
brought into the market or fair to sell, had to pay a toll of 4d. In addition,
butchers were warned about the condition of their meat, while bakers,
brewers and tapsters were to be presented by the tasters during the fair
and amerced.58
These by-laws were often formulated by local juries in either the leet
or manorial court, acting on behalf of the tenants as a whole. Jurors
thus did not merely present offences, but took an active role in decision-
making, local policy and enforcement.59 Through the empanelment of
inquisition juries, usually from the same sub-set of respected local men,
they also arbitrated on disputes between their neighbours stemming from
various types of plea. This generated both prestige and antagonism for
jurors and officials within their small town or village, and even slander or
bodily harm from irate tenants.60 Consequently, there were mechanisms
to assuage the anxieties of residents, such as a fairly regular turnover of
jurors (amongst the upper echelons of the town) and the use of special
inquest juries. Above all, jurors and local officials had to act within the
bounds of common consensus and accepted moral principles in order to
maintain their legitimate authority. Although heavy fines were promul-
gated upon those who attacked or insulted officials, effective enforcement
was ultimately reliant on cooperation and social order.
Indeed, conflict occurred in small towns for a variety of reasons, over
tenure, rents, services, commerce or social relations.61 The authority of

57 Ault (ed.), Ramsey, p. 179.

58 West Sussex Record Office (Chichester), 6/1/18 hvi Petworth (with thanks to Maria
Osowiecki for this reference).
59 DeWindt, ‘Local government’, 628–35; Olson, ‘Jurors of the village court’; Yates, Town
and Countryside, p. 80.
60 DeWindt, ‘Local government’, 635–7.
61 Dyer, ‘Small-town conflict’, 183–4; Dimmock, ‘English small towns’.
 Regulation of the market 151

lordship and the courts, and the influence of religious ideology, only went
so far in creating cohesion. Religious or social guilds were one source of
solidarity, trust and mutual support and even the basis of a surrogate
government in some small towns, beyond the auspices of the lord.62 In
Stratford-upon-Avon, the Holy Cross Guild played an important political
role in town affairs, discussing by-laws, promoting harmony amongst
its members by resolving disputes at ‘lovedays’, and developing wider
links by recruiting from outside Stratford.63 As communities arguably
became less cohesive in the fifteenth century, with greater immigration
and more strangers, the ties of personal credit became stretched and
social guilds were even more important in overcoming any diminution
in trust. Such guilds and fraternities certainly became more numerous
and prestigious in the century after the Black Death and were heavily
involved in organising social events and the upkeep of local facilities such
as schools, chapels, bridges and roads. Indeed, in Henley-on-Thames, the
religious fraternity that maintained the important bridge over the Thames
had already become a de facto town government by the 1290s.64 However,
it is uncertain whether such direct involvement by socio-religious guilds
in trading regulation was common. Manorial court rolls usually show that
it was designated court officials who supervised commercial matters, such
as aletasters, surveyors of leather, meat-tasters, or bailiffs.
The lords of small towns and seigneurial boroughs thus included ten-
ants in local government as bailiffs, constables, jurors, aletasters and
affeerers.65 It is likely that they had their own interpretations of the law,
influenced by broader concepts of morality. However, to conduct their
duties correctly, officials needed to know the extant regulations both at
a national and local level. There were many detailed regulations for the
protection of consumers and limitation of outsiders, and these could dif-
fer slightly from market to market in the times, places and procedures
they had in place. Larger towns usually had custumals where ordinances
were recorded and could be referred to. However, even in smaller towns,
individual officials might copy extracts from statutes and ordinances for
their own use. For instance, the commonplace book of Robert Reynes
of Acle (Norfolk) was a fifteenth-century compilation of various texts,

62 Holt and Rosser, ‘Introduction’, pp. 12–13; Rosser, ‘Essence of medieval urban commu-
nities’; Palliser, ‘Urban society’, p. 143; Dyer, ‘Urbanizing of Staffordshire’, pp. 25–6.
Bailey suggested that such a local religious fraternity probably controlled affairs in late
medieval Buntingford (Herts.). Bailey, ‘A tale of two towns’, 362–3. See also McRee,
‘Religious gilds’; Bainbridge, Gilds, p. 17; Britnell, ‘England: towns’, p. 56.
63 Dyer, ‘Medieval Stratford’; Carpenter, ‘Town and “country”’; Hilton, English Peasantry,
pp. 93–4.
64 Dyer, Making a Living, pp. 220, 316–17.
65 An affeerer was a court-appointed suitor who advised on the level of amercements.
152 Medieval market morality

including taxes and trading assizes, which were probably used by him in
his official capacities.66 He was clearly an active man in his local com-
munity and both involved and concerned about the day-to-day running
of the marketplace.

Chartered boroughs
In comparison to seigneurial markets and boroughs, by the beginning of
the thirteenth century larger royal towns had been commonly granted
more extensive autonomy to manage their increasingly complex affairs.
Leading inhabitants thus took control of revenues, litigation and the
supervision of the market, in return for paying an annual fee to the
Crown. Gradually, urban constitutions became more elaborate, with
elected councils, independence from royal officials and improved rights
of self-government.67 A defined group of burgesses or freemen, distinct
from the main body of urban dwellers, received privileges that gave them
and their household advantages in the borough’s marketplace. Given that
the majority of such freemen were craftsmen and traders, these privileges
were highly sought after and defended. The right to a formal Merchant
Guild reinforced the ability to control commerce and enforce trading
regulations. There were thus many commercial and political advantages
to be gained from greater urban self-government.
There was a proliferation of borough charters in the twelfth and thir-
teenth centuries, partly due to increasing bureaucratisation and docu-
mentation and also due to urban growth, both of existing towns and
new foundations.68 Urban expansion and the ambitions of the growing
mercantile class were also brought under greater royal control. Borough
charters were granted by the king, and sometimes by lords, and bestowed
certain rights and privileges upon town communities for the conduct of
their own jurisdiction, including the policing of markets and trade. Often
these charters were only a royal recognition of customary legal privileges
already gained or established, but the importance of charters to munici-
pal autonomy was shown in their continual confirmations (such as at the
succession of a new king) and in the grants of new liberties.69 Although

66 Louis (ed.), Commonplace Book, pp. 121–5, 136–8.

67 In the early twentieth century, Tait, Bateson and Stephenson studied the borough as a
privileged legal entity, with their research based primarily upon royal charters and town
customs. Tait, Medieval English Borough; Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs; Stephenson,
Borough and Town.
68 Lilley, Urban Life, pp. 111–22; Beresford, New Towns; Beresford and Finberg, English
Medieval Boroughs.
69 BBC, 1307–1660, pp. xviii–xxvii.
 Regulation of the market 153

charters were essentially similar in content, the balance and size of priv-
ileges did vary according to the size and position of the town, the date of
the charter and whether it was a royal or mesne borough.70 The grants
usually protected the interests of the recipient burgesses and allowed
them control of supplies which entered their town.71 This burgess class
mostly consisted of merchants or wealthy artisans, who had obtained
their burgess status and privileges through birth, purchase or appren-
ticeship. They were jealously determined to express their commercial
exclusiveness against the rights of ‘outsiders’; though sometimes ‘for-
eigners’ themselves could pay for the right to share urban privileges. For
instance, foreigners in Maldon could buy and sell by retail as long as they
had purchased a 40s. licence for the privilege.72
A burgess normally had the benefits of burgage tenure, jurisdictional
rights and trading privileges, though this differed from borough to bor-
ough. In smaller seigneurial (‘mesne’) boroughs, there might be only a
few nominal rights that accorded a town the title of ‘borough’, such as
burgage tenure or exemption from paying tolls in the town’s market. The
further up the burghal scale, particularly in royal boroughs, the greater
the liberties and autonomy that burgesses enjoyed. The basic privileges
within a royal chartered borough contained some, or all, of the follow-
ing: burgage tenure; the right to farm taxes and tolls;73 the right to their
own jurisdiction in their own borough court; a Merchant Guild; the
right to retail freely; exemption from tolls, both within the borough and
elsewhere; and the right to share in bargains.
In many royal charters, the borough was granted the right to form a
Merchant Guild. This was the institution that collected commercial rev-
enues and had the right to make trade regulations.74 Although merchant
guildsmen and burgesses were not necessarily an identical body of men,
the membership of the two groups increasingly overlapped and merged
as time went on. These were, after all, the wealthiest and most power-
ful men in a town. At Leicester, the alderman of the guild was mayor
of the borough, by-laws passed in the guild were described as acts of
the commonalty, and property transfers were recorded in the Merchant
Guild roll.75 The organisation of such guilds was attuned to commercial

70 For studies of burgess privileges, see Britnell, Growth and Decline, pp. 35–7; Kermode,
‘The merchants’, 8; Rigby, Medieval Grimsby, pp. 11–12, 37–47.
71 Britnell, Commercialisation, p. 27.
72 Alsford, Towns (Maldon, fifteenth century); Leicester, i, p. 92 (1260); Masschaele, ‘Urban
trade’.
73 BBC, 1042–1216, p. 176 (Bridgwater, 1200).
74 Gross, Gild Merchant; BBC, 1042–1216, pp. 202–3; Leicester, i, pp. 1, 3.
75 Leicester, i, pp. 183, 241. In other towns, the relationship was perhaps not quite so close.
154 Medieval market morality

interests, including officers and a court to adjudicate disputes between

guildsmen. The Merchant Guild might also foster a sense of civic and
convivial unity among privileged townsfolk through its meetings and fes-
tivities.
However, not all townsfolk enjoyed such borough privileges. Below
the ranks of freemen were a broad range of people without legal privi-
leges and trading rights, who constituted the dependent urban labouring
class and poor. Indeed, burgesses, guildsmen or freemen might comprise
only 20–40 per cent of a town’s population.76 Even within the privileged
ranks of burgesses another elite group, often with mercantile interests,
commonly dominated the high offices and levers of urban power. This
urban mercantile elite had a vested interest in regulating crafts, trades and
the tools of exchange and credit, whether directly through the borough
court, ordinances and by-laws, or through close supervision of the craft
guilds. These craft guilds emerged in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies as compositions of specialised groupings of craftsmen and traders,
often burgesses themselves, who were seeking to bolster their occupa-
tion. Increasingly, such craft guilds issued ordinances that touched upon
marketing matters, particularly the retailing activities of their members
and the quality of their products.
Borough customs and ordinances were a legacy of the urban and com-
mercial expansions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in the wake of
assertions of city autonomy. They reveal much about the priorities and
attitudes of burgesses, influenced not only by the need to protect and
enhance their privileges but also broader matters of the common good
and consumer welfare. The Domesday Book of Ipswich, Liber Rubeus of
Bristol, Liber Albus of London, the Oak Book of Southampton and many
others were all compiled by medieval officials as compendiums of their
local customs of government and trade. These custumals aided day-
to-day administration and codified their acquired privileges. Some also
claimed the spurious stamp of antiquity, when, in fact, the customs were
usually established or adapted to suit changing conditions. Although
many of these regulations date from the thirteenth century, their appli-
cation as a basis of law remained largely intact at a later date; copies
of several custumals, such as at Ipswich, were made into the thirteenth,
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries with only slight modifications.77 The
large number of trade ordinances in borough custumals is a testimony
both to the interest in trading matters and the requirement to address
local circumstances and privileges.

76 Kowaleski, ‘Commercial dominance’.

77 Allen, Ipswich Borough Archives, pp. 413–21.
 Regulation of the market 155

Boroughs, as with manors, also passed by-laws that accorded with com-
mon law and often drew on parliamentary legislation or royal ordinances
which suited local needs or addressed grievances. Sarah Rees Jones has
argued that the actual exercise of authority at grass-roots level in York
was largely left to the discretion of town and court officials, and they
made many compromises between royal law, civic policy and common
custom, usually based on local experience.78 In Coventry, leet by-laws
were based on petitions presented by aggrieved individuals or groups to
the mayor four days before the court assembled.79 The trading privileges
of burgesses and guildsmen thus derived not only from borough charters
and statute law, but also from subsequent formulations of town ordi-
nances. Chartered privileges also became entangled within the conflicts
of various parties: between trades, greater and lesser burgesses, town and
country and, not least, between king and locality. Varied interest groups
created a complex interplay of influences in the enforcement of regula-
tions. However, in general, the basic burgess privileges discussed below
demonstrated a self-interested concern for the equity of the enfranchised
at the expense of the unenfranchised.

Lot and scot

The phrase ‘lot and scot’ encompassed basic rights that were claimed
by burgesses or guildsmen. ‘Lot’ was the right to share and have an
equal opportunity in bargains, while ‘scot’ represented the payment of
common charges to the grantor of their charter, usually the king. Together
burgesses paid a yearly lump sum (‘firma burgi’) that acquitted them of
all tolls and charges in their town.80 Borough status thus not only brought
privileges and benefits, but also costs and burdens, in the form of the fee-
farm, the charter itself, offices and the town’s infrastructure.81 Burgesses
jealously guarded their trading rights in order to obtain recompense for
their ‘scot’ expenditures. This attitude was reflected in the customs of
Ipswich, where no foreign merchant could be accorded the status of
burgess without holding a tenement in the town.82
The ownership of a tenement was deemed vital as both a distrainable
asset during procedures of justice and as a contributor to the taxes of a
town. Those who no longer had property or were not paying taxes were

78 Rees Jones, ‘York’s civic administration’, pp. 125–7.

79 Coventry, pp. xx–xxii, xxvii–xxviii. See also Wood, Medieval Tamworth, pp. 74–87.
80 Reynolds, Introduction; Bailey, ‘Trade and towns’, 195.
81 Bailey, ‘Trade and towns’, 203.
82 Black Book, ii, pp. 152–5, c.63 [61] (c.1309); Liber Albus, p. 235 (1273–1307); Britnell,
Growth and Decline, p. 36.
156 Medieval market morality

to have their franchise revoked and were subsequently liable to tolls. In

other boroughs, foreign burgesses and the gentry could purchase a fran-
chise for life in order to obtain the right to buy and sell in a town without
paying tolls.83 However, this still accorded with the general principle that
communal payments gave burgesses the right to certain privileges in trade
and jurisdiction. Burgesses had to contribute to the costs to maintain-
ing the market, running the borough courts, collecting levies, upkeeping
public buildings and paying the annual ‘fee-farm’ to the Crown.84 Bor-
ough law was based on the premise that outsiders who did not contribute
directly to the common purse should pay for their use of the market.
The other trading privilege of ‘lot’ concerned the right to a share in
wholesale bargains, provided the burgess was present at the deal. The
thirteenth-century Berwick ordinances made provision for large pur-
chases of herring whereby those present could demand a share at cost
price, but anyone not present could also claim a share by paying an extra
12d. to the original buyer.85 The regulations of fifteenth-century Sand-
wich stated: ‘freemen of our community are wont to be sharers of all trade
when they are present at a purchase or sale, whether the buyer or the seller
be a fellow-freeman or a stranger’.86 Occasionally, the first to strike a bar-
gain was given a larger share as compensation for their efforts. However,
in general, entrepreneurial behaviour was perhaps discouraged by the
principle that all full members of the community had an equal right to a
reasonable livelihood. The penalties for refusing to allow bargain-sharing
were severe: guildsmen or burgesses could be excluded from buying or
selling in the town for a year (except for necessary victuals).87
Non-guildsmen or non-burgesses were excluded from such ‘lot’ rights,
though they might have to allow burgesses to share in their purchases
of merchandise.88 It was only those privileged sections of the trading
classes who were given prior bargaining rights (before any strangers or

83 Dyer, Making a Living, p. 193.

84 Memorials, pp. 166–7 (1327); CLB, e, pp. 220–2 (1327).
85 Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 345 (Berwick, 1283–4).
86 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, ii, p. 178 (Sandwich, fifteenth century).
87 Ibid., i, pp. 38–9, c.25 (c.1300). See also Coventry, p. 193 (1440). For cases of refusing
‘lot’, see Leicester, i, pp. 78, 83–4, 180, 182–3, 271. For instance, in 1258, William
Sturdy accused John Folebarbe of refusing him lot in a stock of fish ‘to his damage and
dishonour’ and to the contempt of the community, and Folebarbe had to pay 5s. and a
cask of ale.
88 Oak Book, i, pp. 38–9, 64–5 cc.24, 61 (c.1300). For right to ‘lot’, see also BBC, 1216–
1307, pp. 299–300 (Grimsby, 1258); Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, ii, p. 168 (Preston,
twelfth century; Grimsby, 1259), ii, p. 171 (Berwick, thirteenth century; Chesterfield,
1294), ii, p. 177 (Torksey, c.1345), ii, pp. 178–9 (Sandwich, fifteenth century); Black
Book, ii, pp. 128–31, c.44 (c.1309); Bristol, ii, pp. 22–5 (1339); Myers (ed.), English
Historical Documents, p. 570 (Canterbury, c.1430); Coventry, p. 338 (1468).
 Regulation of the market 157

non-burgesses) to wholesale merchandise entering the town.89 ‘Lot’ thus

gave all franchised dealers an equal opportunity to buy from foreign
merchants, but also ensured that they were able to monitor communally
all wholesale bargains made in a borough. Indeed, the system could only
work effectively if all bargains were conducted publicly, though customs
varied in the extent to which deals were openly declared or implicitly
witnessed in the marketplace.
The rules for bargain-sharing were primarily intended for wholesale
transactions of raw materials and manufactures, rather than goods for
household consumption.90 Indeed, victuals were a staple commodity that
all residents expected a share in, provided they were purchasing them for
sustenance and not resale. In thirteenth-century Berwick, anyone who
bought victuals was expected to provide a cost-priced share to neighbours
who wanted it for their own household’s consumption, with the original
purchaser left with at least a quarter of his initial acquisition. Those
who took such a share and sold it again were to be punished.91 Town
authorities presumably did not want unnecessary price rises in victuals,
or a lack of supply. But neither did they wish to restrict the incoming
movement and sale of victuals. In Coventry, bakers, fishers and butchers
from the surrounding countryside were freely allowed to enter the city
and sell retail, in order to safeguard supplies. However, they all had to
first show their victuals to officials to check they were ‘abull for manns
meite’.92
Burgesses or guildsmen who attempted to circumvent borough regula-
tions, such as by forming partnerships with outsiders or non-guildsmen,
were liable to forfeit their goods and even their own guild or burgess
status.93 In Southampton, such partnerships were regarded as a ‘man-
ner of coverture, art, contrivance, collusion’.94 Similarly, any burgess
who disclosed Ipswich affairs or provided trading information to out-
siders was to be disenfranchised.95 This penalty was also imposed upon
those burgesses who tried to help strangers to avoid tolls by acting as
intermediaries and masquerading the merchandise of an outsider as their

89 Oak Book, i, pp. 36–9, c.23 (c.1300). 90 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, ii, p. lxix.
91 Ibid., ii, p. 172 (Berwick, thirteenth century). See also BBC, 1216–1307, p. 300
(Grimsby, 1258); Norwich, i, pp. 184–5 (early fourteenth century).
92 Coventry, pp. 24, 26, 29 (1421), 386–7 (1473).
93 Schopp and Easterling (eds.), Anglo-Norman Custumal, pp. 26, 29, 37, nos. 20, 31, 66
(mid-thirteenth century); Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 342 (Berwick, 1283–4);
Liber Albus, p. 231 (1272–1307); Hill, Medieval Lincoln, appx vii (c.1300); Leicester, i,
pp. 88–93, 102, 115, 167, 169, 202, 205; Norwich, i, p. 187 (early fourteenth century?);
Northampton, i, pp. 230–1 (c.1460); Arnold, Customs of London, p. 84 (c.1519).
94 Oak Book, i, pp. 36–7, 42–3, cc.21, 30 (c.1300). See also York, ii, pp. 204–6 (1460).
95 Black Book, ii, pp. 154–7, c.65 [63] (c.1309). See also York, ii, p. 209 (1463–4).
158 Medieval market morality

own.96 In general, avoidance of toll was considered a grave matter which

was heavily punishable.97
The heavy penalties directed at those who colluded to avoid toll were
founded on the fact that exemption from tolls within their own town
was another lucrative privilege for burgesses. Some borough charters
additionally provided royal exemptions from tolls either throughout the
kingdom or in partial areas or concerning particular commodities.98 In
these cases, traders from chartered boroughs were expected to carry
proof of their exemption when travelling.99 Otherwise, tolls were paid by
anyone bringing and displaying goods for sale in a town, whether or not
a sale was made. Different commodities and different types of transport
paid varying dues, usually from a farthing to a few pennies, though very
low-value goods (under 3d.) were quit of toll. Lists of tolls give a useful
indication of the types of commodities that commonly entered markets,
large and small. For instance, the thirteenth-century tolls payable at
Egremont market included horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, woollen cloth,
linen cloth, herrings, leather and iron, while those for Newark mentioned
horses, oxen, cows, pigs, sheep, carts, ploughs, roofing materials, timber,
bows, millstones, wool, leather, skins, wine and corn.100 Willard noted
that there are instances in which tolls were levied weekly upon carts
carrying victuals into a market, suggesting a regular trade with men of the
countryside.101 The overall effect was that the main burden of customs
and tolls fell on outside traders, as well as unenfranchised retailers who
needed to buy supplies.

96 Black Book, ii, pp. 156–7, c.66 [64] (c.1309). See also Leicester, i, p. 92 (1260); CLB,
e, pp. 56–7 (1316); Liber Albus, p. 328 (1334); Alsford, Towns (Maldon, fifteenth
century). For some cases where burgesses and strangers colluded to circumvent tolls,
see Norwich, i, pp. 362 (1288), 369 (1290); Leicester, i, pp. 102, 169, 179, 190, 202,
203–4, 205, ii, p. 31.
97 BBC, 1042–1216, p. 179 (Pontefract, 1194; Okehampton, 1199–1242). See also John-
son (ed.), Hereford, p. 25; BBC, 1042–1216, p. 179 (Chichester, 1155); BBC, 1216–
1307, p. 253 (Manchester, 1301); Bridgwater, p. 81 (1380).
98 BBC, 1042–1216, pp. 176–90, 190–4; BBC, 1216–1307, pp. 254–68; CChR, iii, p. 482
(Orford, 1326), iv, p. 122 (Lavenham, 1329).
99 There were some controversies when traders claimed exemption from toll. Parl. Rolls,
c.212, October 1318; Leicester, ii, p. 230 (1420).
100 Winchester, Landscape and Society, p. 127; Barley (ed.), Documents, pp. 19, 33–4.
See also BBC, 1042–1216, pp. 177–8 (Okehampton, 1194–1242, Chesterfield, 1213);
Schopp and Easterling (eds.), Anglo-Norman Custumal, pp. 31–3, 36, nos. 40, 47, 61
(mid-thirteenth century); Furley (ed.), Ancient Usages, pp. 32–3, 36–41 (late thirteenth
century); Liber Albus, pp. 196–217 (1284–5), 324–5 (thirteenth century); York, ii, p.
13 (1393); Black Book, ii, pp. 178–207 (c.1309); Norwich, ii, pp. 199–204 (fourteenth
century).
101 Willard, ‘Inland transportation’, 365–9. Tolls would often be charged by the animal,
pack, horseload or cartload.
 Regulation of the market 159

Strangers and foreigners

Urban attitudes towards outsiders and strangers were prominent influ-
ences in the creation of trading regulations. Local town ordinances
provided safeguards and opportunities for resident traders, but many
obstacles for the itinerant and those outside the burgess community. For
example, those who unloaded merchandise brought by sea to Ipswich
and sold part of them (‘broken bulk’) were not allowed to remove the
remaining goods without the permission of the bailiff. They were not only
forced to sell against their wishes, but were expected to stay in Ipswich
for eight days to sell their goods at a ‘reasonable price’. This may have
effectively forced outsiders to sell at a lower price. They could attempt
to gain permission from the bailiffs to leave, but had to pay the appropri-
ate export customs.102 In a similar manner, fishermen who had already
entered the market at Beverley were not allowed to take their fish else-
where until all inhabitants of the town had been ‘duly served’.103 Such
restrictive policies may have forced outside traders to lower their prices
if they could not sell at their original rates.
Many boroughs might also curb how long a foreign merchant could
stay within their walls.104 No stranger was to remain in Bristol for more
than three days without acquiring pledges for their good conduct.105 A
similar bias against unknown traders is expressed starkly in one Norwich
Custumal, whereby strangers could be arrested for ‘behaving themselves
in a suspicious and foolish manner whereby evil suspicion from men
of credit towards them deservedly arises’. They were required to find
someone to pledge them for their good behaviour. Foreign and alien
traders could also be limited in the places they could stay, as was shown
by the development of ‘hosting’ in international ports. This system forced
alien merchants, and even some foreign traders, to lodge with a burgess
and conduct all their business through their host.106 The rules for hosting
as laid out in the Ipswich ordinances mentioned that only burgesses or
men of high renown could host foreign merchants. Such hosts were
expected to provide advice on when, and to whom, they could sell their
goods, while each host was allowed to buy a quarter of the merchant’s
goods (except wine) at market price.107 The precise details of hosting
102 Black Book, ii, pp. 156–9, c.67 [65] (c.1309). 103 Beverley, p. 58 (1467).
104 BBC, 1042–1216, p. lxxi; BBC, 1216–1307, p. 287.
105 Bristol, ii, pp. 225–6 (late fourteenth century); Great Red Book, i, p. 141 (1451–2).
106 Ruddock, ‘Alien hosting’. See Great Red Book, ii, p. 50 (1455?); Norwich, ii, p. 101
(1473); Arnold, Customs of London, p. 7 (c.1519).
107 Black Book, ii, pp. 146–9, c.60 [59] (c.1309). In fifteenth-century Dover, hosts were
allowed to purchase up to half of a stranger’s merchandise, Bateson (ed.), Borough
Customs, ii, p. 179.
160 Medieval market morality

and the share they could claim differed from borough to borough, but
the main principles were the same. Hosts effectively acted as brokers for
visiting traders and also as official witnesses for their deals; they were the
appointed, local go-betweens for potential foreign buyers and sellers and
reduced such traders’ search costs. However, they also circumscribed the
freedom of outsiders. There were additional concerns, expressed in both
civic and parliamentary sources, that hosts might actually undermine
the privileges of other burgesses through their priority access to foreign
traders.108 At Coventry in 1421, fishers from outside the town were to be
hosted at inns, but not at the homes of native fishers, in order to prevent
forestalling and ensure all fish reached the market without pre-emptive
collusion.109
Merchant burgesses certainly influenced the development of certain
borough regulations in an attempt to secure control of particular com-
modities and temper competition from outsiders. Foreigners were often
limited to operating in the marketplace, excluded from selling certain
goods by retail and not allowed to deal with other foreigners. Such exclu-
sion not only applied to foreigners and strangers but also to residents who
were non-burgesses or not members of the guild. In several boroughs,
anyone who wished to buy and sell in particular goods had to be a guild
member or a burgess.
Many borough charters granted certain retail monopolies to franchised
or guild members of the town, particularly those in cloth, hide or wool
trades. For instance, in twelfth-century Bristol no foreign merchant could
sell cloth by retail (except at fairs) and could only buy hides, cloth or
wool from a burgess.110 The weavers and fullers of London and Beverley
were only allowed to sell their cloth to merchants of the city and not to
foreigners.111 Strangers in Exeter were allowed to buy and sell wholesale,

108 There were problems associated with both hosts’ and brokers’ activities, such as broken
deals, debts, hoarding, forestalling, avoiding tolls and by-passing privileges of guilds-
men or franchise-holders. See BBC, 1216–1307, p. 294 (Great Yarmouth, 1256); Als-
ford, Towns (Great Yarmouth, 1300); CChR, ii, p. 315 (Dunwich, 1285); Ingleby (ed.),
Red Register, ii, p. 216, fol. 142d (1363); Oak Book, i, pp. 62–5, cc.59–60 (c.1300);
Thomas (ed.), Calendar, pp. 7–9, 12–13 (Roll A, 1298); CLB, d, pp. 219–20 (early
fourteenth century); Leicester, i, p. 268 (1329); Statutes, ii, pp. 28–9, 6 Ric II st.1 c.11
(1382); Liber Albus, pp. 235 (1272–1307), 273–4 (early fifteenth century); Arnold,
Customs of London, p. 97 (c.1519).
109 Coventry, p. 33 (1421).
110 BBC, 1042–1216, pp. 209–14 (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1100–35; Lincoln, 1154–63;
Chichester, 1155; Wells, 1174–80; Bristol, 1188); BBC, 1216–1307, pp. 169, 284–9
(Hereford, 1227; Bridgnorth, 1227; Shrewsbury, 1227; Worcester, 1227; Liverpool,
1229; Oxford, 1229; Wigan, 1246).
111 Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae, ii, ‘Liber Custumarum’, pp. 122–31 (1297–1300);
Beverley, pp. 134–5 (c.1209).
 Regulation of the market 161

provided they paid their tolls, restricted themselves to non-monopoly

commodities and sold only to guildsmen or burgesses.112 Although the
precise nature of privileges varied from borough to borough, outsiders
were often limited in the trade they could conduct in chartered boroughs.
They were frequently denied access to specific, usually non-victual, retail
trades and were restricted to wholesale trade in those goods.113 The
charter for Bakewell in 1286 even specified that no foreign traders should
sell meat or fish within the town as long as native traders could provide
sufficient supplies, though such an extension of restrictions to trade in
foodstuffs was unusual.114 In Oxford in 1311, an ordinance stated ‘that
all who have food to sell may sell it freely in Oxford, even though they
are not burgesses’.115
Residents of boroughs could be excluded from certain types of retail
trade, particularly in wares such as wool, cloth, hides and skins, if they
were not guildsmen, burgesses or freemen.116 In a Chesterfield char-
ter for 1294, only burgesses could be dyers, tanners, retailers of meat,
fish, hides, linen or woollen cloth (described as ‘cutters’ of such goods)
and buyers of cut cloth, hides or skins (‘whether green, raw, fresh, or
salted’) within the market and town, except at the time of the fair.117 Only
Southampton guildsmen could buy goods such as honey, salted herring,
oil, millstones and hides outside of the market or fair days, or keep a
tavern or sell cloth by retail.118 The regulations highlighted the impor-
tance of the market day as an opportunity for outsiders and the unenfran-
chised, for on other days the urban authorities were wary of much trading
activity.
In reality, in order to be successful, boroughs had to allow foreigners
(whether from another town or another country) to trade and operate
within their markets.119 An entry in the late fourteenth-century records
of Leicester requested that merchant guildsmen should not exercise their
customary right to shares in sales, as this might frighten foreign traders

112 Schopp and Easterling (eds.), Anglo-Norman Custumal, pp. 28, 34, 37, nos. 23, 25, 26,
50, 66 (mid-thirteenth century). See also Leicester, i, pp. 252–3, 292.
113 Norwich, i, pp. 29, 107 (1415); BBC, 1042–1216, p. 213 (Okehampton, 1194–1242);
BBC, 1216–1307, pp. 284–9 (Berwick, 1302); Hill, Medieval Lincoln, appx vii (c.1300);
Arnold, Customs of London, pp. 5, 25 (c.1519).
114 BBC, 1216–1307, p. 288 (Bakewell, 1286).
115 Salter (ed.), Munimenta, pp. 17–18, no. 20 (1311). See also Salter (ed.), Medieval
Archives, i, pp. 160–1, no. 103 (1355).
116 E.g. Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 342 (Berwick, 1283–4); Bristol, ii, pp. 26–7
(1348); Alsford, Towns (Maldon, fifteenth century).
117 BBC, 1216–1307, p. 288 (Chesterfield, 1294).
118 Oak Book, i, pp. 34–7, c.20 (c.1300).
119 Hilton, ‘Medieval market towns’, 20–1; Britnell, Commercialisation, pp. 171–8.
162 Medieval market morality

away. Nor were they to force any trader to sell fish and goods against their
will; rather merchants were to be free to come and go provided that they
paid their tolls. By 1361, traders visiting Leicester were even remitted
of any toll charges in order to encourage more buying and selling in the
town’s market.120 Similarly, in Lynn in 1309, the bailiffs sought to annul
any existing ordinances of the guilds or town that were deemed detri-
mental to free commerce and therefore harmful to the community.121
Other towns provided opportunities for outsiders to pay for longer-term
rights in their market, such as in thirteenth-century Exeter where the
unenfranchised could pay ‘chepgavel’, which freed them from tolls while
they traded in the city.122
The borough style of trade management was intended to restrict out-
siders and favour burgesses who possessed inside knowledge about local
trading arrangements.123 It could be argued that this was to the detri-
ment of boroughs in the long-run and hampered their ability to be flex-
ible at times of crisis or opportunity. However, the ostensible picture
provided by charters and regulations perhaps conceals a tacit acceptance
by medieval boroughs that they needed a more flexible and conducive
everyday marketing environment. Many town authorities recognised that
outsiders would continue to use a particular market only if the induce-
ments of convenient facilities, demand, efficient regulation, security and
legal redress outweighed the costs of tolls and restrictions. Britnell sug-
gests that, in reality, there was not the level of burghal autarchy suggested
by the charters and borough regulations. Boroughs could not control
their hinterlands to the extent needed to control production, prices and
competition. Even the largest English boroughs did not have extensive
territorial authority in the mode of Italian cities, and they certainly could
not demand that the agrarian produce of the hinterland be brought to
their marketplace.124 Much trade was conducted outside the borough, in
smaller markets and informal outlets, beyond their reach. The influ-
ence of royal authority was also notable, in the privileges it offered
to competing boroughs and also in its efforts to standardise weights,
measures, coinage and the assizes, as well as stressing the need for free
trade within markets.

120 Leicester, ii, pp. 88 (1352), 116–22 (1361). 121 Alsford, Towns (Lynn, 1309).
122 Schopp and Easterling (eds.), Anglo-Norman Custumal, pp. 28, 34, 37, nos. 23, 25, 26,
50, 66 (mid-thirteenth century); Kowaleski, Local Markets, pp. 185–7.
123 Britnell, Commercialisation, pp. 27–8, 35–7. Minorities, such as the Welsh or Scots in
border towns and the Jews, might also face specific laws that restricted their trading
opportunities. Epstein, An Economic and Social History, p. 106.
124 Britnell, Britain and Ireland, p. 139; Dyer, Making a Living, p. 223.
 Regulation of the market 163

Borough government
The aims of borough market regulation were heavily influenced by the
style and form of a town’s administration. Borough government often
lay with the mayor, council and officials who were chosen from the
ranks of the burgesses, and they were usually the wealthiest and most
successful citizens, such as merchants, lawyers and substantial property
owners. As overseas trade and commercial opportunities grew after the
twelfth century, it was mercantile wealth that came to dominate the upper
ranks of borough society and government.125 In studying borough gov-
ernment, some historians have emphasised the increasing proportion of
freemen and the enlargement of councils by the fifteenth century, which
supposedly provided greater popular participation.126 Conversely, other
historians have suggested that late medieval town government shifted
from popular democracy to a closed oligarchy.127 Boroughs certainly set
differing requirements for entry to the freedom and the proportion of
freemen could also change over time. However, it appears that member-
ship of parts of borough government, and entry to the freedom of towns,
became increasingly concentrated in fewer hands by the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries.
In late medieval Exeter, there was a council of twelve burgesses, while
in Colchester, Winchester and Dunwich, there were councils of twenty-
four. Kowaleski estimated that the governing elite of late fourteenth-
century Exeter comprised just 1 per cent of the male population, while
freemen constituted about 21 per cent of householders.128 The form of
government and level of oligarchy differed in various towns, but in all
cases, there was an elite group who ran town affairs, supposedly with the
tacit consent of the ‘community’. In reality, formal approval was rarely
sought. Thus, in larger boroughs there was a distinct class of leading
citizens (‘probi homines’) separate from the ‘communitas’ of middling
and poor people.129 However, in both the formulation and enforcement
of regulation, especially in commercial matters, other factors need to be
considered. In particular, it should be noted that leading figures of larger
boroughs required an element of conformity and general acceptance if
their administration was to be successful. They might otherwise face

125 Britnell, ‘Town life’, p. 161.

126 Bridbury, Economic Growth, pp. 59–64; Reynolds, Introduction, p. 176.
127 Kowaleski, ‘Commercial dominance’; Rigby, Medieval Grimsby, p. 49; Dobson, ‘Admis-
sions’.
128 Kowaleski, Local Markets, p. 358; Britnell, Growth and Decline, p. 119; Furley (ed.),
Ancient Usages, pp. 26–7; Bailey (ed.), Bailiffs’ Minute Book, p. 6.
129 Thrupp, Merchant Class, p. 15; Norwich, i, pp. xxxvi–xxxvii, liii–lv.
164 Medieval market morality

civic and social disorder. This suggests that, to a certain extent, power
was shared by society at large; as Lilley states: ‘self-regulation and self-
government emerged through complex social relations because power
was being forever shared and negotiated’.130
According to Susan Reynolds and Gervase Rosser, medieval towns-
men viewed government by an elite as natural and virtuous, provided
these officials and council-men worked for the good of the whole com-
munity and did not simply represent vested interests. The legitimacy of
their rule depended on an ostensible adherence to the rhetoric of com-
munal government and principles of justice, consensus and harmony.131
Officials were bound by oaths to perform diligent, honest services and
to treat rich and poor alike. Failure was blamed, not so much upon the
system of government, but the venality and indiscretions of individuals
in power. Stephen Rigby has conversely argued that oligarchical govern-
ment was only grudgingly accepted by those outside the ruling elite, and
he posited that there was no adequate accountability.132 Certainly, the
ideals of common profit did not mean that members of an oligarchy were
acting without prejudice when regulating a town’s trade and industry.
However, many borough rulers were themselves prominently involved in
trade and undoubtedly saw aspects of their own welfare as integral to the
prosperity and stability of the town.133 Equally, all residents were poten-
tial consumers and many of the elite were employers who paid wages
in conjunction with the needs of sustenance and food prices. They did
not want the price of foodstuffs to lead to demands for higher wages.
Additionally, attitudes to victuallers could not be antagonistic, for these
traders made up a large and vital component of town populations.134
Overall, a favourable commercial environment was conducive to general
prosperity and order, enhanced the reputation of a town and helped in
raising corporate revenue. The interests of the general community were
thus often addressed because the sectional interests of the mercantile
elite might benefit.
This all tends to suggest that borough communities were harmonious
and efficient communities. However, there was obviously a fair degree
of conflict within boroughs, such as between the poor and the rich, the
retailers and the wholesalers, the burgesses and the non-burgesses. Civic

130 Lilley, Urban Life, p. 43.

131 Reynolds, Introduction, pp. 171–7; Rosser, Medieval Westminster, pp. 243–8; Swanson,
British Towns, pp. 89–96.
132 Rigby, English Society, pp. 145–77; Rigby, ‘Urban “oligarchy”’; Swanson, British Towns,
pp. 90–1.
133 Britnell, Growth and Decline, p. 118. 134 Ibid., p. 35.
 Regulation of the market 165

tension could arise from the clash of sectional interests.135 Swanson

argued that the distinction between the interests of the victualling crafts
and the mercantile class had not been fully established before the four-
teenth century. However, the concentration of urban government deci-
sions in merchant hands after the Black Death seemingly subordinated
victuallers in provincial towns.136 It was not until the late fifteenth cen-
tury that the victuallers gained in status and wealth once again, strength-
ened by the increasing standards of living and consumption demands.
Thus, beyond the privileges and the tension between the merchant elite
and aliens or strangers, it was the small dealer who faced the biggest
limitations and burdens in chartered boroughs.137 Compared to small
towns and seigneurial boroughs, where petty retailers had a much greater
involvement in the levers of government and administration, they were
largely excluded from privileges in larger boroughs and their profits were
limited and monitored carefully.
Tension could therefore occur between burgesses and non-burgesses,
or greater and lesser burgesses, particularly when those in power
advanced personal interests which were at odds with the wider com-
munity consensus, or if they limited access to office.138 However, many
of these conflicts were concerned with the fair conduct of government,
rather than the actual construction of town authority. For instance,
records from Exeter illustrate an awareness that members of the town’s
oligarchy manipulated their public office to their own advantage, but
there were no organised challenges to this oligarchy. Instead, there was a
buffer zone of middling men who sometimes accused those in power of
improper behaviour.139 There was an expectation that the leading mem-
bers of a town should serve the common good and that the authority of
officials resided in popular consent.
The oaths of officers, community rhetoric, the growth of pageantry
and consumer regulations were all part of efforts to reinforce communal
solidarity and order, and to demonstrate official recognition of the policy
of ‘fair government’.140 In 1382, Parliament ordained that every mayor
should include in his oath of office ‘that he shall enforce and protect
the said ordinance of victuallers without yielding to any party’.141 The

135 Reynolds, Intoduction, pp. 136–8; Miller and Hatcher, Medieval England: Towns, p. 357.
136 Swanson, Medieval Artisans, pp. 24–5. 137 Swanson, British Towns, p. 27.
138 Kermode, Medieval Merchants, pp. 53–60; Reynolds, Introduction, pp. 135–6, 171;
Fraser, ‘Medieval trading restrictions’; Fleming, ‘Telling tales’, pp. 178–80.
139 Kowaleski, Local Markets, pp. 116–19.
140 Rigby, English Society, pp. 169–77; Kermode, Medieval Merchants, p. 26; Kermode,
‘The merchants’, 21; Fulton, ‘Mercantile ideology’, 321.
141 Parl. Rolls, c.60, October 1382.
166 Medieval market morality

oath of the Mayor of Leicester outlined how he would maintain the cus-
toms of the town, punish forestallers and regraters, assess the assizes and
‘do even right as well to the pore as to the riche’. The aletasters were
also enjoined that they should ‘nott lett for fauour [or for] hatred, kyn
[kin] or alyence [alliance], but we shall do evyn [right and pun]nyghe
as oure myndis [minds] and consciences woll serve’.142 Consumers
were thus partially protected to ensure adequate, sound and relatively
cheap supplies of necessities. For instance, retailers were ordered by civic
authorities to sell certain commodities in small lots that the poor could
afford.143
One of the most prominent urban officials was the bailiff, whose role
was particularly extensive and included restraining and distraining people
on the orders of the courts, as well as the collection of tolls and fines.
In many larger boroughs, bailiffs were chosen from the leading members
of the town council. Legislative evidence suggests that the nature of his
work may have made the bailiff an unpopular figure, for there are several
regulations protecting him and other officials from potential abuse. In
Ipswich, anyone who maliciously assaulted the bailiffs or coroners of the
town was to be sent to prison, ‘for the sake of the community’, until they
had fully amended for any damages and provided surety for their good
conduct.144 In Leicester in 1363, Lambert the butcher was placed under
a surety of 100s. that he would never again contradict and abuse the
mayor in the marketplace with base language (‘turpis loquiis’), after he
had been charged for selling unbaited bull flesh.145 A fifteenth-century
ordinance for Maldon specified a similar fine for those who called a bailiff
‘by any name such as thief, knave, backbiter, whoreson, false, foresworn,
cuckold, or bawd’.146
If town ordinances protected the body and integrity of officials, they
also regulated their behaviour. The ‘Articles of the Eyre’, as set out in
legislation of Edward I, included provisions to inquire into the correct

142 Leicester, ii, pp. 319–23 (1489?). See also Norwich, i, pp. 123–4 (fifteenth century), ii,
pp. 317–18; Liber Albus, p. 274 (early fifteenth century).
143 Cooks were ordered to make halfpenny pies. Coventry, p. 111 (1427); Memorials,
p. 432 (1379). Sellers of fresh salmon in Bristol had to cut small portions for those
that required it. Great Red Book, i, p. 141 (late fifteenth century). Butchers of Hull had
to sell meat in halfpenny, penny and twopenny lots. Gillett and MacMahon, History
of Hull, p. 72. Wood-sellers in Bristol, selling in the ‘Bak’, were to ensure that they
‘leve resonable stuff upon the bak fro spryng to spryng, to serue the pouere people
of penyworthes and halfpeny wortheз in the neep sesons’. Toulmin Smith (ed.), The
Maire, pp. 83–4 (late fifteenth century).
144 Black Book, ii, pp. 96–9, cc.24–5 (c.1309). See also Liber Albus, p. 231 (1272–3);
Beverley, p. 41 (1364); Memorials, pp. 522–3 (1390), 595–6 (1413), 663–4 (1418);
York, iii, p. 180 (1475); Stanford (ed.), Ordinances of Bristol, p. 14 (1519–20).
145 Leicester, ii, p. 133 (1363). 146 Alsford, Towns (Maldon, fifteenth century).
 Regulation of the market 167

conduct of officials and whether any had taken bribes.147 There were
opportunities for officials to abuse their position and they were some-
times accused of favouritism, bribery, concealing offences and neglecting
their duties. Negligent bailiffs in Ipswich who caused delays in the pro-
ceedings of the courts faced suspension or expulsion from their office.148
The ‘Ordinance of Labourers’ (1349) also warned urban officials to be
diligent in their convictions of victuallers selling at excessive prices or else
be compelled to pay the aggrieved party three times the value of the item
sold.149 These enactments all demonstrated the need to keep control of
unpaid officials as much as traders, since administrative corruption could
lead to resentment and favouritism.
Borough government was a complex, heterogeneous structure that var-
ied from town to town. It was certainly not egalitarian, but we should
also be wary of suggesting precise ‘class’ divisions and a readily defined
mercantile elite. Although wealth and status were the main determinants
in attaining a position of authority, the ranks of the elite were not static
and some social movement did occur. Office-holding could be burden-
some and the elite seemingly welcomed new members of sufficient wealth
and standing.150 In addition, many administrative duties were carried
out by minor officers drawn from the ranks of independent craftsmen
and traders, as well as menial posts undertaken by unfree townsmen.
In the fifteenth century, the number of petty posts, such as searchers,
aletasters, porters and constables, grew significantly, partly as a conse-
quence of the elaboration of many regulations.151 Indeed, this expansion
in petty office-holding occurred despite statutes in 1318 and 1382 which
attempted to prevent any active victualler from exercising a judicial func-
tion in towns (only exempting those places where no other sufficient men
could be found).152 These statutes were intended either to prevent the
use of the office for personal profit or to protect the dignity of the office
from the slurs associated with petty victualling. They were anticipated
by an oath for officers in London that ordered officers to desist from

147 Statutes, i, p. 233, Edw I?.

148 Black Book, ii, pp. 168–9, cc.76 [73], 77 [74], 78 [75] (c.1309).
149 Statutes, i, p. 308, 23 Edw III c.6, ‘Ordinance of Labourers’ (1349). This was therefore
a system of compensation for the buyer and sought to encourage the prosecution of
offenders via the evidence of injured parties. Seabourne, Royal Regulation, p. 104.
150 Britnell, ‘Town life’, p. 158.
151 Kowaleski, Local Markets, p. 117; Kermode, Medieval Merchants, pp. 30–1, 39–47.
152 Statutes, i, p. 178, 12 Edw II c.6 (1318); ii, p. 28, 6 Ric II st.1 c.9 (1382); Parl. Rolls,
c.56, October 1382. The 1382 statute expanded upon the earlier statute of 1318, which
had sought to prevent victuallers or vintners from taking any office in boroughs that
involved managing the assizes of wines and victuals. See also CPR, 1317–21, p. 605;
Northampton, i, p. 377 (late fifteenth century); Hull (ed.), Calendar, pp. 45, 52 (1465).
168 Medieval market morality

profiting in the victuals trade whilst in post.153 However, such legislation

implies that prominent burgesses were involved in victualling or running
a hostelry and that they were reluctant to suspend their business.154 A
late fourteenth-century ordinance from Colchester complained of offi-
cials abusing their position by selling wine or ale contrary to statute.155
An Ipswich ordinance of 1429 similarly excluded bailiffs from running
an inn or tavern, or engaging in any sort of victualling whilst in office,
otherwise they would face an exceptional fine of £10.156 Thus, for some
petty traders and retailers, involvement in town government was possible,
even if the law did not encourage it.
Participation in borough government was thus a more complicated
affair than simply a division between the mercantile elite and the rest.
Although we should not take at face value rhetorical statements about
‘commonalty’, the need for consensus from a wider body than the oli-
garchical elite cannot be discounted. ‘Community’ sometimes referred
only to the burgesses, or else to a parish or a craft organisation, but
at other times the term meant the whole resident body. Nevertheless,
retailers and victuallers were generally less wealthy than merchants and
consequently lacked extensive political power and status in larger bor-
oughs, despite their ubiquity in local markets.157 The most prominent
were butchers, and perhaps fishmongers and taverners, who had higher
earnings and were more specialised. However, a majority of petty traders
had little influence in actual borough government decisions, at least in
the greater provincial centres.158
This, then, was the background to the burgess advancement of self-
interested protectionism. Regulation was used both as a means of main-
taining order and providing communal benefits, and also as an instru-
ment for the advancement of vested interests and exclusive practices.
However, for town officials and councils, the regulatory process was a
precarious balancing act between individual ambitions, group interests
and collective needs. If they were seen to go too far in advancing their
own interests at the expense of the whole town, then they might cause

153 CLB, d, p. 11 (late thirteenth century?). See also Bristol, i, p. 36 (1344).

154 The statute forbidding victuallers to be officials was repealed in 1512 as towns had ‘few
or none person of substance’ who were not victuallers. It was expected that they would
work closely with non-victuallers who could thus provide a check on their activities.
Statutes, iii, p. 30, 3 Hen VIII c.8 (1512).
155 Red Paper Book, pp. 13–14.
156 Alsford, Towns (Ipswich, c.86, fifteenth century). See also Liber Albus, pp. 237–8 (1272–
1307), 272–3 (early fifteenth century); Leicester, ii, p. 304 (1482); Coventry, p. 684
(1522); Winchester, pp. 157 (1535), 179 (1549).
157 Kowaleski, Local Markets, pp. 127–9, 136–7.
158 Kermode, Medieval Merchants, pp. 40–1.
 Regulation of the market 169

tension and conflict.159 If they went too far in promoting protectionism,

they might force outside traders to travel elsewhere to the detriment of
the town.

Craft guilds
A body that perhaps widened participation in borough government
and was highly influential in the creation of commercial regulation
was the craft guild. Guilds were frequently studied by nineteenth- and
early twentieth-century historians, whose work was heavily influenced
by the political and economic conditions of their own time. Unwin,
Sombart and Brentano attempted to present craft guilds as forerun-
ners to trade unions or depicted them as romantic, social democratic
icons. This viewpoint largely misunderstood the structure and purpose
of medieval craft guilds, which primarily served the interests of masters
not journeymen.160 Other historical theories developed in which guilds
were described as monopolistic and restrictive bodies, which held back
economic entrepreneurship and were in continual conflict with municipal
government.161 Heather Swanson, however, suggested a more complex
relationship between craft guilds and municipal authorities. She ascer-
tained that guilds were instruments of town councils and had little inde-
pendent power. They have, therefore, been given too much historical
importance in their supposed ability to run a closed shop.162 Although
Swanson rightly asserted the guilds’ subordination to municipal author-
ities, she perhaps goes too far in completely negating their influence. As
Gervase Rosser rejoined, Swanson was unwise to acknowledge the vital
role of the craft guilds within broader municipal government and yet also
denigrate their impact upon the practical operation of trades.163 This
underestimates the vitality of craft organisations for their members and
the degree of semi-autonomous self-governance which they developed.
Craft and trade guilds emerged in the late thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries as manufacturing, particularly in textiles, expanded in larger
towns and gave traders reason to divide into separate organisations. Some

159 Holt and Rosser, ‘Introduction’, pp. 10–11.

160 For a summary, see Bainbridge, Gilds, pp. 1–18. See also Lipson, Economic History,
ch. 8; Ashley, Introduction, i, ch. 2; Cunningham, Growth, p. 342; Unwin, Gilds and
Companies.
161 Gross, Gild Merchant, i, p. 112. See also Tawney, Religion, p. 26.
162 Swanson, ‘Illusion’, 29–48; Swanson, Medieval Artisans, pp. 108–20. It has long been
recognised by historians that the guilds were used as agencies of enforcement by town
authorities; Ashley, Introduction, ii, pp. 87–95; Green, Town Life, ii, pp. 135–6.
163 Rosser, ‘Crafts, guilds and the negotiation of work’, 6; Swanson, Medieval Artisans,
p. 8; Holt and Rosser, ‘Introduction’, pp. 10–11.
170 Medieval market morality

Merchant Guilds survived as congregations of the more wealthy mer-

chant wholesalers, but most other trades were organised into lesser guilds.
The structure of craft and trade guilds had a common coherence in all
English medieval towns, at least where they were constituted. Guilds were
not formed in a number of medieval boroughs, such as Ipswich, as well
as in most English small towns. Indeed, craft guild formation was a slow
process in England, outside larger conurbations like London and York,
partly because they required a sufficient number of craftsmen engaged
in the same trade and partly due to the way authority was exerted by
particular urban authorities.
Craft guilds consisted of confraternities of both employers and employ-
ees, masters and apprentices. However, ‘masters’ were firmly at the top
of the hierarchy, followed by journeymen and apprentices. Surveyors or
searchers were elected to oversee the conduct of a particular trade, to
maintain good working practice, protect members from ‘unfair’ com-
petition and ensure a high quality of workmanship.164 They also had
the power to search the houses of practitioners and often to inspect the
wares of outsiders. Like other urban officials, guild ordinances sought
to protect searchers by punishing any who abused or hindered them in
their duties, but also threatened penalties for those who neglected their
office.165 Artisans were ordered to work openly and not in secret, so that
the searchers could easily monitor their craft.166 Additionally, each guild
member had to swear an oath to keep good order and not to bring scandal
to the craft; the Durham weavers swore, ‘to be true, to use and occupy
his craft truly to the profit of the common people, to use no deceit in his
craft and to fulfill the ordinances’.167
Guild ordinances usually followed a certain format and their primary
interests were consistent with one another. This is largely because many
craft guilds copied London craft ordinances. Typical ordinances stated
that an artisan or trader had to be paid-up members to work within
the liberty, they could not sue a fellow member without licence, and
no one was to entice away customers from fellow masters and workers.
Most demanded a good level of workmanship or else practitioners could

164 Reynolds, Introduction, p. 165; Furley (ed.), Ancient Usages, pp. 28–31, nos. 17, 22–3
(late thirteenth century); Norwich, i, pp. 192–4 (early fourteenth century), ii, pp. 278–
96 (1449); York, i, pp. 183–4 (1417), iii, p. 157 (1433); Northampton, i, pp. 304–7
(1465); King’s Lynn, pp. 266–8, no. 323 (1449); Leicester, ii, pp. 322–3 (1489?).
165 Norwich, i, pp. 193–4 (early fourteenth century?); Bristol, ii, pp. 77, 79 (1406); York, i,
pp. 63–4, 83–4, 222 (fifteenth century); York, iii, p. 217 (1498); Beverley, pp. 78, 116,
127 (late fifteenth to early sixteenth century); Coventry, pp. 660–1 (1518).
166 Bristol, ii, pp. 96–7 (1408).
167 Bonney, Lordship, pp. 185–8. See also Leicester, ii, pp. 32–3 (1336?); Beverley, pp. 76–80
(1494), 125–6 (1468).
 Regulation of the market 171

face heavy fines or banishment from their trade. A consistent rhetorical

complaint was that a lack of knowledge and bad management led to faults
and that substandard products caused loss to buyers and brought shame
to the town and craft.168 This attitude was intertwined with attempts to
restrict competition by preventing non-members from exercising the craft
within the town and by controlling the movement of raw materials and
finished products out of the town.169 People could not set up in business
until they had received the consent of the wardens and had paid their
dues. Guilds thus governed entry to certain trades, as well as journeymen
wages and the system of apprenticeship.170
The ordinances that emanated from craft guilds covered various
aspects of commerce and conduct, and this included aspects of retail
trade. They were drawn up by guild members themselves and, in that
sense, guilds broadened access to the administrative strings of towns.
However, most ordinances had to receive the sanction of town authori-
ties and often guild masters themselves were compulsory members of the
freedom of the town or the Merchant Guild. In most towns (except per-
haps London), the authority of municipal governments over the guilds
was not questioned. In Durham, Bristol, York, Coventry and Winch-
ester, the municipal authorities controlled the registration of ordinances,
checked that they conformed to the standards of the town, and that they
did not conflict with the liberties of others.171 The dyers of Coventry
had certain ordinances quashed in 1475 because they were considered
harmful to the ‘comon weyle’.172 Fines were also split between the town
and guild and oaths often included pledging obedience to the munic-
ipality. Craft guilds subsequently operated as subordinate supervisory
bodies to municipal authorities. Guilds could nevertheless impose fines,
banish members from crafts, or limit the kind of business an individual
could undertake.173 It was an understandable development; as trades and
industries became more specialised and complex, the formation of guilds
allowed the traders themselves to take on the responsibility of regulation.

168 Bristol, ii, pp. 2–4, 8, 75–7, 85–6, 93–4, 108, 111–14, 123–7, 141–2, 170–80; York, i,
pp. 63, 167, 171, 182, 185; Coventry, pp. 554, 660–1; Leicester, i, pp. 68, 71, 84, 102;
Memorials, pp. 216–17, 234, 242, 546–7; Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 317.
169 Bristol, ii, pp. 6–8, 15–16, 26–30, 78–9, 82, 96, 113–14; York, i, pp. 99–100, 170–1;
Beverley, pp. 74–6, 125–7; Memorials, pp. 232, 244–7, 354.
170 Bristol, ii, pp. 5–6, 9, 12, 84–5, 104–7, 142; York, i, pp. 63–4; Beverley, p. 116; Coventry,
pp. 554, 574; Memorials, pp. 216–19, 234, 354.
171 Bonney, Lordship, pp. 187–8; Swanson, Medieval Artisans; York, i, p. 186; Bristol, i,
p. xxviii, ii, pp. 80, 100, 109, 118–19; Coventry, pp. xxxi–xxxii, 29, 111, 170, 188,
222, 277, 554, 624, 639, 654–7, 703; Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, pp. 304–9,
312–17; Norwich, i, pp. 16–18.
172 Coventry, pp. 418–19 (1475). 173 Leicester, i, pp. xxxiii, 68–9, 170, 205.
172 Medieval market morality

In a practical sense, traders were more experienced in manufacturing

processes and selling methods, as well as more aware of the possibili-
ties of fraud. In effect, then, guilds provided an unpaid, knowledgeable
administrative staff for large towns that were otherwise not able to afford
such a myriad of officials.
There is little evidence that medieval English guilds exerted consistent
or sustainable monopoly policies in retailing their manufactures in the
face of a competitive marketplace with often elastic demand. There were
also many markets, formal and informal, beyond their control and influ-
ence, which meant that the guilds could not afford to be overly restrictive
and sell at high prices. Their monopsony power was also limited.174 Their
main influence on prices came indirectly through minimum quality stan-
dards, control of those who set up in a craft within a town, and who was
employed as apprentices and journeymen. They did not have absolute
authority to set prices for their products, and crafts that attempted to fix
a price contrary to the market price were upbraided, such as the Norwich
chandlers in 1300.175
Although guild regulations had to conform to the demands of town
councils and incorporate existing trade legislation, these were not nec-
essarily incompatible with the vested interests of craft members, either
individually or as an occupational group. It has often been assumed by
historians that guild-backed quality controls aided the ‘public interest’
by lowering the level of fraud and maintaining high standards.176 These
motivations are ostensibly supported by statements in guild regulations.
Ordinances for Bristol hoopers in 1439 were said to be ‘for the honour of
God, of the town abovesaid and of the common people of the same town,
and of those resorting thereto, for the common profit’.177 When procla-
mations and ordinances assert the notion of ‘common profit’ or ‘common
good’ it is worth asking who comprised the commonalty.178 There were,
after all, disparate and overlapping communities within boroughs, mar-
ket towns and villages, often with differing interests, and a guild was one
of those groupings. The evoking of ‘common profit’ was characteristic
rhetoric in guild ordinances, in order to demonstrate a respect for law
and uphold the reputation of the guild and its members: ‘no ordinances
shall be made against the common law’ and ‘the liberties of the town

174 A monopoly is a market with only one seller and many buyers, whereas in a monop-
sony there is one buyer and many sellers. Swanson, ‘Illusion’; Epstein, ‘Craft guilds,
apprenticeships’, 685–93; Richardson, ‘Guilds, laws, and markets’.
175 Hudson, Leet, p. 52 (1300).
176 Salzman, English Life, pp. 240–1; Veale, English Fur Trade, p. 116.
177 Bristol, ii, p. 161 (1439). 178 Farber, An Anatomy, pp. 161–74.
 Regulation of the market 173

shall be upheld’.179 However, this rhetoric could also serve as a useful

justification for quashing the output and sale of non-members. It was just
as likely that guilds attempted to keep prices up, prevented competition
from outside the guild structure and thus reduced choice for consumers.
The repeated ordinances against bad workmanship and inferior or adul-
terated materials are also evidence of the residual demand for cheap
goods and the desire of masters to undersell one another in competition.
This reminds us that craft guilds were not always heterogeneous and
harmonious bodies, but could be riven by conflict and disputes within
the craft, between crafts, and between crafts and town government. As
with the burgess elite, the need to conform with accepted practice and
assumed moral norms was often counterbalanced by forces of sectional
interests.
Guild ordinances demonstrate their attempts to maintain stability and
order within the crafts, as well as to provide a veneer of respectability.
Stillwell pointed out that guild ordinances often required members to
correspond to merchant ‘qualities’ of trustworthiness, discretion, wisdom
and sobriety, in order to bolster their reputation.180 The Merchant Guild
of Beverley required that no brethren should ‘set up detractions or false
scandal’ nor ‘say of any brother of the craft in absence anything whereby
the brother so defamed shall lose his name or any of his goods’.181 Craft
guilds retained a social role of mutual self-help, helping fellow members
when they suffered illness or financial losses, as well as providing for burial
services.182 There were also annual feasts for conviviality, to conduct
business and read out ordinances.183 Additionally, members performed a
religious function: candles were to be kept alight at chantries and chapels
before the altar of a saint, and prayers and Masses were said for the
dead.184 Such shows of solidarity attempted to raise the moral integrity of
members, discouraged traders and masters from cheating each other, and
established informal and spiritual ties that controlled their behaviour.185
Similarly, the processions, pageants and feasts of the guilds and town
can be interpreted as methods of communal bonding. From the late
fourteenth century, the Corpus Christi cycle of pageants and processions

179 Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, pp. 23, 30, 39, 167, 337.
180 Stillwell, ‘Chaucer’s “sad” merchant’, 14–18; McRee, ‘Religious gilds’.
181 Beverley, pp. 76–80 (1494). See also King’s Lynn, pp. 266–8, no. 323 (1449).
182 Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, pp. 35, 122, 172–3, 176–9, 182–4, 229–30, 232,
234, 340–1.
183 Ibid., pp. 176–8, 183, 229, 231–2.
184 Ibid., pp. 36–7, 172, 176, 178, 181, 230; York, i, p. 221; Beverley, pp. 76, 114, 123.
185 Richardson, ‘Craft guilds and Christianity’. Richardson argued that guilds linked spir-
itual and occupational endeavours as a means to tackle free riders and encourage
cooperation between members.
174 Medieval market morality

developed and allowed guilds to display both their commercial prowess

and the hierarchical structure of their town, which highlighted their own
honour, dignity and prestige. Several examples of English ‘mystery cycles’
survive, such as from York, Wakefield and Chester.186 Each craft took
an episode of the cycle and encapsulated the concept of the body repre-
senting social integration and unity. In communities otherwise striven by
tension and competitiveness, rituals and ceremonies were stage-managed
to reinforce town identity and social hierarchy. However, as both James
and Dyer have suggested, it is possible that the communal ceremonies
and rituals were attempts to paper over the cracks that existed in medieval
urban society.187 Town hierarchies and pageantry perhaps even accentu-
ated a contemporary sense of division, between ‘inferiores’, ‘mediocres’
and ‘probi hommes’.188
The growth of guild regulation in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen-
turies reflected the harsh competitive environment. Like burgesses, town
guilds sought to safeguard their interests, particularly in manufacturing
industries, often by producing greater protectionist legislation.189 Guilds
supported full-time traders and artisans and tried to exclude those who
practised a trade as a by-employment. Some fifteenth-century towns
saw increasing levels of restriction, which were mirrored in the height-
ened protectionism of guild regulations.190 Adverse economic conditions
accentuated the desire to restrict outsiders. However, it is arguable that
such protectionism could be counter-productive or ineffectual.
The main concern of guilds was the control of supply and distribu-
tion, because these were the factors that determined the prosperity of
small-scale, household craftsmen (before the growth of entrepreneurs,
larger-scale production and technology). Most craftsmen sold direct to
their customers and were as interested in marketing networks as manu-
facturing processes. The medieval economy was still fragmented, while
the success of practitioners in suburbs and rural areas demonstrated that
craftsmen could practise beyond the reach of urban and guild regulations.
Swanson was perhaps right to see the notion of a tightly regulated town
and guild economy as largely ‘illusory’. Not all craftsmen and artisans
were governed by the guilds, and the urgency of their ordinances was

186 Toulmin Smith (ed.), York Plays; Stevens and Cawley (eds.), Towneley Plays; Lumiansky
and Mills (eds.), Chester Mystery Cycle.
187 James, ‘Ritual’; Dyer, ‘Taxation and communities’, p. 169; Holt and Rosser, ‘Intro-
duction’, p. 14; Goldberg, ‘Craft guilds’.
188 Kermode, Medieval Merchants, p. 12; Phythian-Adams, Desolation of a City, pp. 170–9.
189 Hatcher, ‘The great slump’, pp. 269–70; Lipson, Economic History, i, pp. 308–439;
Swanson, ‘Illusion’.
190 Saul, ‘Herring’, 39–41.
 Regulation of the market 175

largely intended to counter the impact of extramural competition and

inter-craft strife. Craft guilds were also a much stronger presence among
wholesale and artisan crafts than the victual trades, especially in their for-
mative years. In London and many boroughs, victualling trades remained
under the authority of the town council or mayor, at least until the fif-
teenth century.191 Although butchers, fishmongers, bakers and brewers
became increasingly organised, town elites were still suspicious of any
self-regulation and organisation among such traders.192

Conclusion
In large boroughs and towns, there were small and dominant elites who
sought avidly to protect their privileges, as well as a wide number of
sectional interests reflecting a diverse occupational and wealth range. As
we go down the urban hierarchy to smaller communities, petty traders
were able to have a greater say in the governance of their business affairs.
There was perhaps greater communal consensus and more shared inter-
ests in small towns and villages, particularly since those in the elite group
had similar occupations to the majority of residents.193 Some princi-
ples recurred in smaller seigneurial markets, such as the need to protect
consumers, to create an orderly and prosperous market, to raise rev-
enue, and to develop artificial constructs of solidarity in order to dampen
conflict.194 However, the interests of retailers were perhaps given more
leeway than in larger towns where the vested interests of the mercantile
distributors held sway. A developed merchant oligarchy existed perhaps
only in the top twenty-five to thirty boroughs, ports or distributive cen-
tres. In smaller towns, there was no real mercantile presence and retailers
and craftsmen occupied leading offices.195 Also, whereas larger boroughs
developed relatively sophisticated self-government, many small towns
did not develop much beyond manorial and leet court systems, per-
haps adapting them to commercial needs. Craft guilds were also rarely
established in smaller towns, because of a relative lack of specialisation
and insufficient artisans in a particular craft. For smaller market towns

191 Norwich, ii, pp. 87–8 (1436); Kowaleski, Local Markets, p. 100; Toulmin Smith (ed.),
English Gilds, pp. 334–7 (Exeter bakers, 1483); Coventry, pp. 27, 29, 32 (1421). Phillip
Willcox refers to an informal bakers’ company or fellowship in Coventry that had
probably existed since the thirteenth century, but it is not documented before the
fifteenth century. Willcox, Bakers’ Company, pp. 1–9.
192 Thrupp, Merchant Class, pp. 95–6.
193 Swanson, Medieval Artisans, pp. 3–5; Reynolds, Introduction, pp. 173–7.
194 Dyer, ‘Small-town conflict’.
195 Dyer, Standards, pp. 24–5; Hilton, ‘Lords, burgesses and hucksters’.
176 Medieval market morality

with no borough charters or privileges, their regulatory reference resided

instead in central legislation and the leet or seigneurial courts.
The often localised and parochial nature of law enforcement is evident.
Whether in large or small towns, there were various interest groups, often
overlapping, who contributed to the enactment and enforcement of trad-
ing regulation. Ordinances and charters indicate that town authorities
wanted stability, order and income; traders wanted flexible and secure
facilities; burgesses wanted protection and profit in their trade and oper-
ations; guilds wanted high standards and exclusivity; and consumers
wanted cheap and plentiful goods. Medieval markets encompassed a
complex interplay of forces, which created a compromise between restric-
tive and free-market policies. Laws, and their enforcement at a provincial
and local level, were therefore a product of both national proclamations
and local vested interests.

PA RT I I : T H E P U B L I C M A R K E T P L AC E

Sectional and burgess-centred interests were undoubtedly prominent fac-

tors in the formulation of market law, but in tandem many commercial
regulations appear to have avowed conventions of common justice and
welfare. Indeed, there were general ethical and practical principles that
were applicable to all markets, large and small. One fundamental princi-
ple was the concept of the open and public market as a means to guarantee
honest transactions, and the physical marketplace was designed with this
in mind. There was often a single, open space, designated by a market
cross, that served as the main marketing area and in which stalls were
set out. Small towns had a single market day each week when outsiders
brought their goods for sale, and the market day would open and close
with the ringing of a bell. However, in larger towns, the market arrange-
ments could be more complex, with a wider dispersal of market activity
into the streets surrounding a main market space. They might also have
more than one marketplace, each specialising in particular commodities.
Larger towns additionally had markets on several days during the week,
with the largest boroughs operating markets every day except Sundays.
Trade must have taken place frequently outside of the market day
and marketplace, but this was generally reserved for residents and those
with privileges to deal from private premises, such as inns or shops.196
Britnell has described medieval shops, which varied in size and type, as
‘an intermediate space between the public world of the market and the
private world of the family home, a space where craftsmen could both

196 Britnell, ‘Markets, shops, inns’, pp. 113–15, 118, 121.

 Regulation of the market 177

work and meet their customers’.197 Food and drink were probably often
sold during the whole week and even in the streets, meeting essential
consumer demands. Waterfronts or quaysides could also be important
places of exchange when a town lay by the coast or a main river, partic-
ularly for the import–export merchants. It was useful for these goods to
be sold at or near the point of unloading, especially when wharfs were
some distance from town centres. However, these ‘bulk markets’ were as
carefully regulated as central retail markets.198
Nevertheless, the essential concept of an open marketplace remained a
constant throughout all sizes of commercial settlements. A formal market
was primarily intended for congregations of outsiders and local house-
holds to meet immediate consumption needs, such as food and fuel,
and this was its public significance. On the surface, the public market-
place inferred honesty, witnesses and social cooperation, while secret
and hidden trade implied fraud, price-raising and other crimes because
such transactions occurred outside the remit of official sanction. As Bate-
son has remarked: ‘publicity in trade was the corner-stone of medieval
commercial arrangements for the inspection of goods, for securing for-
eigner’s debt, and for guarantees of contract’.199 Indeed, saleable goods
were expected to be displayed in public for a variety of reasons: to ensure
that all the correct tolls were paid, to provide witnesses to deals, to guard
against the exchange of stolen goods, to regulate quality and quantity, and
to demonstrate there was no perceived shortage of a certain commodity
that might push prices up.
The principles of open and public trade were gradually established by
customs and through a process of modification throughout the Middle
Ages. The laws of Anglo-Saxon kings were frugal in their treatment of
trade and commerce, but still codified their demand that all transactions
between strangers should have witnesses and that trade should only take
place in specific forums. This was intended foremost as a guard against
criminality, such as the transference of stolen goods and cattle.200 The
first extant and coherent set of English laws relating to trade was ascribed
to the reign of Edward the Elder (c.900–25).201 These asserted that
buying and selling should take place only in a market town, under threat

197 Britnell, ‘Town life’, p. 139. 198 Lilley, Urban Life, pp. 224–7.
199 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, ii, p. lxxiv.
200 Attenborough (ed.), Laws, pp. 44–5, c.25 (laws of Ine, c.688–93), pp. 132–5, cc.10,
12, 13 (laws of Aethelstan, c.925–39); Report of the Royal Commission, i, appx i,
pp. 32–3, Laws of Eadmund, c.5 (c.940–46), Laws of Eadgar, cc.4–11 (c.959–75),
Laws of Aethelred, c.3 (c.978–1016), Laws of Canute, cc.23, 24 (c.1017).
201 Attenborough (ed.), Laws, pp. 114–17, c.1, nos. 1–5 (laws of Edward the Elder, c.899–
925).
178 Medieval market morality

of forfeiture, in order to hinder the movement of stolen property and

facilitate the collection of tolls.
Anglo-Saxon laws established important types of facilitators for open
sales: the warrantor, who was usually the seller and guaranteed that the
commodity was of the condition stated and not stolen; the witness, who
(in the absence of the warrantor) provided evidence that a sale had taken
place honestly; and the pledge, who was not present at the sale but could
provide evidence of the purchaser’s good character under oath. The use
of witnesses, warrantors, or trustworthy men became a mainstay of early
trading law and under Aethelstan (925–39) heavy fines of 35s. were
threatened if trustworthy witnesses were not used in the cattle trade, or if
someone bore false witness. Those found to be untrustworthy were not
allowed to be witnesses again.202 Those described as ‘trustworthy men’
included reeves, priests, landowners or treasurers, and the laws stated
that any purchases of goods worth over 20d. should take place within
towns using such witnesses.203 The late twelfth-century common law
treatise, Glanvill, also required either ‘men of credit’ as witnesses or oaths
which the other party could accept.204 The use of witnesses or oaths thus
provided a safeguard for the purchaser if an itinerant warrantor failed to
appear, or when a certain sale appeared suspect, in order to prove that a
purchase was honestly and openly made.205
The principle of visible trading practices continued throughout the
Middle Ages in the form of open bargaining in daylight hours, whereby
the public market came to represent a communal witness. The use of
witnesses for high-value contracts remained, but became less impor-
tant in basic transactions where proof of purchase in the open mar-
ket itself protected traders against accusations of possessing stolen
goods. Proof of purchase could be explicated through compurgation or
inquest.206
However, there remained a fear that stolen goods might be brought
into the market and sold. Butchers were particularly prone to accusations
that they were disposing of stolen beasts and hiding the evidence. This
was perhaps the reason why they were sometimes excluded from deal-
ing in hides and wool or operating as tanners.207 Mistrust of strangers

202 Ibid., pp. 132–3, c.10 (laws of Aethelstan, c.925–39).

203 Ibid., pp. 134–5, c.12 (laws of Aethelstan, c.925–39).
204 Hall (ed.), Glanvill, pp. 130–2, x, 15–17 (c.1187–9).
205 BBC, 1042–1216, pp. 218–19 (Pembroke, 1154–89; Chester, 1190–1212; Haverford-
west, 1189–1219); Britton, i, pp. 57–60, ch. 16, cc.3–5 (1291–2).
206 For a discussion of compurgation, see below pp. 200 (n. 326), 356–7.
207 Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 343 (Berwick, 1283–4); Britton, i, pp. 83–4,
ch. 21, c.11 (1291–2).
 Regulation of the market 179

and their goods was a recurrent theme of medieval trading legislation,

partly due to the ease with which they could flee a town’s jurisdiction.208
Foreign butchers arriving at Bristol in the fifteenth century had to pro-
duce the hides and skins of any flesh they wished to sell at market, as
a guard against accusations of theft and to boost the supply of such
commodities.209 For similar reasons, sheepskins sold by York butchers
to glovers and parchment-makers were to include the cheek and ears.210
Anxieties concerning the provenance of commodities was thus an impor-
tant motivation behind the promotion of transactions in the open mar-
ketplace.

Regulating the public marketplace

The regulations that restricted trade to the open and public market are
mostly found in borough ordinances and reflected local needs and mech-
anisms of supervision. In late thirteenth-century London, even resident
bakers were expected to sell their bread in the open marketplace and
not in private ‘before his oven’, so that their bread could be more easily
checked.211 Similar, if more basic, rules probably operated in most char-
tered markets. Any who traded outside the public forum did so at their
own risk, but few towns allowed trade to carry on within their liberty
except in designated spaces. For instance, in 1379, the Lord of Bridgwa-
ter called William Brere to his court to demand to know why there was a
market for cloth in an unaccustomed site.212
Towns or markets were often divided up into designated areas for
different trading activities, facilitating the administration of both reg-
ulation and searches, but also easing congestion.213 Victuallers bring-
ing cheese, milk, grapes, plums, apples, pears and other fruit to
early fifteenth-century Salisbury were ordered to sell their wares in a
specified place opposite the house of John Gage.214 The cobblers of

208 Britnell, Commercialisation, p. 25.

209 Great Red Book, i, p. 144 (1452). See also Oak Book, i, pp. 68–9, no. 67 (c.1300);
Black Book, ii, pp. 142–5, c.57 [56] (c.1309); Greaves (ed.), First Ledger Book,
pp. 5–6, no. 8 (1313); Liber Albus, pp. 239, 243 (1272–1307); Bailey (ed.), Tran-
scripts, pp. 96–7 (Winchester, 1399); Coventry, pp. 279 (1454), 557–8 (1494), 665–6
(1519); Northampton, i, p. 227, c.34 (c.1460); Leicester, ii, pp. 288–9 (1467); Beverley,
p. 129 (1510).
210 York, iii, pp. 218–19 (1500).
211 CLB, a, p. 215 (1276–8); Liber Albus, pp. 231, 308 (1272–1307).
212 Bridgwater, p. 40.
213 E.g. Coventry, pp. 59 (1423), 100 (1425); Henley, p. 214 (1535).
214 HMC, iv, p. 193 (Salisbury, 1408–9).
180 Medieval market morality

fourteenth-century Beverley were expected to hold stalls for selling their

shoes only in the ‘Shoemarket’ on market and fair days, though they
could apparently trade from their own houses on other days.215 The
fishwives of fifteenth-century Bristol were ordered to ‘stonde vpon the
bakke and in noon other places’, which was an important and recog-
nised commercial site near the river.216 Similarly, in Northampton, petty
vendors of hay, straw, timber, wood or ash could not place goods onto
the ground from their heads until they were sold, since this normally
incurred stallage payments; in London, any ‘birlester’ selling ‘oysters,
mussels, salt fish and other victuals’ was not allowed to stand still to
retail but had to be continually on the move.217 Markets were thus highly
regulated spaces, though the court evidence for encroachments and sell-
ing in non-designated sites suggests that the regulations were not always
adhered to.
For the same purpose of regulatory oversight, certain traders were
expected to congregate around the market cross, particularly peasants
who brought in a myriad of agricultural produce to sell in small lots
(such as poultry).218 In 1403–4, strangers that came to Bristol to sell
iron pennyware (‘yclepid smythware’) were told to vend by the high
cross where any faults of their goods could be openly surveyed by the
town’s officials.219 The same restriction applied to those outsiders selling
bows and arrows, who were ordered to utter their wares at the high
cross rather than hawk their goods about the town ‘to the derogacioun
of the burgeisez of the same craffte’.220 The main legislative concern of a
town was thus to ensure that outside traders did not circumvent official
channels of inspection and revenue-collection.
Outsiders were particularly limited in their movements, both spatially
and temporally, and could not sell privately, except perhaps through offi-
cial hosts or brokers. This stipulation applied particularly to foodstuffs.
Ordinances for York and Bristol outlined that victuals and other goods
brought into the town from outside should only be sold in the assigned
marketplaces during daylight and not in any secret places or inns, as
these places were hidden from the eyes of officials and tolls might be
avoided. Those bringing fish to sell in fifteenth-century Beverley were
to set out their goods ‘for sale publicly in the market and not in their

215 Beverley, pp. 30–1 (1364).

216 Great Red Book, i, p. 143 (1452). See also ibid., i, pp. 135, 142 (1452); Bristol, ii,
pp. 54–5, 226–7 (late fourteenth century).
217 Northampton, i, pp. 224–5, cc.27–8 (c.1460); Memorials, p. 508 (1388).
218 Beverley, pp. 29–30 (1409). Davis, ‘The cross and the pillory’, pp. 248–50.
219 Bristol, ii, pp. 181–4 (1403–4); Great Red Book, i, pp. 147–8 (late fifteenth century).
220 Great Red Book, i, p. 153 (1479).
 Regulation of the market 181

houses or other private places’.221 The York ordinances expressed anxi-

ety that such concealment of fish and victuals led to ‘mykyll yvell chafer
an on able ys keped and solde thurgh the yere at outrage value, in great
hinderyng of the kynges people’.222 Similarly, Britnell has noted a case
in Colchester in 1429 when five foreign fishmongers held back fish from
the open market and sold them privately to outsiders ‘to the very great
extortion of the burgesses’; the word ‘extorsio’ perhaps implying moral
indignation.223 Selling victuals privately was deemed to be counter to the
social and paternal needs of the community.
Strangers selling merchandise were thus corralled into assigned places
within a town so that officials could better watch over them and collect
dues, as well as to allow residents a commercial advantage. Indeed, resi-
dent traders in many towns were physically separated from foreign deal-
ers, particularly fishmongers and butchers.224 The fourteenth-century
resident and outside butchers in Beverley were separated on market
days, placed at each end of the market with the fish stalls in-between,
so that they did ‘not intermeddle with each other’.225 The authorities
in Oxford even considered a second marketplace for strangers to sell in,
as an aid towards preventing forestalling, ensuring public transactions
and disseminating market regulations.226 Such spatial division suggests
a strong element of competition or even animosity, as well as a desire

221 Beverley, p. 58 (1467). For similar restrictions and cases regarding the prevention of
transactions in private houses and assigning public places of sale for certain com-
modities, see BBC, 1216–1307, p. 295 (Grimsby, 1258); Prestwich (ed.), York, p. 13
(1301); Liber Albus, pp. 228–9 (1272–1307), 239 (1272–1307), 329–30 (1278–9), 400
(1383–4); Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae, ii, ‘Liber Custumarum’, pp. 393–4, 404–
5 (1320–1); CLB, d, p. 229 (1310), e, pp. 56 (1316), 131 (1320), 179–80 (1323),
g, p. 330 (1374), k, pp. 45 (1437), 249 (1440); Bridgwater, p. 50 (1379); York, i,
pp. 45–6 (1389), 197–9 (1418), ii, pp. 174–5 (1428); Bailey (ed.), Transcripts (Winch-
ester, 1399); Winchester, pp. 7–8 (1403), 120 (1486), 120–1 (1488), 131 (1520);
Salisbury, pp. 75, 128, nos. 167, 260 (1416, 1427); Norwich, i, pp. 74–5 (1414),
ii, pp. 86–7 (1422), 90 (1440), 92 (1455), 316–17; King’s Lynn, p. 264, no. 312
(1423), p. 266, no. 319 (1443); Hull (ed.), Calendar, p. 3 (1433); Wood, Medieval
Tamworth, p. 77 (1438 and 1511); Coventry, pp. 223 (1445), 361 (1470), 389 (1474),
565 (1495), 569 (1495); Leicester, ii, p. 292 (1467); Northampton, i, pp. 224, 254–5,
cc.26, 30 and 73 (c.1460), i, pp. 307–9 (1467), 376–7 (late fifteenth century); Toulmin
Smith (ed.), English Gilds, pp. 381, 384 (Worcester, 1467); Great Red Book, i, p. 141
(late fifteenth century).
222 (much evil and unable merchandise is kept and sold throughout the year at outrageous
price, in great hindering of the king’s people.) York, i, pp. 222–3 (fifteenth century?).
See also Bristol, ii, pp. 71–2 (late fourteenth century).
223 Britnell, ‘Town life’, p. 166; Britnell, ‘Urban economic regulation’, p. 4.
224 HMC, iv, p. 193 (Salisbury, 1408–9); Salisbury, pp. 89, 128, 141, 145, 147, 213, 231,
nos. 203, 260, 286, 295, 298, 413, 440 (1418–50); Memorials, pp. 300 (1357), 389
(1375); CLB, k, p. 249 (1440); Liber Albus, p. 400 (1383–4).
225 Beverley, p. 29 (1365).
226 Salter (ed.), Munimenta, pp. 31–4, no. 34 (1320).
182 Medieval market morality

to give residents an advantageous location. Burgesses or guildsmen were

certainly given a little more leeway to sell certain goods privately from
within their houses or shops, especially since they could already sell free
of market tolls. The freemen of fifteenth-century Canterbury, for exam-
ple, were allowed to open their windows to sell goods, and thus establish
a shop, whereas non-freemen had to approach the town authorities for
the same privilege.227 Freemen of towns were generally able to sell most
goods from their own shops and homes during the day, though a few
trades were restricted, such as fish and hides, because these were usually
brought in from outside and there were concerns about potential theft.
The length of the market day was also strictly defined. Most towns
opened their market place soon after sunrise (prime) and closed by sun-
set, but some did not open until ‘terce’ (three hours after daybreak). The
market in fourteenth-century York opened at 5am in summer and 7am
in winter, while in fifteenth-century Winchester, selling began at 9am
and traders were expected to remain in their places until 1pm.228 The
division of the market day was often marked by the ringing of church
bells for the canonical hours; thus religious time punctuated the market
day.229
Additionally, there were rules in all towns which allowed domestic cus-
tomers time to buy goods for their own consumption before commercial
wholesalers and traders could enter the market. Consumers were effec-
tively given privileged initial access to grain and other foodstuffs. In the
markets of Southampton, London, Leicester and elsewhere, regraters,
cornmongers, bakers, brewers and cooks were simply forbidden from
buying grain and victuals to sell again before prime or before the com-
mons had had an initial chance to purchase goods for their own needs.230

227 Myers (ed.), English Historical Documents, p. 569 (Canterbury, c.1430). See also Furley
(ed.), Ancient Usages, pp. 36–7 (late thirteenth century); Red Paper Book, p. 9 (late four-
teenth century); Nottingham, i, pp. 316–17 (1396); Great Red Book, ii, p. 58 (1459?),
iii, p. 82 (1467); Leicester, ii, p. 294 (1467); Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 333
(Exeter, 1481).
228 York, i, p. 46 (1389); Winchester, pp. 120–1 (1488). See also Gross, Gild Merchant, ii,
pp. 205, 263 (Reading and Winchester).
229 Epstein, ‘Business cycles’.
230 Leicester, i, p. 181 (1279), ii, pp. 21 (1335–6), 106–7 (1357), 291 (1467), iii, p. 19
(1521); Oak Book, i, pp. 70–1, c.70 (c.1300); Black Book, ii, pp. 102–3, c.28 (c.1309);
Liber Albus, pp. 229 (1272–1307), 236 (1272–1307), 251 (1284–5), 328 (1278–9),
400–1 (1383–4); Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae, ii, ‘Liber Custumarum’, pp. 118,
193 (1299–1300); CLB, a, p. 217 (1276–8); Furley (ed.), Ancient Usages, pp. 32–3, no.
26 (late thirteenth century); Salter (ed.), Medieval Archives, i, p. 20, no. 11 (Oxford,
1255); CPR, 1266–72, p. 195 (Cambridge, 1268); Coss (ed.), Early Records of Medieval
Coventry, p. 41 (1278); Prestwich (ed.), York, p. 13 (1301); Memorials, pp. 221 (1345),
300 (1357), 389 (1375), 481–2 (1382); York, i, pp. 46 (1389), 172 (1479); Jeayes (ed.),
Court Rolls, i, p. 144 (1336); Coventry, pp. 25, 29 (1421), 115 (1428), 666 (1519);
 Regulation of the market 183

For instance, those who bought victuals to sell again before the first hour
in thirteenth-century Grimsby had to pay a penalty of half a mark to
the common good of the town.231 Regraters, in particular, were watched
carefully and faced forfeiture of any goods bought before the correct
time. The reason given in the Chesterfield charter of 1294 was: ‘that the
magnates and the good men of the country and the burgesses may not
be hindered [by regraters] in buying their own necessaries in the market
before the hour of prime’.232 Such regulations were maintained through-
out the later Middle Ages, though the precise division of the market day
varied from town to town. In fourteenth-century Bristol, no butchers,
fishmongers or regraters (or their servants) were to purchase fresh fish to
sell again before the third hour.233 In Nottingham, the first part of the
day was set aside for the sale of goods for personal or household con-
sumption, while after the ninth hour (‘none’) goods could be bought for
regrating.234 Cooks in the fifteenth-century York market could buy only
at specified times, and just to the value of 18d. between Evensong and
Prime the next morning ‘for dyners of travelyng men’.235 The application
of the law thus varied from market to market, but the main distinction in
operation was between those purchasing for immediate consumption or
domestic use and those purchasing for further resale.
In general, then, a market day was divided into temporal sections,
delineated by the ringing of the market or church bell, so that different
market patterns were created during the day.236 The morning was domi-
nated by domestic and small transactions, the afternoon by the purchases
of hucksters, hostelers and cooks, and the evening, before dusk fell, by
their sales to travellers and those who had missed the morning mar-
ket. There were thus specific controls dictating the actions of consumers
according to the use to which they intended to put their purchases. Yet,
there also appear to have been many attempts to circumvent these rules.

Winchester, pp. 10 (1409), 131 (1520); Beverley, pp. 23 (1405), 29–30 (1409), 38
(1401); Norwich, i, pp. 123–4 (fifteenth century), 181 (early fourteenth century), ii,
pp. 82 (1373), 91 (1455); BBC, 1216–1307, pp. 293–8 (Grimsby, 1258; Cambridge,
1268; Bakewell, 1286); Bailey (ed.), Bailiffs’ Minute Book, p. 19 (Dunwich, 1427);
Great Red Book, i, p. 143 (1452); Northampton, i, pp. 225–8, cc.30 and 40 (c.1460);
Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, ii, p. 179 (Dover, fifteenth century); Toulmin Smith
(ed.), English Gilds, p. 381 (Worcester, 1467); Henley, pp. 185–6, 189 (1517 and 1519).
231 BBC, 1216–1307, pp. 293–8 (Grimsby, 1258)
232 Ibid., p. 298 (Chesterfield, 1294). See also Maitland (ed.), Select Pleas of the Crown, i,
pp. 88–9 (Worcester, 1221).
233 Bristol, i, pp. 38–9 (1344), ii, pp. 22–5 (1339), 225–6 (late fourteenth century).
234 Mastoris, ‘Regulating the Nottingham markets’.
235 York, i, pp. 223–4 (fifteenth century).
236 Bristol, ii, p. 225 (late fourteenth century); Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 343
(Berwick, 1283–4); Henley, pp. 178, 184–5 (1517).
184 Medieval market morality

A note in the York Memorandum Book reveals the frustration of town

authorities in dealing with petty cooks and regraters: ‘and that cukes and
regrators kepe theyr tyme of byyng als[o] thayr constitucions and gover-
naunce of thys citee wyll, upon payn that falles tharfor. They knawe it
wele ynogh.’237

Sunday trading
There was also a moral element to temporal restrictions, with trade pro-
hibited on Sundays or during religious festivals. This tradition had old
antecedents and was primarily enforced due to religious concerns rather
than because of economic considerations.238 Ecclesiastical authorities
and others desired to keep commercial activity separate from specifically
assigned religious days, not only to maintain a peaceful, non-working day,
but to ensure that the sordidness of trade did not taint holy days. A regu-
larly cited instance is the mission of Eustace, Abbot of Flay, to England in
1201 to preach for Sunday observance. This led to several towns, such as
Bury St Edmunds, transferring their Sunday market day to a weekday or
moving their market place away from the churchyard.239 However, soon
after, Roger of Hoveden complained of reversions to former habits and
a slackening of enthusiasm, and some Sunday institutions survived.240
For instance, in 1305, the town of Cockermouth complained about a
Sunday market at the nearby church of Crosthwaite, where people ‘buy
and sell there corn, flour, beans, peas, linen, cloth, meat and fish and
other merchandise’; though their concern was more about a loss of tolls
than the morality of Sabbath trade.241
The most striking legislation on the issue of Sunday trading came
during the reign of Henry VI, who seems to have been actively involved
in an enactment of 1448–9. This statute decried the scandal of any fairs
and markets held on Sundays or high feast days and ordered that they
should be moved to another day. Only the four Sundays during harvest
and the buying and selling of necessary victuals were exempted from this
prohibition; a concession that recognised the exigency of some sorts of

237 York, i, pp. 223–4 (fifteenth century).

238 Attenborough (ed.), Laws, pp. 106–7, c.7 (laws of Edward and Guthrum, c.921),
pp. 140–1, c.24 (laws of Aethelstan, c.925–39); Report of the Royal Commission, i,
appx i, p. 33, cc.13 and 17 (laws of Aethelred, c.978–1016).
239 Cate, ‘English mission’; Cate, ‘The church and market reform’; Salzman, English Trade,
pp. 124–6; Butler (ed.), Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond, p. 132; Maitland (ed.), Select
Pleas of the Crown, i, p. 20.
240 Stubbs (ed.), Chronica, iv, pp. 123–4, 167–72. On 26 May 1290, Edward I prohibited
Sunday markets in a proclamation, CUL, MS Additional 3584, fol. 251r–v.
241 Parl. Rolls, Vetus Codex, mem. 134 [55] (1305).
 Regulation of the market 185

trade and mirrored the prudence of Dives and Pauper.242 However, there
was also a passage in the statute which pondered explicitly the spiritual
dangers of the marketplace and the intimate connection of trade, avarice
and lying:
for great earthly covetousness, the people is more willingly vexed, and in bodily
labour foiled, than in other ferial days, as in fastening and making their booths and
stalls, bearing and carrying, lifting and placing their wares outward and home-
ward, as though they did nothing remember the horrible defiling of their souls
in buying and selling, with many deceitful lies, and false perjury, with drunken-
ness and strifes, and so specially withdrawing themselves and their servants from
divine service.243
The English episcopacy similarly continued to warn against Sunday
trading and Bishop Braybrooke, in 1392, and Archbishop Arundel, in
1413, both issued letters against working on Sundays and feast days.244
The London barbers had already been denounced by the Archbishop of
Canterbury in 1413 for opening on Sundays, stating that ‘the Lord hath
blessed the seventh day and made it holy, and hath commanded that it
shall be observed by no abusive pursuit of any servile occupations’. He
threatened excommunication but despaired that ‘temporal punishment
is held more in dread than clerical, and that which touches the body or
the purse more than that which kills the soul’, and thus petitioned the
city authorities to impose a pecuniary penalty upon offenders.245
Sunday trading was obviously still an issue in many towns during the
fifteenth century. In 1444, when the London authorities ordered that
nothing should be bought or sold on Sundays nor any wares made or
delivered, the chronicler, Robert Fabyan, lamented that ‘the whiche orde-
naunce helde but a whyle’.246 Ordinances for Maldon targeted butchers
and ale-sellers, ordering them not to sell meat and ale on Sundays until
after the bell was rung at All Saints’ Church. After 1428, the butchers
of York were also allowed to sell their meat on Sundays outside the time
of divine service.247 The authorities at Lynn similarly prohibited Sunday
trading by an ordinance of 1465, but drew on statute law in allowing
taverners and common cooks to continue, and others at times of harvest
and need.248 Town authorities were seemingly content to follow moral

242 See above, p. 122. 243 Statutes, ii, pp. 351–2, 27 Hen VI c.5 (1448–9).
244 Thomson, ‘Wealth, poverty’, pp. 276–7. 245 Memorials, pp. 593–4 (1413).
246 CLB, k, p. 293 (1444); Ellis (ed.), New Chronicles, p. 617; Flenley (ed.), Six Town
Chronicles, p. 103; Thomas and Thornley (eds.), Great Chronicle, p. 177.
247 Alsford, Towns (Maldon, fifteenth century); York, ii, pp. 182–3 (1428). See also Memo-
rials, p. 354 (1371); CLB, k, p. 10 (1423); Beverley, pp. 123–5 (1416); Coventry, p. 547
(1493); Winchester, pp. 65–6 (1428), 142 (1525).
248 King’s Lynn, p. 268, no. 325 (1465); York, ii, p. 161 (1425); Northampton, i, pp. 311–12
(fifteenth century?); Norwich, ii, p. 87 (1422).
186 Medieval market morality

precepts, provided exemptions were made for important times of year or

for necessary victuallers. There was an ultimate recognition that certain
Sunday trading was unavoidable and the exemptions were perhaps as
important as the rule.

Order and sanitation

Besides the direct activity of buying and selling, municipal ordinances
were also established to tackle the harmful by-products of commer-
cial and industrial activities. Keeping peace and order in a town mar-
ket was one major concern for market bailiffs and constables. Heated
arguments and fights could easily occur over a disputed bargain and
the normal mechanisms of the borough and leet court were employed
to punish offenders. In early fourteenth-century London, there was an
inquiry into bakers, taverners and other traders found guilty of commit-
ting assaults with swords, bucklers and other arms during the night.249 In
late fifteenth-century Leicester, those that fought and drew blood within
sight of the high cross and on market day were fined more than those
who caused trouble at other times and places.250 The regulations of sev-
eral towns tried to limit the use of weapons by insisting that innkeepers
warned guests to leave their swords and daggers within the inn, or order-
ing butchers not to bring ‘bills, halberds or great staves’ within the city
limits.251 However, in fifteenth-century Norwich, holders of shops were
actually ordered to have staves at hand ‘for preserving the peace in the
city and for resisting rioters and rebels’.252
The medieval marketplace would have been a bustling hive of activity,
with hawkers and stallholders competing loudly for the attention of cus-
tomers. The fishmongers of Coventry were apparently keen to take up
as much room as possible in displaying their wares and were ordered to
make their boards smaller in order to facilitate passing traffic.253 Adver-
tising was fairly rudimentary: simple signs were hung outside shops and
stalls, and there would have been a cacophony of loud cries by vendors

249 CLB, e, p. 116 (1319–20). In a similar vein, in 1327, London officials were ordered to
punish lax victuallers in the same writ that warned of ‘armed evil-doers who roamed
the streets’. Braid, ‘Laying the foundations’, 19; Thomas and Jones (eds.), Calendar of
Plea and Memorandum Rolls, i, p. 45; CPR (1327–30), pp. 184–5.
250 Leicester, ii, p. 317 (1488). 251 Coventry, p. 29 (1421); Liber Albus, p. 335 (1363).
252 Norwich, ii, p. 95 (1461).
253 Coventry, pp. 276 (1453), 306 (1459). See also Liber Albus, p. 237 (1272–1307); York,
iii, p. 180 (1475). Such temporary stalls and boards were often ordered to be removed
when the market day was over. Coventry, p. 28 (1421); CLB, a, p. 217 (1276–8); Liber
Albus, p. 290 (1307–27); Jeayes (ed.), Court Rolls, i, pp. 96–8 (1330); Walker (ed.),
Court Rolls, v, p. 12.
 Regulation of the market 187

or their servants.254 The use of basic advertising was encouraged by offi-

cials as this increased the publicity of a sale and thus aided inspection.
Nevertheless, a London ordinance in 1475 complained of overly forceful
tactics by cooks, in a way reminiscent of John Gower’s complaints:

divers persones of the saide Craft [of cooks] with their hands embrowed [cov-
ered in broth] and fowled be accustumed to drawe and pluk other Folk as well
gentilmen as other comon people by their slyves [sleeves] and clothes to bye of
their vitailles whereby many debates and strives often tymes happen ayenst the
peas [against the peace].255

This ordinance neatly encapsulated various concerns about hygiene, dirt,

aggressive sales tactics and potential disputes in the marketplace.
All towns, small or large, also faced problems of sanitation and refuse,
especially with the presence of butchers and tanners who produced unhy-
gienic waste in large quantities. Indeed, a prime concern of town laws
was that no butchers, tanners, cooks or other traders should throw their
rubbish into the streets.256 The cooks and fishmongers of Coventry were
separately warned against throwing their filth ‘vndur hur bordys [boards],
ne in the hye [high] stret’. They and other traders were expected to
carry away any entrails and rubbish at the end of the market day, as
well as to wash the paving stones and clean the channels.257 Regulations
repeatedly addressed the issue of sanitation by demanding the upkeep
of a clean marketplace, while traders were discouraged from unhygienic
habits. For instance, the fishmongers of Coventry were prohibited from
cutting stockfish and salt-fish upon the same boards where previously
meat had been cut; while victuallers in York were not allowed to place
bread in their windows with contaminating items like oil, butter and
fat.258 People feared filth and ‘stench’ as sources of disease and conta-
gion, and the York ordinances stated: ‘The people of each trade shall be
placed and ordained to remain in a specific place, so that no degrading
business or unsuitable trade is carried out among those who sell food for
humans’.259
Designated areas were set aside for the disposal of rubbish, intended
to maintain the cleanliness of public spaces. The butchers of Beverley
had to dispose of blood, offal and bones only in assigned places and

254 Nottingham, i, pp. 218–19 (1380–1); Northampton, i, p. 378 (late fifteenth century).
255 CLB, l, p. 129 (1475).
256 Carr, ‘From pollution to prostitution’, 28–9.
257 Coventry, pp. 26 (1421), 382–3 (1472), 555 (1494), 624 (1509).
258 Ibid., p. 312 (1459); Prestwich (ed.), York, pp. 11–12 (1301).
259 Prestwich (ed.), York, p. 17 (1301). See also Carr, ‘Controlling the butchers’, 450–1,
460–1.
188 Medieval market morality

not leave them in the streets.260 The Southampton Oak Book threatened
a fine of 12d. for making highways ‘more dirty, filthy, or corrupt’. No
one was to leave dung, offal, rubble or timber in the marketplace, roads,
gutters and quays.261 Those who threw urine or stinking water out of
windows or doors into the street were fined.262 Instead, in many towns,
residents were expected to keep clean the area in front of their door,
particularly in time for the start of market day.263 Nor were traders or
town residents allowed to let pigs, ducks or dogs wander in the streets.
Offending owners were usually amerced, but pigs found wandering in
Bristol also had their tail docked so that they could be identified if found
loose again, when they would be slaughtered for use at the gaol.264 The
pigs in Maldon were all expected to have a ring through their noses, by
which they could be tied up, and anyone that killed a wandering pig could
not be prosecuted by its owner.265 Loose pigs were obviously considered
a significant nuisance.266
Butchers were especially subject to accusations of unsanitary conduct,
endangering public health and causing a nuisance and stench, because of
their slaughtering and scalding practices.267 A late fourteenth-century

260 Beverley, pp. 28–9 (1365), 129 (1510).

261 Oak Book, i, pp. 52–3, c.42 (c.1300). See also CLB, a, pp. 216, 219–20 (1276–8),
g, p. 300 (1372), h, p. 355 (1390); Memorials, pp. 389 (1375), 435–6 (1379); Liber
Albus, pp. 228, 237 (1272–1307); Beverley, pp. 4–5 (1359); Bristol, ii, pp. 31, 227–
8 (fourteenth century); York, i, pp. lxviii–lxix, 17 (1377); Nottingham, i, pp. 274–9
(1395), ii, pp. 38–43 (1407), 60–3 (1408); Coventry, p. 23 (1421); Great Red Book,
i, p. 142 (1452); Northampton, i, p. 229, c.44 (c.1460); Norwich, ii, pp. 84 (1380),
97–8 (1467); Leicester, ii, p. 290 (1467); Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 398
(Worcester, 1467).
262 Leicester, ii, p. 21 (1335–6); Liber Albus, p. 238 (1272–1307); Bristol, ii, p. 228 (late
fourteenth century); CLB, g, p. 300 (1372), h, p. 355 (1390); Great Red Book, i,
p. 142 (1452).
263 Alsford, Towns (Lynn, early fifteenth century); Coventry, pp. 23 (1421), 217 (1444),
273 (1452); Great Red Book, i, p. 143 (1452); Leicester, ii, pp. 290–1 (1467); Toulmin
Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 384 (Worcester, 1467).
264 Bristol, ii, pp. 31–2, 227 (fourteenth century).
265 Alsford, Towns (Maldon, fifteenth century).
266 Oak Book, i, pp. 52–3, c.43 (c.1300); Prestwich (ed.), York, p. 16 (1301); CLB, a,
pp. 216–17, 220 (1276–8), h, pp. 311 (1387), 355 (1390); Liber Albus, pp. 235–6
(1272–1307), 388–9; Ingleby (ed.), Red Register, ii, p. 224, fol. 185 (1331); Norwich, i,
p. 190 (early fourteenth century), ii, pp. 88 (1437), 205–7 (1354); Leicester, ii, pp. 21–2
(1335–6), 103 (1355), 292–3 (1467); Nottingham, i, pp. 268–9 (1351–2); Beverley, pp.
19 (1360s), 29 (1367); York, i, pp. lxix, 18 (1377); Northampton, i, pp. 247–8 (1381),
289–90 (1457); Salisbury, p. 89, no. 203 (1418); Coventry, pp. 27 (1421), 217 (1444),
361 (1470); Great Red Book, i, p. 144 (1452); Henley, pp. 57, 75 (1452–3); Toulmin
Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 398 (Worcester, 1467); Winchester, pp. 136–7 (1380), 149
(1531).
267 Sabine, ‘Butchering’; Carr, ‘Controlling the butchers’; Barron, London, pp. 263–4.
See Norwich, i, p. 365 (1289); Salter (ed.), Munimenta, pp. 13–14, no. 16 (1310);
Salter (ed.), Medieval Archives, i, pp. 136–7, no. 89 (1339); Winchester, p. 18 (1409);
 Regulation of the market 189

York ordinance ordained that no butchers should throw refuse or

unwanted offal in the river, or wash skins where water was also drawn
for brewing or baking.268 The maintenance of fresh water supplies was a
particular concern for town authorities.269 Certain trades required large
amounts of water, such as butchers, brewers, bakers, tanners and dyers,
and town authorities tried to control the use of water conduits by vict-
uallers in order to preserve supplies for domestic use.270 There were
concerns about keeping the water supply clean and associated unsani-
tary practices by producers. In London, there were complaints that the
slaughtering of animals had led to putrefied blood in the streets and
entrails in the Thames, so that ‘the air in the same city has been greatly
corrupted and infected, and whereby the worst of abominations and
stenches have been generated, and sicknesses and many other maladies
have befallen persons’. Butchers were thus ordered to slaughter beasts
outside the city, and livestock markets were often located on the outskirts
of towns because of such space and hygiene concerns.271
The maintenance of medieval marketplaces was obviously an ongoing
and unenviable task for officials, who had to balance the needs of traders
with the requirement to guard against unsanitary and harmful practices.
It was probably a thankless endeavour since markets inevitably generated
dirt, waste, stench and conflict. The continual reiteration of ordinances
suggests a concerned intent to temper the worst commercial by-products,
but the level of success is difficult to discern.

Weights and measures

The public marketplace provided a physical, formal space for trade, but
further structures, devices and procedures were needed to facilitate trans-
actions. The actual tools of trade, whether visual instruments such as
weights, measures or coinage, or the mechanisms of bargaining and con-
tract, were largely founded upon consensual and long-established prin-
ciples of trading efficiency and expediency. They were also increasingly

Salisbury, p. 117, no. 236 (1423); Henley, p. 48 (1441); Great Red Book, i, pp. 143–4
(1452); Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, pp. 385, 396 (Worcester, 1467); York, iii,
pp. 58 (1421), 217–18 (1498).
268 York, i, p. 15 (1371). See also Red Paper Book, pp. 48–9 (1425–6).
269 Britnell, ‘Town life’, p. 136.
270 CLB, d, pp. 236–7 (1310), f, pp. 29 (1337), 128 (1345); Salter (ed.), Munimenta,
pp. 11–12, no. 13 (Oxford, 1305); Coventry, pp. 208 (1442–3), 232 (1448), 255 (1451),
584 (1497); Memorials, pp. 77–8 (1310), 225 (1345); Bristol, ii, pp. 229–30 (late
fourteenth century).
271 Memorials, pp. 356–8 (1371).
190 Medieval market morality

enshrined in national statutes, common law and Merchant Law, which

impressed a legal standard upon local centres.
The Crown was persistent in its attempts to enforce a standardis-
ation of weights and measures in England, perhaps driven on by the
extensive provisioning needs of the royal court as well as the needs of
the country in general.272 Legislative standardisation was also another
means of increasing the range of royal authority. Ultimately, however,
for those dealing in the marketplace, reliable weights and measures were
an important aspect of commercial confidence. The desire for uniform
weights and measures went back a long way; the laws of Edgar (c.959–
75) stated: ‘let one measure and one weight pass’.273 William I was also
keen to disseminate uniform measurements throughout the realm and
he adopted the Winchester standards introduced by Edgar, demand-
ing authentication by his royal seal.274 However, the continual reiter-
ation of the need for uniformity in weights and measures throughout
the later medieval period demonstrates that the process of standard-
isation was gradual and difficult. Prevalent local customs, as well as
matters of convenience for buyers and sellers, meant that local mea-
sures were still in use in several areas and trades.275 It was not until
the late fourteenth century, when the focus began to switch from the
units themselves to the practices employed, and when approved royal
vessels were widely distributed, that substantial progress appears to have
been made.
The development of weights and measures regulation was focused in
national laws and began in earnest with the ‘Assize of Measures’ of 1197,
recorded in Roger of Hoveden’s chronicle. This demanded standardisa-
tion and stated that all vessels should bear a mark ‘lest by guile they can
be falsified’.276 It differed from the earlier promulgations by also insisting
that each city or borough should have four to six lawful men, as well as
the sheriff or reeve, to keep the assize in that town: ‘that they see and
be sure that all things are sold and bought by the same measure, and
that all measures are of the same size according to the diversity of wares’.

272 For more detailed surveys of the development of weights and measures in England, see
Connor, Weights and Measures; Zupko, British Weights and Measures; Hall and Nicholas
(eds.), Select Tracts.
273 Report of the Royal Commission, i, appx i, p. 32, Laws of Eadgar, c.8 (c.959–75). There is
little evidence that the Anglo-Saxon kings pursued this issue by legislating for effective
enforcement.
274 Zupko, British Weights and Measures, p. 15; Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, p. 93.
275 There is evidence that some local forms of measurements were still extremely haphazard
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, being abitrarily based on bodily strength or
dimensions. Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 94–5.
276 Stubbs (ed.), Chronica, iv, pp. 33–4.
 Regulation of the market 191

The penalties for offenders were severe; they were to be imprisoned and
all their chattels seized. Official ‘keepers’ of weights and measures, if
negligent, were also at the mercy of the king and possible forfeitures.
Thus, central regulations provided the groundwork for the enforcement
of uniformity, but it remained heavily reliant upon the cooperation of
local officials.
Weights and measures were again addressed in John’s reign, most sig-
nificantly in Magna Carta (1215), which demanded standard measures
of wine, ale and grain and confirmed the London quarter as pre-eminent:

let there be one measure of wine throughout our kingdom and one measure of
ale and one measure of corn, namely the London quarter, and one width of cloth
whether dyed, russet or halberjet, namely two ells within the selvedges [woven
edgings]. Let it be the same with weights as with measures.277

However, the means of enforcement and correction were not defined

again by central legislation until the mid-thirteenth century. Judicium
Pillorie ordered that six men of a town were to gather all the bushels, half-
bushels, quarter-bushels, gallons, pottles, quarts, pounds, half-pounds,
and all the other weights and measures kept in the market, taverns and
bakehouses. All the vessels and weights had to be marked with the name
of the owner and checked for uniformity.278 This was expanded upon by
Statutum de Pistoribus in 1274–5, which explained how the royal Exche-
quer would provide a standard bushel, gallon, yard and stone to the
bailiff, mayor and six lawful men of certain towns. Each standard was
marked with an iron seal of the king and had to be kept safe under pain of
a £100 penalty. Any who used unsealed measures were to be amerced by
local officials, while ‘if any be convict for a double measure, that is to wit,
a greater for to buy with, and a smaller to sell with, he shall be impris-
oned for his falsehood, and shall be grievously punished’.279 The use of
double measures was a commonly denounced vice in medieval clerical

277 Holt, Magna Carta, pp. 326–7, c.35; Statutes, i, p. 11. The provisions of Magna Carta
were restated in several later statutes; Statutes, i, p. 117, 25 Edw I c.25 (1297); i,
p. 285, 14 Edw III st.1 c.12 (1340); i, pp. 321–2, 25 Edw III st.5 cc.9–10 (1351–2);
ii, pp. 241–2, 8 Hen VI c.5 (1429). Also see Britton, i, pp. 185–6, ch. 31, c.1 (1291–
2). Assisa de Ponderibus et Mensuris, issued during Edward I’s reign, advanced even
more information on the different weights and measures that could be used. Statutes, i,
pp. 204–5, 31 Edw I?.
278 Statutes, i, pp. 201–2, ‘Judicium Pillorie’.
279 Ibid., i, pp. 202–4, ‘Statutum de Pistoribus’. This is possibly related to several royal
commissions sent into the counties from 1273 to 1276 to examine measures and hold
pleas of the market. CPR, 1272–81, pp. 16, 31, 73, 136. Statutory provisions were
copied into borough custumals, e.g. Bristol, ii, pp. 218–19; Northampton, i, pp. 321–4;
Norwich, ii, p. 207. In 1430, the Coventry mayor sent for brass standard measures from
the Exchequer; Coventry, pp. 133–4 (1430).
192 Medieval market morality

literature, and regulations were couched in very similar terminology.280 It

is possible that preachers drew upon such statutes for their sermons and
moral manuals, copying the phrasing. The specification of severe pun-
ishment for double measures suggests that this was regarded as a greater
and more flagrant fraud than the use of unsealed measures, which could
be excused as negligence.
In 1340, a statute of Edward III repeated that there should be ‘one mea-
sure and one weight’ throughout the kingdom.281 A duplication in 1351–
2 of the weights and measures provision in Magna Carta was accompa-
nied by a recognition that standards had not been well kept.282 Similarly,
a statute of 1357 complained that merchants used different weights than
those ordained by law and the ‘Ordinances of the Staple’ declared that
some bought wool by one weight and sold by another.283 The frequent
reiteration of statutes in itself illustrates that the problems associated with
weights and measures were difficult to quash, with increasing numbers
of standards being produced by the Treasury during the fourteenth cen-
tury and distributed to the counties and towns. By 1429, all towns and
boroughs were expected to have a common balance and weights, or else
face fines of 40s. for towns, 100s. for boroughs and £10 for cities.284
Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the sheriffs, Justices
of the Peace and Clerk of the Market were all enjoined to punish those
using false measures and burn the offending vessels.285 The penalties
prescribed in statute law remained harsh and included imprisonment,
forfeiture of goods and recompense to the aggrieved party of perhaps
double the original value. Even in 1495, Parliament highlighted the fact
that ‘one weight and measure’ was still not standard in the kingdom ‘to
the great harm and trouble of many different subjects’. In response, they

280 See above, pp. 78–9. For instance, in Norwich in 1288, Agnes Gossip was accused
of buying by the greater and selling by the less (‘emit per majorem et vendit per
minorem’). Norwich, i, p. 361 (1288), also p. 367 (1289). The provision concerning
double measures was also stated in Statutes, i, pp. 201–2, ‘Judicium Pillorie’; i, p. 285,
14 Edw III st.1 c.12 (1340); ii, p. 337, 27 Edw III st.2 c.10 (1353). See also Fleta, ii,
pp. 121–2, bk. ii, c.12 (late thirteenth century); Britton, i, pp. 192–3, ch. 31, c.9
(1291–2); CPR, 1358–61, pp. 220–1 (York, 1359); Northampton, i, p. 376 (late fifteenth
century).
281 Statutes, i, p. 285, 14 Edw III st.1 c.12 (1340).
282 Ibid., i, pp. 321–2, 25 Edw III st.5, c.10 (1351–2). It did not help that some central
legislation allowed certain jurisdictions to be exempted from standardisation, ibid., ii,
pp. 63–4, 13 Ric II c.9 (1389–90).
283 Ibid., i, p. 350, 31 Edw III st.1 c.2 (1357); ii, p. 337, 27 Edw III st.2 c.10 (1353).
284 Ibid., ii, pp. 241–2, 8 Hen VI c.5 (1429).
285 Ibid., i, pp. 365–6, 34 Edw III cc.5–6 (1360–1); ii, p. 62, 13 Ric II st.1 c.4 (1389–90);
ii, p. 83, 16 Ric II c.3 (1392–3); ii, pp. 241–2, 8 Hen VI c.5 (1429); RP, iii, p. 267; Parl.
Rolls, Vetus Codex, mem. 120r (1302), cc.39–40 [36–37], April 1343, c.25, January
1393.
 Regulation of the market 193

ordered that brass standards should be delivered to every county and

city and then distributed to market towns. All conforming weights and
measures were to be stamped (with a crowned letter H) and faulty ones
burnt.286
Statutory regulations thus outlined the control of measuring standards,
with central officials and institutions, such as the Clerk of the Market and
the Exchequer, playing a primary role. However, royal officials and com-
missions could not hope to police weights and measures throughout the
realm and the actual enforcement of standards primarily remained a local
task.287 As with the regulation of trading offences, the right to supervise
weights and measures was granted to town and seigneurial authorities
by franchise or charter. Borough charters often specifically stated that
officials of a borough had the assize, assay, punishment and correction of
bread, wine, ale, victuals, measures, weights and other matters within the
said town and liberty, to the exclusion of the Clerk of the Market or other
royal officials.288 Such privileges were held by Oxford University since
the early fourteenth century and partly explains why, in 1427, the Chan-
cellor had three different measures for grain (modium, half-modium,
quarter-modium), four for liquids (lagenam, potellam, quartam, pintam),
two weights (Troy for bread and money, and ‘lyggyng’ weight for spices
and candles), a large and small scale, a gilt measure for cloth and two iron
seals in the shape of an ox-head (one for wooden measures and the other
for earthenware).289 The Ipswich ordinances outlined that, at any time,
bailiffs could test a trader’s measures for conformity, ‘so that non falshed
be doon in the forseyd toun of Gippeswich among such maner of mesurys
in esclaundre [slander] of the toun, ne of damage to the pepele’.290 Other
towns and markets had set places and times, such as during the leet
court, when weights and measures could be tried and sealed, with false
items destroyed. Strangers entering fifteenth-century Bristol with mer-
chandise sold by weight had to use the common beam, overseen by the

286 Parl. Rolls, c.44, October 1495. 287 Rosenthal, ‘Assizes’.

288 Norwich, i, pp. 26 (1345), 33 (1403–4), 121 (1447); Northampton, i, pp. 68–70 (1385);
CChR, vi, pp. 54–5 (Ipswich, 1446), pp. 194–5 (Dunwich, 1463), pp. 197–9 (Ipswich,
1463).
289 Anstey (ed.), Munimenta Academica, pp. 284–5.
290 Black Book, ii, pp. 176–7, c.83 [80] (c.1309). The sealing of measures might incur
a small fee. Liber Albus, p. 290 (1307–27). See also Jeayes (ed.), Court Rolls, i, p. 50
(1311); Norwich, i, pp. 175–7 (early fourteenth century), ii, p. 89 (1440); Alsford,
Towns (Lynn, 1309; Maldon, fifteenth century); Bristol, i, p. 38 (1344); Salter (ed.),
Medieval Archives, i, pp. 140–2, no. 93 (1346); York, i, pp. 15–16 (1371); Coventry,
p. 192 (1439); Great Red Book, ii, p. 51 (1455?); Leicester, ii, pp. 294–5 (1467), iii,
p. 17 (1520); Winchester, p. 126 (1515).
194 Medieval market morality

Chamberlain or his deputies, and pay for the privilege.291 The costs of
maintaining standard weights and measures could thus fall on outside
traders.
There were many other local provisions to ensure that the standard of
weights and measures was openly maintained. For example, the turners
of London were ordered not to make any other measures than gallons,
pottles and quarts, and not to make cups or other false measures.292
Every innkeeper of Bristol had to keep a balance and a weight of 6lb.
hanging openly in their hostelry so that all guests could check the weight
of hay sold to them.293 By the late fifteenth century, standard measures
were set up in several places within Bristol, at the High Cross, Bridge
Corner and Stallage Cross, so that sacks and vessels could be easily
tested.294 However, traders still flouted the law and the language in
some court entries displays a degree of outrage. William Godfrey of
Colchester was convicted in 1452 of deceptively using false weights and
he was placed in prison ‘for perjury and as an infringer and violator of the
public weal and liberty of the town’.295 In Ingoldmells (Lincolnshire) on
12 June 1420, Thomas Toppyng of Burgh was fined for unjustly defaming
the officers of Skegness in claiming that they held a false measure to the
deception of the people.296 The reputation of a town franchise and
the protection of consumers were prominent aspects of local legislative
rhetoric. Social pressure was exerted upon town authorities to conform
to national laws.
Regulations also highlighted the issue that local customs were not
easy to overcome, as seen in the statutes against heaping. The heaping
of grain in a bushel was a custom that created irksome inconsistency
in the eyes of Parliament, yet was considered to be beneficial to many
merchants.297 Statutum de Pistoribus took such customs into account and
allowed oats to be sold with heapings on every bushel, but declared that

291 Great Red Book, ii, p. 50 (1455?); Stanford (ed.), Ordinances of Bristol, pp. 10–11
(c.1515). See also Liber Albus, p. 248 (1284–5); Norwich, i, pp. 177–8 (early fourteenth
century).
292 Memorials, pp. 78 (1310), 234–5 (1347); Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae, iii, appx
ii, p. 432 (1307–27).
293 Great Red Book, i, p. 144 (1452). See also York, iii, pp. 242–3 (1528).
294 Toulmin Smith (ed.), The Maire, p. 84 (late fifteenth century). See also Coventry,
pp. 169 (1434), 267 (1451), 334 (1467).
295 Red Paper Book, pp. 59–60 (1452).
296 Massingberd (ed.), Court Rolls, p. 241 (1420).
297 Britnell discussed this custom in Britnell, ‘Advantagium Mercatoris’. For measuring
corn by level or heaped bushels, see Oschinsky (ed.), Walter of Henley, pp. 276–7, c.39,
pp. 324–5, c.55; Norwich, i, pp. 360 (1288), 371 (1293).
 Regulation of the market 195

all wheat measures should be struck level and not heaped.298 In 1413, it
was stated that in times past the measure of corn could be eight bushels
to the quarter, plus one bushel which could be heaped, yet now this was
forbidden. However, this very terminology implies that the use of heaping
was still in vogue and central legislation was not always successful in
combating customary practices.299
Another dominant concern of central government was the apparatus
called the auncel, which was banned outright in 1351–2, in response
to petitions of the past half-century demanding that traders should use
the balance instead.300 The auncel was a weighing device used for small
merchandise, consisting of a rod fulcrumed near one end and a weight
that moved along the graduated longer limb in order to weigh goods hung
at the other end.301 Traders favoured it because it was a complete and
self-contained weighing mechanism. However, the auncel could be falsely
manipulated and was more difficult for a customer to scrutinise than the
balance. A fraudulent trader could easily alter the weight of the auncel
counterpoise or keep the position of the counterpoise concealed. The
alternative beam scales or balances were simple equal-arm fulcrums with
weights in one pan and goods in the other. However, even the balance
could be used incorrectly and the legislators ordered ‘that the tongue
of the balance be even, without bowing to the one side or to the other,
or without putting hand or foot, or other touch making of the same’.302
Anyone that falsely used the balance was to be imprisoned for a year
and his weighed goods forfeited, while any party who sued against the
offending trader was to receive four times the value of the goods falsely
weighed.
The auncel, despite the misgivings of traders who petitioned Parlia-
ment, continued to be used well into the fifteenth century. A statute
of 1429 complained about the auncel, ‘for the great hurt and subtile
deceits done by the same measure to the common people’.303 By this
time, the Church had joined forces with the state, and Henry Chicheley,

298 Statutes, i, pp. 202–4, ‘Statutum de Pistoribus’. See also ibid., ii, p. 79, 15 Ric II c.4
(1391); Parl. Rolls, c.28, November 1390.
299 Statutes, ii, p. 174, 1 Hen V c.10 (1413), ii, pp. 282–4, 11 Hen VI c.8 (1433).
300 Ibid., i, pp. 321–2, 25 Edw III st.5 cc.9–10 (1351–2); reiterated in 34 Edw III cc.5–6
(1360–1), i, pp. 365–6; see also RP, ii, p. 239.
301 Connor, Weights and Measures, pp. 133–41. Cheese was often weighed on an auncel;
Statutes, ii, p. 267, 9 Hen VI c.8 (1430–1).
302 Statutes, ii, p. 337, 27 Edw III st.2 c.10 (1353). In Leicester, no stranger or broker was
to touch a balance in a merchant’s house unless they were the buyer or seller; Leicester,
i, pp. 112–13 (1273), 214–15 (1290), 225 (1299). See also Riley (ed.), Chronicles,
pp. 26–7; CLB, f, pp. 113–14 (1344).
303 Statutes, ii, pp. 241–2, 8 Hen VI c.5 (1429); see also RP, v, p. 30.
196 Medieval market morality

Archbishop of Canterbury, pronounced excommunication in 1428 upon

all who used weights contrary to the king’s standard, especially ‘le Aun-
cel, Scheft or Pounder or any of them’. The archbishop drew upon tradi-
tional moral invective in making his condemnation: ‘For there are, as the
voice of the public proclaims and authoritative experience of these things
manifests, in some cities, boroughs and other places of our province of
Canterbury, numerous ruthless purchasers, who, unmindful of their sal-
vation, are wont to buy fraudulently from the simple common folk and
others, wool, honey, wax, and other things required for human uses’.304
Soon after, an entry in the Northampton civic records declared that any
who used the auncel would be ‘cursed be the chirche’.305 There was a
close similarity between secular law and ecclesiastical edicts, with the
Church able to promulgate its condemnation through the forums of the
pulpit and the confessional.
Many historians have suggested that the continual reiteration of the
same rules, regarding the standardisation of weights and measures, high-
lighted the confusing and varied mensural system that existed in medieval
England.306 There were certainly complaints against infringements in
a statute of 1340 and the distribution of weights and measures to an
increasing number of towns by the fifteenth century suggests growing
efforts and expenditure to uphold the process of standardisation.307 Nev-
ertheless, national legislation was important in establishing a principle of
uniformity and a royal standard in which all traders could place their
trust. Despite the seemingly endless litany of local measures and the
need to reinforce the message of uniformity at regular intervals, there
was a gradual recognition at all levels of the importance of measurement
controls for commercial growth.

Coinage
Another instrument of trade, which was also subject to uniform stan-
dards and controls, was the currency of the realm. Coin was increas-
ingly important in the growing market economy of late medieval Eng-
land and to ensure confidence in this medium of exchange the sovereign
attempted to exert control.308 Coinage became a symbol of royal prestige
and authority. Offa of Mercia in the eighth century, and Alfred of Wessex

304 Wilkins, Concilia, iii, pp. 516–17; cf. Connor, Weights and Measures, p. 139; Owst,
Literature and Pulpit, p. 362. See also Arnold, Customs of London, p. 191 (c.1519).
305 Northampton, i, p. 375 (late fifteenth century).
306 Salzman, English Trade, pp. 42–5.
307 Statutes, i, p. 285, 14 Edw III st.1 c.12 (1340).
308 Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, pp. 100–9.
 Regulation of the market 197

in the ninth century, both sought to establish a uniform coinage of silver

pennies in their respective domains.309 In the tenth century, Aethelstan
(929–39) was the first to declare that there should be one coinage in his
realm and that money should be minted only in the towns ascribed. The
penalty for base moneyers who produced light coins was for them to have
their hand cut off and displayed on the mint.310
There were continuous attempts throughout the later Middle Ages to
preserve a centralised monetary standard in England, either in terms of its
supply, quality or denomination. Later statute law imposed stark penal-
ties for counterfeit coins, with the Statute of Westminster (1275) declar-
ing that it was akin to forging the king’s seal and was thus treason.311
Money was stamped with the mark of the king as a guarantee of its size
and weight. In 1248, Matthew Paris complained about the debasement
of the English coinage due to the practice of clipping: ‘The coins were
clipped almost to the inner circle and the inscription round the bor-
der either completely deleted or very badly defaced’.312 The clipping
of coins appears to have been a widespread problem in the thirteenth
century, exacerbating bullion shortages. It was thus decreed that no one
should trade with pennies that were not of legal weight, or else they would
be suspended from the gallows. Yet, by the end of the fifteenth century,
clipped pennies were declared legal tender due to the ‘manifold inconve-
niences that daily ensue among his subjects for refusing of his coin, that
is to say, of small, thin, and old pence’.313
Many statutes conveyed concern about the use of false money or for-
eign coinage, such as pollards and crockards, which had dispersed widely
in the country ‘to the damage and oppression of our people’.314 The 1301
York civic ordinances declared that the reason people complained about
high costs was due to the dissemination of low-quality coins.315 Certain

309 Zupko, British Weights and Measures, p. 11; Wood, Medieval Economic Thought,
pp. 92–3.
310 Attenborough (ed.), Laws, pp. 134–5, c.14 (laws of Aethelstan, c.925–39).
311 Statutes, i, pp. 26–39, 3 Edw I, ‘Statute of Westminster’ (1275); Wood, Medieval
Economic Thought, p. 100.
312 Vaughan (ed.), Chronicles, pp. 139–40. For a literary example, where Covetousness
admits to learning from Jews and Lombards how to clip coins, see Piers Plowman,
b.v.242–4.
313 TRP, i, p. 47, no. 42 (1498), pp. 48–9, no. 44 (1499), pp. 60–1, no. 54 (1504),
pp. 70–2, no. 57 (1505).
314 Statutes, i, pp. 131–5, 27 Edw I (1299); i, pp. 273–4, 9 Edw III st.2 cc.1–11 (1335).
For the use of pollards and crockards, see CLB, c, pp. 39–40, 53–6, 68 (1299–1300);
Hudson (ed.), Leet, pp. 51–4.
315 Prestwich (ed.), York, pp. 14–15 (1301). See also Thomas (ed.), Calendar, pp. 60–1
(Roll c, 1299–1300).
198 Medieval market morality

types of coinage were also declared illegal in 1415, such as the gally half-
pence, suskin, dotkin and Scottish silver.316 The recurrent legislation on
this matter during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries implies that the
use of varied unofficial coins was a blight on the monetary standard of
the country.317 Yet, the use of such low-quality coinage was seemingly
difficult to prevent. It appears that the minted English coinage was not
sufficiently diverse for the developing economy and often pennies were
cut to make smaller denominations. Perhaps the most important devel-
opment for petty retail traders was the introduction of the round farthing
coin during the reign of Edward I in 1279, which was of undoubted ben-
efit in small transactions even if they were still not produced in extensive
numbers. Previously it was the practice to cut pennies into halves and
quarters.318 Peasants needed small coin to pay dues and the increasing
number of petty transactions in the growing market network put a strain
on the money available.
Increasing the volume of currency aided commercialisation, but a
decline in money supply might trigger recession. Nicholas Mayhew and
Martin Allen have both tracked the increases and decreases in the coin
in circulation. Allen argued that the scarcity of small change, caused by
the shrinkage of the English silver coinage in the fifteenth century, must
have inhibited various economic activities.319 For all coins, a heightened
level of mint output undoubtedly had an inflationary effect on prices,
while a shortage of coins could generally prove deflationary, though the
exact relationship between monetary supply and recession remains much
debated. Nevertheless, the basic aim of national regulations remained the
establishment of a uniform currency and the elimination of bad coinage.
For traders, a trusted and common medium was the basis for any bargains
beyond equivalent exchange.

Bargaining and sale

The visual tools of trade were vital to the processes of bargaining and
sale. Whether or not a commodity had a fixed price, a purchaser needed
to know that the quantification of the goods was according to recognised

316 Statutes, ii, p. 191, 3 Hen V (1415). For convictions of traders using Scottish or false
money ‘maliciously’, see Kimball (ed.), Rolls, pp. 64–5 (Roll cii), nos. 6, 9.
317 Statutes, i, pp. 131–5, 27 Edw I (1299); i, p. 219, 20 Edw I, ‘Statuta de Moneta’; i,
pp. 273–4, 9 Edw III St.2 cc.1–11 (1335); i, p. 299, 17 Edw III (1343); i, p. 322, 25
Edw III St.5 c.13 (1351–2); ii, p. 87, 17 Ric II c.1 (1393–4); ii, p. 191, 3 Hen V (1415);
ii, p. 195, 4 Hen V c.6 (1415–16); ii, pp. 209–10, 9 Hen V St.2 cc.1–5 (1421); TRP, i,
pp. 26–7, no. 25 (1491), p. 42, no. 39 (1498), pp. 47–8, no. 43 (1499).
318 Eaglen, ‘Evolution of coinage’; Salzman, English Trade, pp. 1–24.
319 Mayhew, ‘Money and prices’; Allen, ‘Volume’.
 Regulation of the market 199

standards and the seller needed to acknowledge the value of the cur-
rency he received. These are first-base principles of sales transactions,
alongside factors of quality, value, demand and supply. The subsequent
processes of bargaining and concluding a deal were subject to several
laws in the late Middle Ages, though many of the details of haggling were
perhaps contained in unwritten social mores. The haggling process in
Caxton’s ‘Dialogues’ showed a refined formula of cultural and ideologi-
cal constraints, whereas written regulations primarily concerned the legal
contracting of a deal or the procedures to be undertaken when one party
reneged on an obligation.320 These laws were designed for enforceability
and also reflected notions of fairness and responsibility which are still
evident in consumer law today. Indeed, David Ibbetson has suggested
that the twelfth- and thirteenth-century common law manuals illustrate
the movement from ideas of mere exchange, to one of bargains as mutual
contracts with defined obligations.321
For a contract to be formally established, several criteria had to be
fulfilled. Firstly, the item sold had to be defined by type, quality, weight,
capacity and number, and a definite price-fixed; an undefined item, or
one without an agreed price, could not be sued for in a court of law.
Once these bargaining requirements had been fulfilled, the agreement
of reciprocal obligations between the two parties could be contracted.
This was signified by various devices, such as the giving and receiving of
the good, an oral stipulation of promise, a written bond or a symbolic
gesture.322 Two of the most basic devices were the handclasp, which was
the reduction of an early ritual ceremony, or a shared drink. Both acts
were expected to be visible and audible, and thus needed to take place in
the open marketplace or privately before witnesses in order to be valid.
‘God’s penny’ was similarly symbolic and involved the public giving of a
single, undistinguished coin from the buyer to the seller as indicative of
an agreed sale. This was recognised by law as binding and heavy penal-
ties could be invoked for breaking the agreement. The payment of ‘God’s
penny’ perhaps also implied a religious sanction. ‘Earnest money’ was an
evolved form of ‘God’s penny’ and represented not only a symbol of con-
tract, but also an actual percentage of the purchase money; in essence,
it was a forfeitable down-payment given to the seller. Medieval common
law stated that any purchaser who withdrew from such an agreement for-
feited the earnest. However, sellers faced potentially stronger sanctions
if they had taken earnest money and then reneged. Both Fleta and the

320 See above, pp. 69–70.

321 This was based upon Roman law. Ibbetson, ‘From property to contract’.
322 Fleta, ii, pp. 186–90, bk. ii, c.56 and pp. 194–6, c.58 (late thirteenth century).
200 Medieval market morality

twelfth-century customs of Preston stated that if a seller wished to with-

draw he had to give the buyer double the earnest, unless this conflicted
with law merchant, whereby the seller was to either deliver the wares or
pay 5s. for every farthing of earnest money.323
However, the use of these simplified devices left room for one party
to avoid the enforcement of the covenant, because they provided no
intrinsic proof or witness (beyond the public market itself ). The hand-
clasp and God’s penny might, theoretically, impose a legal obligation, but
they did not necessarily provide sufficient proof for a court. A charter
for Grimsby in 1258 placed restrictions upon the use of the handclasp
and did not allow it to be used for major trading items, such as fish
and grain, when the transaction involved a stranger. A more secure and
enforceable device, such as a deed or tally, had to be used instead.324
Agreements involving just burgesses could use the handclasp and bor-
ough law accepted fides facta as pleadable, illustrating again the distrust
of strangers that permeated local trading law. Nevertheless, in an efficient
market, procedures were put in place so parties not only knew when a
contract had been finalised, but had the means to compel agreement.
There were thus stronger devices upon which to seal more valuable bar-
gains. The ‘Statute of Acton Burnell’, in 1283, formulated the provision
of recognisances, which were formal written acknowledgements before
witnesses. These were then recorded by officials in certain town rolls in
the presence of both the creditor and debtor. Recognisances were virtu-
ally unchallengeable in court.325 Similarly, a bill of obligation or an entry
in a sales book were strong written proofs against which a defendant
could not use compurgation.326
There was also the tally, a notched stick which was broken in two and
each half given to the transacting parties. The notches represented the
amount owed, and the tally, like a bond of obligation or recognisance,
signified a debt as well as a contract made. Any party who produced a
tally, which the other party denied, could have his proof according to

323 Ibid., ii, pp. 194–6, bk. ii, c.58; Hall (ed.), Glanvill, pp. 129–30, x, 14 (c.1187–9).
For civic legislation referring to earnest money and ‘God’s penny’, see Bateson (ed.),
Borough Customs, i, pp. 217–19 (Preston, twelfth century; Berwick, 1249; Northamp-
ton, c.1460; Romney, 1498). For the use of such devices, see Farmer, ‘Marketing’, pp.
421–3; Gross (ed.), Select Cases, p. 50 (1291).
324 BBC, 1216–1307, p. 301 (Grimsby, 1258).
325 Statutes, i, pp. 53–4, 11 Edw I, ‘Statute of Merchants’ (1283); Black Book, ii, pp. 134–7,
c.50 (c.1309).
326 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, i, p. 204 (Lincoln, 1481). Compurgation involved
finding a certain number of respectable persons who could swear that their statement
was true. The Ipswich ordinances describe the procedure for waging law between
two burgesses. In part, this involved spinning a knife to choose between two potential
groups of compurgators. Black Book, ii, pp. 170–3, c.79 [76] (c.1309).
 Regulation of the market 201

Merchant Law, which required two witnesses of the tally. If the plaintiff
did not plead by Merchant Law then the defendant could deny the tally
by inquest or oath.327 The tally might also have a personal seal attached,
which was considered strong proof for a deal, even on par with a written
bond, and the defendant might be only able to argue the details of the debt
rather than the debt itself.328 A tally with a seal still required witnesses,
who were used by inquest juries both to establish the facts of a contract
or debt and to prove the validity of a tally. It was obviously preferable to
produce both a visual instrument, as well as a witness, as this was stronger
than a mere verbal agreement.329 However, it is likely that written or
practical instruments of proof were only used in wholesale dealing and
that many smaller credit or sale transactions relied purely on a symbolic
gesture. This was workable only when a sufficient level of trust had been
created between participants, and transactions involving strangers were
more likely to employ stronger contractual devices than those between
local residents. However, these may not have been easy to obtain in the
hectic conditions of a marketplace.
For a contract to be fulfilled, payment and delivery had to take place
since ownership was only transferred with delivery. In common law,
Glanvill stated that neither contracting party could withdraw from a
contract without reasonable cause once a price had been agreed and
the item subsequently delivered, or if part or all of the price was paid
before delivery. This contractual obligation could only be excepted when
a prior agreement had been made that either party could withdraw at
any time with impunity.330 Other commentators seemingly regarded the
contract itself as binding enough. Fleta, a manual of common law, stated:
‘When a person sells to another something of his own, whether movable
property or immovable, the buyer is liable to the seller for the price and
conversely the seller is under obligation to the buyer to hand over the
thing concerned’.331 In Bristol, any who made covenant for the purchase
of victuals, but subsequently failed to make payment ‘to the great injury

327 Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae, i, p. 294; Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, i,
pp. 202–3 (Winchester, c.1280).
328 Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae, i, p. 214.
329 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, i, pp. 203–5 (Hereford, 1348 and 1486); Fleta, ii,
pp. 209–12, bk. ii, c.63 (late thirteenth century); Oschinsky (ed.), Walter of Henley,
‘The Husbandry’, pp. 440–1, c.51; Black Book, ii, pp. 126–7, c.40 (c.1309); Norwich, i,
pp. 165–6 (early fourteenth century?). The tally appears to have fallen into disuse by
the fifteenth century, because it was viewed as insubstantive proof as regards the level
of obligation. Arnold (ed.), Year Books, pp. xxii–xxv.
330 Hall (ed.), Glanvill, pp. 129–30, x, 14 (c.1187–9).
331 Fleta, ii, pp. 194–6, bk. ii, c.58 (late thirteenth century).
202 Medieval market morality

of the vendors and to the reproach of the commonalty of the town’, was
to be fined 40d. or face imprisonment.332
The Ipswich Domesday Book recognised the problems caused by dis-
puted agreements, especially when one party claimed that the conditions
of a contract had not been met and they withdrew.333 To alleviate such
wrangling, the ‘communalte’ ordained that a contract of sales should be
declared before a bailiff at the time of sale and set down in writing if
requested by the seller. This included the day when payment was due
and the surety offered. The bailiff and four knowledgeable men or sur-
veyors could then view the merchandise and judge whether it accorded
with the original contract. Surveyors were also warned not to collude in
fraud and told that they and the hosts should advise outsider merchants
honestly.334 Any traders who wanted to work outside of the regulations
and safeguards established by the town’s authorities did so at their own
risk.
Conditions of contract were thus established in law and imposed an
almost national standard of bargaining conduct. There was no reason why
town authorities would have wished to undermine the validity of standard
contracting procedures, though a suspicion of strangers continued to
permeate their more detailed ordinances. This is understandable given
the greater difficulties in distraining an outsider rather than a local man
with visible property and chattels. In a broader sense, the basic premise of
contract law was to formalise trust between buyer and seller and this was
intimately related to the moralists’ demands for honesty in transactions
and bargaining.

Consumer protection
Deceptions and disagreements occurred in all medieval markets and there
were many attempts to shore up the rights of the buyer and seller, as well
as their recourse to the law. As already discussed, a seller was bound to
vouch for his goods as saleable and unstolen. Contract law also stated
that warranty on the condition and quality of the goods resided with the
seller, so that if he sold an item as sound and without fault, but the buyer
could later prove this was not so at the time of the contract, the seller
was bound to take back the article. A contract remained uncompleted

332 Bristol, i, p. 43 (1344).

333 The document refers to ‘wolvard’, which conjures images of wolves or foxes squabbling
among themselves; Alsford, Towns (Ipswich, c.37).
334 Black Book, ii, pp. 118–21, c.37 (c.1309). A similar arrangement existed in Great
Yarmouth to ensure that agreed bargains were fulfilled. Alsford, Towns (Great
Yarmouth, 1300).
 Regulation of the market 203

until goods of the agreed quality and quantity were delivered.335 The
risks of a sales contract for moveables, before delivery and afterwards,
resided with the possessor. Thus, if an item was damaged before delivery,
responsibility lay with the seller.336
Warranty can be traced back to the laws attributed to Ine (c.688–94),
which stated that if any beast sold was found to have a blemish within
thirty days of purchase then it could be sent back to the former owner.
The law did, however, allow the seller the opportunity of swearing that
he knew of no such blemish when he sold the animal, which presumably
led to an inquest and presentation of proof.337 Such cases are presented
throughout the medieval period, particularly for horses that had been
expressly warranted as sound and healthy but were later found to be
sick.338 There was always the possibility that such beasts had been sold
deceitfully rather than mistakenly. Cases of warranty thus often revolved
around whether faults had been deliberately hidden or a substandard
product falsely substituted, in the manner decried by moral literature.
In the Berwick Guild Statutes of 1249, any buyer who discovered his
purchase ‘to be good above and worse below’ could cause the seller to
make amends according to the decisions of appointed honest men.339
In Nottingham, in 1432, Thomas Abbot of Colwick bought malt from
Thomas Sharp under the latter’s warranty, but the malt proved to be
‘rawe reket et cum wevelys spevelled’340 and the purchaser claimed 20s.
damages.341
The variable qualities inherent in many medieval commodities made
any policy of returnable goods both hazardous and haphazard. A
sixteenth-century ordinance aptly summed up the buyer’s dilemma that
the onus was on them to prove wrongdoing on the part of the vendor. The
buyer thus had to ‘let their eye be their chapman, for yf it prove nought,
thei shall have no remedie for it afterwards except thei can prove the

335 Fleta, ii, p. 196, bk. ii, c.58 (late thirteenth century); Hall (ed.), Glanvill, pp. 129–30,
x, 14 (c.1187–9); Black Book, ii, p. 119, c.37 (c.1309); Leicester, i, p. 86.
336 Fleta, ii, p. 196, bk. ii, c.58 (late thirteenth century).
337 Attenborough (ed.), Laws, pp. 54–5, c.56 (laws of Ine, c.688–93). See also ibid.,
pp. 100–1, c.4 (laws of Alfred and Guthrum, c.880–90), pp. 134–5, c.12 (laws of
Aethelstan, c.925–39).
338 Thomas (ed.), Calendar, p. 68 (Roll c, 1300); Holland (ed.), Year Books, pp. 30–2;
Thornley (ed.), Year Book, pp. 4–5.
339 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, ii, p. 182 (Berwick, 1249).
340 (smoked raw and with weevils spoiled/sprinkled?)
341 Nottingham, ii, pp. 130–3 (1432). For examples of court cases where other such accu-
sations were made regarding the sale of ale, dyes, tiles, cloth, wool, cheese, fish and
liquorice, see Nottingham, i, pp. 166–7 (1357), 346–9 (1397), ii, pp. 70–3 (1410),
118–21 (1420); Memorials, pp. 332–3 (1366), 464 (1382); Gross (ed.), Select Cases,
pp. 50, 60–1, 91 (St Ives, 1291–3, 1312).
204 Medieval market morality

seller thereof dyd warrant the same to be good’.342 This ordinance sum-
marised a process that was implemented throughout the Middle Ages.
For the buyer to expect any recompense after a transaction, he had to
ensure the seller had warranted the condition of the goods at the time
of sale and attest that this had been witnessed or recorded. If there was
no written statement of obligations of quality, the buyer had to accede
to caveat emptor, for the seller was not bound to take back goods if there
was no proof of a breach of contract.343
Many of the problems in wholesale trading occurred because of the
increasing use of samples, which the purchaser might subsequently claim
differed qualitatively from the goods actually delivered.344 The Berwick
ordinances of 1283–4 stated: ‘If any one buys goods, misled by false top
samples, amends must be made’.345 However, it could be difficult to
prove such deception. In Exeter, the seller might claim that any dam-
age or defect that was found after delivery was caused while the goods
were in the buyer’s possession. It was the buyer’s responsibility to prove
otherwise:

If a man sells to another a beast with a guarantee that it is without a fault, and it
is not so; and if then he denies that he gave that guarantee, the buyer must prove
by his suit that he [the seller] did so; and the other [the seller] must take back
the beast; but the bailiff must have the beast examined to see whether it is true
or not; and the other [the buyer] must swear his sole oath on halidom that the
beast is no worse through him or his keeping nor any negligence of his.346

In Grimsby and Ipswich, such disagreements about the quality of goods

were settled by the valuations of ‘worthy men’ of the town.347 It is likely
that such inquests favoured locals over strangers, unless strong contract
instruments or witnesses could be produced. These warranty conditions
changed little in the late Middle Ages, and were recited by moralists who
exhorted that traders should not conceal faults in their goods or exag-
gerate their virtues.348 The basic constructs of fair dealing and consumer
rights were evident in both literature and legislation.

342 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, ii, pp. lxxxiii–lxxxiv, 183 (Lancaster, 1562), regarding
the purchase of malt.
343 Memorials, p. 341 (1369). 344 Gemmill, ‘Town and region’, p. 63.
345 Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 342 (Berwick, 1283–4). The London authorities
banned the sale of corn by sample. CLB, e, p. 56 (1316); Liber Albus, p. 229 (1272–
1307).
346 Schopp and Easterling (eds.), Anglo-Norman Custumal, p. 34, no. 51 (1237–57); Bate-
son (ed.), Borough Customs, ii, pp. 182–3.
347 BBC, 1216–1307, p. 301 (Grimsby, 1258); Black Book, ii, pp. 118–21, c.37 (c.1309).
348 See pp. 75–7.
 Regulation of the market 205

Credit, debt and trust

Trust and reciprocity were the mainstay of all medieval transactions, as
can be seen throughout the regulations and literature already discussed.
Markets were important early forums for creating a conducive and orderly
commercial environment where commercial confidences could evolve.
The assurance of standard weights and measures, customary bargaining
procedures, acceptable coinage, quality standards and enforcement pro-
cedures raised the level of trust to a workable level. Social ideology and
personal networks then reinforced this establishment of trust. As seen in
the literature, the bargaining process consisted of a myriad of customs
and minute gestures that were often taken for granted by participants.
Nevertheless, certain acts were performed to establish a level of good
faith, from amicable greetings to a handclasp. By establishing a degree
of trust, transaction costs were lowered and future alliances could be
created. If the buyer lacked certain vital information about a product, it
is likely that his focus then switched to the vendor and his reputation.
The potential impact of a bad reputation can be seen in cases of slander.
In Colchester, in 1310, Hugh de Stowe used ‘litigious and opprobrious
language against several persons in the market’, thus costing them sales
and purchases. Similarly, in Alverthorpe (Yorkshire) in 1307, William de
Wakefeud recited how the slander of Thomas Brounsmyth and his wife,
in calling him a false, faithless man and a thief, and then raising the hue
and cry, had cost him credit and a wine deal with Walter Gowere. The
‘scandal and infamy’ had come to Walter’s attention and he refused to
have any more dealings with William.349
Medieval society had several formal instruments to establish levels of
probity, such as taking office, oaths and guild or burgess membership.
Also, the use of a mark as a means of supervision developed associations
with reputation and identification.350 Every tiler in Worcester had to set a
proper mark upon their tiles, so ‘yf it be defectif or smalle, that men may
have remedy of the seid partie, as law and resonne requirith’.351 Initially
devised as a means of inspection and control, merchant marks became
signs of quality assurance and trust.
The early fourteenth-century custumal of Ipswich provides evidence
that authorities understood the crucial part reputation played in the
marketplace. One of the ordinances actually outlined procedures for

349 Jeayes (ed.), Court Rolls, i, p. 13 (1310); Baildon (ed.), Court Rolls, ii, p. 110 (1307).
See also Gross (ed.), Select Cases, pp. 57, 71 (St Ives, 1293).
350 Coventry, p. 338 (1468); Memorials, pp. 360 (1371), 361 (1372), 569–70 (1408); CLB,
k, p. 114 (1429–30).
351 Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 399 (Worcester, 1467).
206 Medieval market morality

claiming damages if anyone was falsely or maliciously slandered by

another in the public marketplace with accusations of theft, robbery,
treason or deceit (‘falshed’).352 The Ipswich authorities also recognised
the need for confidence in their own regulations in order to enforce
contracts and payments expeditiously. Another ordinance stressed that
those who failed to make payments on time were regarded as ‘of eyl
feith’ and motivated by covetousness. Their actions served not only to
bring the individual into disrepute but were also to the slander of the
whole community, to the disadvantage of all.353 If the usual mechanisms
of enforcement failed, Ipswich’s authorities were prepared to distrain or
disenfranchise the offending burgess until he provided recompense. The
need for reputation, trust and prestige was therefore important for trad-
ing success, social standing and the extension of credit.354 An ordinance
for Northampton, c.1260, stated that anyone giving credit at a fair should
first ‘find out how the borrower left his last creditor’.355 In La Court de
Baron, a court precedent outlined how a buyer’s bargain for wine had
been undermined by the interference of a third party who spoke ‘much
ill and villany of him to the merchant’. Consequently, the merchant ‘told
him right out that he heard tell so much evil of him that he would give
him no credit’ and the potential buyer returned home empty-handed.356
The use of credit in medieval trade was widespread and usually existed
in the form of a postponement in payment for merchandise already deliv-
ered. Traders often needed to complete other transactions before ready
money was available or, alternatively, they might not have wanted to
unnecessarily carry round large amounts of coinage. At a petty level,
many transactions between locals were conducted on a credit system,
whereby their credits and debts were accounted at periodic intervals. For
instance, London bakers regularly advanced credit to female regraters,
though a late thirteenth-century ordinance prohibited a baker from giv-
ing credit ‘as long as he shall know such woman to be in debt unto his
neighbour’.357 Poor artisans might also offer goods in exchange for vict-
uals, or as surety for later payment.358 The system of trade credit, akin
to contracts, employed various levels of ‘recognition’, from a written
recognisance to the split tallystick, but witnesses remained an important
form of proof when many smaller credit transactions employed no vis-
ible devices. The Ipswich ordinances stated that because many credit

352 Black Book, ii, pp. 162–5, c.73 [70] (c.1309). 353 Ibid., pp. 114–19, c.36 (c.1309).
354 McIntosh, Controlling, pp. 11–12.
355 Northampton, i, p. 227 (c.1260); Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, i, p. 209.
356 Maitland and Baildon (eds.), Court Baron, ‘La Court de Baron’, pp. 40–1 (thirteenth
century).
357 Liber Albus, p. 309 (1272–1307). 358 Black Book, ii, pp. 132–5, c.47 (c.1309).
 Regulation of the market 207

transactions were only for the day, traders, for the sake of convenience,
often did not employ tallies or written records. In these cases, proof was
through examination of two sworn witnesses.359
Nevertheless, the effective enforcement of credit agreements was of
utmost importance to a trading community, both in terms of realised
payments and speedy proceedings. Capital could all too easily become
locked up in unpaid debts and the reputation of a market damaged.
Resident traders who purchased corn in Norwich market were ordered
to make swift payment to satisfy the vendor, ‘so that the countrymen
may not be put off nor hindered in receiving their payment and doing
their business’.360 In London, it was petitioned that no butchers should
sell their wares in the ‘Stokkes’, if they had previously failed in making
payments ‘to the bad repute of the trade’, until they had fully paid up all
arrears.361 The concern of the regulations was that repayment to creditors
should not be delayed, whatever the value of the debt. In hundred courts,
as well as the courts of freemen, pleas of trespass and debt could be
pleaded without a royal writ, provided the goods or debt did not exceed
40s. in value.362 But the regulations of Hereford in 1486 demonstrated
the concerns of creditors about speedy and inexpensive recoveries of
debts, stating that they should not need to go out of the city to recover
debts over 40s., ‘for divers dangers and misfortunes which might happen
to our wives and children; and if we ought to spend our goods and chattels
in parts afar off, by impleading and labouring for that by that means and
the like, we shall be impoverished; and being made poor, we shall not
have wherewith to keep the city, and so disheritance by such ways would
easily fall upon our children’.363

Merchant Law
Merchant Law (‘Lex Mercatoria’) was a varied body of mercantile proce-
dures, principles and modes of proof that began to develop into a uniform

359 Ibid., ii, pp. 105–9, c.33 (c.1309).

360 Norwich, i, pp. 186–7 (early fourteenth century). A similar ordinance was issued in
London that resident cornmongers and butchers who delayed payment by deceptions
were to pay double to the vendor or else face the pillory. Liber Albus, pp. 229–30
(1272–1307).
361 Memorials, pp. 179–80 (1331). See also Johnson (ed.), Hereford, p. 27; BBC, 1216–
1307, p. 292 (Grimsby, 1258).
362 Britton, i, p. 155, ch. 29, c.1 (1291–2); Beckerman, ‘Forty-shilling’. The ‘hundred’ was
a unit of local government (between the vill and the county).
363 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, i, p. 207 (Hereford, 1486). The regulations for Torksey
also suggested that their piepowder court had cognisance of pleas ‘both exceeding 40s.
and of less amount’. Ibid., ii, pp. 189–90 (Torksey, c.1345).
208 Medieval market morality

code across Europe by the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, especially

regarding debt and contract.364 This commercial law was important in
defining sales, the procedures of debt litigation and the nature of con-
tractual obligations. It was applicable in various commercial scenarios
where the borough customs allowed it and in staple courts and piepow-
der courts (usually held in fairs or markets).365 It also had an increasing
influence on general legislation concerning conduct, contract and pleas,
even where common law applied. In particular, Merchant Law defined
a system of quick justice that aptly suited the itinerant lifestyle of most
traders, offering advantages over common law in its speed and effective
distraint for recovery of a debt. For instance, in a piepowder court, no
writ was needed for proceedings, few ‘essoins’ (excuses) were permitted
and the whole process was expected to be concluded within a day or two.
The piepowder courts in Torksey, Ipswich and Rye were held twice a
day ‘and from day to day’.366 In early fourteenth-century Ipswich, three
essoins were allowed to each party, while in fifteenth-century Colchester
a defendant might be summoned five times during a single day before
they defaulted.367 Distraint was a temporary confiscation of goods and
could be taken from a debtor in order to compel him to appear. A defen-
dant’s goods (‘attachment’) could be appraised and sold in order to sat-
isfy a creditor. Not only could a defendant be impleaded quickly, but, by
declaring that a contract had been made ‘in the market’ and was thus sub-
ject to ‘Merchant Law’, a trader could prevent his adversary from using
compurgation and could plead in a court other than the neighbourhood
in which the deed was done.368
Supplementary to Merchant Law, parliamentary legislation of 1283
at Acton Burnell (Statutum de Mercatoribus) provided regulations to
encourage the speedy recovery of debts, stimulated by the needs of an

364 Mitchell, An Essay, pp. 104–5. A treatise on Merchant Law (‘Lex Mercatoria’) was
included in Bristol’s Little Red Book, suggesting it was applied regularly. Bristol, i,
pp. 57–85 (fourteenth century).
365 They were called ‘piepowder courts’ because they were supposedly frequented by
itinerant chapmen with dusty feet (‘pieds poudres’). Gross (ed.), Select Cases, pp. xiii–
xiv; Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, ii, p. 184. Piepowder courts were often held during
fairs when a large congregation of visiting traders was expected. This was recognised
by statute law. Statutes, ii, pp. 461–2, 17 Edw IV c.2 (1477–8); ii, pp. 482–3, 1 Ric III
c.6 (1483–4).
366 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, ii, pp. 189–90, 192 (Torksey, c.1345; Rye, fifteenth
century); Black Book, ii, pp. 22–5, c.1 (c.1309).
367 Gross (ed.), Select Cases, pp. xxvi, 122–5 (1458).
368 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, ii, pp. 188–9 (Norwich, 1306–11); Norwich, i,
pp. 169–70 (early fourteenth century); Black Book, ii, pp. 126–7, c.40 (c.1309).
 Regulation of the market 209

expanding economy.369 By this law, debts were to be entered as recog-

nisances in town rolls and sealed by both the debtor and the king’s seal,
with a bill obligatory given to the creditor. Such a procedure provided
surety for the debt and ensured unassailable proof for repayment. Goods
could be seized from recalcitrant debtors to repay the debt, or they could
be imprisoned until agreement was reached. Pledges could also be used
as surety for the debtor and they were liable if the debt was not paid or if
the defendant failed to appear.370 Although this legislation was primarily
intended for the use of wholesaling or foreign merchants in larger towns,
similar procedures and methods of surety were adopted throughout the
commercial community, largely based upon the principles of ‘Merchant
Law’.
Several town ordinances thus outlined the standard regulations and
procedures for bringing a debtor to court and recovering the debt. Rea-
sonable time was to be allowed to a trader if he was not in the town at
the time of the suit, but only a certain number of excuses or ‘essoins’
were tolerated. An essoin could not be made after one of the parties
had defaulted and false essoins led them to lose the plea. Distraint took
place after he had been called the required number of times and failed
to appear and the seized goods (‘attachment’) were appraised in value
by the bailiffs or appointed assessors. Assessors were warned not to col-
lude in appraising goods at a higher value than they were worth, or else
they themselves might be obliged to buy the goods at the price they had
set. Such attachments could be taken throughout the case to encourage
the defendant’s appearance.371 Distraint or ‘distress’ thus provided the
main element of enforcement. If a debtor defaulted in repayment or was
attainted, the chattels could be sold and the proceeds given to the plaintiff
to the value of the debt.372 If the debt was impleaded under common law,
then the defendant could clear his name by waging his law (compurga-
tion) or an inquest by jury, but compurgation was not normally an option

369 Statutes, i, pp. 53–4, 11 Edw I (1283). It was confirmed and re-elaborated in Statutes, i,
pp. 98–100, 13 Edw I (1285); Fleta, ii, pp. 212–14, bk. ii, c.64 (late thirteenth century).
In 1311, it was ordered that the ‘Statute of Acton Burnell’ should only apply to debts
between merchants and that recognisances should be witnessed by four men. The seal
of the king was available only at London and the main provincial towns of Newcastle-
upon-Tyne, Nottingham, York, Exeter, Bristol, Southampton, Lincoln, Northampton,
Canterbury, Shrewsbury and Norwich. Statutes, i, p. 165, 5 Edw II c.33 (1311). For an
in-depth study regarding these debt-repayment mechanisms in Coventry, see Goddard,
Lordship and Medieval Urbanisation, pp. 256–76.
370 See also Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, ii, p. 191 (Torksey, c.1345); Norwich, i,
pp. 169–70 (early fourteenth century?).
371 Britton, i, pp. 155–77, ch. 29 (1291–2).
372 Black Book, ii, pp. 104–13, cc.33–4 (c.1309); Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, ii,
pp. 189–92 (Norwich, c.1340; Torksey, c.1345; Hereford, 1486); Bristol, i, p. 35 (1344).
210 Medieval market morality

under Merchant Law when either witnesses, a valid credit instrument,

or an inquest was used. If a plaintiff withdrew his plea then he usually
incurred a fine. Also, both parties could obtain a ‘licence of concord’ for
a small fee, which allowed them to withdraw from court and privately
agree on a settlement.373
Although Merchant Law sometimes expedited the process, debt cases
more generally could take several months, especially for residents of a
town and the neighbouring countryside. Burgesses might be allowed
more leeway within their borough regarding level of proof needed for
a debt, taking distraint on their own initiative, their excuses for delay
and the time allowed to repay a proved debt.374 If the plaintiffs were
outsiders (whether foreigners or travelling traders), then more rigorous
and speedy efforts were usually applied, since they could not wait around
for lengthy processes of distraint. In Ipswich, anyone who delayed the
rightful execution of distraint, perhaps by locking up his goods in a house
so that bailiffs could not get at them, was to have his house blockaded until
satisfaction was made.375 The authorities obviously took the enforcement
of contracts and debts seriously.
The system of ‘withernam’ operated for much of the late medieval
period. This privilege was often enshrined in borough charters and
allowed officials to enforce the repayment of a debt from a recalcitrant
foreign merchant who had left the town, by seizing goods from another
merchant from the same town. If the debtor still did not appear to respond
to the plaintiff, then the attached goods were given to the creditor. The
distrained merchant was expected to take on the burden and seek repay-
ment in his own courts against the original debtor.376 In effect, one town
was requesting the corporate distraint of a debtor in another town. The
customs of Romney in 1352 outlined a fuller procedure whereby letters
were firstly sent to the debtor’s home town, then a fellow merchant was
sworn to let his mayor and bailiffs know about the need to recover the
debt. If this produced no result, then finally withernam was taken on

373 See below, pp. 356–7, for a discussion of these devices in the courts of Newmarket and
Clare.
374 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, i, pp. 111–13 (Wearmouth, 1154–95; Pontefract, 1194;
Egremont, 1200; Chester, 1181–1232; Salford, c.1230; Ipswich, 1291; Winchester,
c.1280; Manchester, 1301; Bury, 1327); Furley (ed.), Ancient Usages, pp. 38–9, 44–
5 (late thirteenth century); Hill, Medieval Lincoln, appx vii (c.1300); Black Book, ii,
pp. 128–9, c.43 (c.1309); Norwich, i, pp. 166–7 (early fourteenth century?); Myers
(ed.), English Historical Documents, pp. 569–70 (Canterbury, c.1430).
375 Black Book, ii, pp. 108–13, c.34 (c.1309). See also Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, i,
pp. 187–91 (Bristol, 1344; Southampton, 1348; Norwich, c.1340; Hereford, 1486).
376 BBC, 1042–1216, p. 196 (Bristol, 1188); Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, i, pp. 117–
18 (Exeter, 1237–57), 120 (Bristol, 1188; Colchester, 1189), 125 (Dover, fifteenth
century); Hill, Medieval Lincoln, appx vii (c.1300).
 Regulation of the market 211

the next merchant from the said town.377 Foreign traders thus faced the
possibility of distraint due to the actions of a fellow burgess for whom
they might owe no personal allegiance. The ordinances for Leicester in
1273 made provision for such burgesses who travelled to other market
towns and were distrained for the debt of their neighbour. The bailiffs
would warn the debtor to make compensation or else their house would
be closed up until satisfaction was made.378 However, in late thirteenth-
century statutes, law manuals and some municipal charters, there were
concerns about strangers being distrained when they were neither the
debtor nor pledge.379 Although elements of withernam survived beyond
the thirteenth century, there was a growing suggestion that it was not
advantageous to commercial prosperity nor to the encouragement of
credit.

Femme sole
One associated feature of Merchant Law, and its development at a local
level, was that it meant women or children below age who traded or kept
shops for the sale of goods were liable for actions of debt.380 In cer-
tain boroughs, married women who traded publicly could plead and be
impleaded alone, without the husband’s involvement. According to com-
mon law, husbands were guardians of the family’s land and possessions
and their legal representative in court. A woman married to a freeman
in London ( femme couverte) was generally in legal thrall to her husband.
However, from around the beginning of the fourteenth century, wives
could also follow a trade and be responsible herself for all debts ( femme
sole).381 She could make contracts without her husband’s approval and
represent herself in court. This status of femme sole proved beneficial
for women who needed to obtain or advance credit in their business.
However, there were cases where the potential ambiguities of this status
and household economics could have repercussions. In 1305, Mabel le
Heymogger tried to avoid a debt of 13s. 10d. for beer purchased by dis-
avowing femme sole status and arguing that her husband should have been

377 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, i, pp. 121–4 (Romney, 1352). For a similar letter, and
cases where withernam was taken, see CLB, c, pp. 59, 64, 76 (1299–1300), e, p. 42
(1314–15).
378 Leicester, i, p. 114 (1273).
379 Statutes, i, pp. 26–34, 3 Edw I c.23, ‘Statute of Westminster’ (1275); Fleta, ii,
pp. 209–12, bk. ii, c.63 (late thirteenth century).
380 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, i, pp. 222–8 (especially London, 1419, Worcester,
1467, Lincoln, 1480).
381 Barron, ‘The “golden age” of women’, 37; McIntosh, ‘The benefits and drawbacks of
femme sole’.
212 Medieval market morality

named in the debt plea. The plaintiff, Gilbert le Brasour, argued that
she kept an inn and traded ‘sole’ in hay and oats.382 It does appear that
Mabel was deliberately exploiting the confusion around her legal status,
though the court eventually found against her.
However, the potential for women to have independent access to credit
could be regarded as beneficial to production and investment in the
medieval economy, and forms of femme sole were certainly adopted in
other boroughs across England.383 For example, married female traders
in fourteenth-century Torksey could also answer, or be answered, in a
case of debt or broken contract without the presence of their husband.384
Women identified as regular traders could thus plead as femme sole and
act in court independently, while the goods of her husband could not
be attached. However, McIntosh has argued that femme sole status was
perhaps less popular than might be expected, and women were making
active choices about whether to declare themselves or not. The appar-
ent benefits of legal separation from their husband had to be weighed
against the disadvantages of cutting themselves off from their best source
of support, paying a fee to declare their status, possibly undermining
their husband’s credit, and representing themselves in a male-dominated
court. Indeed, femme sole might have been most desirable when the hus-
band was financially insecure.385
In addition, opportunities for women to claim unpaid debts or to be
impleaded could be still circumscribed by their legal status and were also
dependent on local customs. The fifteenth-century customs for Fordwich
recognised that many women acted as professional traders, particularly
in victuals and cloth, and such active traders could act as a plaintiff in
a plea of debt, unlike most married women. However, they had to be
accompanied by their husbands. If a woman trader was the defendant
in a debt case, then it was left to the discretion of the plaintiff whether
the husband should be present as well.386 The ability of a wife to have
independent agency as a trader thus varied between borough customs.
In pre-Black Death Norwich, a husband was liable for his wife’s transac-
tions, unless they were no longer cohabiting. However, in this situation,
creditors were to take heed in lending to women ‘save at their own peril

382 Thomas (ed.), Calendar, pp. 214–15 (Roll g, 1305). See also Bateson (ed.), Borough
Customs, i, p. 227 (London, 1419). For further discussion of this case, see McIntosh,
‘The benefits and drawbacks of femme sole’, 419–20.
383 McIntosh, ‘The benefits and drawbacks of femme sole’, 413; Lacey, ‘Women and work’,
pp. 41–5.
384 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, i, pp. 227–8 (Torksey, c.1345; Hastings, 1461–83;
Lincoln, 1480).
385 McIntosh, ‘The benefits and drawbacks of femme sole’, 426–7, 430.
386 Bateson (ed.), Borough Customs, i, p. 228 (Fordwich, fifteenth century).
 Regulation of the market 213

only’.387 The creditworthiness of women was thus questioned. Although

it could be argued that femme sole reflected an easing of this perception
in some towns by the fifteenth century, the fact that many women pre-
ferred to remain femme couverte suggests that little had changed in this
patriarchal society, for better or worse.

Usury
Many debt settlements provided for extra payment of ‘damages’. Such
provision is perhaps understandable in a commercial environment where
sellers needed to ensure that their ability to offer credit was not abused
and so they could claim recompense when it was. Damages were brought
into action when a borrower failed to repay by a stipulated date, and this
was considered to be a legitimate gain due to the inconvenience caused
to the lender.388 The use of damages evaded direct accusations of usury,
since creditors were being compensated for a loss; in effect, they were
unable to put the unpaid money towards another business opportunity. It
could be argued that damages were a tangled means to hide illicit interest
and thus avoid accusations of usury, but they were only claimed upon
defaulted debts and were assessed by the court, so they did not guarantee
a financial return to the creditor.389
Laws against usury highlighted it as a disreputable vice and deception,
committed by people who did not fear God or even worldly shame. When
Edward I expelled the Jews from England in 1290, he justified the action
by accusing them of having ‘wickedly conspired and conceived a new
species of usury more pernicious than the old’, while usurers more gen-
erally were described as greedy, wicked and depraved.390 Usurers were
expected to make restitution for their sin and were to be compelled by
Church and state to do so. It appears that medieval people did take the
accusation seriously. For John de Miggeley in Wakefield, in 1274, simply
being called a usurer was enough for him to take his accuser to court
for slander.391 From 1363–4, the London authorities decided that con-
victed usurers should perform a quasi-penitential humiliation: ‘they shall
forswear the said city for ever, and shall be led through the City, with
their heads uncovered, unshod and without girdle, upon horses without
saddles’.392 A parliamentary petition in 1376 wanted similar punishments
across England, arguing that usurious activities had caused the virtue of

387 Norwich, i, pp. 167–8 (early fourteenth century?).

388 A London ordinance of 1345 stipulated damages for debts at a rate of 4s. for every 20s.
withheld for one year. Liber Albus, pp. 404–5 (1345); CLB, f, p. 127 (1345).
389 See pp. 365–7. 390 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, p. 60.
391 Baildon (ed.), Court Rolls, i, p. 80. 392 Liber Albus, pp. 318–21 (1364).
214 Medieval market morality

charity to perish and brought many to poverty, thus drawing upon liter-
ary condemnations of the sin.393 However, Richard II was unprepared
to extend such heightened secular jurisdiction outside London and the
status quo was maintained.394
Usurers were prosecuted by both Church and state, and it is known that
cases were brought before Church courts, royal courts, manorial courts
and the view of frankpledge.395 It should be noted that there are relatively
few mentions of usury in borough custumals and ordinances. There
were numerous disputes over jurisdiction between the clergy and royal
justices, but it appears that the Church maintained overall jurisdiction
over usurers through their ecclesiastical courts.396 Indeed, a statute of
1341 ordained that the king should have cognisance of usurers who had
died and the Church the right to censure living usurers.397 The Church
and king appear to have regarded suppression of usury as an important
part of their obligations.
The extent to which usury legislation affected the flow of credit is
debatable, especially in the commercial arena as opposed to consumption
loans.398 Credit was essential for lubricating the late medieval economy
and some form of profit was presumably needed to encourage lenders.
Historians have argued that, during the thirteenth century, the definition
of usury was narrowed so that only exorbitant rates of interest were
deemed to be sinful.399 It appears that the Church’s stance on usury
was circumvented through exploiting a variety of technical loopholes.
However, Gwen Seabourne’s study of usury cases in royal courts suggests
that there was no exemption for minor profits on money loans or in sales
on credit. The usury ban appears to have been absolute, at least in those
cases that went to court.400 A caveat is needed in that relatively few cases
appear to have actually proceeded through Church and secular courts,
while many cases were settled informally. The Church mostly dealt with
manifest usurers and rarely prosecuted moderate usury. More emphasis

393 RP, ii, p. 350; Parl. Rolls, c.59, October 1382; Thrupp, Merchant Class, p. 175. For
a detailed discussion of the secular laws and enforcement of usury, see Seabourne,
Royal Regulation, pp. 25–69, 169–81, 185–92; Seabourne, ‘Controlling commercial
morality’.
394 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 48–9.
395 Ibid., pp. 49–55, 185–9; Hilton, English Peasantry, pp. 46–7, 103–4; Wood, Medieval
Economic Thought, p. 184. For cases involving usury, see ibid., pp. 339–45 (fourteenth
century); Norwich, i, p. 368 (1290); Baildon (ed.), Court Rolls, i, p. 174 (1277); Walker
(ed.), Court Rolls, v, p. 160; Jewell (ed.), Court Rolls, p. 115 (1349).
396 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 44–9.
397 Statutes, i, p. 296, 15 Edw III St.1 c.5 (1341).
398 Wood, ‘Lesyng of tyme’, pp. 113–14; Noonan, Scholastic Analysis.
399 Gilchrist, Church and Economic Activity, pp. 67–70.
400 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 32–4.
 Regulation of the market 215

was assigned to the role of the priests in the confessional, while it could
be argued that communities wanted to protect certain sources of credit
provided at moderate rates. Clerical texts thus emphasised the risks and
potential losses involved in transactions as a means to justify claims for
compensation in moneylending.401 Nevertheless, it is difficult to discern
through the extant sources whether there was a growing leniency towards
moneylending in practice. Ultimately, lenders still had to hide interest
charges to avoid potentially damaging accusations of usury.402

Quality and fraud

A vital element in the contract and bargaining process was the assess-
ment of quality in a product. The quality of wholesale commodities
like wool, grain and cloth was graded and priced by recognised criteria.
These included thickness, colour, uniformity, aestheticism, size, feel and
so on; some were measurable and others were dependent upon personal
assessment and opinion. The arbitrary nature of some of these crite-
ria was alleviated by implementing quality categories, for example, best,
second-best and standard for grain. But, on the whole, it was traders
themselves who judged the quality of many products and offered a price
based on these considerations. For retail consumers, an awareness of
quality-control was also important: the lack of standardised output in
the late Middle Ages multiplied the types and grades of goods available,
as well as the number of non-standard or defective goods in a batch.
In staple products, particularly foodstuffs, a consumer’s concerns about
quality were protected to a certain extent by market authorities. Offi-
cials would survey samples as a means of quality-control, and regulations
outlined punishments for those that strayed from minimum standards.
Additionally, although customers were partially constrained by commu-
nal price-fixing, many goods were available in a range of qualities. The
consumer sometimes had the option to purchase lower-quality goods for
a lower price.
Those working in the main manufacturing industries, such as in cloth
and leather, needed to maintain a minimum quality for their products in
order to encourage purchasers. Even if weights and measures, coinage
and prices were increasingly standardised, the variations in quality caused
by irregular manufacturing processes still made the transaction process
complex. Also, many consumers may have lacked the necessary knowl-
edge to detect low quality or even fraud. In the fourteenth and fifteenth

401 Helmholz, ‘Usury’; Poos (ed.), Lower Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, p. 102.

402 Nightingale, ‘Money and credit’, pp. 51–2.
216 Medieval market morality

centuries, craft guilds were expected to maintain high standards of work-

manship and purity of goods, as defined in their ordinances. For instance,
the ordinances of the craft guilds of Bristol, in 1346, highlighted a great
concern for quality, in both the production process and materials used.403
One ordinance for cloth in Bristol was enacted ‘to the intent that good
and true cloth shall be made in the town, as well for the preservation of
the good fame of the same as for the profit which they shall take on the
sale of their cloth’.404
The cloth industry particularly evoked detailed ordinances regarding
the density of thread and the consistency of cloth and any defective cloths
or equipment were to be burned. Craftwork was not to be carried out
at night, since this might mean shoddy workmanship and that they were
less able to be supervised.405 Roger Hoveden, in 1197, warned against
merchants who hung black or red cloths in their windows ‘whereby the
buyers’ eyes are often deceived in the choice of good cloth’.406 Many
municipal court cases highlighted the damage caused by manufacturing
frauds, employing the language of moral anxiety. In fourteenth-century
Leicester, two weavers, William Martin and Janin French, were placed
in the pillory ‘for the falsity which people talk of and speak of, which
was used in the craft concerning long thrums and concerning bad yarn
which was prejudicial to the craft’.407 In early sixteenth-century Norwich,
weavers were accused of selling defective worsted in secret, and their
deceptions had caused ‘unyuersall hurte of the comen peple and great
hurt of the said crafte’.408 The fullers of Coventry were warned against
‘open ffalshed’ that brought shame to the craft, particularly the ‘draweng
out of kerseys and brode cloth to the gret dyssete of the werers and the
high displesure of God’.409 Guilds equated a high level of workmanship
and fineness of materials with quality, morality and reputation.
During the fifteenth century, craft guilds had established relatively
rigid identities, complete with elaborate rules of membership, manu-
facture and business. Their members were increasingly subject to strict
disciplinary procedures, while the use of journeymen and apprentices was
controlled. Swanson has downplayed the economic influence of guilds

403 Bristol, ii, pp. 2–14 (fourteenth century). 404 Ibid., ii, p. 40 (fourteenth century).
405 Furley (ed.), Ancient Usages, pp. 30–1, nos. 20–1 (late thirteenth century); York, i,
pp. 105 (1538), 181 (1307); Bristol, ii, p. 3 (1346?); Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae,
ii, ‘Liber Custumarum’, p. 101 (1269–70); Memorials, pp. 226–7 (1345), 239 (1347),
243 (1348), 538 (1394).
406 ‘Assize of Measures’, Stubbs (ed.), Chronica, iv, p. 33.
407 Leicester, ii, pp. 195–6 (1379–80). ‘Thrums’ were the waste ends of warp after the cloth
was woven.
408 Norwich, ii, pp. 378 (1511), 108–9 (1512). 409 Coventry, pp. 660–1 (1518).
 Regulation of the market 217

to establish monopolies and control prices for their own interests. How-
ever, craft guilds did not operate to meet the concerns of consumers;
they policed their members in order to uphold the reputation of their
craft and protect their own prosperity. Guild members were the ones
who drew up regulations for their trade and then petitioned the munici-
pal government. These rules might appear to be public-minded, but they
were mostly a protection of their own standards and reputation, often to
the exclusion of lesser practitioners. Thrupp has suggested that guilds did
not have the economic power to raise prices through cartel agreements
or suppression of local competitors. Yet, statutes in 1437 and 1504 both
expressed suspicion that guilds were using their ordinances to raise prices
‘for their singular profit and common damage to the people’.410 Addition-
ally, guilds almost certainly fixed the wages of journeymen and enforced
strict discipline within their ranks, which allowed a high level of con-
trol over manufacturing processes and standards. They did not eliminate
competition, particularly from rural areas, but they could limit its scope
within their own jurisdiction and use indirect means to achieve price
rises. The 1381 ordinances of the dyers and fullers in Bristol ordered
that no woollen thread should be sent out of the town to be woven else-
where, on pain of forfeiture of the cloth, showing official attempts to keep
a monopoly of business within the town.411 Equally, no Bristol fuller was
to receive cloth that had been fulled outside the town.412
Guilds became tools of quality assurance, monitoring each stage of pro-
duction and providing a mark of guaranteed quality. Increased demands
for production quality during the adverse economic conditions of the fif-
teenth century were allied with ordinances to restrict entry and appren-
ticeship. In Winchester, the supervision of weaving was tightened in 1408
because of complaints against unskilled workmen who were considered
to be harming the reputation of the city’s cloth.413 Through their ordi-
nances, manufacturing guilds recognised the existence of low-quality
goods and low-skilled substitutes within their towns and sought to stamp
them out. It is possible that guild quality-controls meant that certain
entrepreneurs could no longer compete in the larger towns and were
thus driven towards smaller towns and villages. Certainly, both town and
guild regulations firstly looked to protect burgesses and guild members
against outsiders. Quality-controls could thus be seen an indirect means
to oust competition.

410 Thrupp, ‘Gilds’, pp. 231, 247–9; Lipson, Economic History, i, pp. 418–22; Statutes, ii,
pp. 298–9, 15 Hen VI c.6 (1437); ii, pp. 652–3, 19 Hen VII c.7 (1504).
411 Bristol, ii, pp. 7–8 (1381). 412 Ibid., ii, pp. 15–16 (1340s).
413 Keene, Survey, i, p. 302.
218 Medieval market morality

The corollary of higher quality and standardisation was elevated prices.

Controlling the level of output in certain crafts similarly kept prices up.414
Those who produced low-quality goods (with low amounts of capital)
for the poorer sections of society were pushed to the margins and this
reduction in choice cannot be seen as beneficial to the poor. Those
who gained most were the guildsmen and richer members of society,
who were, in turn, their town’s officials and legislators. Small towns, with
more relaxed or non-existent guild controls, may have been able to offer
lower-quality goods at commensurate lower prices and probably attracted
local peasant consumers. Similarly, the well-attested movement of cloth
industries into rural or smaller urban areas in the late fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries might well have been linked to the avoidance of guild
restrictions in large towns. Away from large boroughs, entrepreneurial
clothiers could employ workers and manufacturing techniques of
their own choosing and produce cloths which were perhaps more
varied.415
Numerous statutes outlined the strict measurements and ‘aulnage’
procedures for the assize of cloth.416 However, on occasions after the
Black Death, compromises were made that allowed cloths of various
measurements to be sold to poorer customers, even if the material did
not conform to the precise stipulations of law.417 Over time, the assize of
cloth was considered mainly applicable to cloth of ray and colour, with
other cloths like ‘cogware’ and ‘kendal’ being too low in standard to be
aulnaged. There was recognition of the need to provide a choice of goods
for those too poor to afford high-quality products.418 Undoubtedly, a
high standard of cloth was still demanded by the international market,
but, in England, the home market required a greater balance of choice,
quality and convenience.
It is possible that many medieval goods were shoddy and lightweight,
particularly goods sold by pedlars and small-town traders for everyday
use at the lower end of the market range. Few everyday artefacts have
survived, perhaps distorting our view of medieval handicraft in favour

414 See also Veale, English Fur Trade, pp. 123–5, 131–2.
415 Carus-Wilson, ‘Evidences of industrial growth’, 203–4; Bolton, Medieval English Econ-
omy, pp. 252–3.
416 Statutes, i, p. 233, Edw I?, ‘Articles of the Eyre’; i, p. 260, 2 Edw III c.14, ‘Statute of
Northampton’ (1328); i, p. 314, 25 Edw III st.3 c.1 (1350–1).
417 Ibid., i, pp. 330–1, 27 Edw III st.1 c.4 (1353); i, p. 395, 47 Edw III (1373); ii, p. 88,
17 Ric II c.2 (1393–4); ii, pp. 153–4, 7 Hen IV cc.9–10 (1405–6); ii, p. 159, 9 Hen IV
c.2 (1407); ii, p. 160, 9 Hen IV c.5 (1407); ii, p. 163–5, 11 Hen IV c.6 (1409–10); ii,
p. 168, 13 Hen IV c.4 (1411); ii, pp. 403–14, 4 Edw IV (1464–5); ii, pp. 418–22, 7
Edw IV (1467).
418 Ibid., ii, p. 64, 13 Ric II st.1 c.10 (1389–90); ii, p. 119, 1 Hen IV c.19 (1399).
 Regulation of the market 219

of the high-quality, expensive goods which are extant. Central legisla-

tion itself was not excessively concerned with standards of production,
except where they concerned public welfare or basic foodstuffs. However,
cloth-makers, goldsmiths and shoe-makers all received statutory sanc-
tions during the later Middle Ages based upon methods and deceits that
were considered to be damaging to the ‘common people’. For instance,
cloth-makers were accused of subtly concealing the nature of substan-
dard cloths through tacking and folding, and then bribing the aulnager
to put their seal upon them ‘in great deceit of the people and mischief
to the said buyers’.419 Similarly, the cordwainers of Bristol (1408) were
disparaged for using ‘false leathers, disloyally tanned or curried, called
sole-leather or over-leather’ in making their shoes and boots, and faced
fines of 6s. 8d. for such deceit.420 In 1403–4, a statute of Henry IV warned
against fraudulent artificers ‘imagining to deceive the common people’,
who made locks, rings, beads, candlesticks, harnesses, powder-boxes and
covers of copper and latten, and then overgilted them to look like gold or
silver.421 The spicers of Nottingham not only used unusual weights but
also mixed old spices with new; while those of London were also accused
of moistening their ginger and saffron in order to increase their weight.422
Unavoidable quality variations inherent in medieval goods were thus sup-
plemented by worries of flagrant fraud. It is likely that the two overlapped,
especially when traders attempted to pass low-quality goods off as of a
higher standard.
Guild ordinances frequently mention the harm caused by both sub-
standard manufacturing techniques and those who tried to cheat cus-
tomers. They were couched in terms of disgracing both the craft and the
community, with the implication that a damaged reputation was disas-
trous for business. The Bristol crafts often used moral rhetoric in substan-
tiating their ordinances. The 1408 ordinance for skinners, for example,
stated: ‘whereas through evil persons knowing nothing of their craft the
good people of the town and country are badly served and aggrieved to

419 Ibid., ii, pp. 13–14, 3 Ric II c.2 (1379–80); ii, pp. 33–4, 7 Ric II c.9 (1383); ii, p. 64,
13 Ric II st.1 c.11 (1389–90).
420 Bristol, ii, pp. 101–17 (1408 and 1415). See also Thomas (ed.), Calendar, pp. 5 (Roll
a, 1298), 154 (Roll f, 1303–4); Memorials, pp. 135–6 (1320), 364–5 (1372), 391–2
(1375), 420–1 (1378), 571–4 (1409); BL, MS Lansdowne 796, fol. 7r (late fifteenth
century); Northampton, i, p. 374 (late fifteenth century).
421 Statutes, ii, pp. 146–7, 5 Hen IV c.13 (1403–4). See also ibid., ii, p. 221, 2 Hen VI c.10
(1423); Memorials, pp. 118 (1316), 337–8 (1369), 363 (1372), 398–400 (1376), 405
(1377). Britton likened such cheating to theft. Britton, i, pp. 60–1, ch. 16, c.6 (1291–2).
422 Nottingham, i, pp. 280–1 (1395); Memorials, pp. 120–1 (1316). See also BL, MS
Lansdowne 796, fol. 6v (late fifteenth century).
220 Medieval market morality

the great scandal and shame of all the aforesaid craft’.423 Only burgesses
were allowed to exercise this craft of skinning and each was expected to be
‘well learned in his art’.424 The York glovers were warned against buying
cheap and ‘unabill’ wares from foreign traders and selling them again ‘to
the comon people in grete hurt unto tham’.425 Such commercial fraud
among artisans was often handled within the regulatory structure of the
craft guilds and did not reach the town courts.426 But consumers were
also encouraged to pursue claims against fraudulent traders. A statute
concerning tanners in 1423 promised half of any forfeiture and fine to
the people who sued tanners who sold badly tanned leather.427
Nevertheless, it was guilds and their searchers who were instrumental
in protecting consumers in larger towns from dishonest manufacturers
and also upholding the reputation of crafts. One of the mechanisms
employed to deter fraudulent behaviour, and also to protect the integrity
of distinct crafts, was to prevent artisans from participating in another,
complementary activity. For instance, in 1375, the shoe-makers of Bever-
ley were forbidden from practising the craft of tanner, and vice versa.428
This was reinforced by statutory legislation in 1389–90, but the principle
had been a part of legislation for much longer.429 The sumptuary legisla-
tion of 1363 also stated that artisans should only practise one trade and
merchants deal in one sort of merchandise.430 There was an addendum to
the 1363 parliamentary rolls stating: ‘but the intention of our lord the king
and his council is that women, that is to say brewers, bakers, websters,
spinsters and workers of wool as well as of linen and silk, embroiderers,
carders, combers of wool and all others who work and labour at manual
tasks, may work and labour as freely as they have done before this time,
without any impeachment or restriction arising from this ordinance’.
The prohibitions were thus supposedly aimed at artisans and full-time,
skilled workers, rather than those engaged in low-skill, low-paid labour.

423 Bristol, ii, pp. 93–4 (1408).

424 Ibid., ii, p. 96 (1408). See also ibid., ii, pp. 75–7 (1406); Beverley, p. 33 (1437); Norwich,
ii, pp. 149–52 (1442); Northampton, i, pp. 304–7 (1465).
425 York, iii, p. 181 (1475). 426 Thrupp, Merchant Class, p. 24.
427 Statutes, ii, p. 220, 2 Hen VI c.7 (1423).
428 Beverley, p. 31 (1375). See also Coventry, pp. 180–4 (1435), 557–8 (1494); Memorials,
pp. 555–6 (1402).
429 Statutes, ii, p. 65, 13 Ric II st.1 c.12 (1389–90). This statute was repealed temporarily
in 1402 after a petition by the shoe-makers, who complained that the division of crafts
merely encouraged false tanning and confederacies among tanners to reduce the price
of hides and increase the price of tanned leather. An initial petition in 1395 had failed.
Parl. Rolls, c.10 [4], January 1395, c.34, September 1402; Statutes, ii, pp. 142–3, 4 Hen
IV c.35 (1402). The delineation between tanners and shoe-makers had certainly been
reimposed by 1423. Ibid., p. 220, 2 Hen VI c.7 (1423).
430 Statutes, i, pp. 379–80, 37 Edw III cc.5–6 (1363); Parl. Rolls, c.24, October 1363.
 Regulation of the market 221

However, perhaps reflecting the changing commercial environment, cer-

tain towns extended the scope of their ordinances. When answering a
petition from Northampton bakers, the mayor and bailiffs replied that
it was ‘suspicious and unreasonable that a butcher should be a cook,
shoe-maker a tanner, or an innkeeper a baker’, since this made it more
difficult to oversee the assizes and prevent price-raising activities.431 The
responsibilities and standards of each trade and craft were becoming
strictly defined as occupational specialisation increased.432 Occupations
were not only protective of their own commercial territory, but quality-
controls by officials and searchers were easier when each kept to their
own trade.
Beyond quality-control in manufacturing, there were also concerns
about quality in the victualling trades, particularly regarding the sale of
unwholesome and out-of-date foodstuffs. Such practices were regarded
with abhorrence, for they were not only deceptive but could potentially
damage public health. Cooks were often punished for selling pasties and
pies which had been reheated two or three days after they had first been
cooked, or else which contained sub-quality or putrid meat.433 Judicium
Pillorie ordered officials to inquire of cooks who baked any victuals ‘not
wholesome for man’s body’, baked or roasted meat twice, or who stored
foodstuffs for so long that they became unhealthy.434 Central and urban
regulations regarding cooks and butchers were mostly concerned about
healthy and wholesome meat. Judicium Pillorie and Statutum de Pistoribus
both expressed condemnation of those who sold ‘meazled swines flesh’
or ‘flesh dead of murrain’, and this was reiterated in numerous urban
ordinances.435 In late fourteenth-century Beverley, any butcher selling
out-of-date, maggot-infested meat or any flesh obtained from diseased

431 Northampton, i, p. 249 (1384); CIM, iv (1377–88), p. 143, no. 258. See also Norwich,
ii, p. 81 (1373); Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 405 (Worcester, 1467).
432 Britnell, ‘Town life’, pp. 166–7.
433 Memorials, pp. 266–7, 328, 367, 438, 448–9, 464, 471–2; Norwich, i, pp. 361 (1288),
368 (1289).
434 Statutes, i, pp. 201–2, ‘Judicium Pillorie’. See also Britton, i, pp. 83–4, ch. 21, c.11 and
pp. 192–3, ch. 31, c.9 (1291–2); Prestwich (ed.), York, pp. 15–16 (1301); Black Book,
ii, pp. 104–5, 146–7, cc.32, 59 [58] (c.1309); Coventry, p. 26 (1421); BL, MS Lans-
downe 796, fol. 5v (late fifteenth century); Great Red Book, i, p. 142 (1452); Leicester, ii,
pp. 289–90 (1467), 321 (1489?); Northampton, i, p. 375 (late fifteenth century); Nor-
wich, ii, pp. 316–17 (fifteenth century?).
435 Statutes, i, pp. 201–3, ‘Judicium Pillorie’ and ‘Statutum de Pistoribus’. See also Fleta,
ii, pp. 121–2, bk. ii, c.12 (late thirteenth century); Black Book, ii, pp. 144–7, c.58 [57]
(c.1309); Oak Book, i, pp. 50–3, no. 41 (c.1300); Prestwich (ed.), York, pp. 12–13
(1301); Bristol, ii, p. 218 (fourteenth century); Liber Albus, p. 400 (1383–4); Coventry,
pp. 25–6 (1421); BL, MS Lansdowne 796, fol. 5r (late fifteenth century); Great Red
Book, i, pp. 143–4 (1452); Northampton, i, p. 373 (late fifteenth century); Leicester, ii,
pp. 288–9 (1467), 321–2 (1489?).
222 Medieval market morality

beasts faced hefty penalties of 6s. 8d. each time. Animals had to be
slaughtered by the butcher who vended them and then sold within four
days or else salted.436 In Nottingham in 1314, William, son of Matthew,
was accused by Hugh de Claxton and his wife, Alice, for selling diseased
meat ‘by which he lost the sale of his meat, and the credence of his
neighbours’, as well as being fined 6s.437
Fishmongers were warned against selling unwholesome fish that might
harm people. A set of late fifteenth-century assizes ordained that fish-
mongers should ‘water no maner of ffisshe twyes [twice] nor that sell
no fectyf [infected] ffyssh’; the former practice presumably intended to
deceive buyers into thinking the fish was fresher than it actually was.
London fish-sellers were also told not to ‘dub their baskets’, which was
the practice of putting the best fish at the top of the basket to conceal
less desirable fish below.438 An unusual ordinance for Lynn in the early
fifteenth century outlined the quality expected in dairy products: ‘Milk-
wives are to sell good milk and cream that is sweet, in the form that it
comes out of the cow – not combined or thickened with flour, nor diluted
with water, to the deceit of the people, upon pain, etc. And they are to
sell good, sweet butter, freshly made.’439 How quality was judged and
standardised in foodstuffs is difficult to ascertain, but time restrictions
were the most common stipulations. In York, any meat which had been
on a stall in the sun had to be sold after a day, while Colchester butchers
were to sell their meat within three days in summer and four days in
winter.440

Price and profit

Price and its regulation lay at the core of most market controls and an
agreed price represented the culmination of the bargaining process. The

436 Beverley, pp. 28–9 (1365, 1370).

437 Nottingham, i, p. 81 (1314). See also Norwich, i, pp. 8, 16, 32, 48, 359–60; Bridgwater,
p. 49 (1379); Jeayes (ed.), Court Rolls, i, pp. 14–17, 62, 72, 100 (1310–12, 1330);
Walker (ed.), Court Rolls, v, pp. 111, 139, 147, 154 (1327–9).
438 Liber Albus, pp. 326–7, 329 (1279–80); Prestwich (ed.), York, p. 13 (1301); Black Book,
ii, pp. 104–5, c.30 (c.1309); Memorials, pp. 516–18 (1390); Coventry, p. 25 (1421);
BL, MS Lansdowne 796, fol. 5r (late fifteenth century); Great Red Book, i, p. 141 (late
fifteenth century); Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, pp. 396–7 (Worcester, 1467);
Norwich, ii, pp. 316–17 (fifteenth century?). For cases of unwholesome fish being
sold and traders punished, see Jeayes (ed.), Court Rolls, i, pp. 28–9, 75 (1311–12);
Bridgwater, p. 49 (1379).
439 Alsford, Towns (Lynn, early fifteenth century).
440 Prestwich (ed.), York, pp. 12–13 (1301); Red Paper Book, p. 152 (early fourteenth
century). Butchers in Leicester, Tamworth, Coventry, London and Northampton had
three days to sell unsalted meat. Leicester, i, pp. 180–1 (1279); Wood, Medieval Tam-
worth, p. 75 (1319 and 1326); Coventry, pp. 25–6 (1421); CLB, k, p. 10 (1423);
Northampton, i, p. 373 (late fifteenth century).
 Regulation of the market 223

means of conveying value through price was not a simplistic equation for
medieval salesmen, but relied on similar criteria to those employed today.
Weights and measures had to conform to an understood standard; qual-
ity had to be measurable by certain defined terms; added value, either
through transport, process, labour or scarcity, had to be assessed; and the
terms of credit accounted for. These issues have been discussed above
and demonstrated the concerns of both town authorities and traders with
conformity, uniformity, quality and security. The price regulations of
medieval authorities were also based on a number of economic assump-
tions and social theories, not least the theological notions of just price
and the social theories of the ‘body politic’ and the commonweal.
Postan has suggested that medieval authorities deemed all increases
of price unjust, even when demand was high or supplies were short.441
Others have stated that the medieval authorities fixed prices by arbi-
trary enactment, without giving thought to principles of demand and
supply.442 However, to assume that the medieval authorities were blink-
ered by notions of ‘natural values’, rigid prices and abstract theology
overlooks the regulatory mechanisms they put in place. They did have
a pragmatic notion of a ‘common market price’ and understood that
they could not overcome the economic forces of supply and demand,
merely mitigate them. But they also applied the principles of ‘just price’
as an equitable method of calculating a legal price in the marketplace.
The authorities in particular towns tried to prevent the exploitation of
extreme market conditions by sellers, to the detriment of consumers,
by making the legal price binding. Medieval economic legislators did
not accept a Smithian theory of freely allowing supply and demand to
set the retail price and allowing self-interests to provide for the com-
munal benefit. Indeed, it is arguable that such a free-market system
would not have been effective because of the imbalances of supply
and competition within medieval trade. The medieval economy was
particularly susceptible to exogenous shocks and disturbances, and it
was this instability which much of the trading regulation sought to
temper.443
The most significant national regulations for price control were the
assizes of bread and ale, tied to the market price and drawing heavily upon
scholastic notions of the just price. Wine was also regulated by specific
national stipulations. These assizes will be discussed further below.444
As regards the direct regulation of prices by royal intervention, one of
the earliest examples comes from the local ordinances of York in 1301,
which attempted to keep prices at the same level as before the arrival of

441 Postan, Medieval Economy, p. 226. 442 Cf. de Roover, ‘Concept’, 429–30.
443 Persson, Pre-Industrial, p. 53. 444 See pp. 231–50.
224 Medieval market morality

the king’s court.445 In response to the relocation to York of the Exchequer

and Court of Common Pleas since 1298, prices were set for certain meat
products. For example, a goose or capon was to sell for 3d., a hen for
11/2d., rabbit for 5d., ten herrings for 1d., sixteen eggs for 1d., candles at
11/2d. a pound, onions at 1d. a pound, mustard at 4d. a gallon and shoes
at 5d.–7d., depending on the type and quality of leather. Anyone could
complain about excessive prices and as an incentive they would receive
the goods for free. Tailors and innkeepers were also given instructions
regarding the prices to charge for their clothes and services.446 However,
Michael Prestwich argues that this was an exceptional example of price-
fixing and it was certainly not repeated in subsequent York regulations.
Such broad-ranging price controls were rarely seen in national legis-
lation. Occasional early fourteenth-century royal commissions and writs
sought to stipulate reasonable prices based on earlier precedents. How-
ever, all these examples appear to be related to specific problems, such
as royal household provision, the perambulations of the eyre, or a sub-
standard coinage, rather than a general policy to extend price regulation
beyond bread, ale and wine. Cases in common law tended to be related
to misrepresentation of quality rather than ‘fair price’.447
Unless there were exceptional or emergency circumstances, royal gov-
ernment generally left initial and wholesale price formation to market
forces.448 When they did try to impose arbitrary prices they often faced
major problems. For instance, in April 1315 the government made an
abortive attempt to fix the prices of beasts in reaction to a long-term rise
in livestock prices.449 A petition was presented by members of Parliament
to the king and his council in January 1315, asking for specified prices to
be ordained for oxen, sheep, pigs, geese, hens, capons, young pigeons,
young chickens and eggs. In response, the council set a price on these
commodities, which was to be issued to the sheriffs of England.450 This
ordinance was to be proclaimed in all cities, boroughs, towns and markets
in March 1315. However, a number of chronicles, such as the Anonimalle
Chronicle, the Vita Edwardi Secundi and the Bridlington chronicle, were
critical of the ordinance. The Bridlington chronicler stated that the price-
fixing ordinance was ‘against reason’ because ‘the price of everything will

445 Prestwich (ed.), York. 446 Ibid., pp. 14–16 (1301).

447 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 73–4, 78; CPR, 1301–7, p. 487 (1306); CPR, 1307–
13, p. 29 (1307–8); Sutherland (ed.), Eyre, pp. 9, 14, 22, 29, 32–4 (1329–30); CLB,
e, p. 219 (1331).
448 De Roover, ‘Concept’, 421–9; Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 78–9.
449 There is a copy of the writ in the Oxford archives, Salter (ed.), Medieval Archives, i,
pp. 344–5, appx ii, no. 1 (Oxford, 1315).
450 Parl. Rolls, cc.35, 36 and 37, January 1315.
 Regulation of the market 225

be in accordance with the fruitfulness of the harvest, not the will of men’.
Edward II and his council soon backed down on this ordinance, amidst
the crisis of the Great Famine, and the chroniclers report that they merely
stated that people ‘should buy and sell as cheaply as they could’ or at
‘reasonable prices’.451 This suggests that there was a general recognition
that the government did not have the power to enforce arbitrary prices
that attempted to buck market forces.
The next important corpus of central price legislation came in the
aftermath of the Black Death and the government imposition of controls
over labour and wages. In the ‘Ordinance of Labourers’ in 1349, artisans
were ordered not to take more than they had been used to three years
previously, while:

butchers, fishmongers, hostelers, brewers, bakers, poulterers, and all other sellers
of all manner of victual, shall be bound to sell the same victual for a reasonable
price, having respect to the price that such victual be sold at in the places adjoin-
ing, so that the same sellers have moderate gains, and not excessive, reasonably to
be required according to the distance of the place from whence the said victuals
be carried.452

The punishment for excessive prices was to pay double to the aggrieved
party. The ‘Statute of Labourers’ in 1350–1 also demanded that artifi-
cers, such as shoe-makers, saddlers, tanners and tailors, should sell their
products at the same price as they had in 1346, or else face punishment
at the hands of the Justices of the Peace. The justices were continually
given special powers to enforce this legislation.453 In 1363, the ‘Statute
Concerning Diet and Apparel’ responded to a ‘dearth’ of poultry in the
country by setting precise maximum prices of 3d. for a young capon,
4d. for an old capon, 2d. for a hen, 1d. for a pullet and 4d. for a
goose.454 The notion of ‘reasonable gains’ for victuallers and artisans
was then repeated in a statute for 1389–90, which sought to tighten the
enforcement of this aspect of the ‘Ordinance of Labourers’.455 By the
end of the fourteenth century, the items covered by royal price-fixing
legislation had expanded, though it was still not all-embracing in its

451 Childs and Taylor (eds.), Anonimalle Chronicle, pp. 38–9, 88–91; Denholm-Young (ed.),
Life of Edward the Second, p. 69; Stubbs (ed.), Chronicles, ii, pp. 47–8, 232–3, 237–8.
452 Statutes, i, pp. 307–8, 23 Edw III cc.5–6, ‘Ordinance of Labourers’ (1349).
453 Ibid., i, p. 312, 25 Edw III st.2 cc.3–4, ‘Statute of Labourers’ (1350–1). See also ibid.,
i, p. 345, 28 Edw III c.5 (1354). Proceedings before the justices in Suffolk in 1361–4
included many economic offences of excessive price and forestalling. Putnam (ed.),
Proceedings, pp. 342–83.
454 Statutes, i, pp. 378–9, 37 Edw III c.3 (1363).
455 Ibid., ii, p. 63, 13 Ric II st.1 c.8 (1389–90). See also ibid., ii, p. 140, 4 Hen IV c.25
(1402); ii, p. 225, 2 Hen VI c.18 (1423).
226 Medieval market morality

principles.456 It was not only foodstuffs that were targeted by the new
regulations, but also certain minor manufactures were expected to be
sold at a customary and ‘reasonable price’. It appears that the legislation
was linked to post-Black Death attempts to keep wages down, and the
longevity of the labour crisis meant that these price lists became more of
a fixture in both royal and civic law.
The legislation was relatively vague concerning the exact ‘reasonable’
prices involved, beyond recognition that travel costs should be incor-
porated. In most cases, the stipulations merely provided a broad theo-
retical framework upon which town authorities could regulate.457 The
loose phrasing of some of the statutes meant that officials could enforce
the law in a way that suited local practices and needs. In addition, not
all municipal price regulations drew on royal regulation. The prices of
fish, wine, poultry, rabbits and other animals had been set in London
since at least the late thirteenth century, and after the Black Death they
added meat and ready-cooked food like pies.458 Many statutes, such
as those of 1315, 1363 and 1389–90, thus appear to have followed
London’s example, though the city’s ordinances themselves were some-
times also influenced by royal regulation. Seabourne refers to this process
as a ‘cross-fertilisation’ or ‘hybridisation’ of local and national laws.459
For example, in 1361, there were complaints about the excessive prices
of victuals and London’s officials were ordered to set prices so ‘that the
sellers may gain a reasonable but not excessive profit’ and ‘the city by
their efforts and diligence may be brought again to its due estate’.460 This
statement related directly to notions of the natural social order and com-
munal responsibility, and it also reflected the wording of the Ordinance
and Statute of Labourers.
Maximum prices of meat were occasionally set in a number of indi-
vidual boroughs, perhaps drawing on statutory precedent, and showed
how local price-fixing was sometimes tolerated. In Coventry (1445), no
cook was to sell a goose for more than 4d., a pig for 7d. and the head

456 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, p. 74. For a more detailed discussion regarding the reg-
ulation of prices in fourteenth-century England, see ibid., ch. 3.
457 Britnell, Growth and Decline, pp. 237–8.
458 Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae, ii, ‘Liber Custumarum’, pp. 82–3, 117–20 (c.1274–
6), 192–3 (1300), 302–8, 603–5 (1320–1), 678–81 (1314–15); Thomas (ed.), Calendar,
pp. 60–1 (Roll a, 1299–1300); Memorials, pp. 312–13 (1363), 426 (1378), 438 (1380),
643 (1416), 666–7 (1418); Liber Albus, p. 401 (1383–4); CLB, c, p. 134 (1300), f,
p. 123 (1345), g, pp. 139 (1360–1), 148 (1362–3), h, pp. 61 (1377), 110 (1378), 257
(1384–5), i, pp. 35, 42–3 (1403–4); Barron, London, pp. 320–4.
459 York’s 1301 ordinances display similar characteristics. Seabourne, Royal Regulation,
p. 81.
460 CCR, 1360–4, pp. 284–5 (1361).
 Regulation of the market 227

of a pig for 1d.461 Cooks in late fourteenth-century Bristol were to sell

well-roasted geese for 4d. each and their innkeepers had to sell hay at
4d. a bushel.462 Fuel, like charcoal, oil, tallow and wood, could also
be subject to certain price restrictions.463 There were thus certain com-
modities, such as meat and fuel, whereby local officials stipulated the
‘reasonable prices’ that pertained. Were these prices arbitrary or did they
bear some relation to market prices? There were instances where towns
implemented certain market-determined criteria. Berwick ordinances for
1283–4 set maximum prices for mutton carcasses that depended on the
time of year and the agricultural cycle: 16d. from Easter to Whitsuntide,
12d. from Whitsuntide to 25 July, 10d. from then to Michaelmas, and 8d.
back to Easter.464 Several national regulations also made allowance for
different prices between cities, market towns and rural villages.465 This
appeared to take into account the cost of transport and perhaps even
labour, and some regulations made a direct reference to these elements
of price formation.466 In normal circumstances, authorities seemingly
expected prices to fluctuate to a certain extent, but would also take some
remedial action of fixing retail prices when there were severe shortages
or particular concerns.
A differentiation must be made between the price-fixing of different
wholesale and retail commodities. Price-fixing by the authorities mostly
focused upon retail food markets, where the assizes of bread and ale, as
well as the profits of the butchers, fishmongers and cooks, were closely
regulated. There were also retail markets in manufactured goods, such as
clothes, shoes, woodware and metalware. Although these manufactures
were subject to quality-controls and declarations that ‘reasonable prices’
should be upheld, processes of individual bargaining were often allowed
provided that dishonest practices had been excised.467 This was because
the medieval demand for manufactured goods was fairly elastic and could

461 York, i, pp. xx–xxi, 223 (fifteenth century); Coventry, p. 223 (1445).
462 Bristol, ii, p. 227 (late fourteenth century); Great Red Book, i, p. 144 (1452). Cooks in
Coventry were also ordered to sell geese for 4d., Coventry, p. 26 (1421). In Leicester,
geese were again set at 4d., while the best pigs were set at 6d. Leicester, ii, pp. 289–90
(1467).
463 Leicester, ii, pp. 294–5 (1467), 318 (1488), iii, p. 12 (1520?); Northampton, i, pp. 231–2,
c.53 (c.1460); Memorials, pp. 358–60 (1371), 458 (1382), 509 (1388), 560 (1405);
Coventry, pp. 632 (1511), 646 (1515).
464 Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 342 (Berwick, 1283–4).
465 RP, i, p. 295 (1315); CCR, 1313–18, pp. 160–1 (1317); Statutes, i, p. 378, 37 Edw III
c.3 (1363). For similar provisions in the assize of ale, see below, pp. 241–2.
466 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, p. 86, cf. Prestwich (ed.), York, p. 12; Statutes, ii, p. 263,
4 Edw III c.8 (1330).
467 Anthropologists emphasised the process of haggling to reach a price agreement in
periodic markets. Geertz, ‘Suq’, pp. 221–9; Shanin (ed.), Peasants, p. 170.
228 Medieval market morality

sustain greater price variations. By contrast, the demand for bread, ale
and fish was generally inelastic and this could allow traders to exploit
consumers when supplies were short. Britnell has suggested that there
was no unmediated bargaining in the medieval food markets and retail
prices were set by the authorities on the basis of wholesale prices. He also
argued that public intervention, inspired by canon law, was more active
than previously supposed and that there was a binding official market
price set by officials in the interests of the consumer.468
Nevertheless, at the source of agricultural production (on lordly
estates and peasant holdings), the wholesale price of goods was deter-
mined by considerations of supply and demand. Grain prices were orig-
inally decided by negotiations between producers and middlemen, often
beyond the reach of market authorities.469 The ‘Ordinance of Labour-
ers’ (1349) stated that prices should be set with respect to the prices
in the region and a mark-up according to transport.470 Thus, when
medieval officials came to set the retail prices of foodstuffs, they merely
reaffirmed a public estimate of the wholesale price for basic commodi-
ties, based on current market conditions. ‘Trusted’ men were chosen
in a town, who had informal discussions with local traders in order to
reach a judgement on prices sustained by the market.471 In fourteenth-
century Bristol, the retail price of fish was ordained by six elected offi-
cials, after they had dealt with the wholesale vendors and duly agreed a
reasonable price ‘according to their joint discretions and good accord’.
Fish were to be sold ‘as well to the profit of the commons of the said
town as to all the gentle folk and all other people of the country round
about for the provisioning of their houses’.472 In the York Ordinances of
1301, inspectors were to visit butchers when they had received livestock
and assess the retail price based on the price at which they bought the
beasts plus the labour involved in slaughtering.473 In early fourteenth-
century Oxford, appointed jurors, under oath, inquired into the com-
mon selling price of wheat, barley and oats and thus at what price
the assizes should be set.474 Even on the manor of Downham (Cam-
bridgeshire) in 1326, the current market prices of three grades of wheat
(melioris, mediocris, simplicioris) were agreed upon by court officials under
oath.475

468 Britnell, ‘Price-setting’, 1–15. 469 Ibid.

470 Statutes, i, pp. 311–13, 25 Edw III st.2, ‘Statute of Labourers’ (1350–1).
471 Britnell, ‘Price-setting’, 4; Seabourne, Royal Regulation, p. 88.
472 Bristol, ii, pp. 72–4 (fourteenth century).
473 Prestwich (ed.), York, pp. 12–13 (1301).
474 Salter (ed.), Medieval Archives, ii, pp. 142–3, 151–2 (1309–10).
475 Coleman (ed.), Court Roll, p. 99 (1326).
 Regulation of the market 229

How often these prices were set is difficult to ascertain; it may have
related to the arrival of large shipments of fish or agricultural and droving
patterns. The system of ‘lot’ in many boroughs may have provided a
useful framework for bargaining and communal acceptance of a market
price. We also know that in different towns, the assize of bread was set
weekly, monthly, quarterly or biannually. This may have depended on
the size and turnover of the market in question, as well as the resources
available for oversight. The price of grain certainly changed during the
year, but knowledge of that year’s harvest did not in itself provide precise
predictions. The seasonal and yearly fluctuations for wheat can be seen
in the prices declared by the jurors in Oxford from 1309 to 1327, which
ranged from 3s. to 9s. 6d. per quarter, but not usually more than 1s.–2s.
within an agricultural year.476
There were restrictions on the wholesale bargaining process within
markets. Elizabeth Gemmill has looked at price-setting for grain in
fifteenth-century Aberdeen, which may have been broadly similar to
practices in England. She noted that buyers were forbidden from offering
a higher price (‘overbuying’) once a bargain had been agreed between
two other parties.477 The bargaining process in the wholesale food mar-
kets was intended to keep prices down. In London in 1347, John de
Burstalle was convicted of deceitfully enhancing the common market
price of wheat. He connived to have a confederate bring two of his own
bushels into the cornmarket for which he offered a price 11/2d.–2d. over
the present common price, and such misinformation made corn more
dear ‘to the damage of the commonalty’. He was imprisoned for forty
days.478 The flow of information was integral to the process of price-
setting; burgesses controlled information zealously so as to keep prices
down.479 If certain products were in short supply and outside traders
discovered this, they could take advantage by holding back goods to
raise the price. Equally, spreading false rumours of scarcity or expected
deliveries was condemned as conspiratorial and compounded any other
offence. Outsiders who arrived in Colchester and Dunwich had to offer
a price while in ignorance of the present state of the town market; this
was an offer-price system which might give burgesses a bargain below the
clearing-price of that day.480

476 Salter (ed.), Medieval Archives, ii, pp. 143–82. See also Oak Book, ii, p. xxii.
477 Gemmill, ‘Town and region’, p. 62.
478 Memorials, pp. 235–6 (1347); CLB, f, p. 165 (1347). See also Memorials, pp. 317–18
(1364); CLB, g, p. 171 (1364).
479 Britnell, ‘Price-setting’, 8–9.
480 Britnell, Growth and Decline, pp. 35–7; Bailey (ed.), Bailiffs’ Minute Book, pp. 19, 132
(1427).
230 Medieval market morality

Auctioning was also prohibited as a system of price-maximisation.481 A

statute of 1360–1 displayed the same disdain as preachers and moralists
for certain bargaining practices at Great Yarmouth, suggesting that prices
for fish were raised when traders ‘by malice and envy increase upon the
other . . . and such proffers extend to more than the price of herring for
which the fishers proffered it to sell at the beginning’.482 The legislation
proposed that all sales of herring should take place openly, not privately,
and at a price agreed between the purchaser and vendor. No one could
enter into a bargain until the first trader had already agreed his price with
the fish-seller.
Restrictions upon bargaining practices allowed the fixing of market
retail prices to remain viable for authorities, even though officials realised
that they could not keep prices static when harvests fluctuated and supply
networks were regionalised. Nevertheless, formally announced common
and retail prices gave buyers vital, irrevocable information that overcame
ignorance of the exact state of the market. Consumers had to place
confidence in the authorities that changes were being monitored, and
that prices were being kept to a ‘reasonable’ level in line with statutory
law, market forces, and commutative and distributive justice.
Additionally, reasonable prices were related to a concept of reasonable
profit or gain for traders. A case from London in 1382 demonstrates
this process at work. A fishmonger, Thomas Welford, was cajoled and
persuaded by the mayor and aldermen into selling his fish to hucksters
at a wholesale rate of six herrings for a penny, so that the hucksters could
retail them at five for a penny. Thomas claimed that this was the lowest
price at which he could sell his fish ‘without doing too great an injury to
himself’. However, it was discovered that Thomas soon after sold a bulk
consignment to a stranger at ten herrings for a penny, even though ‘he
and all other freemen were bound of right to sell to their neighbours at as
low a rate as to strangers, or even cheaper’. In response to this evidence
that herring could have been sold at a lower price, the price of herring for
all fishmongers was reduced by the mayor to nine herrings for a penny.483
In this example, officials sought to ensure that foodstuffs were sold at as
low a price as possible, but based on the minimum margins that traders
themselves generally dealt at in order to make a living.
What constituted a reasonable profit in retail trades is not well elu-
cidated in the sources. Victuallers, cooks and fishmongers in fifteenth-
century Leicester were ordered to ‘selle their vitaill at resonable prise
takyng resonable encres [profit]’.484 Protecting citizens and visitors

481 Leicester, ii, p. 22 (1335–6). 482 Statutes, i, pp. 369–70, 35 Edw III (1360–1).
483 Memorials, pp. 467–8 (1382). 484 Leicester, ii, pp. 289–90 (1467).
 Regulation of the market 231

against sudden and excessive price rises was concomitant upon urban
officials, and ordinances were couched in accusatory terms against
traders who sold for profit. Searches were made for provisions that were
sold ‘to excessyue lucre [gain]’. Forestallers in fourteenth-century Ten-
dring (Essex) were accused of selling fish and other goods for five times
what they paid, while some in Scarborough had sold herring and salt for
twice its value ‘in great extortion’.485 An example from the peace rolls for
Suffolk (1361–4) describes how Thomas the Smith of Combs made an
excessive profit by paying 4s. 6d. for each of six barrels of tar and selling
them at 6s.: a gross profit margin of 33 per cent.486 The fifteenth-century
oath for the Mayor of Northampton provides a more precise indication
as to what was considered a reasonable profit, stating that butchers were
allowed to gain no more than 1d. on every 12d. worth of meat sold
(8 per cent gross profit margin).487 Regraters were similarly allowed
a profit of one penny in every shilling, but the assize of bread allowed a
14 per cent net profit margin for bakers.488 Ultimately, the decision on
what constituted a reasonable price or profit varied and was often left to
local officials, who consulted with local experts and dealers. There were
thus margins for flexibility in determining acceptable levels of gain.

The assizes of bread, ale and wine

The most constantly monitored retail traders were bakers and brewers.
Bread and ale were two of the basic nutritional elements of the medieval
diet and their supply and price were of utmost concern to local author-
ities, particularly in towns where a majority of the population depended
upon bakers and brewers to sustain them. Officials were thus provided
with processes and mechanisms by which to control the manufacture and
sale of these foodstuffs, to judge the weight, measures, quality and price,
and to ensure open supply.
The most significant and well-known laws were the assizes of bread,
ale and wine, which were promulgated nationally in the thirteenth
century.489 Such assizes involved the regulation of price, quality and

485 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, p. 134.

486 Putnam (ed.), Proceedings, p. 365, no. 463 (1361–4), cf. Seabourne, Royal Regulation,
p. 135.
487 Northampton, i, p. 373 (late fifteenth century). This profit does not include deductions
for expenses and overheads.
488 Davis, ‘Baking’, 479. For regraters, see below, pp. 261–2.
489 The main statutes were: Assisa Panis et Cervisie, Judicium Pillorie, and Statutum de
Pistoribus (also known as Composicio ad puniendem infringentes assisam panis et cervisie,
forestallarios, cocos, etc); Statutes, i, pp. 199–204. Bennett referred to them as quasi-
statutes, but they came to have the force of statutes; Bennett, Ale, p. 99.
232 Medieval market morality

quantity. They drew upon previous governmental assizes, such as those

of King John and Henry II, which were similar in both their format and
general principles.490 There had also been general regulations govern-
ing the sale of bread and ale as part of local administration, well before
they were codified in national statutes. In the Domesday Book, those
using false measures at Chester were to be fined 4s. and anyone mak-
ing bad ale faced the cucking-stool.491 The twelfth-century charters of
Shrewsbury and Egremont authorised burgesses to fix the assize of bread,
and at Tewkesbury fines were assessed by twelve burgesses.492 London
authorities enforced a municipal assize of bread as early as the reign
of King John.493 However, it was the thirteenth-century statute Assisa
Panis et Cervisie which laid down the basic assize formula which shall be
studied in detail here.494 This quasi-statute highlighted the importance
of basic foodstuffs for the people of medieval England, as well as the
increasing need for stricter controls at a time of increasing population
and grain prices. The assizes were also part of continuous attempts by
central government to control certain trading practices. Their interests,
before the thirteenth century, had been select, focusing on such issues
as weights and measures and coinage, but subsequently, their involve-
ment and legislation gained momentum and encompassed an increasing
number of trading concerns. The correlated tables of grain and bread or
ale prices provided in Assisa were often found verbatim in borough and
local customs.495 There is little doubt that the national assizes were a

490 Connor, Weights and Measures, p. 194; Hall (ed.), Red Book, ii, p. 750; Brewer (ed.),
Registrum Malmesburiensie, i, p. 134; Maitland (ed.), Select Pleas of the Crown, i, p. 27.
Britnell argued that it is unlikely that the earlier royal promulgations had any national
significance beyond the verge of the royal court. Britnell, Commercialisation, pp. 26, 94.
491 VCH Chester, i, p. 343. For early cases of the assize of ale in the bishopric of Winchester,
see Hall (ed.), Pipe Roll, pp. 45, 47, 49, 65.
492 BBC, 1042–1216, pp. lxiv, 157–9. See also Britnell, ‘Morals’, p. 26.
493 Braid, ‘Laying the foundations’, 6.
494 The statutes Assisa Panis et Cervisie, Judicium Pillorie and Statutum de Pistoribus were
all attributed as of uncertain date in Statutes, i, pp. 199–204, but Assisa and Judicium
were nominally assigned to 51 Hen III (1266–7), while 1274–5 is possible for Statutum
de Pistoribus. However, there is evidence that Assisa Panis et Cervisie was promulgated
around 1256. See Davis, ‘Baking’, 468. Assisa could have been formulated as early as
1254, as Robert Braid suggests. However, it is difficult to distinguish in the sources
between the reinforcement of local assizes and the actual proclamation of a national
standard. Braid, ‘Laying the foundations’, 5; CCR 1253–4, p. 256; CCR 1254–6,
pp. 94, 173.The national promulgation of the assizes of bread and ale was possibly
related to events in London in 1254, when the city was taken into the king’s hands
for non-observance of their assizes. In 1258, a special assay of London’s bakers was
undertaken. Riley (ed.), Chronicles, pp. 22–3, 43; Barron, London, p. 32.
495 The assizes were copied in Oak Book, ii, pp. 28–31; Northampton, i, pp. 314–21 (‘Judi-
cium Pillorie’), 325–7 (‘Assisa Panis et Cervisie’); Salter (ed.), Medieval Archives, ii,
pp. 131–4. Summaries can be also found in Britton, i, pp. xxi–xxix, 186–9, ch. 31
 Regulation of the market 233

primary influence on local trading practices and that schedules of prices

and weights were distributed to the localities as a proforma for local
regulation.
Seabourne argued that there was little financial profit for the Crown
in such legislation and that paternal concerns about supply and quality
were more important.496 However, this does not mean that the assizes
were designed only for the benefit of poor consumers; the supply of
the royal household was also being protected. The king’s household was
undoubtedly a significant consumer and its members did not want unrea-
sonable prices or unstandard measures.497 In addition, English kings of
the thirteenth century were adamant that the assizes of bread and ale were
franchises, usually granted by the Crown and associated with the right to
view of frankpledge. Their enunciation of the assizes must be seen partly
as an attempt to stamp a royal claim on their enforcement, with the pos-
sible pecuniary benefits seen in the Quo Warranto proceedings of Edward
I.498 Lords who received royal liberties, usually in return for substantial
payment to the Exchequer, regarded the assizes as lucrative investments
from which they expected a monetary return. Although the primary aim
of the assizes must still be viewed as ensuring a staple supply and price
for vital foodstuffs, the supplementary effect of the franchising system
was to create increasing restrictions and amercements for the producers
of bread and ale in order to establish a return for the lord.

Bread
The bakers of late medieval England produced a variety of breads for
daily consumption and, traditionally, historians have regarded the assize
of bread as a means of controlling production and sale in the interest
of poorer customers. The basic construct of the assize gave the different
weights of farthing loaves of wastel bread in inverse proportion to the
price of a quarter of wheat. As the price of a quarter of wheat increased by
increments of 6d., so the weight of a farthing loaf was decreased.499 This

(1291–2); Fleta, ii, pp. 117–18, bk. ii, cc.9–11 (late thirteenth century); Louis (ed.),
Commonplace Book, pp. 121–4.
496 Seabourne, ‘Laws, morals and money’.
497 Bennett, Ale, p. 101; Cunningham, Growth, p. 263.
498 A grant to the manor of Ratcliffe (near Nottingham) in 1307, included the view of
frankpledge, the assizes of bread and ale, a pillory, tumbrel, ‘infangenethef ’ (right to
judge thieves) and associated gallows and a fixed annual rent to the Exchequer of 2s.
Bland, Brown and Tawney (eds.), English Economic History, pp. 155–6.
499 Davis, ‘Baking’, 470–1. Different types of bread could be baked: simnel, wastel, cocket
(of two grades), wholewheat, treyt, bread of common wheat, and horsebread. Horse-
bread was a coarse bread made from peas and beans, intended for horses but also eaten
234 Medieval market morality

mechanism ensured that a loaf costing a farthing was always available to

the poorest consumer, even though they received less bread for a farthing
when grain prices increased.500 It was impractical to enforce laws that
drove the bakers into major losses and out of business, so the assize was
regarded as an effective compromise. It was based on the market price
of wheat, determined by supply and demand, combined with notions of
both commutative and distributive justice.501
Bakers were supposed to be continually informed about the current
level of the assize. Judicium Pillorie stated that twelve lawful men were
to summon all the bakers and brewers of a town, together with their
measures. They were then to inquire into the standard prices of the best
wheat at the last market day, as well as the second-best and third-best.502
Assays of bread in London followed this procedure in its principles, by
appointing four men to buy corn, bake three types of bread, and have
the loaves weighed; through this method, the assize of bread was set
regularly.503 Assizes had to be set locally since they were tied to the local
market price of wheat, but also as a demonstration to local bakers that
the assize level was sustainable. In Beverley, in the 1360s, the customs
stated that six burgesses were appointed and sworn in to keep the assize
of bread and ale for the year. They took samples of loaves and ale to be
weighed and measured by the bailiff in their presence and the quality

by the very poor. Horsebread was not included in the assize of bread, but Coventry
bakers in 1473 were ordered to sell three 51/2lb. loaves for 1d., while bakers in York
were to sell three 3lb. loaves for 1d. when the price of beans was over 4s., and 4lb. loaves
when under 4s. The ordinances for Henley-on-Thames decreed that bakers should sell
fifteen loaves of horsebread for 12d. Coventry, pp. 23–4 (1421), 385 (1473), 682–3
(1522); York, i, p. 170 (1482); Henley, p. 108; Connor, Weights and Measures, p. 195.
Assisa only recorded in full the figures for wastel bread, but provided proportions from
which to calculate the weights of other breads. It is difficult to ascertain the popularity
of various types of bread, but the Oxford assize records for 1309–38 might be indica-
tive in that they distinguish between different loaves detected for defects: 14 for simnel
(3%), 163 cases for wastel (30%), 200 for 1st cocket (36%), 78 for 2nd cocket or
clermatyn (14%), 57 for wheaten (10%), 3 for treyt (1%) and 33 for bread of mixed
grain (6%). Salter (ed.), Medieval Archives, ii, pp. 138–82. Wastel thus consituted a
fair proportion of the bread trade, though the two types of cocket had half the market.
This may have been reversed in the different economic climate after the Black Death.
500 Liber Albus, pp. 308–9 (1272–1307); Coventry, pp. 23–4 (1421); Leicester, ii, pp. 106–7
(1357), 287 (1467).
501 Davis, ‘Baking’.
502 Statutes, i, pp. 201–2, ‘Judicium Pillorie’. According to Reynes, the middle price of
wheat was used for assize calculations. Louis (ed.), Commonplace Book, p. 136. For the
market prices of three qualities of grain, see Coleman (ed.), Court Roll, p. 99; Jeayes
(ed.), Court Rolls, i, pp. 55–6 (1311); Leicester, ii, pp. 89, 93, 130, 131, 133, 147, 149,
156; Nottingham, i, pp. 289–91 (1395–6).
503 Liber Albus, pp. 302–5 (1272–1307); Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae, iii, appx i,
pp. 411–29. See Seabourne, ‘Assize matters’, esp. 33–4; Davis, ‘Baking’, 474–5.
 Regulation of the market 235

of the loaves or ale was also judged. At their discretion defaults were
adjudged, amercements assessed and offenders punished.504 The extent
to which the assize was updated, based on changing grain prices, seems
to have varied between markets. In Norwich, two bakers and two ‘lawful’
men were chosen annually to uphold the assize twice a year ‘for the
common good of the city and country’.505 In fifteenth-century Worcester,
the assize of bread was set weekly by the bailiffs.506
The medieval baker was thus tightly restricted in the weights of loaves
he could produce when the price of wheat was at a certain level. However,
the statute Assisa also specified that bakers should make a profit of 4d.
and accrue total expenses of 53/4 d. These expenses included overheads
for their servants, salt, yeast, fuel, candles and sieves.507 The traditional
notion that this total allowance was attributable to every quarter of wheat
baked is actually a misreading of the statute Assisa, which states that when
a quarter of wheat was sold for 18d. then the baker should receive the
gain specified in every quarter. This was not, however, intended to be
applicable to a quarter of wheat at every price. If the allowed profits
were derived from the sale of a quarter of wheat’s worth of bread, then a
baker had to sell 418 pounds Troy of bread out of every quarter of wheat
and everything above that amount was ‘advantage bread’ for himself.508
This type of calculation has led historians to view the assize of bread as
a variable instrument, which could either greatly restrict or advance a
baker’s profits, depending on the price of wheat.509 However, this runs
counter to the actual sales practice and methodology behind the medieval
assize, where a more understandable rationale, based upon pragmatism
and communal ‘justice’, can be identified.
The compilers of the assize of bread expected a baker to have a constant
turnover in bread sales, but in terms of the number of loaves sold rather
than wheat purchased.510 The assize was designed to allow bakers to
make a profit of 4d. for every 111 farthing loaves sold, whatever the cost

504 Beverley, pp. 8–9 (1360s).

505 Norwich, i, pp. 174–6 (early fourteenth century). See also CPR, 1266–72, p. 196
(Cambridge, 1268).
506 Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 381 (Worcester, 1467). See also Liber Albus,
p. 231 (1272–1307).
507 Statutes, i, pp. 199–200, ‘Assisa Panis et Cervisie’; Davis, ‘Baking’, 473.
508 See Oak Book, ii, pp. xxi–xxix; Webb and Webb, ‘Assize’, 196–7; Beveridge, ‘A statistical
crime’, 505; Nicholas, ‘Assize of bread’, 324; Gemmill and Mayhew, Changing Values,
pp. 34–41; Boulton, ‘London’s “dark ages”?’, 484–90; Ross, ‘Assize of bread’, 332–42.
Ross correctly stated that the arithmetical relationship between the price of a quarter of
wheat (w) and the weight of bread (p) was: wp = 136 (where w and p are in shillings).
509 Gemmill and Mayhew, Changing Values, p. 36; Thrupp, A Short History, pp. 13, 21–2;
Connor, Weights and Measures, pp. 195, 203–5.
510 For a fuller explication of this argument, see Davis, ‘Baking’.
236 Medieval market morality

of wheat, in addition to keeping two further loaves and the residual bran.
This meant a gross income of 273/4 d., where the wheat had cost 18d.
and expenses had totalled 53/4 d. The net profit of 4d. was therefore a
margin of about 14 per cent on a baker’s turnover. The original creators
of the assize of bread envisaged stability in demand, output and profits of
bakers. In essence, the assize of bread was designed upon the assumption
that the daily financial outlay of most consumers would be stable, and
this would enable a baker to earn a constant rate of 4d. for a stipulated
turnover. The authorities did not want to encourage wage inflation and
4d. (plus the bran and two loaves) was comparable, and perhaps slightly
more, than the daily wage of a skilled artisan.511
Of course, in reality, bakers were competing to sell their bread and
demand shifted according to general economic conditions. Additionally,
the above calculations were predominately for bakers of wastel bread,
whereas many were also expected to produce sufficient quantities of
lower-quality breads for poorer residents. In Tamworth, in 1419, all bak-
ers were expected to bake both white and black bread in order to feed the
townspeople.512 The fifteenth-century ordinances of Leicester required
that the ‘town lak no manner of breed, wyght [white] ne browne, ne non
other kyndes of breed in payne of impresonment’.513 The necessity for
such stipulations resided in the way the assize was structured for brown
or black breads. There was an inherent error in the assize tables in rela-
tion to the weights and sale of brown bread.514 For instance, wholewheat
bread was calculated from the assize table by adding 5s. to the weight of
wastel bread and then multiplying by 11/2.515 This simple calculation did
not lead to the same constant relationship between turnover and profit as
seen for wastel bread. Instead, bakers not only had to sell more loaves to
make the same profit as for wastel, but their sales of wholewheat loaves
had to rise as the price of wheat increased in order to maintain the same
profit. The need for baking trials may have resided in disagreements over
these proportions and the London authorities were particularly assiduous
in using experimental bakings throughout this period.516 On the whole,
it was more profitable for a baker to sell wastel bread rather than whole-
wheat. This meant that civic authorities had to regulate the production

511 Farmer, ‘Prices and wages’. 512 Gould, ‘Medieval burgesses of Tamworth’, 34.
513 Leicester, ii, p. 287 (1467). A later ordinance stated that rye bread was ‘for pore people’.
Ibid., iii, p. 16 (1520).
514 Davis, ‘Baking’, 487–8.
515 Bread weight was measured by the Troy pound, which was divided into 240 penny-
weights (12 pence to a shilling). Davis, ‘Baking’, 496.
516 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, p. 83; Thrupp, A Short History, p. 15; Seabourne, ‘Assize
matters’, 34–5.
 Regulation of the market 237

and sale of lower-quality breads in order to ensure enough was being

made, especially when wheat prices rose. The Ipswich Custumal even
ordered that certain bakers should only produce wholewheat and com-
mon bread and not wastel or cocket, while London regulations divided
the trade between the white and brown bakers.517
Bakers with a small and poor customer base were thus still working
within tight margins, which the idealistic model of the assizes did not take
into account. Nevertheless, the assize of bread was generally structured
around both economic and moral principles, founded upon paternalism,
just price, social stability, distributive justice and a firm understanding of
fluctuating grain supplies. The law showed concern for poor customers,
but also protected the livelihood of bakers.
Other regulations for bakers focused not just on prices, weights and
measures, but on the quality of materials and equipment used, especially
in the more detailed town ordinances. In Ipswich, wastel, simnel and
first cocket bread had to be made using a bolter (a type of sieve for sift-
ing flour) from Rennes, probably from the good-quality linen produced
there. Those caught using lower-quality bolters would have them burnt
beside the pillory. Also, no baker was to mix corns or bran with corn and
had to accord with the assize, though bakers selling rotten bread was a
less common offence than underweight loaves.518 What needs to be borne
in mind is that the assizes were still enforced locally by appointed jurors.
If the national statutes standardised practices and prices, the exercise of
enforcement was still very much in local hands and aspects of the legis-
lation were open to differing interpretations. Nevertheless, the statutory
assize was the formula adopted by authorities, as seen in the informa-
tion they copied into their custumals and by the fact that many entries
in manorial court rolls, even into the fifteenth century, stated that the
assizes should be kept according to statute law.
Assisa provided a margin of error for bakers, declaring that bakers
would be amerced if the weight of a farthing loaf was deficient by up to
2s. in weight; any deficiency above 2s. and the offender would be sent to
the pillory. This margin was increased to 2s. 6d. in Statutum de Pistoribus,
which was followed in the regulations of York and London.519 However,

517 Black Book, ii, pp. 172–5, c.80 [77] (c.1309); CLB, a, p. 216 (1276–8), k, p. 258
(fifteenth century); Liber Albus, p. 231 (1272–1307); Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae,
iii, appx i, pp. 414–15 (1307–27).
518 Black Book, ii, pp. 172–5, c.80 [77] (c.1309). See also Prestwich (ed.), York, pp. 10–11
(1301); Memorials, pp. 90 (1311), 121 (1316).
519 Statutes, i, pp. 199–204, ‘Assisa’ and ‘Statutum de Pistoribus’; Prestwich (ed.), York,
pp. 10–11, 18–22 (1301); Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae, i, pp. 264–5. See also
Britton, i, pp. 187–8, ch. 31, c.3 (2s.) and Fleta, ii, p. 118, bk. ii, c.10 (2s. 6d.).
238 Medieval market morality

this only applied to wastel bread, and if the margin was the same for
brown bread then it was effectively tighter as a percentage of the overall
weight. The same applied for all breads when the price of wheat decreased
and the size of loaf increased. Nevertheless, there is evidence that local
courts interpreted this statutory stipulation in a flexible manner. The
regulations for thirteenth-century Winchester stated that ‘if the farthing
loaf is in default of aught beyond twelve pennyweights the baker is in
mercy, and for every default within the weight of three ounces according
to the amount of the trespass; and when the farthing loaf is in default by
aught beyond three ounces the baker shall bear the sentence of the city
[i.e. the pillory]’.520 This suggests that the bakers of Winchester were
given leeway of up to 1s. in weight before they were convicted of an
offence, though this leniency may have been connected to the basic toll
that all bakers had to pay in Winchester of 2s. 1d. a year. Nevertheless,
this more flexible interpretation of assize legislation was outlined in the
Assyse of Breade, printed by Robert Wyer in c.1540, where only bakers
who were in default of the weight of a farthing loaf by more than 2s. 6d.
were to go to the pillory. Any weight discrepancy under 15d. was con-
sidered minor and was not to be amerced. Repeated offenders (up to
four times) should, however, face corporal punishment.521 It is possible
that local courts were prepared to allow bakers a margin of error in their
production of loaves before they even incurred an amercement, but this
has to be set alongside the apparent presentments of all bakers under
assize regulations.522
Bakers were seemingly concerned by the slight margins of weight that
they were working within, given the vagaries of medieval equipment and
the potential for false accusations. These anxieties are shown in the reg-
ulations. The Leicester ordinances of 1352 stated that bread should be
weighed on the same day as it was taken, or else it might dry up while in
the keeping of the bailiffs.523 The fifteenth-century commonplace book
of Robert Reynes suggested that bakers be allowed a pennyweight extra
allowance each day after the first night to account for weight loss after
cooling.524

520 Furley (ed.), Ancient Usages, pp. 34–5, no. 37 (late thirteenth century). 1s. was the
equivalent of 0.6 Troy ounces.
521 Wyer, Assyse of Breade (c.1540). See also Louis (ed.), Commonplace Book, pp. 125,
136–7, 350–2. Reynes stated that bakers whose bread weighed more than an ounce
over the specified weight were to be amerced 20d., and over an ounce and a half, 24d.
Any offences over 2s. (presumably a copying error and should read 2 ounces; 2s. equals
1.2 Troy ounces) would lead to the pillory.
522 This is discussed further on pp. 298–300.
523 Leicester, ii, p. 87 (1352). See also Northampton, i, p. 324; Liber Albus, p. 310 (1272–
1307); Memorials, pp. 71–2 (1310).
524 Louis (ed.), Commonplace Book, p. 136.
 Regulation of the market 239

Connor argued that the ‘baker’s dozen’, which entailed giving thirteen
loaves to consumers when they purchased only twelve, was a means by
which bakers could assuage the tight tolerances of the assize.525 It is
possible that officials connived in such evasions, but it does not fit easily
with the common inspection procedures, which involved weighing just
single samples, each marked with the baker’s seal.526 The ‘baker’s dozen’
appeared to relate more to the practice of bakers selling thirteen loaves
for twelve to regraters or hucksters.527 It was a device whereby regraters
could make a small profit, with bakers effectively paying them 1/4 d. for
every twelve loaves they sold in the streets.528 The bakers were using the
regraters as mobile salesmen, reaching out to more customers and taking
on the burden of surplus stock. The Little Red Book of Bristol stated it was
the practice for bakers to sell bread through ‘hokesteres’ (often women),
who were allowed a penny for every shilling’s worth of bread they bought
and no more. If she bought more than she needed for a day’s supply and
the bread subsequently went stale, she did so at her own peril and loss.529
The Winchester ordinances noted that hucksters of bread should make
sure that the bakers’ stamp of warranty was on the loaves, or else the
hucksters themselves were liable for any weight infringements.530 Not all
authorities or bakers acquiesced in the use of regraters. An ordinance
for Coventry in 1431 ordered bakers, both from the town and from the
country, to sell their bread themselves and not through hucksters.531
In Leicester, in 1323–4, the bakers complained that the regraters were
keeping back their bread for over a week, ‘by reason of which keeping the
said bakers have often incurred great damage’. This presumably related
to the quality and staleness of the bread, which still bore the baker’s

525 Connor, Weights and Measures, pp. 198–9.

526 Statutes, i, pp. 201–4, ‘Judicium Pillorie’ and ‘Statutum de Pistoribus’; Louis (ed.),
Commonplace Book, pp. 136–7. Many civic ordinances demanded that bakers marked
their loaves so that they could be identified if found to be defective. These marks were
usually simple in form: X, W, Ø, O −. Oak Book, ii, p. xxvii, n. 1. See also Salter (ed.),
Medieval Archives, i, p. 20, no. 11 (Oxford, 1255); CChR, ii, p. 15 (Grimsby, 1258);
CPR, 1266–72, p. 195 (Cambridge, 1268); CLB, a, p. 216 (1276–8); Liber Albus, pp.
231, 308 (1272–1307); Coss (ed.), Early Records of Medieval Coventry, p. 41 (1278);
Prestwich (ed.), York, pp. 10–11 (1301); Bristol, ii, p. 224 (late fourteenth century);
Great Red Book, i, p. 138 (late fifteenth century); Henley, p. 186 (1518).
527 Liber Albus, pp. 232, 308 (1272–1307); Coventry, p. 682 (1522). Innkeepers also appear
to have bought bread in this manner, ibid., pp. 24 (1421), 29 (1421).
528 Davis, ‘Baking’, 491.
529 Bristol, ii, pp. 32–3 (fourteenth century); Great Red Book, ii, p. 100, fol. 220 (fifteenth
century); McIntosh, Working Women, p. 190.
530 Furley (ed.), Ancient Usages, pp. 34–5 (late thirteenth century); Keene, Survey, p. 255.
See also Memorials, pp. 119–22 (1316).
531 Coventry, p. 139 (1431). See also Liber Albus, p. 310 (1272–1307); Thomas (ed.),
Calendar, pp. 19–20 (Roll a, 1298).
240 Medieval market morality

mark and rebounded on their own reputation.532 Attitudes to regraters

and hucksters thus differed between town governments.
Similar tensions were evident between innkeepers and bakers. Innkeep-
ers in many towns were ordered not to bake their own horsebread but
were expected to obtain it from common bakers; it is usually stated
that this prohibition extended to other breads as well.533 A petition for
Northampton in 1384 outlines the origin of this prohibition. The bakers
of the town complained that innkeepers were hiding their horsebread
from assize inspection ‘in deceit of people passing through the town’, but
were much more worried that their own profits were being eroded. As
a safeguard for supplies and the livelihood of bakers, the town authori-
ties agreed that innkeepers should no longer bake bread for sale.534 This
prohibition was passed into statute law in 1389–90.535
In general, bakers were tightly controlled as regards their profit margins
and prices because of their vital role in providing communal sustenance.
The authorities’ prime concern remained the adequate provisioning of
their communities. This did not prevent entrepreneurial bakers from
seeking to raise their turnover, which could generate greater profits within
the structure of the assize. But they also had to contend with a basic
flaw in the assize of bread regarding the formulae for poorer-quality
loaves, and this did sometimes cause problems. By the end of the fifteenth
century there are examples of unrest among the baking profession.536
For instance, the authorities of Coventry faced difficulties in satisfying
bakers and their demands for a satisfactory income. This culminated in
a strike by the bakers in December 1484. The bakers had been allowed
leeway of 2s. weight in the farthing cocket loaf when the price of wheat
was below 6s. 6d. (and 2s. in the halfpenny loaf when the price was
higher), as long as they did not purchase wheat in the market before
2pm. However, they were still struggling to make a reasonable living
and in protest they left the city en masse ‘levyng þe seid Cite destitute of
bred’. The mayor and officials saw their own obligations, of ensuring a
steady supply of victuals to the town and its visitors, as under reproach.
Consequently, they reacted strongly by fining the bakers £10 and forcing
them to submit to an oath that they would never again ‘make eny such

532 Leicester, i, pp. 347–8 (1323–4). In York, bread had to be sold within six days of baking.
Prestwich (ed.), York, pp. 10–11 (1301).
533 Memorials, pp. 323–4 (1365), 347–8 (1371); Coventry, pp. 24 (1421), 637–8 (1513);
Henley, p. 108 (1438); Great Red Book, i, p. 144 (1452); Beverley, p. lvii (1458); Toulmin
Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 406 (Worcester, 1467); York, iii, pp. 241–3 (1477 and
1528); Winchester, p. 125 (1514).
534 Northampton, i, p. 249, c.67 (1383–4); CIM, iv (1377–88), p. 143, no. 258. See also
Northampton, i, p. 374 (late fifteenth century).
535 Statutes, ii, p. 63, 13 Ric II st.1 c.8 (1389–90); ii, p. 140, 4 Hen IV c.25 (1402).
536 Kowaleski, Local Markets, pp. 140–1; Davis, ‘Baking’, 472.
 Regulation of the market 241

vnlawefull assemble, riotte, confederacye, nor departer oute of the seid

Citie to þe grife or reproch of eny Maire of þe same Cite, and þat they
and euery of theym woll duely obserue and kepe be their willes such due
and lawefull assise [under pain of 20s.]’.537 Although the authorities were
prepared to make concessions to the bakers, and understood that they
needed to make a reasonable living, they were not prepared to accept a
direct threat to urban food supplies and recoiled at such temerity. The
withholding of necessary victuals was considered akin to rebellion.538
Similarly, in Leicester, the authorities warned of forfeitures for bakers
who kept back flour when the town had a short supply of bread and,
in the fifteenth century, imprisonment for all victuallers who did the
same.539

Ale
If bread was the omnipotent medieval food, then ale was the equivalent
drink. The grain in it not only provided nutrition, but the brewing process
meant it was a far healthier drink than water. Ale sold commercially was
expected to be of sufficient quality and strength, made from good malt
and well brewed and blended.540 It was measured in leathern vessels,
usually of three official sizes (gallon, pottle (half-gallon) and quart), each
of which had to be stamped to show it had been checked by officials.
Some measures were also in wood and could be subject to warping or
shrinkage with age, thus entailing regular examination.541
Assisa Panis et Cervisie calculated the prices of ale as follows: when
the price of a quarter of wheat was 36d.–40d., or the price of barley
20d.–24d., or the price of oats 16d., then two gallons were to be sold
for a penny in towns and three gallons for a penny in the country. When
three gallons were sold for a penny in towns, then four gallons should
be sold for a penny in the country.542 This meant that those selling
ale in towns, before expenses, needed to sell forty to forty-eight gal-
lons from every quarter of barley to meet their costs, and those in the
country required a substantial sixty to seventy-two gallons. Evidence for
brewing rates can be found from the household of Elizabeth de Burgh

537 Coventry, pp. 385 (1473), 518–19 (1484).

538 Carrel, ‘Food, drink and public order’, 186.
539 Leicester, ii, pp. 106–7 (1357), 289 (1467). Similar regulations concerned the supply
of charcoal. Ibid., ii, p. 295 (1467).
540 For an excellent, detailed study of the ale trade and its regulations, see Bennett, Ale.
541 Liber Albus, p. 233 (1272–1307).
542 Statutes, i, pp. 199–200, ‘Assisa Panis et Cervisie’. See also Britton, i, pp. 188–9, ch. 31,
c.4 (1291–2); Fleta, ii, p. 118, bk. ii, c.11 (late thirteenth century). This formulation
is partially reiterated in Reynes’s fifteenth-century commonplace book, though with
errors. Louis (ed.), Commonplace Book, pp. 137–8.
242 Medieval market morality

of Clare in 1333–4. Her accounts state that they brewed sixty gallons
from a quarter of a barley and oats mix.543 It is possible that this was
stronger than a commercial brew and the inclusion of oats might affect
the quantity produced. However, if it is comparable to the assize figures
for urban brewers, then it means they could earn 6d.–10d. per quarter
of barley brewed. Other expenses, such as for fuel, malting, equipment
and amercements, might account for perhaps another 3d.–4d. of that
profit, though these are not specifically provided for by the law. Even
so, it is possible that regular urban brewers had the potential to earn a
similar percentage profit as bakers. Their final profit obviously depended
on the level of demand and turnover, and country brewers were dis-
criminated against regarding their profit margins. Why the prices were
differentiated between town and country is not entirely clear given that
any transport costs were effectively covered by the local wholesale price
of grain. Possibly the legislators either considered that brewers in towns
had higher costs and overheads besides the cost of grain itself, or that
they were generally expected to make stronger and better ale than their
rural counterparts.544
The vagueness of these regulations may indicate why the ensuing leg-
islation of Judicium Pillorie was a little more precise, if no less simplistic.
Judicium Pillorie differed from Assisa in that the prices for town and coun-
try were not differentiated, smaller capacities were used and ale was twice
the price. Judicium Pillorie also provided a similar simplified price corre-
lation between the price of a quarter of barley and the price of a quart
of ale, whereby when the price of barley increased by 6d., the number of
quarts that could be purchased for 2d. decreased by one.545 In essence,
in this formula, a brewer needed to sell between twenty-four and twenty-
seven gallons from a quarter of barley to break even (before expenses),
depending on the price of barley. If this had been enforced, profit margins
for brewers would have been fairly comfortable.

Price of barley Price of ale

(per quarter) (per quart)

24d. 1/4d. (eight quarts for 2d.)

30d. 2/7d. (seven quarts for 2d.)
36d. 1/3d. (six quarts for 2d.)
42d. 2/5d. (five quarts for 2d.)
48d. 1/2d. (four quarts for 2d.)

543 Bennett, Ale, p. 18. 544 Ibid., p. 21.

545 Statutes, i, pp. 201–2, ‘Judicium Pillorie’.
 Regulation of the market 243

Thus, the sophisticated calculations seen above in the assize of bread

were not evident in the assize of ale, which resorted to a more simplistic
formula that was readily understandable. This is perhaps unsurprising
given the different basis upon which the ale trade was conducted.
Brewing was usually undertaken as a supplementary occupation, often
by women on an ad hoc basis, compared to the more permanent and
sedentary baking profession. The ordinances at Ipswich refer to ‘brew-
steres’ and in Modus Tenendi Curias, c.1342, the articles of the view
of frankpledge included a specific reference to alewives or regratresses
(‘braceresses ou regrateressez’) rather than any male brewers.546 Such
references illustrate the contemporary impression that women domi-
nated the medieval brewing trade. The ability to make ale commer-
cially was more widespread than baking, which required a comparatively
expensive oven for large-scale production, and the selling of ale reflected
the convenience of buying ale ready-made and the short lifespan of the
liquid.
Like bread, jurors set the recommended costs of ale based on the
common wholesale market rate for grain. In Berwick (1283–4), they
recognised that there was a regular increase in barley prices during the
agricultural cycle and stated that ‘no woman shall sell ale, from Easter till
Michaelmas, at dearer than twopence a gallon; nor, from Michaelmas till
Easter, at dearer than a penny’.547 At Ipswich, the assize of ale was to be
announced at Michaelmas, when new barley became readily available.548
Officials also had to take into account the malting process and the various
strengths of ale, which depended not only on the amount and quality of
grain but also the number of infusions during brewing. The brewers of
Bristol were expected to make both ‘gode ale’ and ‘small ale’, wherein the
small ale was sold at half the price and if a householder could prove that
‘the secunde ale is nat halfe so gode as the gode ale that thei so grevid
shall haue ther money a yen’.549 The application of the assize of ale
within local markets thus deviated from the particular figures provided
in Assisa and Judicium Pillorie, though they appear to be much more
akin to the stricter limits for brewers encapsulated in Assisa. In Leicester,
brewers were to sell a gallon of the best ale for 1d. and other ale for
1
/2d., when the quarter of the barley cost 4s.; while in Beverley, in 1371,

546 Maitland and Baildon (eds.), Court Baron, p. 94. See also Bristol, i, pp. 43–4 (1344).
547 Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 343 (Berwick, 1283–4).
548 Black Book, ii, pp. 174–5, c.81 [78] (c.1309). See also Prestwich (ed.), York, p. 11
(1301).
549 Great Red Book, i, p. 139 (late fifteenth century). See also Stanford (ed.), Ordinances of
Bristol, p. 5 (1505).
244 Medieval market morality

a gallon of ale was to be sold for 11/2d. when malt sold at between 5s.
and 6s. 8d.550
Robert Reynes’s transcription of the figures for the assize of ale drew
mostly on Assisa rather than Judicium Pillorie, though his fifteenth-century
English transcription has several scribal errors and additions. One pas-
sage, not found elsewhere, states: ‘alle costages [expenses] and repryses
of brewars acounted and alowed well and largely, þei may in a quarter of
malt bruyng [brewing] gete iiiid and all the зyst [yeast], dreggys and draff
as is prouyd in the brewhous of our lord þe Kyng’.551 This suggests an
allowance similar to the bakers, but based entirely on sales from a quarter
of malt. According to Reynes’s version, the price of a gallon of ale would
increase or decrease only by a farthing as the price of a quarter of malt
altered by 12d. This is a different formulation to Judicium Pillorie and
gives the brewer a much a lower price for their ale. Somewhat vaguely,
Statutum de Pistoribus provided two options for a farthing increase in the
price of a gallon, when a quarter of malt increased by either 12d. or
6d.552 Given the figures for ale prices shown above, it does appear that
Assisa, and to a lesser extent Statutum de Pistoribus, were the basis for ale
prices in England throughout the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries and
not Judicium Pillorie, which was perhaps too generous towards brewers
in its pricing schedule. It also appears that revised, amalgamated and
simplified versions of Assisa and Statutum de Pistoribus were in circulation
during the fifteenth century and even reached lowly village officials like
Robert Reynes. The basis of the assize of ale, as much as the assize of
bread, was intended to provide a reasonable livelihood to brewers similar
to their counterparts in the baking trade. This does not seem to sup-
port the notion that the assize of ale was especially difficult for medieval
brewers to obey.
Inspecting officials, known as aletasters, were specifically appointed
to monitor the day-to-day activities of brewers and ale-sellers. They
inspected batches of ale for offences against the assize, particularly
regarding price, quality and measures. In Worcester, in 1467, these

550 Leicester, ii, p. 21 (1335–6); Beverley, p. 41 (1371). Other ale prices are listed in Bristol,
ii, p. 222 (1283); CLB, e, pp. 71, 73 (1316), f, pp. 27–8, 189 (1337), 178 (1347–
8); Liber Albus, p. 233 (1272–1307); Coventry, p. 25 (1421); Red Paper Book, p. 18
(fifteenth century).
551 Louis (ed.), Commonplace Book, pp. 137–8. The brewers of fifteenth-century Norwich
were warned against trying to gain more for their by-product of barm or yeast (‘god-
disgood’) than was customary – a farthing’s worth of bread, eggs or grain in return for
sufficient barm to brew a quarter of malt. ‘Goddisgood’ was seen as coming from the
grace of God and its distribution as charitable, so those who sought to make excessive
profit were committing ‘fraude or subtilte’ and causing ‘great hurte and slander’ to the
city. Norwich, ii, pp. 98–9 (1468).
552 Statutes, i, pp. 201–4, ‘Judicium Pillorie’ and ‘Statutum de Pistoribus’.
 Regulation of the market 245

Figure 16: Alewife and alestake

Notes: This marginal image from the Smithfield Decretals (c.1325–50)
show an alewife holding a tankard and serving ale to an old man. She is
standing outside her home, or alehouse, as denoted by the broom that
is displayed to announce her brewing to the aletasters.
Source: BL, MS Royal 10.e.iv, fol. 114r.

aletasters (or aleconners) were to be ‘sadd and discrete persons, to se that

the ale be good and sete’.553 Colchester aletasters were expected to ‘make
good, due and diligent serche’ to ensure that the ale and beer was of ‘good
odour’ and made from ‘good, suffisaunt, and holsum corne . . . not over-
moche dried, not stynkyng nor full of vermyn callid wevelis’.554 Brewers
who were about to sell their product were supposed to put out a sign,
usually a brush or broom, as a public indication for customers and ale-
tasters that ale was for sale.555 Figure 16 clearly shows a broom-sign
outside a modest dwelling where an alewife is serving an elderly man.
Amercements were stipulated for those who did not put their sign above
the door and for those who failed to remove it once their ale was gone.556
The aletasters would then sample the ale before it was sold in order to

553 Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, pp. 381–2 (Worcester, 1467). See also CLB, d,
pp. 201–2 (late thirteenth century?); Liber Albus, pp. 311–12 (1272–1307); Coventry,
pp. 191 (1439), 677–8 (1521); Norwich, ii, p. 100 (1471); Leicester, ii, p. 304 (1482);
Stanford (ed.), Ordinances of Bristol, p. 14 (1519–20).
554 Red Paper Book, pp. 20–1 (fifteenth century). See also Leicester, ii, pp. 288 (1467), 322
(1489?), iii, p. 16 (1520). Beer begins to appear in town regulations in the mid-fifteenth
century.
555 BBC, 1216–1307, p. 293 (Oxford, 1255); Salter (ed.), Medieval Archives, i, p. 20, no. 11
(Oxford, 1255); CPR, 1266–72, p. 195 (Cambridge, 1268); Bristol, ii, p. 30 (1346?);
Hilton (ed.), Stoneleigh, p. 99 (fourteenth century); Great Red Book, i, pp. 139–140
(1452); Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 405 (Worcester, 1467). In a similar
manner, the innkeepers of Coventry had to keep a lamp hanging outside their doors
until 9pm, and the inns of Worcester and York had to have a sign at the door. Coventry,
p. 234 (1448); Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 406 (Worcester, 1467); York, iii,
pp. 241–3 (1477, 1528).
556 E.g. Massingberd (ed.), Court Rolls, pp. 116, 240. These signs or alestakes appear to
have become increasingly permanent and caused obstructions to passers-by. Memorials,
pp. 386–7 (1375); CLB, h, p. 12 (1375); Liber Albus, p. 389.
246 Medieval market morality

check that it was brewed well and to set the price as required by the assize.
Any infringements were presented at court, such as brewers refusing to
sell ale at the correct price, not calling for aletasters upon the production
of a new batch of ale, or using unsealed measures.
All brewers were expected to have correct measures sealed with a vali-
dating mark by the authorities. A recurrent concern was the use of leather
or wooden cups and bowls that had no seal.557 The fifteenth-century
Bristol authorities were so concerned to ensure the use of standard mea-
sures that every brewer was required to have a level place at their door
where anyone fetching ale could put vessels when checking for true mea-
sure. In addition, any that stood witness against a brewer using false
measures received 4d. for their trouble.558 There were also regulations
against brewers who favoured in-house customers over those who wished
to take away their ale.559 This was presumably a guard against alewives
who sought to cajole customers into buying more ale and those who used
cups that were not standard measures.
As with bread, more regular brewers seemingly sold their remaining
stocks to regraters and hucksters rather than make a loss.560 To prevent
this from causing unnecessary price rises the authorities in Bristol ordered
that no tapster (a retailer of ale) was to have any ale from the brewers
until householders and poor people had been first served. Also, tapsters
were to sell their ale in a public place and not in secret chambers, and
their product was to be openly advertised with a sign.561
Tapsters seemed to face increasing legal antipathy, as mirrored in
literature.562 An ordinance for Bristol in 1505 complained of brewers
and tapsters who subtly mixed unwholesome ale with new ale in order
to sell it to customers who ‘oftentymes taken infeccion and disease’. In a
public demonstration of such deceit, any such corrupt ale was to be cast

557 Coss (ed.), Early Records of Medieval Coventry, p. 41 (1278); CLB, a, p. 216 (1276–8),
h, pp. 337 (1388), 373 (1391–2); Beverley, p. 42 (1371); Leicester, ii, p. 288 (1467), iii,
p. 17 (1520); Northampton, i, p. 373 (late fifteenth century); Coventry, pp. 25 (1421),
678 (1521), 683 (1522); Sillem (ed.), Records, pp. 17, 22, 47 (Roll ll), nos. 21, 44, 180
(1373–5). In Norwich, 1290, three pots were expected to contain one gallon. Norwich,
i, p. 368 (1290).
558 Great Red Book, i, p. 139 (late fifteenth century). See also Coventry, p. 25 (1421).
559 Bennett, Ale, p. 101; Courthope and Formoy (eds.), Lathe Court Rolls, p. 202 (fifteenth
century).
560 Coventry, p. 25 (1421); Winchester, p. 140 (1525). This practice was forbidden in
London until the late fifteenth century. CLB, g, pp. 123–4 (1360), h, pp. 184 (1382),
337 (1388), l, p. 288 (1492); Memorials, pp. 347–8 (1371); Liber Albus, pp. 312–13
(1335).
561 Great Red Book, i, p. 140 (1452); Bristol, ii, p. 30 (1346?). See also Toulmin Smith
(ed.), English Gilds, pp. 405–6.
562 See pp. 106–15.
 Regulation of the market 247

into the street before the door of the alehouse.563 A fourteenth-century

ordinance for Bristol complained that traventers of ale (excluding brewers
and innkeepers) caused ‘great grievances and injuries’ to the common-
alty, particularly because of their willingness to allow thieves and evildoers
to undertake business in their alehouses which caused ‘great injury and
scandal’ to the town.564 There were several cases in the Great Tourn
of Nottingham where both male and female hostelers were accused of
harbouring dicers, thieves and harlots.565 The by-laws of Coventry went
even further in 1492, declaring that no one in the city was to ‘fauour eny
tapster, or woman of evell name, fame or condicion to whom eny resorte
is of synfull disposicioun, hauntyng the synne of lechery’.566 In civic leg-
islation, alehouses and tapsters were sometimes directly associated with
brothels and prostitutes, and alehouses and taverns were to have no cus-
tomers after curfew had been rung.567 In Colchester in 1311, Agnes de
Ardleye was accused of selling at her tavern to foreigners who arrived at
night, who were then both drunken and noisy.568 The wording and barely
concealed vitriol of these ordinances parallels the literary portrayals of
alewives that were common by the fifteenth century.
Overall, the assize of ale was intended as a check on quality, sup-
ply, measures and price, and those who offended were to be amerced
or punished. However, the system in many places seems to have been
based upon a notion of fining everyone, in the manner of a licence and,
in effect, challenging the brewers to show they had not sold contrary
to the assize and should not therefore be liable. An entry from Bury
St Edmunds stated: ‘And if a brewster can acquit herself single handed
that she has in no way sold contrary to the assize, she shall be quit’.569
Similarly, at Torksey, in 1345: ‘The brewsters . . . shall be asked whether
or not they brew and sell ale outside the house against the assize. If
they say not, they shall have a day at the next court to make their law
three-handed, with women neighbours on either side or with others.’570
These ordinances demonstrate how the judicial procedure of present-
ment, whereby the onus of proof was passed onto the defendant, made
possible an effectual transition of the assize into a licensing scheme.
The laws of the assize of ale presented a severe view towards offences

563 Stanford (ed.), Ordinances of Bristol, p. 4 (1505).

564 Bristol, ii, pp. 37–8 (fourteenth century).
565 Nottingham, ii, pp. 62–3 (1408). 566 Coventry, p. 545 (1492).
567 King’s Lynn, p. 268, no. 325 (1465); Goldberg, ‘Women in fifteenth-century town life’,
p. 118; CLB, c, p. 16 (1293); Memorials, p. 193 (1334); Liber Albus, pp. 240–1 (1272–
1307); Bristol, ii, p. 225 (late fourteenth century); Alsford, Towns (Lynn, early fifteenth
century); Great Red Book, i, p. 140 (late fifteenth century).
568 Jeayes (ed.), Court Rolls, i, p. 45 (1311).
569 Goldberg (ed.), Women in England, p. 185. 570 Ibid., p. 185.
248 Medieval market morality

and demanded corporal punishments for severe or repeated offences,

but as with all trading regulations, enforcement ultimately resided in
local hands. In law, malpractices were associated with criminality and
deterrence was the prime consideration beyond fiscal levies. However, in
practice, the assizes were a franchise upon which a lord expected a return
and the practicalities of the assize may have called for more lenience in
its actual enforcement.571 Also, since brewing was not a monopolistic or
high profit-making occupation, the ease of brewing often meant there
was sufficient competition to guard against the continual fraud of an
individual. The assize of ale was basically a consumer-protective device
in terms of the legal ideology it espoused, laying down rules that all
could understand and adhere to, including the customers. Rules were set
for the margins of acceptable trading behaviour, so that flagrant abuses
could be prevented by the recognition of minimum standards and moral
behaviour.

Wine
Wine was also subject to assize regulation from at least the twelfth century
and the reign of Henry II.572 Wine cannot be considered a staple product
in the manner of bread or ale, and its main consumers in the thirteenth
century were the upper ranks of society. However, the importance of this
particular group in formulating certain regulations might indicate that
they had faced problems from price-raising wine merchants and sought
a unified, royal response at an early date. Price limits were generally set
on retail prices, not wholesale, and attention was again directed at issues
of quality and supply.
The articles of the eyre for Edward I included provision to investigate
wines sold contrary to the assize in towns and who sold them, while
Judicium Pillorie ordered inquiries into the price at which vintners sold
a gallon and if the wine was corrupt. Statutum de Pistoribus set the price
of a gallon (‘sextertium’) of wine at 12d., and ordered that taverners
(retailers of wine from a permanent place) who exceeded this should
be forbidden to continue trading.573 By the early fourteenth century,

571 This is discussed further on pp. 297–323.

572 Britnell, Commercialisation, p. 94; Great Roll of the Pipe, pp. 126, 184 (1176); Stenton
(ed.), Great Roll of the Pipe, 1 John, p. 15; Maitland (ed.), Select Pleas of the Crown, i,
pp. 24 (1202), 98 (1221).
573 Statutes, i, p. 233, Edw I?; i, pp. 201–4, ‘Judicium Pillorie’ and ‘Statutum de Pistoribus’.
See also Fleta, ii, pp. 121–2, bk. ii, c.12 (late thirteenth century); Britton, i, pp. 192–3,
ch. 31, c.9 (1291–2).
 Regulation of the market 249

statutory law noted that the number of taverners was increasing but that,
due to a lack of specified punishments, many were selling corrupt wines
at any price ‘to the great hurt of the people’. Rather than setting a spe-
cific rate, the statute of 1330 demanded that wines should be sold at a
reasonable price, based on the price at ports and subsequent expenses
(presumably transport and storage). An assay of wine should be held
at least twice a year, and all corrupt wines should be poured out and
their vessels broken.574 Such a requirement had been anticipated in the
1301 ordinances for York, where any taverners found with bad or putrid
wine had their vessels publicly broken up, as well as being fined.575 In
1381, Parliament sought to set the price for several sorts of wine to be
sold gross or retail, as well as preventing the retailing of sweet wines.
They did, however, recognise the need for merchants to cover their costs
if transporting the wine further into the country and allowed 1/2d. on a
gallon of wine for every fifty miles travelled.576 Other legislation after the
Black Death was mostly directed at ensuring that all wines were gauged
by the king’s officials, under threats of forfeiture and imprisonment. This
was to ensure that tuns and pipes of wine contained the right number of
gallons according to the assize and to check for any corrupt wine.577 The
basic principles thus remained unchanged but legislators were concerned
to close loopholes and tightened the law. For instance, past statutes failed
to delineate between all types of wine and some traders avoided inspec-
tion. In 1380, all vessels of imported wine, sweet wine, honey, liquors
and oil were to be gauged.578
At a local level, authorities generally followed statutory and royal stip-
ulations, though there were also specific regulations relevant to their own
concerns. In York (1301), the price was set at 4d. a gallon for ‘good
old wine’ and 5d. a gallon for new wine.579 Londoners had to wait

574 Statutes, i, p. 264, 4 Edw III c.12 (1330). See also CCR, 1330–3, p. 410; Parl. Rolls,
c.8, January 1333; CPR, 1345–8, pp. 387–8 (Nottingham, 1347); Memorials, pp. 408–9
(1377). Accusations against vintners and taverners were often related to the practice of
mixing old dregs with new wine. Gross (ed.), Select Cases, p. 62 (St Ives, 1293); Black
Book, ii, pp. 176–7, c.82 [79] (c.1309); Jeayes (ed.), Court Rolls, i, pp. 3, 7 (1310);
Leicester, ii, pp. 20–1 (1335–6), 58–9 (1343); CLB, f, pp. 19 (1337–8), 77 (1342), g,
p. 301 (1372). In York, in 1433, the searchers of the vintners found sweet wine in the
house of John Asper which was ‘unabell to be sald’ and as punishment the forfeited
wine barrels were broken: ‘the hevedes [heads] smyten oute openly in syght of the
people’. York, iii, p. 157 (1433).
575 Prestwich (ed.), York, p. 12 (1301).
576 Statutes, ii, pp. 18–20, 5 Ric II st.1 c.4 (1381). The following year they lifted the ban
on selling sweet wines by retail. Ibid., ii, p. 28, 6 Ric II st.1 c.7 (1382).
577 Ibid., i, p. 331, 27 Edw III st.1 cc.5–8 (1353), i, p. 350, 31 Edw III st.1 c.5 (1357), ii,
p. 313, 18 Hen VI c.17 (1439). Parl. Rolls, c.43, May 1432, c.56, November 1439.
578 Statutes, ii, p. 16, 4 Ric II c.1 (1380). 579 Prestwich (ed.), York, p. 12 (1301).
250 Medieval market morality

until wine cargoes had been unladen, the casks gauged and the wine
assayed before they could make any purchases. In 1311, the best wine
sold for 5d., the next best at 4d. and the rest for 3d. Those who sold
wine with false measures faced prison and the vessels would be burnt.
There were also fourteenth-century regulations that ordered taverners
to keep in sight their casks so that customers could see that ‘the wine
drawn is clean and from what cask his wine be drawn’.580 The level
of disgust shown towards taverners who sold wine that was considered
unwholesome ‘in deceit of the common people’ and ‘to the shameful
disgrace of the officers of the City’ was shown in the penalty inflicted
upon John Penrose for this offence. He was made to drink a draught of
the same wine, before the remainder was poured over his head and he
was made to forswear the calling of vintner for ever.581 For most vintners
who mixed wines or adulterated them, the pillory was the threatened
punishment.582
Seabourne has noted how the price of wine in some towns was some-
times set with reference to the price elsewhere, demonstrating a regu-
latory relationship between localities.583 Wine sold in Oxford was to be
inspected to ensure it was not putrid and sold no dearer than 1/2d. a gallon
more than the price in London.584 By the mid-fifteenth century, tavern-
ers were being given strict orders regarding the advertising of prices.
Their gallons, pottles, quarts, pints, half-pints and penny pots all had to
be checked and sealed, and was each marked with the price of the wine
sold in that vessel.585 In fifteenth-century Coventry, all wine had to be
surveyed by the authorities before it could be sold, upon the threat of a
20s. fine. They wanted to ensure that the wine was of good quality, sold
in sealed measures, and no dearer than 8d. a gallon for Gascon wine,
6d. a gallon for Rochell white wine and 16d. a gallon for Malmesey and
Romeney.586

580 Memorials, pp. 81–3 (1311), 181–3 (1331), 213–14 (1342), 341–3 (1370); CLB, f,
pp. 245–6 (1352); Liber Albus, pp. 85–6 (1237–8); Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae,
ii, ‘Liber Custumarum’, pp. 304, 425 (1320–1). See also CLB, e, pp. 44 (1315), 72–3
(1316).
581 Memorials, pp. 318–19 (1364). 582 Ibid., pp. 670–2 (1419).
583 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, p. 85.
584 Salter (ed.), Munimenta, pp. 21–2, no. 24 (1311); Salter (ed.), Medieval Archives, i,
pp. 118–19, nos. 74–5 (1330–1). See also York, i, p. 172; Keene, Survey, p. 271.
585 Great Red Book, i, p. 145 (1452). See also Northampton, i, p. 375 (late fifteenth century);
Leicester, ii, pp. 20–1 (1335–6), 84 (1352), 93 (1354), 288 (1467); Norwich, ii, pp. 153–
4 (1496).
586 Coventry, pp. 24–5 (1421). Similar prices were set out in CLB, k, p. 16 (1423–3);
Statutes, iii, p. 670, 28 Hen VIII c.14 (1536).
 Regulation of the market 251

Administering the assizes

Robert Ricart, the town clerk for Bristol, wrote his 1479 Kalendar to
celebrate civic prestige and liberties, and he described various oaths,
duties and ceremonies performed by the town’s luminaries. The mayor’s
role included holding courts, supervising the brewers and bakers, and
regulating the market. Indeed, Ricart describes how the Mayor of Bristol
directly counselled brewers and bakers about their provisioning duty to
the town, and provides an insight into the purpose of the assize legislation
at an urban level. The mayor was deemed ultimately responsible for
overseeing the assizes, as a proxy Clerk of the Market, so an annual display
of his authority is not surprising. However, Ricart also suggests that the
mayor personally oversaw the weighing of bread during the year, both
at his own instigation and in response to complaints, and that he often
accompanied the ‘alekonner’ on Wednesdays and Saturdays ‘to walke in
the morenynges to the brewers howses, to oversee theym in seruyng of
their ale to the pouere commens of the toune, and that they have theire
trewe mesureз’.587 Whether such personal involvement by the mayor was
as frequent as Ricart implies is doubtful, but such demonstrations of
authority still served to uphold the mayor’s image of moral integrity and
commercial control.588
The mayor was expected to provide just government for the good of
all. In 1522, the Mayor of Bristol sought supplies of grain from Worces-
tershire in response to high prices. This was explained in terms of the
mayor’s ‘gode disposition inclynyng his charitie towardes the comen wele
and profite of this towne’.589 It was important for the successful func-
tioning of a market to present a confident appearance of vigilance and
justice for all its users. Officers not only had to enforce the rules but also
make sure that everyone else knew them. Written laws were therefore
read aloud in the marketplace, probably by officials standing in front of
the market cross, to ensure that no one could claim ignorance. The ordi-
nances and charters of Bristol were recited at least every Michaelmas in
the fourteenth century so ‘that every one may know and hear both these
liberties and customs’.590 The assizes of bread and ale were the com-
monplace lodestone by which a market’s reputation could be judged,
587 Toulmin Smith (ed.), The Maire, pp. 82–3 (1479).
588 In similar rhetoric, Ricart’s account of the Bristol mayor-making ceremony stressed
the association between the mayor’s authority and the virtue of obedience to the king,
as a justification of their (increasingly oligarchic) governance. Fleming, ‘Telling tales’,
pp. 180–2.
589 Stanford (ed.), Ordinances of Bristol, p. 49 (1522); Toulmin Smith (ed.), The Maire,
p. 49.
590 Bristol, i, pp. 39–40 (1344).
252 Medieval market morality

and Ricart was keen to portray a mayor who was diligent in upholding
such market laws and thus the unity of the commercial community.
In a similar manner, the London authorities held four Hallmotes a
year to administer the assize of bread ‘by common counsel and prudent
foresight of the City’. All bakers were expected to attend, in order to
see that the assizes were being upheld according to the statutes and
‘to the well-being of the commonwealth’. Similar Hallmotes were held
for fishmongers so that ‘there may be no doubting, but certainty, as to
how the folks of such trade ought to comport themselves’. Such forums
remained an important part of the apparatus to protect the provisioning of
London, ‘to studye the remedyes of all manner thingis preiudiciall to the
cytee’, and to demonstrate that the mayor and council took seriously their
obligation to protect the ‘comon wele’.591 They also served a purpose
in educating the market traders as to their obligations and the existing
regulations. As Evelyn Welch noted for medieval Italian towns, ‘lists of
prices provided a visible marker of legality and communal constraints;
they allowed participants to decide whether they were part of a commonly
instituted and accepted basis for sales, or whether they were operating
on the edge of social order’.592
Conversely, a threat to the reputation of a town’s authorities in the
administration of the assizes can be seen in an ordinance for Northamp-
ton in 1467. Bakers were ordered not to send any more bread into the
countryside because too much had evaded the assizes and was of insuf-
ficient quality and weight ‘to an vniu[er]sall hurte of the king[es] liege
people. Causyng great rumor and noyse to be spoken to the dishonure of
the maire for the tyme beyng and oppyn disclaundre of the same town.’
All bread was to be duly assayed under the threat of a penalty of 6s. 8d.593
Social disorder could stem from a perception that municipal authorities
were failing in their obligations. During disputes at Coventry in both
1374 and 1387, citizens threw loaves at the mayor and bakers regularly
asked for a restatement of the assize of bread.594
The assizes, in particular, were the most obvious sign of market control
and authorities needed to show that they were working efficiently for the
good of all. In Norwich, four assayers of the assize bought grain, ground

591 Liber Albus, pp. 310–11 (1272–1307), 327–8 (1279–80); Arnold, Customs of London,
p. 88 (c.1519). See Carrel, ‘Food, drink and public order’, 184–93.
592 Welch, Shopping, p. 89.
593 Northampton, i, pp. 309–10 (1467). During the long-running dispute between the town
and university of Oxford, the townsmen asserted in 1355 that recent problems with the
quality and sale of bread were a matter for the university assayers: ‘the cause and fault
lie with you who have the assize to keep, and with no one else’. Salter (ed.), Munimenta,
pp. 135–7, no. 140 (1355).
594 Willcox, Bakers’ Company, p. 7.
 Regulation of the market 253

and sieved it, and then baked it into bread, which they then sold openly
in the town, ‘so that they may see that the people be not deceived but
rather that they be served with it rightly and faithfully without fraud’.595
In London, in 1298–9, Roger de Len was fined two casks of wine for
claiming that the mayor and aldermen had been bribed by William de
Leyre ‘against the common good’ to produce an assize of wine at 11/2d.
for the gallon.596 Public confidence and assurance in the mechanism of
the assizes was paramount for an ordered and well-run marketplace.
Late medieval authorities, at both a national and local level, thus
imposed limitations upon traders to prevent speculators from hiking
prices in times of shortage and to ensure a level of stability in the market.
In other words, the assize price kept prices to a minimum for consumers,
but enabled producers and traders to maintain a ‘reasonable’ livelihood.
To drive traders out of business was counter-productive, but they could
not countenance any incentives of excessive profit or speculation. Town
price policies were thus in harmony with requirements of justice as con-
ceived by the Church and theologians. Traditional social theories pro-
vided an important context for price-fixing, for traders were expected to
work for the benefit of the community and be content with minimal rec-
ompense. As Britnell stated: ‘the setting of prices is a culturally embedded
phenomenon’, and cultural norms had an effect in addition to the eco-
nomic laws of supply and demand.597 The authorities were attempting to
enforce economic stability, partly for the benefit of employers and lords
but also to preserve the social status quo. Controlling food prices helped
preserve the governing hierarchy, peace and order.598 Legislation drew
upon the ideology of the social body where each appendage existed to
serve the whole and those who followed their calling diligently would
receive their due recompense. Traders were expected to serve the public
and community in supplying their goods at a reasonable price and not to
make excessive profits which would have de facto come from high prices.

Middlemen
Local authorities could only control prices and bargaining practices
once supplies had reached a town. Irregular or lack of supplies created
price fluctuations which officials could only temper rather than reverse.

595 Norwich, i, pp. 174–6 (early fourteenth century). There were complaints in London,
in 1310–11, that the bread of their assay had been badly baked, making the assize
too severe to keep. It was agreed that a new assay would take place. CLB, d, p. 243
(1310–11).
596 Thomas (ed.), Calendar, pp. 24–5 (Roll b, 1298–9).
597 Britnell, ‘Price-setting’, 15. 598 Poos, ‘Social context’.
254 Medieval market morality

Because of this, trading legislation was intimately connected with the

mechanisms of supply and demand in medieval England. Many laws
were devoted to ensuring that particular goods were supplied in plen-
tiful quantities to specific sites so as to meet essential demand. Other
regulations attempted to tie the chains of supply to privileged traders,
often where either supply or demand was limited and competition more
fierce. The recognition that supply networks were essential to any price
regulation was also one of the prime motivations behind the legisla-
tion against middlemen that blossomed in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, especially those laws dealing with forestallers, engrossers and
regraters.
Forestalling was the interception of goods before they reached an open
market. It was a concept that was only fully explicated during the thir-
teenth century through English laws and statutes.599 Judicium Pillorie
defined forestalling as buying goods before the accustomed hour, or out-
side of the market itself, so that traders would sell them again more
dearly than otherwise would have been the case, ‘against the good state
and weal of the town and market’.600 It was not considered forestalling
if the goods were acquired for personal consumption, only if they were
to be sold again for profit.601 Forestallers most often acted in collusion
with travelling producers or traders and offered rural prices.602 The seller
profited by not having to pay tolls and the transaction also lowered their
transport and time costs. A forestaller made money on the higher urban
price and usually did not have to pay tolls in their own town. However,
town authorities feared price hikes since they could not control the price
of goods outside the town and they understood that supply affected price
in retail markets. Middlemen could legally go out to manors to buy up
commodities in bulk, as this ensured that the supply to the town was
enhanced. However, once the product was actually on its way to market,

599 Britnell, ‘Forstall’. This article traced the evolution of the term ‘forestalling’ from its
original meaning as a forceful appropriation of goods on the highway, to a later notion of
collusive or consensual dealing that raised prices. First Report of the Royal Commission, i,
appx i, p. 33 (Laws of Edward the Confessor, c.1042–66); Downer (ed.), Leges Henrici
Primi, pp. 248–9, c.80,2, c.80,4, c.80,4a. An entry in Northampton’s Liber Custumarum
described forestallers ‘lyen in a wayte with oute the town or market’; Northampton, i,
p. 376 (late fifteenth century). See also Seabourne, Royal Regulation, ch. 4.
600 Statutes, i, pp. 201–2, ‘Judicium Pillorie’.
601 Cam (ed.), Eyre of London, pp. 310–11, 357–8.
602 Consensual forestalling was defined in a variety of national statutes and orders. Brit-
nell, ‘Forstall’, 94–5, 100; Seabourne, Royal Regulation, p. 127; Statutes, i, pp. 202–4,
‘Statutum de Pistoribus’; CChR, 1257–1300, p. 98 (1268). Coercion against outside
traders did still occur throughout the later Middle Ages, but most forestalling was a
consensual activity. Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 132–4.
 Regulation of the market 255

via land or water, authorities usually viewed the forestaller’s actions as

only conducive to raising prices and avoiding tolls.603
Forestallers were often bakers, brewers, cooks or innkeepers who con-
sequently avoided restrictions which allowed personal needs to be met
first, and they did this outside of the purview of market officials.604 The
bakers of fifteenth-century Bristol were not only forbidden to forestall
corn, under the threat of a fine of half a mark, but were also ordered
not to buy corn within seven miles of the city.605 Forestalling led to sus-
picion from authorities who put much energy into ensuring publicity
and open trade, and such suspicion was transformed into accusations of
heightened prices (‘to the great hurte of the Comons’).606 Additionally,
by intercepting goods a forestaller was effectively using prior information
to usurp his fellow townsmen and this contravened privileged notions of
shared bargains, profits and dues.
Although forestallers performed a function which aided producers and
they still had to sell at a competitive market price, their actions under-
mined nearly all the official medieval market laws, the principles of a
public market, and privileges of supply and price. He was the medieval
‘free rider’ who was seen as damaging the whole market community. It
was perhaps the wide-ranging implications of forestallers for the medieval
system of market regulation that meant the term ‘forestalling’ became a
vague, all-encompassing catchword. Often those regraters who bought
victuals in the market before the proper hour were deemed to be fore-
stallers, as well as those who went beyond the market to intercept goods
or bought in private houses.607 The customs of Beverley (1360s) stated
that forestallers were to be judged according to the laws of the realm
‘and that in every inquiry held by the lord’s steward as to forestallers, the
steward or bailiff shall explain in set terms to the jurors what constitutes
a forestaller and what not’.608 Obviously, the jurors themselves needed
reminding as to the definition of offenders.
The commodities that were most consistently forestalled were primary
products of agriculture and the sea, which were affected by supply net-
works and regional price differences. An ordinance for Bristol in 1473

603 Statutes, i, p. 315, 25 Edw III st.3 c.3 (1350–1); i, pp. 337–8, 27 Edw III st.2 c.11
(1353); i, pp. 348–9, 28 Edw III c.13 (1354).
604 BBC, 1216–1307, p. 297 (CPR, 1266–72, p. 195) (Cambridge, 1268); CLB, e, p. 56
(1316); Memorials, p. 432 (1379); Great Red Book, i, pp. 134–5, 140–1 (late fifteenth
century); Coventry, p. 197 (1441).
605 Great Red Book, i, p. 138 (late fifteenth century). This restriction was increased to ten
miles in 1519–20, Stanford (ed.), Ordinances of Bristol, p. 13 (1519–20).
606 Ibid. See also Nottingham, i, pp. 318–19, 322–5 (1396).
607 Nottingham, i, pp. 276–9 (1395). 608 Beverley, p. 9 (1360s).
256 Medieval market morality

listed wheat, rye, barley, oats, beans, fish, poultry, wildfowl, cheese, but-
ter, eggs, onions, oatmeal and fruit as all commodities that were being
forestalled and regrated.609 In late fourteenth-century London, fore-
stallers apparently made ‘false suggestions’ to cheese dealers and then
privately bought the cheese and sold it by retail without it ever entering
the marketplace.610 Fish offered perhaps the best profit and opportunity,
being irregularly transported along known routes from specific supply
points. It was also a perishable commodity and obtained a significant
price differential caused by transport costs. Great Yarmouth had sev-
eral regulations that targeted forestallers of fish, particularly herring, and
those who sent ‘pikers or other ships to meet ships coming to port’. All
fish was to be unladen openly and exposed for sale by fishermen during
daylight hours with no interference by forestallers or hostelers.611 The
ordinances of Ipswich stated that no regrater (known or a stranger) was
to go out of the bounds of the town market to either bargain, buy or fore-
stall fish coming to the town to be sold. Those caught doing so forfeited
their fish (for the common use) and had to make ‘gre’ (compensation) to
the seller for the merchandise.612
Most town ordinances included specific and harsh sanctions against
forestallers, often involving the pillory, and these drew upon both leg-
islative norms and moral concerns about ‘grete disceyte’ or ‘hurtyng of
the pore people’.613 The ordinances for Beverley stated that no burgess
fisherman should be punished for any fault except by amercement and
by the conviction of twelve fellow burgesses. The only exception was
forestalling, ‘then he or she convicted may be punished according to
the law of the land [i.e. statute law] and the measure of the offence’.614
The widespread examples of laws against forestalling suggest that it was
difficult to suppress.615

609 Great Red Book, iii, p. 97 (1473). 610 Memorials, p. 406 (1377).
611 Statutes, i, pp. 353–5, 31 Edw III st.2 cc.1–2 (1357); CCR, 1354–60, pp. 231, 423;
CCR, 1360–4, pp. 129–30; CPR, 1354–8, pp. 654–5. See also BBC, 1216–1307,
pp. 295–6 (Grimsby, 1258); Liber Albus, pp. 323–6 (thirteenth century), 328–9 (1279–
80); Oak Book, i, pp. 66–7, no. 65 (c.1300); Black Book, ii, pp. 158–61, c.68 [66]
(c.1309); Salisbury, p. 213, no. 414 (1447); Great Red Book, i, pp. 134, 141 (late
fifteenth century); Northampton, i, p. 264, c.80 (c.1460); Leicester, ii, p. 289 (1467);
Coventry, p. 635 (1512).
612 Black Book, ii, pp. 100–1, c.26 (c.1309). Sellers were generally considered to be inno-
cent parties in these particular dealings, rather like domestic buyers in marketplaces,
though they could be accused of selling outside appointed places. See Seabourne, Royal
Regulation, pp. 136–7.
613 Northampton, i, pp. 223–5, cc.25 and 29 (c.1460), 264 (c.1393), 376 (late fifteenth
century).
614 Beverley, p. 9 (1360s).
615 For municipal forestalling laws, see BBC, 1216–1307, pp. 294–5 (Canterbury, 1256;
Great Yarmouth, 1306); Coss (ed.), Early Records of Medieval Coventry, p. 42 (1278);
 Regulation of the market 257

The engrosser represented a further and associated category of mid-

dlemen. The act of engrossing involved cornering (or monopolising)
a market by buying up large quantities of certain merchandise. In the
sumptuary statute of 1363, grocers were accused of collusion and mis-
chief in engrossing a variety of merchandise in order to enhance prices,
particularly at times of scarcity.616 Engrossing was a rarer offence than
forestalling, as it was difficult to monopolise a medieval market in basic
goods without a great deal of capital, except at times of scarcity when
other considerations besides price came into force. In 1375, John de Gay-
wode was accused of forestalling and engrossing so many eggs that he
filled twenty-eight barrels and sent them out of the kingdom, as well as
butter and cheese, that there was a great dearness for four years. He was
amerced 20s.617 Sometimes, general foodstuffs or fuels were engrossed,
as in late fourteenth-century York, when the retailers of coal, lime, malt,
corn, or any victuals were warned against hoarding.618 The merchants of
late thirteenth-century Berwick were not allowed to have more than one
buyer of wool and hides, including their wives, and faced a fine of 8s. and
forfeiture for engrossing such goods to the detriment of other traders in
the town.619
However, the main accusation levelled at engrossers concerned the
hoarding of corn in secret, thereby avoiding the regulations that such
commodities should be made available on the open market.620 The bak-
ers of Leicester were prohibited from hoarding flour at times of bread
shortage and regratresses were to put bread for sale in their windows and
not hide it in ‘hutches or corners’.621 There was a particular antipathy

Leicester, i, p. 181 (1279), ii, pp. 20–1 (1335–6), 292 (1467); Liber Albus, pp. 172–3,
230–1 (1272–1307), 236–7 (1272–1307), 396 (1383–4); Toulmin Smith (ed.), English
Gilds, pp. 343, 345–6 (Berwick, 1283–4), 396–7 (Worcester, 1467); Oak Book, i, pp.
64–5, 68–9, cc.63 and 69 (c.1300); Hill, Medieval Lincoln, appx vii (c.1300); Prest-
wich (ed.), York, pp. 13–14 (1301); CChR, iii, pp. 344–5 (Ipswich, 1317); Norwich, i,
pp. 181–2 (early fourteenth century); Bristol, i, pp. 38–9 (1344), 225–6 (late four-
teenth century); CCR, 1354–60, pp. 231–2; Ingleby (ed.), Red Register, ii, p. 216, fol.
146d (1368); Memorials, pp. 387–8 (1375), 406 (1377); Alsford, Towns (Lynn, early
fifteenth century); Coventry, pp. 25 (1421), 623 (1508), 646–7 (1515), 666 (1519);
Arnold, Customs of London, p. 3 (c.1519).
616 Statutes, i, p. 379, 37 Edw III c.5 (1363). See also Parl. Rolls, c.15, October 1363. In
Warwickshire in 1381, several poulterers were fined 18d.–24d. for forming an illegal
conventicle. Kimball (ed.), Rolls, pp. 114–15 (roll wi), nos. 78–80.
617 Norwich, i, pp. 381–2 (1375).
618 York, i, p. 15 (1371).
619 Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, pp. 343, 345 (Berwick, 1283–4).
620 Coventry, pp. 26–7 (1421); BBC, 1042–1216, p. 212 (Tewkesbury, 1147–83); Alsford,
Towns (Lynn, early fifteenth century); Coventry, p. 272 (1452); Henley, p. 71 (1472).
621 Leicester, ii, p. 107 (1357); Liber Albus, pp. 232–3 (1272–1307). Hutches were large
boxes.
258 Medieval market morality

towards any who stored corn secretly from one market until the next in
the hope of causing a scarcity and higher prices, reflecting the comments
of moralists.622 Since arbitrage was considered socially unacceptable at
times of dearth, there was little storage of grain by speculators in medieval
England, despite the notoriously unstable seasonal grain prices. But nei-
ther did many towns seem to store corn on a regular basis to guard against
times of shortage. Purveyance officials instead tended to resort directly
to large demesnes since those storing grain were proto-capitalist farmers.
Large towns preferred to ensure that individuals had access to available
supplies at all times and looked further afield when crisis ensued. A 1434
covenant in the Little Red Book of Bristol recorded the bequest of a mer-
chant, Mark William, of 100 marks, to be kept in a common chest and
to be used by the town authorities to buy corn at times of scarcity.623
Legislation about engrossing was intricately linked with fears about the
scarcity of vital foodstuffs, particularly in the larger towns. In Norwich
in 1304, a complaint was made to a judicial commission that rich men
and forestallers were colluding to buy up victuals before they reached
the town and thus selling them at higher prices in the market.624 Later,
in 1391, five merchants (Simon Ashfield, Hugh Hedenham, John Erl-
ham, Thomas Bloker and William Attewater) were accused of making a
confederacy and conspiring together to control the market in wheat and
other grains in order to heighten the price, ‘whereof great outcry exists’.
They were fined 100s.625 There were a number of cases in municipal
courts, hundred courts, King’s Bench and Justices of the Peace commis-
sions where offenders were presented for illegal confederacies that raised
prices to the impoverishment of the people.626 The butchers and tanners
of late fifteenth-century Coventry were warned against making confed-
eracies ‘which myght be hurtfull to ether of þe seid craftes or contrarie
to þe comien wele’. In particular, this ordinance was aimed at preventing
engrossing and ensuring that these traders did not usurp the burgess and
craft privileges of others. The stigma of such behaviour was reflected in
the potential 20s. fine.627

622 Norwich, i, p. 361 (1288); Oak Book, i, pp. 50–1, c.39 (c.1300); Bristol, ii, p. 225 (late
fourteenth century); CLB, h, p. 354 (1390); Salisbury, p. 171, no. 344 (1438); Great
Red Book, i, p. 141 (1451–2), iii, p. 97 (1473); Leicester, ii, p. 294 (1467); Northampton,
i, p. 351 (1545).
623 Bristol, i, pp. 174–7 (1434).
624 CPR, 1301–7, p. 294 (1304); Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 132–3.
625 Norwich, i, p. 385 (1391); Hudson (ed.), Leet, p. 74 (1390–1).
626 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 138, 153.
627 Coventry, p. 585 (1497). See also Putnam (ed.), Proceedings, p. 64, no. 30, concerning
Henry Hoxhull who bought and detained grain in Devon in 1351, ‘in oppression and
impoverishment of the people’, cf. Seabourne, Royal Regulation, p. 133.
 Regulation of the market 259

In law, middlemen and engrossers were condemned for many of their

activities. The statutes which mention forestalling are vitriolic in their
condemnation, with the legislators having clearly drawn upon clerical
imagery:
no forestaller be suffered to dwell in any town, which is an open oppressor of poor
people and of all the commonalty, and an enemy of the whole shire and country,
which for greediness of his private gain doth prevent others in buying grain, fish,
herring, or any other thing to be sold coming by land or water, oppressing the
poor, and deceiving the rich, which carrieth away such things, intending to sell
them more dear; the which come to merchants strangers that bring merchandise,
offering them to buy, and informing them that their goods might be dearer sold
than they intended to sell; and a whole town or a country is deceived by such
craft and subtilty.628

A fourteenth-century Norwich ordinance demanded that no one ‘encour-

age such men in their evil-doings or maintain or defend them in any
wise, because by such very great scandal arises in the city and may daily
arise’.629 There was evidently widespread anxiety about the possibility of
food supplies being cut short or sold above their market value and this
was perhaps understandable in communities that had to absorb harvest
fluctuations.630 The lack of national integration in the grain trade also
meant that local supplies could not always be offset by supplies from fur-
ther afield. Thus, the regulation of the grain trade was especially designed
to prevent monopolies and the artificial hiking of prices. Merchants had
to tread warily under such scrutiny.
Britnell has regarded the late medieval regulation of middlemen as
protecting the interests of consumers through price control.631 The con-
demnation of middlemen lay in the ideological concept that they were
making money without adding value or taking risks, artificially manip-
ulating the just price and harming the common good. By modern eco-
nomic criteria, forestallers and middlemen are regarded as rationalising
elements in a commercial economy, saving the time and expense of the
producer in marketing, search and transport costs. However, we should
be wary of attempts to press modern economic theories onto medieval
commercial circumstances. In medieval England, the economy operated
for two basic purposes – for the benefit of the franchise holders and

628 Statutes, i, pp. 203–4, ‘Statutum de Pistoribus’. This statute was copied into the Little
Red Book of Bristol and the Liber Custumarum of Northampton. Bristol, ii, p. 220;
Northampton, i, pp. 320–1.
629 Norwich, i, p. 183 (early fourteenth century?).
630 Farmer, ‘Prices and wages’, pp. 443–5.
631 Britnell, Growth and Decline, pp. 39–40; Britnell, ‘Price-setting’, 10; Salzman, English
Trade, pp. 80–1.
260 Medieval market morality

for the creation of a stable system of supply, price and profit. These
dual notions were based on social theories and an economic environ-
ment that had developed in the thirteenth century. Nevertheless, some
moralists and legislators were beginning to recognise the utility of mid-
dlemen in an increasingly complex English economy. They understood
how merchants could move corn to the places of greatest need and that
price determined these movements.632 Those middlemen who served the
nation and circulated commodities over longer distances were accepted,
including those who bought at the farmgate and delivered supplies to a
town. They were even actively encouraged, as long as they obeyed the
rules, and were recognised as a means of bringing supplies to where they
were needed.633 This was not so distant from modern ideas, but neither
could it be described as free trade.
Medieval market users still feared the apparent potential of middlemen
to raise prices, control supplies and speculate for profit to the detriment
of the wider community. This might be anathema to promoters of free-
market ethics, but in the conditions of medieval England one could regard
such paternal legislation as prudent. Checks were placed upon enterpris-
ing merchants and tradesmen by authorities who felt that their activities
harmed others with the framework of an inelastic market. In particular,
the entrepreneurial pursuit of profit when dealing in the necessities of
life was considered immoral. Middlemen themselves were not expunged
from commercial life, but medieval authorities and consumers were not
yet confident of the market’s ability to circumscribe opportunists. It was
the opportunists, hanging around the edge of town or in the marketplace,
who had not expended any formative energies, that were disparaged as
leeches on the community.
However, it is unlikely that many forestallers or engrossers had enough
capital to create a monopoly or significant price rises, except when
supplies became scarce and very irregular. Often, forestalling involved
petty traders with little capital searching for minor gain.634 They them-
selves were poor, but regulations charged them for oppressing the poor.
Whether juries always judged the individual merits of forestalling is
difficult to know; the laws themselves focused on the harmful effects
of all forestalling and engrossing. Britnell has argued that the laws of
forestalling were instrumental in creating their own market ethic.635
We should be certainly wary of distinguishing starkly between a moral
ethic in the literature and sermons and a pragmatic approach in laws.

632 See p. 119. 633 Gras, Evolution, pp. 157–8. 634 Britnell, ‘Price-setting’, 13.
635 Britnell, ‘Town life’, p. 165; Britnell, ‘Urban economic regulation’.
 Regulation of the market 261

Legislators were just as idealistic in many ways and avidly used moral
ideology to justify their edicts.
Like forestallers and engrossers, regraters also lived on the margin
of respectability, but their activities of buying up batches of foodstuffs
to sell again by retail in the same market were condoned provided they
conducted themselves within strict laws. The cooks of Bristol were threat-
ened with fines of 40d. for buying fresh fish simply to sell again, rather
than cooking it for ‘the vse of the peple’.636 Regrating of raw meat was
prohibited in thirteenth-century Leicester, but cooks were allowed to
buy calves, pigs and sheep to sell again as cooked products.637 As dis-
cussed previously, such traders were banned from the market within
the first few hours of opening while people purchased goods for their
own consumption.638 The Northampton Custumal stated that regraters
should only buy their corn, fish, flesh and poultry after the due hour set
by ordinance, so that ‘the kynges people schulde bye at the ffyrst hande
of them that owith hit’. Otherwise, ‘the pore man muste by of them at the
secounde honde’, which meant unconscionable price rises. Those traders
who sent others to buy up goods, deceitfully pretending that they were
buying victuals for their own consumption, were similarly condemned
as regraters and forestallers. In fifteenth-century York, some cooks were
accused of subtly using such partnerships ‘in blyndyng and deseyvyng
of the market keper’ in order to acquire significant stocks of fish before
the allowed time. They then retailed the fish ‘to the most dere value that
tham lykes, in hynderyng of the commun pople’.639
The greatest fear of legislators seems to have been that if regraters were
allowed to work unrestricted then prices would rise steeply, particularly
for victuals. A statute of 1353, reacting to the economic upheaval after
the plague but also drawing on age-old concerns, lamented the ‘outra-
geous dearth’ caused by regraters of victuals ‘to the great damage of the
people’ and ordered justices be chosen to inquire into their ‘deeds and
outrages’.640 Yet, these same traders were also viewed as useful proxy
agents for more respectable bakers and regular brewers of a town and
they provided a service to travellers and townsfolk in the evening. Also,

636 Great Red Book, i, pp. 134–5 (1452).

637 Leicester, i, pp. 180–1 (1279), ii, p. 289 (1467). See also Jeayes (ed.), Court Rolls, i,
p. 50 (1311); Coss (ed.), Early Records of Medieval Coventry, p. 42 (1278); Oak Book,
i, pp. 70–1, c.70 (c.1300); Memorials, pp. 406–7 (1377); Coventry, pp. 25 (1421), 29
(1421), 361 (1470), 651–2 (1517).
638 See above, pp. 182–3.
639 York, i, pp. 222–3 (fifteenth century?). See also Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae, ii,
pp. 117–18 (1274–6).
640 Statutes, i, p. 330, 27 Edw III st.1 c.3 (1353). See also Black Book, ii, pp. 102–3, c.27
(c.1309).
262 Medieval market morality

many country sellers of cheese, poultry, butter and eggs may have found
it more convenient to sell such goods to regraters and hucksters rather
than have to market the items themselves. Such outside traders might
need to return home but still have residual goods when the bell rang to
allow reselling.641 Regrating was thus a means of facilitating exchange
for the producer, processor and consumer. Regraters offered more con-
venient options of scale, such as selling by the mug for ale, or by taking
the produce to the source of demand, rather than following the practices
of shopkeepers and stallholders who waited for their customers. Their
existence in all medieval markets suggests that they were a consistent
and useful presence in normal conditions, taking on the risk of disposing
of surplus, perishable commodities. They were, nevertheless, regarded
as treading a fine line between aiding and hindering the market.642 In
early fourteenth-century Oxford, there were even limits on the number
of regraters who were allowed to operate in the market (thirty-two in
1305).643
Pedlars and hawkers had a slightly different social and economic role
compared to regraters, being more wandering purveyors of trinkets and
hardware. They seem to have attracted only animosity in regulations.644
Borough records presented a continual theme of restriction or even expul-
sion. Lynn prohibited wandering hawkers, regarding them as nuisances
who impeded upon the liberties of the town and stallholders. In partic-
ular, they avoided payment of stallage fees.645 A Beverley court in 1398
warned of foreign pedlars called ‘snarlers’ and ‘hawkers’, ‘who often buy
goods and jewels stolen in the town to the great damage and deceit of the
common people’. Wandering traders were banned by the civic authorities
and they demanded that all should hire stalls or else face imprisonment
and a fine of 6s. 8d.646 The Colchester ordinances also expressed anx-
iety that many chapmen were acting as receivers of stolen beads, silver
spoons and other small wares, and reiterated that all transactions should
take place in the open market to prevent such dishonesty.647
The regulations suggest that there was a general perception that mar-
ket trade and retailers could endanger the social order.648 It also seems
that an offender’s social status affected the type of regulation imposed
upon them. Merchants were able to have much more entrepreneurial

641 Liber Albus, p. 329 (1279–80). 642 Swanson, British Towns, p. 29.
643 Salter (ed.), Munimenta, pp. 8–10, 14–15, nos. 9, 11 and 17 (1305 and 1310).
644 Davis, ‘Men as march with fote packes’.
645 King’s Lynn, p. 264, no. 313 (1424). See also Winchester, p. 16 (1409); Red Paper Book,
p. 150 (1455); Northampton, i, p. 264, c.79 (1397).
646 Beverley, p. 42 (1398). 647 Red Paper Book, p. 148 (1455).
648 Hilton, ‘Medieval market towns’, 22.
 Regulation of the market 263

leeway than lowly market traders, while poor hucksters and pedlars were
treated with more suspicion and vitriol than artisans or sedentary vict-
uallers. ‘Huckster’ and ‘regrater’ had pejorative overtones; there were
connotations that such people looked to make profit in any possible
petty way.649 The early fifteenth-century oath for the bedels of London
included the provision that thieves, prostitutes, hucksters of ale, ‘or other
women commonly reputed of bad and evil life’ should be cast out of
their Ward.650 Popular and legal hostility was exacerbated by fears of
such traders causing heightened petty crime, street obstruction, abuses
and disorder. It is not unlikely that jurors allowed such impressions to
influence their decision-making processes. Most noticeably, strangers
were treated cautiously and it is likely that poor unknown outsiders were
generally distrusted unless they had some contact or relative in the town.
Nevertheless, itinerant retail traders were perhaps both immoveable and
unstoppable in the markets of the late Middle Ages.

Punishment
A Cambridge ordinance (1268) against regraters ordered that they ‘be
amerced according to the quantity and quality of his offence’.651 The
main weapon in the armoury of officials was the amercement, which was
set (often by appointed affeerers) in relation to both the severity of the
crime and the means of the offender. For flagrant or repeat offenders,
corporal punishment could be utilised. A market necessarily included
the apparatus of the pillory and tumbrel as these were the corporal pun-
ishments specifically prescribed for breaches of the assizes of bread and
ale.652 The pillory was an immoveable, vertical stocks placed in a pub-
lic area, while the tumbrel simply involved public exposure on a stool
mounted high on a cart (sometimes known as the cucking-stool) in the
marketplace. A ‘tumbrel’ was also shameful in that it was a dung-cart.653
The penalties for brewers or bakers who broke the assize were laid out
in a definite scheme. For the first, second and third occasions they were
to be amerced ‘according to the quantity of their offence’. Beyond that,

649 Kowaleski, ‘Women’s work’, p. 148; Salzman, English Trade, pp. 75–80; Hilton, ‘Lords,
burgesses and hucksters’; Hilton, ‘Women traders’, p. 208.
650 Liber Albus, p. 272 (early fifteenth century).
651 BBC, 1216–1307, p. 297 (CPR, 1266–72, p. 195) (Cambridge, 1268).
652 These instruments of corporal punishment were appended to the jurisdiction of view
of frankpledge and not to the franchise of the market, but the two often overlapped.
Masschaele, ‘Public space’, 400–5; Britton, i, p. 191, ch. 31, c.7 (1291–2); Fleta, ii,
p. 121, bk. ii, c.12 (late thirteenth century).
653 Spargo, Juridical Folklore. The ‘ducking-stool’ was a later development of the cucking-
stool, and involved plunging offenders into water in order to purge them of sins.
264 Medieval market morality

offenders were to suffer ‘judgement of the body’, in the form of the pillory
for bakers and the tumbrel, trebuchet or ‘castigatorie’ for brewers.654 The
differentiation of apparatus was seemingly based more on the assumption
that bakers would be male and brewers female, rather than any occupa-
tionary discrimination. The pillory required an upright stance, while
offenders were seated in the tumbrel, but both involved humiliation as a
punishment.
The aims of corporal punishment reflected the market conditions of
medieval towns and villages. A fifteenth-century assize for beer-brewers
specifically stated that for a fourth offence the offender should be placed
in the pillory and that this punishment was to last for three market
days.655 This was not necessarily three consecutive days, as many towns
had only one market day a week and the scheduling of the castigation
emphasises the importance of public humiliation. The punishment was
not only uncomfortable and perhaps painful, but it tarnished the individ-
ual’s reputation and affected future business and credit. It also prevented
the trader from working and earning on the most important marketing
day of the week. Nevertheless, humiliation could only be really effective if
it was accompanied by a public recognition of the shame of an offender’s
actions. There was thus a dramatic element to many punishments for
this publicised the crime and developed a communal symbolic memory
of the sinfulness of the offences. In late thirteenth-century Norwich, the
pillory was the mandated penalty for forestallers ‘so that his punishment
may be the terror of others and his fault may be made manifest to the
people, and let public proclamation be made in the market concerning
the cause of his punishments in this matter’.656 Publicly burning false
goods under the noses of offenders was also commonplace, such as in
London in 1319 when William Sperlyng had his ‘putrid and poisonous’
meat burnt beneath him at the pillory.657 These secular punishments
were endorsed by religious authorities, who added their own canon of
spiritual sanctions to the avaricious and fraudulent.658

654 Statutes, i, pp. 199–200, ‘Assisa Panis et Cervisie’; i, pp. 201–2, ‘Judicium Pillorie’.
655 BL, MS Landowne 796, fol. 6r (late fifteenth century).
656 Norwich, i, pp. 182–3 (early fourteenth century?).
657 Memorials, pp. 132–3 (1319). See also ibid., pp. 139–40 (1320), 328 (1365), 336
(1368), 367 (1372), 446 (1380), 448–9 (1381), 464 (1382), 471–2 (1382), 486 (1385);
CLB, e, pp. 110–11 (1319), also e, pp. 126, 132–3 (1320), f, p. 208 (1350); Bellamy,
Crime and Public Order, pp. 184–6; Hill, Medieval Lincoln, appx vii (c.1300); Prestwich
(ed.), York, p. 16 (1301).
658 See pp. 122–34. Even non-corporal punishments might involve a performative element.
In the Fair Court of St Ives in 1300, the false vessels of the brewster, Agnes Hervy
of Ely, were broken in front of the whole court. Goldberg (ed.), Women in England,
p. 189.
 Regulation of the market 265

Figure 17: Bakers and corporal punishment

Notes: These illustrations accompanied information on the assize of
bread in London’s Liber de Assisa Panis (late thirteenth to early four-
teenth centuries). The first drawing depicts the baker at work, and the
second drawing is a baker being drawn on a hurdle with a faulty loaf
about his neck.
Source: City of London, London Metropolitan Archives, MS Custumal
4, Liber de Assisa Panis, fol. 1r (col/cs/01/004).

London authorities appear to have been particularly exasperated by

offending bakers and gave them no leeway for initial misdemeanours.
Instead, they ordered the immediate use of corporal punishment in dra-
matic fashion:
If any default shall be found in the bread of a baker of the city, the first time, let
him be drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to his own house, through the
great streets where there may be most people assembled, and through the great
streets that are most dirty, with the faulty loaf hanging from his neck. If a second
time he shall be found committing the same offence, let him be drawn through
the great street of Chepe, in manner aforesaid, to the pillory; and let him be put
upon the pillory, and remain there at least one hour in the day. And the third
default shall be found, he shall be drawn, and the oven shall be pulled down, and
the baker [made to] foreswear the trade within the city for ever.659

A pictorial depiction of the punishment that faced fraudulent bak-

ers was placed at the start of London’s Liber de Assisa Panis (see
Figure 17).660 In 1347, Bristol was granted a royal charter that gave its

659 Liber Albus, p. 232 (1272–1307). For similar regulations for forestallers in York, see
Prestwich (ed.), York, pp. 13–14 (1301).
660 John Bretun proclaimed in 1297 that the use of the hurdle to punish bakers should be
abolished. CLB, b, pp. 243–4 (1297). However, the hurdle was in use again two years
later, along with the pillory. Thomas (ed.), Calendar, p. 67 (Roll c, 1299–1300); Riley
266 Medieval market morality

Figure 18: Baker drawn on a hurdle

Notes: This decorative initial was part of the 1347 charter of Edward III
to the city of Bristol. It shows a baker being drawn on a hurdle, with
the unequal balance representing his offence and a faulty loaf around
his neck.
Source: City of Bristol Record Office, No. 01250(1).

officers similar powers to punish bakers on the hurdle. This was depicted
on the illuminated initial of the charter, which shows the unbalanced
scales that suggest the baker was accused of selling short-weight bread
(see Figure 18).
The most vivid examples of punishments and frauds can be found
in London records and these have tended to colour many historians’
views of petty traders. A commonly cited example by historians was John
Brid, who was prosecuted in 1327 for making a hole in his baking-table,
through which a servant drew the dough of customers to their loss and
‘to the scandal and disgrace of the whole city’. He and nine other bakers
were placed in the pillory with dough hung from their necks.661 There
were other instances of the pillory being used in London, such as when a

(ed.), Chronicles, p. 251 (1314); Memorials, pp. 119–23 (1316); CLB, a, pp. 120–1
(1282), b, p. 13 (1282), k, p. 56 (1425); Riley (ed.), Munimenta Gildhallae, iii, appx i,
pp. 411–29 (1307–27); Seabourne, ‘Assize matters’, 44–5. Sometimes the punishment
of the hurdle was remitted due to the old age of the offender. In 1318, the bakers of
London petitioned the king and Parliament to abolish the punishment of the hurdle in
the city, but the king refused. Parl. Rolls, c.196, October 1318.
661 Memorials, pp. 162–5 (1327).
 Regulation of the market 267

cook, Henry le Passelewe, sold a putrid and stinking capon in a pastry in

1351; and when John Gylessone, in 1348, sold carrion found in a ditch
‘in deceit and to the peril of the lives of persons buying the same’, and
was placed in the pillory with the meat burnt beneath him.662
Other towns went beyond the remit of the statutes in their stipulated
punishments for fraudulent victuallers. The customs of Hereford in the
early fourteenth century adjudged that any who committed an offence
worthy of punishment in the pillory or tumbrel should lose his freedom.
Bakers and brewers were to be expelled for one year and not to brew and
bake for that time, after which they might redeem their freedom by favour
of the commonalty for twice as much as before.663 Other regulations used
the threat of expulsion from the town as a final sanction, if the humiliation
of corporal punishment had failed to deter.
An apt moral aspect to the punishment of traders can be seen in sev-
eral ordinances where goods were forfeited to the poor, sick or prisoners.
The forfeited bread of bakers of Bristol, who bought grain before their
allotted time, was distributed to the prisoners at Monkenbridge; while
the forfeitures of regraters and forestallers in Oxford were given to the
poor and infirm at the hospital of St John, ‘so that no profit therefrom
accrue’.664 The lepers of York were not so fortunate, for they received
the forfeited meat that had been found to be ‘measly’.665 A notable pro-
vision was included in the regulations of fifteenth-century Northamp-
ton, where butchers were ordered to only sell unwholesome meat from
beneath the pillory, or else the meat was forfeited to the sick men of St
Leonard’s.666 The instrument of punishment had become a public sym-
bol for those who wished to sell substandard goods. The regulation left
the decision of purchase to the consumer in the belief that the open adver-
tisement of rotten meat would deter buyers and perhaps tarnish the rep-
utation of the butcher. Any butcher prepared to offer such products from
under the pillory, or a consumer prepared to buy them, did so at their
own risk.
A rough comparison can be made of the punishments prescribed
in town ordinances for different offences. Most ordinances laid down

662 Ibid., pp. 240–1 (1348), 266–7 (1351); CLB, f, pp. 181 (1348), 226–7 (1351). See also
Memorials, pp. 319 (1364), 498 (1387); CLB, g, p. 175 (1364), h, pp. 322–3 (1387).
663 Johnson (ed.), Hereford, p. 31.
664 Bristol, ii, pp. 221–2 (1327); BBC, 1216–1307, p. 297 (Oxford, 1284). See also Memo-
rials, pp. 38–9 (1298); Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 343 (Berwick, 1283–4).
Any forfeited pigs or ducks in Bristol were to go to prisoners. Great Red Book, i, p. 144
(1452).
665 Prestwich (ed.), York, pp. 12–13 (1301).
666 Northampton, i, p. 230, c.47 (c.1460). See also Black Book, ii, pp. 144–7, c.58 [57]
(c.1309); Davis, ‘The cross and the pillory’, pp. 258–9.
268 Medieval market morality

punishments for offences on a sliding scale, increasing in severity for

recidivists. The 1301 ordinances for York were particularly harsh, in an
attempt to re-establish trading equilibrium after the arrival of the royal
household. Comparatively, cooks of bad food and forestallers faced the
most severe penalties of the pillory for the first offence, followed by the
hurdle, imprisonment and exile. Bakers who committed extreme abuses
were subjected to the pillory immediately and at the third offence, their
oven was destroyed and they were expected to abjure their calling for-
ever. Brewers were fined first and then faced the tumbrel at the third
and fourth offences.667 These regulations were enacted in very particular
circumstances, but the London penalties throughout the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries followed a similar schema, plus the use of the hurdle
for bakers.668
The authorities of mid-fourteenth-century Bristol ordered the most
severe penalties for cooks and butchers who sold corrupt meat, with
a second offence leading to the pillory, followed by imprisonment and
then expulsion from the town. Forestallers faced the pillory at their third
offence and, thereafter, enforced forswearing of their trade. By contrast,
brewers and ale-sellers who sold at excessive prices or in secret, merely
faced increasing fines and forfeitures with only an implied threat of cor-
poral punishment at the fourth offence, despite a stated annoyance that
they ‘will not be chastened, whereof the poor people of the Commonalty
make great complaint’.669
In central legislation, forestalling punishments were steeper than for
other trading offences, such as breaking the assize or regrating, but sim-
ilar in nature to those for selling corrupted foodstuffs. Amercements
and forfeiture were allocated for the first offence, the pillory for the sec-
ond, imprisonment for the third and, finally, expulsion from the town. A
further statute against forestalling was issued by Edward III in 1350–1,
which ordered the forfeiture of all forestalled merchandise or their equiva-
lent value, or else the offender would be imprisoned for two years or more.
This legislation made clear that it was the forestaller who was deemed
to have offended, while the seller was considered an innocent party who
was to keep any payment made for goods bought. Encouragement was
also offered to third parties to bring suits against forestallers by way of
the offer of half of the items forfeited.670 The stipulated punishments in

667 Prestwich (ed.), York, pp. 10–16 (1301).

668 Liber Albus, pp. 232–3 (1272–1307), 307 (1272–1307), 312 (1335), 400 (1383–4).
669 Bristol, i, pp. 34 (1344), 38–9 (1344); ii, pp. 30 (1346?), 36–8 (1346?), 218 (fourteenth
century), 221 (fourteenth century).
670 Statutes, i, p. 315, 25 Edw III St.3 c.3 (1350–1); confirmed by ibid., ii, p. 8, 2 Ric II
St.1 c.2 (1378).
 Regulation of the market 269

central law were reflected in local regulations. By the late fifteenth cen-
tury, forestallers in Bristol were threatened with a 20s. amercement
for the first offence, forty days’ imprisonment for the second, and
both imprisonment and expulsion from the town’s liberty thereafter.671
In early fourteenth-century Norwich, forestallers faced the pillory on
the second offence, and the punishment was not to be redeemed ‘for
that thing touches the whole community and the people of the whole
country’.672
Thus, punishments outlined in the regulations followed a basic pattern
of increasing severity, from an initial fine and confiscation of offending
goods, to imprisonment, corporal punishment and, finally, expulsion
from their trade or town for a year and a day. The official penalties
thus provided standardised schemes and were, in some cases, especially
harsh and unforgiving. Those who committed blatant fraud, middlemen
offences or crimes against public health were particularly vilified, showing
a similar approach to that of many moralists. However, whether these
schemata were followed in practice is another matter.
Late medieval preachers and moralists were scathing of the authorities’
slackness in enforcing corporal punishments.673 Judicium Pillorie specifi-
cally stated that the twelve lawful men who inquired into assizes should
investigate whether any bailiff had been bribed to release an offender
from penal punishment. They also had to check on the maintenance
of the pillory and tumbrel, which had to be of sufficient strength so as
not to imperil offenders and which had to be upkept according to the
franchise requirements of a market.674 However, ‘Clerk of the Market’
estreats and courtly evidence suggest that the remittance of corporal
punishment for fines was widespread and that the upkeep of the penal
apparatus was often insufficient.675 Legislators claimed that this was not
only due to a blatant disregard for statutory law, but also ignorance.
Fleta stated: ‘it does happen that lords are amerced [by the Clerk of the
Market], sometimes because they do not know the technicalities of the
assize and consequently, being ignorant of the law, it is to be assumed

671 Great Red Book, iii, p. 97 (1473). See also Coventry, pp. 25–6 (1421), 192 (1439), 277
(1453).
672 Norwich, i, pp. 182–3 (early fourteenth century). 673 See pp. 129–31.
674 Statutes, i, pp. 201–2, ‘Judicium Pillorie’; i, p. 203, ‘Statutum de Pistoribus’. See also
Britton, i, pp. 191–2, ch. 31, c.8 (1291–2). Robert Reynes’s version of the assize of
bread also states that bakers found with excessively underweight loaves should ‘haue
iugement of þe pilory and nouзt зeuyn for gold ne syluer’. Louis (ed.), Commonplace
Book, pp. 136–7.
675 TNA, e101/256/14, 15, 25; e101/257/1, 11(2), 17; e101/258/1, 2. See also Stapleton
(ed.), De Antiquis Legibus Liber, pp. 121–2 (London, 1269); Northampton, i, p. 373 (late
fifteenth century).
270 Medieval market morality

that they will be unable to administer it rightly’.676 By 1389–90, the

‘Statute of Victuallers’ demanded that no corporal punishments should
be remitted if statute law demanded it.677
The king could revoke a franchise if it was found that fines were taken
when corporal punishment was due.678 An entry in the Little Red Book
of Bristol in 1283 suggested anxiety that the king’s authority could harm
their liberty: ‘the Mayor and Commonalty of the town of Bristol fear
that they will be severely punished unless the assize in the town aforesaid
be strictly observed by the same Mayor and Commonalty’.679 The royal
demand that corporal punishment should not be remitted for any pay-
ment suggests, of course, that remittance did take place. In York in 1304
and Lincoln in 1331, the authorities were rebuked for their leniency in
not assessing the assizes as often as was necessary and remitting corporal
methods when traders deserved them. Indeed, in 1311, Oxford Univer-
sity complained that the townsmen had allowed a convicted baker to
climb onto the pillory scaffold and then come down again, without ever
being affixed in the pillory for the stipulated hour.680
In practice, the use of corporal punishment and even the amerce-
ments proffered do not seem to have followed the levels or graduations
prescribed in law. Indeed, the idealism of the laws was tempered by a
recognition that many officials were prepared to be flexible in their inter-
pretation of legal practices. Perhaps the factors which mattered more than
laws themselves were the people who enacted them, who administered
them and in whose interests regulations were enforced.681

Conclusion
Throughout this chapter, the parallels between moralistic literature and
legal statements have been strikingly apparent. Late medieval writers and

676 Fleta, ii, p. 121, bk. ii, c.12 (late thirteenth century).
677 Statutes, ii, p. 63, 13 Ric II st.1 c.8 (1389–90); Parl. Rolls, c.38, January 1390.
678 Fleta, ii, p. 121, bk. ii, c.12 (late thirteenth century). In 1254, London was briefly
taken into the king’s hands for non-observance of the assizes of bread and ale. Riley
(ed.), Chronicles, pp. 22–3, also p. 150 (1271). Seabourne regards these exceptional
cases as a means to rectify problematic enforcement of the assizes and as a ‘product
of a successful exercise in royal supervision of a local jurisdiction’. Seabourne, Royal
Regulation, pp. 92–5.
679 Bristol, ii, pp. 222–3 (1283).
680 Prestwich (ed.), York, pp. 18–22 (1301); CIM, ii (1307–49), pp. 294–5, no. 1201;
Salter (ed.), Munimenta, pp. 22–3, no. 25 (1311), pp. 29–30, no. 32 (1315). See also
Liber Albus, p. 232 (1272–1307); Leicester, ii, pp. 194–5 (1379); CChR, iv, pp. 57–8
(Cambridge, 1327).
681 Rigby, English Society, p. 303.
 Regulation of the market 271

legislators used similar phrases, made references to communal benefits

and the needs of the poor, and conveyed a consistent dislike of middle-
men and profiteers. However, there was an additional agenda in many
urban regulations whereby justificatory rhetoric hid differing sectional
interests. It is this balance of motivations that is so difficult to disentan-
gle. Town authorities appeared to walk a tightrope between the need to
address moral, paternal considerations and the privileges of their own
burgesses or residents. Consumers needed low prices and assured supply
and quality, while those within the liberty wanted law and order, revenue
and protection of their trading rights.682 Some of these aims overlapped,
particularly when linked to worries about social cohesion and the advan-
tages of communal consent. Town governors also realised that they could
not prosper without attracting the trade of outsiders, allowing victuallers
to proliferate and make a livelihood, and providing facilities to encourage
the conduct of commercial transactions. Unenfranchised traders desired
fewer restrictions while burgesses sought economic privileges, but both
wanted the safeguards of trading regulations.683 Medieval trading law
was therefore not elucidated in clear and defined terms, but involved a
composite of moral, social, economic and legal ideas, moulded by vested
interests.
Medieval writers placed emphasis on social order and the protection
of the poor, their ideas embedded in notions of natural justice and divine
law. Most clerics and moralists, from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries,
encouraged traders to perform their occupations for the communal good
and to be almost philanthropic in their activities. Although such notions
have been dismissed by some historians as the abstract concepts of late
medieval theologians, social theories did provide a foundation for many
local regulations, such as the assizes, and were a comparative tool by
which the justice of laws could be examined. At the same time, the laws
themselves were generating ethical norms, laying down moral principles
relating to the monitoring of prices, profit, quality, middlemen, burgess
rights and the open marketplace. Indeed, the clergy provided one means
by which to disseminate the legal rules and boundaries of trading activity,
demonstrating a mutual reinforcement of market ethics. There were cer-
tainly hints of moral rectitude in law regarding the potential sinfulness
and sordidness of trade – this was not confined to the purview of the
Church.

682 Kowaleski, Local Markets, pp. 180–92; Britnell, Commercialisation, pp. 90–7.
683 Rigby, English Society, p. 160; Rigby, Medieval Grimsby, p. 47.
272 Medieval market morality

Legislators thus subscribed to notions of common welfare and justice,

but also advanced favouritism and privilege wherever possible. Market
regulations could be either socially inclusive or exclusive, depending on
the particular commodity, economic context, and social or moral anx-
ieties. Outside or foreign traders were subjected to differing levels of
restrictions and levies, while even those resident within a town, but out-
side elite administrative institutions, were often disadvantaged by town
ordinances. ‘Common profit’ in this context clearly referred to those
who contributed to a town’s government and coffers, rather than those
who worked there but paid only ad hoc dues. Historians have often char-
acterised this elitism as restrictive and oppressive and some argue that
it encouraged monopolistic oligarchies but squashed commercial enter-
prise. Yet, towns could not survive without a regular influx of traders and
merchandise, and they had to provide conducive market facilities. To
create the conditions needed for confidence in trade, medieval authori-
ties recognised the need for constant surveillance and controls over the
tools of trade in order to dampen any temptation to commit fraud or
extortion. A considerable element of regulation concerned the ability of
market officials to ensure sales transactions were undertaken in an accept-
able manner. However, the laws themselves hint at a flexibility regarding
such issues as profit-making, credit dealings, margins of error, low quality
and Sunday trading. Market authorities seemingly understood the reali-
ties of everyday trade, but they also possessed only limited administrative
resources and had to work within the strictures of fluctuating supply and
demand.
There remains a conceptual gap between the regulations themselves
and the apparatus of administration; there was a difference between
enacting law and enforcing it. It is because of this that ideologies and
religious representations were so vital, for they indirectly circumscribed
the actions of most traders and consumers in union with actual mar-
ket mechanisms. For example, guilds demanded a certain standard of
morals for their members, as well as exerting informal social pressure.
Even local gossip and neighbourly opinion could encourage social and
economic conformity, particularly by attacking a trader’s reputation. It is
perhaps unsurprising that many laws were framed in terms of religiosity
and sin. Trust, reputation and social mores lay behind the effective work-
ing of the medieval market system and were additional barriers to the
‘free rider’. These moral notions were not, however, inconsistent with
many traders working beyond or at the margins of the law or officials
exercising an element of flexibility in their interpretation of regulations.
Indeed, too many historians have lumped together the everyday fines of
 Regulation of the market 273

general trading activities, which were not perceived as particularly objec-

tionable, with the flagrant frauds and offences that so offended medieval
sensibilities. It is this complex interplay of medieval morals, laws, infor-
mal controls and pragmatism that will be examined in the next chap-
ter. How did commercial regulations and ethical precepts equate with
practical experience?
3 The behaviour of market traders

The influences of literary and legal proclamations upon everyday

medieval practices were not necessarily direct or straightforward. Indeed,
petty traders may have ignored elements of law and moral strictures
when possible, while courts and jurors were arguably flexible in their
use of regulations, depending on the parties involved and social norms.1
Legal codifications and moral writings are therefore insufficient evidence
for actual trading practices and need to be supplemented by sources of
local administration. As Britnell stated, ‘behind the verbiage of urban
court rolls lies a rich variety of interplay between law and social values’.2
Were traders really regarded by local officials as generally dishonest
and in need of constant monitoring? Were there notable discrepancies
between literary and legislative ideals of trade and its actual regulation
in a medieval community? This chapter surveys the day-to-day oper-
ations of town markets and their traders. In doing so, it is necessary
to occasionally step back from the minutiae of regulations and credit
transactions and regard the general picture. What were the rationales
behind the management of markets and trade? Were there more informal
means of regulation that were beneficial to traders, consumers and market
efficiency?
In order to look further at the behaviour of market traders, the imple-
mentation of commercial regulation and the ethical framework within
which markets operated, this chapter will look at court roll evidence
from three markets in late medieval Suffolk: the two small market towns
of Newmarket and Clare and the larger borough of Ipswich. This can
only give us a glimpse into the activities of the medieval market, since
the study is concentrated on both one small region of the country and a
relatively short time period in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Nevertheless, such a focused and detailed comparison can perhaps give

1 Britnell, ‘England: towns, trade’, p. 58; Schofield, ‘Peasants and the manor court’, 5–7;
Poos and Bonfield, ‘Law and individualism’.
2 Britnell, ‘England: towns, trade’, p. 58.

274
 The behaviour of market traders 275

a better insight into the influence of moral values and regulation upon
the behaviour of medieval market traders.

The markets of Suffolk

Suffolk cannot be considered a ‘typical’ county in medieval England. In a
national comparison, Suffolk might be viewed as possessing a weak, frag-
mented manorial structure by 1300, with many small manors and a sig-
nificant proportion of freemen and lower-status lords. There were a few,
interspersed aristocratic manors with a high number of unfree tenures
and villein tenants, held by ecclesiastical institutions such as the abbey of
Bury St Edmunds or the convent of Ely, or a great lay lord like the Earl of
Norfolk, who dominated the political life of the county. However, most
of Suffolk was independent of such strong lordship in terms of everyday
manorial administration. Bailey argues that this encouraged care and
efficiency from the minor lords, as well as economic freedom, indepen-
dence and enterprise among their tenants; it appears to have generated
complex tenurial relations.3 The majority engaged in land transactions,
sold surpluses in the market, exploited commercial opportunities and
were relatively mobile. Large numbers of these peasants were smallhold-
ers or landless who needed to make a living through agricultural labour,
domestic service and petty trade or craftwork.4
Suffolk was a low-lying county consisting of good arable land, but
also extensive patches of woodland, grassland, heaths and wetlands.5 It
was well supplied with river valleys and waterways which could be nav-
igated by small boats or barges, leading to the estuaries of the Orwell,
Stour and Deben.6 It was a fairly wealthy county by national standards,
especially in the fifteenth century. Schofield’s comparative analysis of
the tax subsidies of 1334 and 1515 showed that Suffolk rose up in the
rankings of counties from eighteenth to seventh in lay wealth per acre.7
It contained a high density of small market towns and demonstrated
signs of relatively advanced commercialisation. In particular, High Suf-
folk developed a significant leather and dairy industry by the fifteenth

3 Bailey, Medieval Suffolk, chs. 2 and 3. This volume provides an excellent summary of the
economic and social history of late medieval Suffolk.
4 Ibid., pp. 36–9. Fragmentation of free holdings was a common theme in thirteenth-
century England. It was driven by population and economic pressures, and facilitated by
the right to buy and sell at will and by customs of partible inheritance. By c.1300, some
75 per cent of holdings in Suffolk were under ten acres, and most under five acres.
5 Scarfe, Suffolk Landscape, pp. 149–91; Bailey, Medieval Suffolk, pp. 1–2, ch. 5.
6 Darby, Medieval Fenland; VCH: Suffolk, i, p. 1.
7 Schofield, ‘Geographical distribution’.
276 Medieval market morality

and sixteenth centuries.8 The cloth industry was also flourishing in the
small towns and villages of Babergh, Cosford and Samford hundreds
in the south-west of the county, particularly as internal demand grew
and cloth exports increased in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.9
The Poll Tax return for Hadleigh in 1381 showed a significant propor-
tion of cloth-workers, some one-fifth of the recorded adult population.10
The growing wealth of the Stour Valley in the fifteenth century, on
the back of its broadcloth and heavy kersey production, was demon-
strated by the magnificent perpendicular churches of Long Melford,
Lavenham and Hadleigh, which were mostly funded by successful local
clothiers.11
Suffolk was notable for its high level of commercial activity, in its
market structures, high level of commercialised agriculture and proximity
to London and the Continent. The social and economic structure of the
county aided the development of the cloth industry and also determined
the high density of markets and small towns. Large numbers of wage-
earners and smallholders required forums for the exchange of foodstuffs,
while the towns themselves generated demand.12 By 1349 there had
been some ninety-six market foundations in Suffolk, though they did not
necessarily exist simultaneously and many markets were perhaps never
established or were short-lived.13 Nevertheless, an examination of the
official foundation-dates illustrates an extensive period of activity during
the mid-thirteenth century (1225–74), when nearly 50 per cent of all the
medieval markets were founded.14 Thereafter there was a slackening of
foundations with just six new markets in the two centuries after the Black
Death. This accords with the trend found in other counties; nationally,
the number of official markets tripled from the twelfth century to the
early fourteenth century, totalling some 1,500–2,000 by the latter period,
including some 400 new boroughs.15 A similar thirteenth-century surge
can be also discerned for Suffolk fairs, of which 113 had been founded
by 1349 and only fourteen thereafter. Small agricultural village fairs were
the most numerous in Suffolk, lasting just one to three days, and acting as

8 Clarkson, ‘Leather crafts’, 30. 9 Bailey, ‘Technology’.

10 Fenwick (ed.), Poll Taxes, ii, pp. 512–14; Powell, Rising, p. 111.
11 Amor, ‘Merchant adventurer’; Britnell, ‘Woollen textile industry’; Bailey, Medieval Suf-
folk, pp. 269–76. Lavenham became the fourteenth wealthiest English town in the 1524
Lay Subsidy. VCH: Suffolk, ii, pp. 253–5; McClenaghan, Springs of Lavenham; Betterton
and Dymond, Lavenham, p. 3.
12 For a similar situation in Kent, see Mate, ‘Rise and fall’, 66.
13 Dymond and Northeast, A History, p. 46.
14 Scarfe, ‘Markets and fairs’; Letters, Gazetteer; Dymond and Martin (eds.), Historical
Atlas, pp. 76–7.
15 Britnell, ‘Proliferation’.
 The behaviour of market traders 277

outlets for wholesale produce or agricultural supplies (such as livestock),

which could not be guaranteed in weekly markets. There were a few
larger fairs in Suffolk that lasted for a week or two, such as the fair at
Bury St Edmunds in July, which was known to have attracted clothiers
from across England and from Flanders, as well as supplying cloth to the
king.16
The growth in markets and fairs was part of the inexorable increase in
market dependency by the hinterland peasantry and a decline in self-
sufficiency.17 Many of the new markets were in rural locations and
were serving a growing need for basic provisions. They were also part
of seigneurial initiatives to profit from such growing trade. Before the
plague, lords continued to look for niches in the marketing network to
take advantage of high grain prices and demand, high rents and cheap
labour. There was, however, a relative lack of borough foundations in
Suffolk, possibly as low as nine, perhaps related to the social structure of
the county, with a large number of minor landlords and free tenants.18 It
appears that seigneurial small towns were capable of sustaining and even
stimulating commercial endeavour. Suffolk’s commercial infrastructure
thus resided in a few boroughs and a myriad of small towns and village
markets.
This, then, was the marketing structure of medieval Suffolk, particu-
larly for the thirteenth century. The highly decentralised nature of the
market network suited the economic conditions at this time, with a large
number of peasants selling and buying vast quantities of low-value, per-
ishable goods in small lots. However, this organisation was not set in
stone and the influence of various towns changed over time; their pri-
mary hinterlands fluctuated in size and some markets disappeared, while
others prospered. Indeed, Britnell estimated that some two-thirds of vil-
lage markets disappeared throughout England between the thirteenth
and sixteenth centuries.19 The demographic plunge after the Black Death
meant that the total demand for grain and basic foodstuffs fell signifi-
cantly, causing market decline and failures. Hilton pointed out that half
of the village markets in the West Midlands and 60 per cent in Lin-
colnshire had disappeared by the sixteenth century.20 In Suffolk, there
were several village markets where the settlement was depopulated or

16 Lobel, Borough of Bury St Edmunds, pp. 65–6; Gottfried, Bury St Edmunds, p. 90; Bailey,
Medieval Suffolk, pp. 119–20. See Moore, Fairs; Lee, Cambridge, pp. 114–41.
17 See pp. 9–19.
18 These were Beccles, Bury St Edmunds, Clare, Dunwich, Eye, Ipswich, Lidgate, Orford
and Sudbury. Bailey adds Bungay and Exning to that list. Bailey, Medieval Suffolk,
pp. 120–2.
19 Britnell, Commercialisation, p. 160. 20 Hilton, ‘Medieval market towns’, 10.
278 Medieval market morality

deserted by the fifteenth century, Easton Bavents, Flixton and Sotherton

among them.21 It is difficult to trace the exact pattern of market failures
due to the problems with the foundation data discussed above, but the
process of attrition appears to have increased after the Black Death. By
the sixteenth century just thirty-two of the 102 market foundations sur-
vived in Suffolk, often older foundations and those situated on the main
road and river transport links.22 These surviving institutions took advan-
tage of business displaced from smaller and lost markets. Overall, there
appears to have been a realignment of the market structure of Suffolk,
with clusters less tightly packed, but most of the county still well covered.
Early demographic and agrarian expansion had required a multiplicity
of small centres of exchange, while the economic changes after the Black
Death required fewer markets of a more specialised nature.

PA RT I : T H E S M A L L TOW N M A R K E T S O F N E W M A R K E T
AND CLARE

No single small town can adequately represent all the diversities that
existed in late medieval England. However, small towns did provide sig-
nificant sanctums for petty trade. Small town traders regularly produced
and exchanged supplies of foodstuffs and cheap manufactured goods,
while also depending upon the surrounding countryside for produce and
custom.23 Newmarket and Clare, two small towns from Suffolk, have
been chosen for primary study because of their high level of commer-
cial activity and the extent of surviving records from the late fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries. The court rolls of Newmarket, in particular, pro-
vide a significant body of evidence relating to the regulation of petty
trade. Other Suffolk towns, as well as existing historical research, are
drawn upon for comparison. As already discussed, it must be borne in
mind that East Anglia was a highly commercialised area compared to
other parts of England, particularly in the north and west. This means
that many of the conclusions are likely to be regionally specific and not
necessarily applicable to late medieval England in general. Nonetheless,
these case studies provide a useful vantage point from which to assess the
behaviour and regulation of petty traders in a small town context.

21 Beresford, Lost Villages, pp. 386–7. The market at Easton Bavents had been reconfirmed
in a charter of 1336, after it had been struggling to operate, while the fair was moved from
December to June. It appears that such encouragement proved unsuccessful. CChR, iv,
p. 353.
22 Historians have used Everitt’s figures for markets in the sixteenth century as a compari-
son to medieval foundations. Everitt, ‘Marketing’. This, of course, assumes that Everitt
did not greatly underestimate the markets that still existed in Tudor times.
23 Hilton, ‘Medieval market towns’; Dyer, ‘Consumer’, 320.
 The behaviour of market traders 279

Newmarket and its marketing hinterland

Newmarket, on the border of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, exhibited all
the characteristics of a small town, with its lack of an agricultural base,
its relatively wide-ranging occupational structure, relaxed tenures, for-
mal weekly market and twice-yearly fair.24 There was little arable land
and fifty-five basic tenements which probably supported a population of
c.400 after the Black Death.25 However, Newmarket was not an incor-
porated borough with formal self-government, nor did its tenants enjoy
the privileges of full burgess tenure or trade guilds. Newmarket was thus
a seigneurial small town at the very lowest end of the urban scale. In the
early fifteenth century, most of the town was part of the manor of Sir
William Argentein, who was an absentee lord;26 though the manor of
Newmarket had been divided in 1318 when John Argentein’s two daugh-
ters took one half. This was called Butler’s Manor and its lords were also
absentees. Nevertheless, the late medieval administration of Newmarket
appears to have remain united under one bailiff.27
Beresford has regarded Newmarket as a planned town rather than
a natural growth alongside the road.28 However, it is likely that the
town was a mixture of both, with an early informal trading function
for itinerant traders and consumers abetted by its position on the main
London to Norwich road, as well as manorial (Newmarket and Ditton
Valens), parish (Exning and Woodditton) and county (Suffolk and Cam-
bridgeshire) boundaries.29 This market was then formalised, perhaps as
a prescriptive foundation (before 1199 and hence there is no extant

24 There is no surviving charter for the market, but there is evidence that it was in operation
by the early thirteenth century. Letters, Gazetteer; TNA, c60/9, m.6, c133/33/16. There
are thirteenth-century charters for the two fairs, dating from 1227 and 1292, but other
evidence suggests that there was a Newmarket fair from at least as early as 1223. RLC,
ii, pp. 106, 175; CChR, i, p. 11, ii, p. 429. For an excellent local study of Newmarket,
see May, Newmarket: Medieval and Tudor; May, ‘Newmarket and its market court’.
25 The lack of arable or pastoral output is shown by the lack of agricultural entries in
the Newmarket account rolls for 1428–40 and 1472–82. There was only one arable
area of 180 acres, which was all leased out; SRO(B), Acc.1476/12, 1476/13, 359/3.
The manor of Newmarket was approximately 250 acres in total size. TNA, c133/33/16.
Some tenements would have been subdivided, and it is likely that further tenements
existed on the other side of the High Street which were consequently located in the
manor of Ditton Valens and thus not entered in the account rolls. The court rolls did,
however, combine both parts of the town.
26 The lord seems to have visited Newmarket for the fair, when the rolls record quite
high expenses for his hospitality and horses. BL, Additional Charters 25867. When
John Argentein died in 1413, his two sisters married two brothers, William and Robert
Alington. May, Newmarket: Medieval and Tudor, p. 17.
27 Ibid., p. 18. 28 Beresford, New Towns, pp. 490–1.
29 The dual administrative existence of Newmarket meant that it was not recorded as a
separate taxation entity until 1524.
280 Medieval market morality

market charter), with additional fair foundations and an elaboration

of the topographical layout in the thirteenth century. The fourteenth-
century marketplace was a planned later addition to the earlier road-
side market, while the tenement layout was fairly uniform in size and
distribution.30 These commercial facilities were spurred on by the Argen-
tein family, who perhaps saw the potential of this site during a time of
general proliferation for marketing establishments.
Newmarket’s marketplace formed the heart of the town. It provided
stalls every Tuesday, arranged in rows by commodity: le Draperie, le
Bocherye, le Merserie, le Lyndraperie, le Barkersrowe, le Cordewen-
errowe and le Spyserye, as well as rows for ironmongers, ropers and
cheese-sellers. These market rows indicate that there were retail trades
in meat, leather, clothes, shoes, metal goods and a few luxuries, though
many traders also seemed to acquire vacant stalls with little regard to
their location or their designated trade. For instance, Robert Gateward
had stalls in le Merserye, le Lyndraperye, le Barkersrowe, le Spyserye
and le Cordwenerrowe.31 In the 1472 account rolls, some thirty-six stalls
and seventy-two shops can be identified, as well as a tollhouse that prob-
ably served as the administrative focus of the town.32 Court and account
rolls draw a clear distinction between shops and stalls. The latter were
generally cheaper, usually 4d.–6d. a year, though larger or prominent
stalls were rented at over 2s. per annum.33 They were presumably tem-
porary awnings in the marketplace, covering a space of some forty to fifty
square feet. Inevitably, many stalls became more permanent over time
and, along with shops, encroached onto the market area. Shops were
actual lodgings, slightly larger than stalls, with a frontage onto the mar-
ket or main street. They were sometimes built on the long and narrow
tenements, for which tenants paid a fixed rent and were relatively free to
choose how they sold or sublet. This arrangement was similar to burgage
tenure, but the residents still had to pay a customary entry fee to the
lord, which ranged from 2s. to 24s. Any tenant who avoided this fee was
considered to have sold their tenement or shop without licence and the
property could be seized into the lord’s hands.34
Occupational profiles of late medieval towns provide further indication
of urban status. In Newmarket and other towns, this profile is sometimes
difficult to determine. Surnames can be used as a rough guide to a
person’s trade, but by the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries
surnames were often hereditary, rather than personal, and can therefore

30 May, ‘Site of the medieval market’. 31 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/26, 30, 32, 39.
32 SRO (B), Acc.359/3. 33 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/30, 43.
34 E.g. SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/19, 22.
 The behaviour of market traders 281

be misleading. After 1350, many traders did not have the occupations
that their surnames denoted, or else they only referred to an inciden-
tal trade.35 Nevertheless, in early fifteenth-century Newmarket, there is
evidence that John Chaundeler partly worked according to his surname,
dealing in tar, oil, bitumen and wax, as well as engaging in brewing and
baking. Similarly, Nicholas Sadlere was a saddler, but also indulged in
supplementary brewing and regrating. Overall, the occupational profile
of Newmarket was fluid and it is often impossible to designate a primary
trade to residents. Many of Newmarket’s traders were involved in more
than one occupation, or their wives brewed and regrated foodstuffs for
additional income. In total, some twenty-two different, non-agricultural
occupations can be identified by direct references in court rolls and a
further eleven if occupational surnames are used.36 These figures are
comparable to the small town of Romford, in Essex, where thirty non-
agrarian occupations were mentioned in the early fifteenth century.37
The residents of Newmarket were mostly freemen who retailed goods in
the market, or ran small inns, shops and alehouses in the High Street.
Indeed, Newmarket’s prime importance lay in its location upon two main
roads, including the Icknield Way, and its positioning some twelve miles
from the main centres of Cambridge and Bury St Edmunds.38 Much
trade came by way of provisioning travellers who used Newmarket as a
stopping point to and from Cambridge, Bury, Norwich, Ely and Lon-
don. Retailing and victualling were thus dominant professions in this
small Suffolk town.
Debt pleas from Newmarket’s market court give a general idea of the
scope of the town’s marketing hinterland. Manorial court records and
debt cases were mostly restricted to local transactions and do not neces-
sarily reflect extensive merchant bargains. However, the early fifteenth-
century records can show us the extent and range of retail trade con-
tacts, particularly in foodstuffs.39 Often the clerk actually stated the home
town of an outside trader, such as Walter Tennison of Newport Pagnell.

35 Fransson, ‘Middle English surnames’.

36 The directly referenced occupations were: victualler (baker, brewer, butcher, cook,
fisher, maltseller and poulterer); leather and cloth workers (barker, cordwainer, cur-
rier, draper, glover and tanner); and miscellaneous occupations (chandler, ironmonger,
mercer, pedlar, roper, saddler, smith, spicer and turner). Occupational surnames addi-
tionally give: barber, brasier, carter, clerk, drawer, drover, fletcher, fuller, skinner, tailor,
weaver.
37 McIntosh, Autonomy and Community, p. 152. See also Hilton, ‘Lords, burgesses and
hucksters’; Miller and Hatcher, Medieval England: Towns, pp. 128–9.
38 Communications played a vital role in the development of trading settlements.
O’Donnell, ‘Market centres’, 186, 189.
39 For a study of Newmarket’s hinterland, see May, Newmarket: Medieval and Tudor,
pp. 48–9.
282 Medieval market morality

Another, less accurate, indication of traders’ places of origin occurred in

locational surnames, such as Robert Peterborough, but these are mainly
useful where the trader is specifically identified as an outsider. By collat-
ing these place references, an idea of the marketing and social links for
Newmarket can be formed.
The Newmarket court rolls mention some sixty-one different places
which had contacts with the town in the early fifteenth century, the
majority of which (forty-one) were within twelve miles and surrounded
the town in a fairly even pattern (see Figure 19). Only a handful of places
provided more than two visitors in the court roll references: Exning,
Bottisham, Fordham, Wilbraham, Haverhill, Soham, Swaffham, Stetch-
worth, Mildenhall, Burwell, Chippenham and Bury St Edmunds. Unsur-
prisingly, these are mostly the neighbouring villages and towns for New-
market, though the economic reach of Bury St Edmunds and Haverhill
(both twelve miles away) is notable. There were also some twenty places
beyond twelve miles, mostly lying on the main roads that bisected New-
market. Dyer’s study of market towns and their hinterlands showed that
the majority of commercial contacts were within a radius of eight miles,
though the shape of the hinterland was additionally influenced by geo-
graphic and economic factors.40 Only a few small-town folk had a social
and economic reach beyond the immediate sphere of influence around
their town. Immigrants to towns most likely came from the immediate
hinterland, and they presumably kept contacts with family and friends
which fed into commercial links.41 Nevertheless, some traders also moved
from Newmarket into larger centres, reflecting the wider networks that
did exist. For instance, in 1404–5, Adam Chapman transferred his rights
in a holding and a croft at Newmarket to his brother, Nicholas, who
was a burgess merchant of Lynn.42 In broad terms, the pattern of debt
cases in Newmarket reveals a prominent inner ring of contacts with
the immediate hinterland, but also wider, more sporadic links further
afield.43
There is further evidence of outside producers coming to Newmar-
ket to sell grain and agricultural goods. In particular, bakers, butchers
and other traders came from the immediate hinterland and set up stalls
in the marketplace. Stallholders from Ashley, Stetchworth, Swaffham,
Fordham, Chippenham, Soham and Bury St Edmunds are all recorded

40 Dyer, ‘Market towns’.

41 For immigration, see McClure, ‘Patterns of migration’; Carus-Wilson, ‘First half-
century’, p. 53; Hilton, ‘Lords, burgesses and hucksters’, 10–13.
42 BL, MS Additional 5823, fols. 239r–240r.
43 For instance, there was a Newmarket merchant trading in Hockham (Norfolk) in 1358.
Bailey, A Marginal Economy, pp. 146, 149.
 The behaviour of market traders 283

59 2 5
8
9
N
57 6
11

7 13
58 3 14
60 15
12
4 10
1
54 16

55 56
17 18 20
53 19 21
22
51
26
52 25 23
49 61
46
24
50 29
48 27
43
47 44 41
28
45 38
42
34
31
33 30
37

32 0 2 4
36
40 39 Miles
35

Figure 19: Marketing hinterland of Newmarket, 1399–1413.

Notes: 1. Snailwell (3 miles away, in a direct line); 2. Lynn (38); 3.
Freckenham (6); 4. Chippenham (4); 5. Feltwell (20); 6. Eriswell (11);
7. Mildenhall (8); 8. Brandon (18); 9. East Dereham (40); 10. Kennett
(5); 11. Thetford (19); 12. Cavenham (8); 13. Diss (31); 14. Botes-
dale (26); 15. Hoxne (35); 16. Halesworth (47); 17. Moulton (3);
18. Higham (7); 19. Gazeley (5); 20. Mendlesham (29); 21. Bury St
Edmunds (12); 22. Barrow (8); 23. Dalham (5); 24. Ousden (6); 25.
Ashley (4); 26. Cheveley (3); 27. Lidgate (6); 28. Cowlinge (7); 29.
Kirtling (5); 30. Hundon (11); 31. Barnardiston (10); 32. Kedington
(12); 33. Great Wratting (10); 34. Thurlow (8); 35. Bumstead (14);
36. Haverhill (12); 37. Withersfield (10); 38. Carlton (7); 39. Thaxted
(20); 40. Dunmow (26); 41. Brinkley (5); 42. Balsham (9); 43. Wilbra-
ham (7); 44. Teversham (10); 45. Banbury (76); 46. Bottisham (7); 47.
Newport Pagnell (49); 48. Cambridge (12); 49. Quy (8); 50. Bedford
(38); 51. Swaffham (5); 52. St Neots (28); 53. Reach (5); 54. Willing-
ham (15); 55. Burwell (4); 56. Exning (2); 57. Ely (13); 58. Soham (7);
59. Peterborough (24); 60. Fordham (5); 61. Stetchworth (3).
Sources: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48; May, Newmarket: Medieval and
Tudor, pp. 48–9.
284 Medieval market morality

as coming weekly to Newmarket.44 In 1439–40, William Claydon of

Haverhill made a bequest in his will that his son should take over his
Newmarket stall.45 These were perhaps peripatetic traders who moved
from market to market in order to meet periodic demand for specialised
goods.46 Indeed, the infiltration of small towns by outside producers
appears to have gained momentum throughout England by the fifteenth
century, having previously been primarily a rural phenomenon.47 New-
market thus represented an important locus on the market-circuit for
traders. Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge and Ely were the main provincial
centres of trade in the region, but local merchants also travelled in search
of agricultural goods between the local markets at Newmarket, Moul-
ton, Barrow, Ousden, Mildenhall, Brinkley, Chippenham and Reach.48
Of these, Newmarket was the only local market held on a Tuesday and
seems to have dominated the local hinterland on this day, due in part to
its convenient road-junction location. Also, the surrounding markets of
Worlington, Moulton, Exning, Ousden, Barrow, Great Thurlow, Wicken,
Chippenham and Swaffham all fell by the wayside during the fifteenth
century, suggesting that they were more localised in their trading activi-
ties. Only Newmarket and Reach survived into the sixteenth century to
compete for the distributive and service trades of this particular area.

Clare and its marketing hinterland

While Newmarket was on the very lowest rung of small towns in terms
of both size and function, Clare was a slightly more ‘secure’ small town,
with basic borough status and a part in the local cloth industry. Clare,
located in the Stour Valley of south-west Suffolk, in Risbridge hundred,
was at a crossing point of a rivulet of the Stour river where the main
road led to London.49 The town thus lay at the heart of the developing
cloth industry of fifteenth-century Suffolk. Wool from the surrounding
Clare manors was sold both locally and regionally, with some going to
the capital. There are references to spinners, dyers, weavers and fullers

44 John Coupere and William Howesson of Stetchworth, Thomas Eustas of Swaffham,

Thomas Predynton of Fordham, Thomas Spenser of Chippenham, Thomas Warner
and John Wilkyn of Saham, and John Wynde of Bury St Edmunds all owned stalls in
Newmarket. SRO (B), Acc.1476/1. The account rolls for 1472–3 also listed stallholders
such as Thomas Todde of Bury, John Simond of Barrow and John Webb of Bottisham.
SRO (B), Acc.359/3.
45 Northeast (ed.), Wills, p. 21, no. 50. 46 Smith, ‘A periodic market’, p. 478.
47 Postles, ‘An English small town’, 29.
48 Dymond and Martin (eds.), Historical Atlas, pp. 62–3. For Cambridgeshire markets, see
Masschaele, Peasants, p. 185.
49 For a study of Clare, see Thornton, A History of Clare.
 The behaviour of market traders 285

in the borough court rolls and debt pleas, and from the late fourteenth
century, a fulling mill on the river was mentioned.50 Clare clothiers also
began to appear in a range of sources by the mid-fifteenth century and
were prosperous enough to contribute to the building of the Church of St
Peter and St Paul.51 Yet, it should be noted that fifteenth-century Clare
did not reach the prosperous heights of nearby Sudbury, Lavenham or
Long Melford.52
The weekly market of Clare had existed and thrived since before the
Norman Conquest and thus no formal market charter was created. The
Domesday Book entry for the town included forty-three burgesses, while
the court rolls regarded the town as a ‘Burgus’ separate from the manor
of Clare.53 The town had a planned market square, laid out before the
castle mound and surrounded by burgage tenements. Although Clare
was designated as a borough and had early origins, the town nevertheless
remained relatively small, with perhaps a population of some 700–800
in the late fourteenth century.54 Like Newmarket, Clare did not gain
extensive autonomous privileges and remained in seigneurial hands. By
the mid-fourteenth century, Clare’s lord was Elizabeth de Burgh and
she (and her officials) spent considerable time in situ administering the
extensive holdings in the Honor of Clare, which included lands in Suffolk,
Norfolk and Essex.55 Elizabeth de Burgh died in 1360 and was followed
by Lionel of Clarence, Earl of Ulster (d.1369) and then the Mortimers,56
before the lands finally fell into the hands of the young Richard, Duke
of York, from 1425. Although the lords resided less in the town after
the 1360s, there was still a permanent steward who constituted executive
authority and kept a close hold on seigneurial affairs and revenue. Clare
was therefore an example of a medieval seigneurial or ‘mesne’ borough,
slightly above Newmarket in the urban hierarchy, complete with burgage

50 E.g. TNA, sc2/203/48, 50, 54, 57, 63; Cromarty stated that in March 1416, John
Berymelle de Clare, a dyer, was in debt to Thomas Hykedon of Walden, a dyer. Cro-
marty, ‘Chepying Walden’, 122.
51 Thornton, A History of Clare, pp. 144–92. 52 See pp. 275–6. 53 DB, 389b.
54 There were some eighty free tenants recorded in 1307, though this does not necessarily
mean there were eighty tenements since several could have been subdivided. Thornton,
A History of Clare, p. 36. The population of Clare in the late fourteenth century was
probably in the region of 700–800, since the 1377 Poll Tax lists 425 taxpayers. Fenwick
(ed.), Poll Taxes, ii, p. 500. In order to convert the Poll Tax number into a plausible popu-
lation figure, Rigby argues for an estimated multiplier of 1.9. Rigby, ‘Urban population’,
398–9.
55 She inherited from her brother, Gilbert de Clare, in 1314, after he was killed at the
Battle of Bannockburn. See Underhill, For Her Good Estate.
56 Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March (d.1381–2), Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March
(d.1398), Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March (d.1425). Thornton, A History of Clare,
pp. 11–13.
286 Medieval market morality

tenements and a borough court. However, it never established the size

or status of independent larger boroughs such as Ipswich or Cambridge,
and there is no evidence of a borough charter or fully constituted self-
government.
However, Clare did provide some privileges for its residents, including
burgage tenure, exemptions from tolls and stallage, a borough court, the
election of borough officials and an element of freedom in marketing
activities.57 In return, the chief pledges collected a common fine of 10s.
from their tithingmen, which was then paid to the lord on behalf of
the borough.58 Individuals also paid a once-only fine of 2s. to the lord
in return for liberties of the town, recumbent upon burgess status.59
Burgess status was thus not automatic for all of Clare’s inhabitants, but
a large number of free tenants appear to have paid the fine during the
late fourteenth century, as well as a few individuals from outside the
town. For instance, in 1359, a smith from Hintlesham paid a fine of 3s.
4d. in return for liberties; others from the neighbouring towns of Stoke
and Hundon paid from 12d. to 1/2 mark (usually 2s.) throughout the late
fourteenth century.60
In addition, Clare’s Friday market was farmed to its burgesses for £6
a year, officially noted in the records from 1425 but probably in their
hands since at least 1370.61 The farm combined miscellaneous dues,
including the rents of market stalls and tolls, into a lump sum. This
probably meant that the trade of the town was increasingly regulated for
the benefit of burgesses rather than the lord. Indeed, there is evidence
that the burgesses were prepared to promulgate their own by-laws. In
October 1453, the bailiffs proclaimed in the market that no one was
to sell victuals in winter until after the hour of eight nor in autumn
until after the hour of seven, and that no fishmongers were to sell their
produce at night.62 The marketplace itself lay in the centre of the town,
between the church and castle, and included a moothall (first mentioned
in 1481),63 pillory and woolhall.64 The stalls were of a similar size to those
in Newmarket (eight feet by six feet) and there were also more permanent
shops. The rents for stalls were relatively inexpensive, just 2d.–6d. per

57 For similar liberties, see Hilton, ‘Small town society’, pp. 59–64.
58 Thornton, A History of Clare, pp. 32–3. Thornton argues that this fine was originally
intended to cover the expenses of the leet court.
59 TNA, sc2/203/46–7, 57, 62.
60 TNA, sc2/203/55, 62; Thornton, A History of Clare, p. 37.
61 TNA, dl29/992/15, dl29/993/7, dl29/994/10; Thornton, ‘A study’, 100–2. In a similar
way, Sudbury market was farmed to the burgesses for £10 a year. Thornton, A History
of Clare, pp. 41–2.
62 TNA, sc2/203/70. 63 TNA, sc2/203/72.
64 In 1357, the bailiffs were also ordered to repair ‘le Cuckyngstol’. TNA, sc2/203/53.
 The behaviour of market traders 287

annum.65 Like Newmarket, there is evidence of foreign traders hiring

stalls in Clare, such as John Boxted of Sudbury, whose will in 1440
showed that he held four stalls in Clare as well as two in Lavenham and
one in Sudbury.66 Clare also had an annual fair, held in nearby Wentford,
which was first granted in 1231 and was used for exchanging agricultural
goods, wool and cloth.67
From 1377 to 1425, fifteen non-agricultural occupations were directly
mentioned in the Clare court rolls and a further thirty-seven were indi-
cated by surnames, though these are not necessarily a reliable guide to a
person’s occupation.68 There were the usual urban victuallers and leather
workers, but the variety of references suggest a slightly wider occupational
diversity than in Newmarket as well as a greater manufacturing base. In
particular, the cloth and building trades were well represented, the latter
perhaps due to the significant administrative and consumption demands
of the castle (with some 250 in its household) and the substantial house
of Augustinian friars.69 Unsurprisingly, a significant victualling sector
developed in Clare at an early date.
Like Newmarket, we can determine the trading hinterland of Clare
by reference to the town’s debt pleas in 1377–1422 and the stated ori-
gins of traders, when such information was provided by the clerk (see
Figure 20). These references give forty-seven different, identifiable desti-
nations. Of these, only nine places are mentioned more than twice: Stoke
by Clare, Sudbury, Gosfield, Long Melford, Haverhill, Belchamp, Hun-
don, Chilton and Cavendish. Perhaps unsurprisingly, all of these were
within ten miles of Clare, while Stoke, Chilton, Cavendish, Hundon
and Belchamp were neighbouring communities. Indeed, the majority of
places in Figure 20 were within twelve miles of Clare, again highlight-
ing the importance of the immediate hinterland to the trading networks
of small towns. However, given the expanding English cloth industry
one might have expected more extensive links beyond the town’s nearby
hinterland. The pattern of connections also shows a lack of contacts to
the north-east, south-east and west, along the Stour Valley, demonstrat-
ing a skewing of Clare’s hinterland due to the influence of the growing

65 TNA, sc2/203/67. 66 Northeast (ed.), Wills, p. 25, no. 62.

67 TNA, sc2/203/58.
68 These were: baker, barber, barker, brewer, butcher, cook, dyer, fisher, fuller, maderer,
merchant, miller, tailor, tanner, weaver; and brasier, card-maker, carter, chapman,
chandler, clerk, coal-maker, cordwainer, cornmonger, cooper, currier, draper, fletcher,
gardener, glover, goldsmith, lawyer, maltster, mason, midwife, mustarder, quilt-
maker, pedlar, porter, roper, saddler, spicer, skinner, smith, sewster, taverner, thatcher,
tiler, turner, vintner, woolman, wheelwright.
69 The Augustinian priory was founded by Richard de Clare in 1248. Stokes, ‘Clare priory’,
108–9.
288 Medieval market morality

47 2
45
8

42
39 7

9 N
37
44

6
36
4
46
35
43 3 5
40
38 41 1
12
34 10
11
33 13
14
32 31 16 15
18
20 19 17
22
30
24

29 27
23
0 2 4
Miles

28
26 25 21

Figure 20: Marketing hinterland of Clare, 1377–1422.

Notes: 1. Poslingford (2 miles away, in a direct line); 2. Weeting (27); 3.
Denston (4); 4. Clopton (6); 5. Stansfield (4); 6. Rede (7); 7. Bury St
Edmunds (13); 8. Honington (20); 9. Welnetham (11); 10. Glemsford
(4); 11. Cavendish (3); 12. Darsham (45); 13. Pentlow (3); 14. Long
Melford (6); 15. Kersey (14); 16. Waldingfield (9); 17. Hadleigh (16);
18. Borley (6); 19. Sudbury (7); 20. Belchamp (3); 21. Coggeshall (15);
22. Yeldham (4); 23. Gosfield (10); 24. Toppesfield (5); 25. Chelmsford
(25); 26. Tilbury (44); 27. Wethersfield (10); 28. Great Dunmow (18);
29. Bardfield (11); 30. Stambourne (5); 31. Stoke by Clare (2); 32.
Bumstead (6); 33. Haverhill (7); 34. Kedington (4); 35. Brinkley (11);
36. West Wratting (12); 37. Colne (31); 38. Thurlow (4); 39. Burwell
(17); 40. Barnardiston (4); 41. Hundon (3); 42. Newmarket (14); 43.
Chilton (1); 44. Lidgate (9); 45. Kennett (15); 46. Stradishall (5); 47.
Mildenhall (19).
Source: TNA, sc2/203/62–7.
 The behaviour of market traders 289

cloth towns of Haverhill, Sudbury and Long Melford. All of these towns
lay within seven miles of Clare and most likely drew potential traders
away. Clare traders themselves may have travelled there, such as Robert
Brynkele, who was involved in a debt plea in Sudbury in 1409–10 with a
miller, John Grey.70
As in Newmarket, the scope of activities for Clare’s traders was heavily
influenced by the surrounding markets and the commercial opportuni-
ties they provided. Both Newmarket and Clare were especially dependent
upon the custom and produce of their hinterlands. Each also had a sig-
nificant retailing sector, which needed to be regulated but also required
efficient marketing facilities to prosper. The remainder of this study will
examine the activities of the retailers in these towns and attempt to dis-
cern the motivations behind their regulation.

Sources, courts and officials

Our primary sources for trading activity in Newmarket and Clare are the
surviving manorial court rolls. Manor courts had three main functions
in the late Middle Ages: the control of seigneurial rights and revenue;
handling inter-personal pleas and disputes; and maintaining peace and
order.71 Additionally, leet courts adjudged minor criminal offences and
their jurisdiction extended to all tenants. Manorial court rolls are a prob-
lematic type of source because their primary purpose was the record-
ing of jurisdictional amercements for the lord, rather than providing a
detailed log of proceedings and offences. This could result in selective
coverage and few detailed entries.72 It must also be remembered that
significant sectors of society were omitted from the legal record or made
only fleeting appearances, such as women, subtenants, servants and the
poor. In the case of women, their primary appearances in court rolls
were limited to commercial matters, particularly brewing and regrating.
A further difficulty associated with the context of court rolls was the way
in which the clerk was influenced by formalised precedents in compiling
courts rolls; any variations in the nature and frequency of litigation may
reflect changing clerical processes as much as real economic or social
changes.73 Indeed, the standardised style of reporting in court rolls may
have created a number of legal fictions. In a commercial context, court
rolls often seem to exaggerate the contentious side of medieval trading
and give the impression that bad trading practices were the order of the

70 TNA, sc2/204/13 (1409–10). 71 McIntosh, Controlling, p. 35.

72 See Bennett, Women, appx, pp. 199–231.
73 Beckerman, ‘Customary law’, pp. 112–16; Briggs, ‘Manor court procedures’, 520–1.
290 Medieval market morality

day. We therefore need to keep in mind the mass of uncontentious deal-

ings that have gone unrecorded when assessing the nature of day-to-day
trade, particularly in relation to late medieval moral ideas and legislation.
Despite the partial nature of the sources, court rolls nevertheless provide
the best available picture of life in a medieval small town and, with care-
ful examination, they can reveal much about trading administration and
enforcement. Beyond the sometimes turgid reiteration of regular busi-
ness, we can glimpse elements of self-administration, court rituals, dra-
matic interludes and communal consensus. Indeed, these manor courts
were assemblies for the whole community, and it appears that coercion
was the exception since most had internalised conceptions about the
ordering of their society and market.
Newmarket has an outstanding series of rolls for 1399 to 1413 covering
four different types of court.74 Although they only span fourteen years,
and a few are missing (see Table 1, below), they are still exceptional in
the trading evidence they provide for such a small town. The biannual
general court (held around Easter and late October or early November)
was concerned with seigneurial rights which, in Newmarket, meant that
the court’s main work revolved around the assizes of bread and ale and
the administration of retail trade, as well as trespass and encroachment.
The leet court was held annually in August and regulated the minor rights
of the king, with issues ranging from public nuisances to street brawls. It
was also here that the lord exercised his right to view of frankpledge. The
market court, held every two to three weeks on market day (Tuesday), was
unusual for a small town and reflected the large number of inter-personal
pleas (especially debts) in Newmarket. Finally, the fair court was mainly
concerned with the renting and upkeep of stalls and shops, though there
were also some debt pleas from the two fairs, which ran on 9–16 June
(around St Barnabas’s Day) and 27–9 October (three days around the
feast of St Simon and St Jude). Overall, the quantity of trade offences
recorded in the court rolls was unusual for a small town. The number of
presentments could be interpreted as a sign of over-regulation and a strict
adherence to the moral and legal notions of vigilance. However, such a
level of official oversight was not necessarily incompatible with a practical
encouragement of trade, while the recording of infringements does not
necessarily mean that the laws were strictly applied. Newmarket’s role
as a local distribution centre and provisioning stop for travellers also
accounts for the high level of entries, which involved a large proportion
of the town’s community.

74 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48.

 The behaviour of market traders 291

Despite being a larger settlement, Clare’s court business was not subdi-
vided to the same extent as Newmarket’s. Clare’s borough court was held
every three weeks and there were also two leet courts a year, held around
Easter and Michaelmas. Most assizes and trading activities were adminis-
tered at the leet court and it was also here that the view of frankpledge was
regulated by capital pledges. The borough court was primarily respon-
sible for handling transfers of land and inter-personal pleas of debt
and trespass. The extant rolls for the borough court start in 1312 and
continue into the sixteenth century, but with some gaps.75 From 1377 to
1425, the main missing rolls are from 1392–6, 1402, 1408–10 and 1415.
For the leet courts, there are forty-four surviving rolls and fifty-two miss-
ing rolls from November 1377 to April 1425 (see Table 2), the period
chosen for comparison with Newmarket.
The courts of Newmarket and Clare were serviced by jurors and offi-
cials who were seemingly elected from leading members of the commu-
nity. There were also capital pledges, who were the mouthpieces of their
tithings in the leet court and presented the offences of their members.
These men were also considered part of the local office-holding elite, tra-
ditionally associated with the obligations of tenants holding suit-owing
land and certainly those considered to be responsible, upright mem-
bers of the community.76 No women served as jurors or were elected as
bailiffs, constables, capital pledges, aletasters or affeerers in either Clare
or Newmarket.77 Their influence was mostly informal or via their hus-
bands, but ultimately this was a patriarchal society that limited women’s
legal capacity and public role. Nevertheless, as will be discussed below,
we do see women acting in occasional legal roles, such as court plaintiffs
and defendants.
An analysis of the Newmarket court rolls reveals that twenty-nine
of thirty-seven capital pledges, and most of the jurors, were definitely
involved in trade or retailing. Over half of those who appeared on the
juries of the general court had also been on lists for breaches of the assize.
Regular jurors, such as John Waleys, John Schelleye, Peter Fydelere, John
Ballone, John Barbor, John Smyth and William Ray, were all heavily
involved in victual trades. It is likely that they were aware of the prag-
matic needs of a commercial community and perhaps sought a lenient
stance in trading regulation. However, as we shall see below, moral and

75 TNA, sc2/203/38–72.
76 Schofield, ‘Late medieval view of frankpledge’, pp. 426–39.
77 There was a widespread exclusion of women from these positions in medieval English
towns and villages. Jewell, Women, pp. 74–6, 104–8.
292 Medieval market morality

legal considerations were not totally bypassed and some supervision was
regarded as beneficial.
In a similar manner, the bailiffs, constables, capital pledges and jurors
of Clare, all of whom were heavily involved in the administration of
the market and the enforcement of court decisions, were also usually
traders. This is again unsurprising in a small town where the market and
trade were the main impetus for the inhabitants. A statute of 1382 had
declared that no victualler was to exercise urban judicial power, except
where there were no sufficient replacements.78 However, in Clare, a des-
ignated borough, there were either no possible replacements or the statute
was ignored. Of the thirty-five bailiffs in Clare between 1377 and 1425,
only ten cannot be identified as having a household connection to trade,
particularly brewing, fishing, tanning and butchery. From the constables
that can be identified in the same period, half of them (six of twelve)
or their wives were amerced at some stage for a trading infringement in
brewing, baking, fish-selling, butchery, regrating or tanning. This does
not mean that the other bailiffs and constables were not involved in trade
or crafts, merely that their activities were not relevant to the proceedings
of the court. The upper echelons of this local society were thus exten-
sively involved in market activities, both in production and vending, and
this must have influenced the way they approached their participation as
officials and in the courts.
Mark Bailey has posited that ‘the manorial system clearly imposed
minimal burdens on the residents of Newmarket, yet provided an effective
legal framework to encourage their trading activities’.79 In a small town,
officials had considerable room for manoeuvre in order to establish a
suitable trading atmosphere, while the decisions of capital pledges and
jurors represented the concerns of the leading town residents. This was
especially so in Newmarket, which had continually absent lords whose
interest in the manor seemingly extended little beyond the assurance of
a regular income from rents, tolls and fines. Argentein’s representative in
the early fifteenth century was the steward, William Chevele, who was
primarily interested in upholding the lord’s rights, as can be seen in the
hefty amercements imposed upon those who evaded tolls or traded in the
market without licence. As long as pecuniary benefits were channelled in
the lord’s direction, the men who dominated the courts were relatively
free to decide which trading offences to prosecute and which to ignore,
as well as the degree of punishment to impose upon malefactors.

78 Statutes, ii, p. 28, 6 Ric.II st.1 c.9. See above, p. 167.

79 Personal communication. See also Bailey, ‘Trade and towns’, 204–5; Bailey, Medieval
Suffolk, pp. 142–4.
 The behaviour of market traders 293

McIntosh noted a similar situation in Havering, Essex, where jurors

had great discretion in handling misbehaviour without undue lordly
exploitation. Additionally, the independence of the steward was curtailed,
for he could act only upon information provided by local people and the
communication of such knowledge was controlled by capital pledges
and jurors.80 Britnell similarly recognised the striking freedom of local
courts in their enforcement of economic regulations, but noted that this
could differ from town to town.81 For instance, in his study of Bunting-
ford, Bailey portrayed a small town managed by an independent com-
munity, which had minimal feudal demands and demonstrated relative
efficiency as a market centre. By comparison, the town of Standon, which
had a powerful lord, became subdued and restricted in its commercial
activity.82 Clare similarly had powerful lordship. Even though the lords
were absent more regularly from the 1360s, after the death of Elizabeth
de Burgh, Clare still remained the centre of the Honor with a perma-
nent steward based at the castle. However, it must not be assumed that
lordly interference was inimical to market development, or that a lord’s
desire for income usually led to a more restrictive atmosphere.83 There
was still seemingly room for commercial enterprise within the existing
feudal structure, though the most successful small towns appear often to
have been those that were less directly controlled by their lord. The lord
of Newmarket, particularly, appears to have acquiesced in allowing his
manorial courts to be adapted to the needs of traders.
There were several official posts in small towns, from bailiffs to ale-
tasters, constables and affeerers. They were answerable to the court
juries, particularly in the absence of the lord’s steward. Bailiffs were
the executive officers of the court, ensuring compliance and attendance;
constables were responsible for keeping the peace and enforcing order;
and affeerers assessed the penalties for offences. All these officers were
theoretically elected by the jurors in Newmarket and the burgesses in
Clare, though it seems that the capital pledges actually undertook this
elective role. In a similar manner to ‘lot and scot’ in chartered boroughs,
office-holding was intertwined with property. Ownership of tenements
imposed an obligation to serve when required. Failure to do so might
lead to social as well as pecuniary penalties.
Such officials also had to avoid being seen pursuing vendettas or
favouritism. One Newmarket bailiff was amerced in 1411 for bringing

80 McIntosh, Autonomy and Community, pp. 89, 181–6, 201–4.

81 Britnell, ‘Morals’, p. 29. See also Smith, ‘A periodic market’, pp. 480–1.
82 Bailey, ‘A tale of two towns’.
83 Even in Halesowen, where the lord had close control, a clique of jurors and officials
dominated administration. Hilton, ‘Small town society’; Razi, Life, Marriage and Death.
294 Medieval market morality

a false presentment against Richard Tornor regarding the occupation of

a piece of land; this demonstrates that the power of the bailiffs was not
unlimited. Additionally, the power of officials was, to an extent, curtailed
by their part-time status and by the administrative machinery available
to them. There were no references in the Newmarket sources to corporal
punishment or to a gaol, though the tollhouse may have served this pur-
pose. Conversely in Clare, there are some sporadic references to a pillory
and the castle could have served as a gaol when necessary. However, an
official’s main tools of enforcement were the fines and amercements that
increased with the seriousness of the offence. An offender could also be
distrained and their goods taken as surety, particularly when attendance
at court needed to be guaranteed.
The tasks of the bailiff were widespread, stretching from enforcing the
decisions of the courts to distraining, attaching, pledging, collecting dues
and supervising the marketplace. Indeed, the bailiff was the most impor-
tant official for ensuring the efficient, day-to-day running of the market.
Only two are recorded in both Newmarket and Clare during any one year,
so they must have found their tasks particularly onerous, time-consuming
and probably detrimental to their own livelihoods. Bailiffs did, however,
receive recompense, in the form of expenses and a ‘fealty’.84 Also, at
least two Newmarket bailiffs, William Godard and Peter Fedelere, were
prepared to serve more than one term in office. Most of the Newmarket
bailiffs were from the town itself (though one was from the neighbouring
village of Exning) and many can be identified as involved in some sort of
commercial activity. Half of the fourteen recorded bailiffs were actively
involved in retail trade and they (and their wives) infringed retailing
regulations with persistent regularity. In Clare, John Wynchester, John
Broun, Thomas Cumbwell, William Norfolk, Peter Barker, John Fadir-
less, William Wardrobe and Simon Derby all served more than one term
as bailiff between 1377 and 1425, though many more did not. Fewer
bailiffs in Clare, compared to Newmarket, can be explicitly identified in
the court rolls as actively involved in trade, though some of their house-
holds were involved in brewing. However, given that most acted as either
plaintiffs or defendants in debt cases, it is very possible that they were
active in the market. Thus, bailiffs must not be seen in isolation from the
marketplace and the traders whom they administered. They were proba-
bly chosen for their positions because they were knowledgeable about the
problems and needs of the town, as well as being prosperous members
of the community.

84 BL, Additional Charters 25867.

 The behaviour of market traders 295

Aletasters were responsible for checking batches of ale once they were
brewed, to ensure they were of sufficient quality and were being sold for
the right price in standard measures. It is also possible that aletasters
were responsible for inspecting the output of bakers and other victualling
trades and presenting their findings at court. Few other surveying officials
are mentioned in the records of these small towns, except in Newmar-
ket where Stephen Gille, Robert Doushole, John Barkere were named
as tasters of leather and John Farewell as taster of meat. However, in
1357, it was the aletasters of Clare who presented badly tanned leather
in court.85 The role of aletaster was seemingly perceived as a respectable
duty. In Clare, there were several occasions when a certain pair worked
well together and remained in the job for a number of years.86 After the
Black Death, the office of aletaster also served as a stepping-stone to the
position of bailiff for men like Walter Bory, Thomas Luccessen, William
Shepherd, Peter Colyrob, John Cardemaker, Imbert Brus, William Skyn-
nere and William Worlyth, though this progression was by no means
certain.
There is no doubt that there was an element of self-interest in being
involved in the governance of a town and not only because an orderly
administration was conducive to thriving businesses. Certain advantages
could probably be gained in pleas and regulation through official posi-
tions. However, self-interest and competitive values were not necessarily
incompatible with communal organisation. Although we must be cau-
tious of the term ‘communalty’,87 the administrative structures of Clare
and Newmarket were highly dependent upon cooperation. As McIntosh
has stated, the ‘pairing of individual economic assertiveness with group
political activity was characteristic of many medieval communities, espe-
cially towns’.88 In market-oriented towns like Newmarket and Clare, the
issues of administrative competence went beyond individual commercial
success and asked questions of community aspirations. If the town had a
good, reputable market, the local elite in the town had everything to gain
economically and socially.
Thus, questions of who provided trading administration, and for what
purpose, are as important as the market mechanisms themselves. Unfor-
tunately, it is difficult to identify the wealth and status of the men of

85 TNA, sc2/203/54, also 59. In Henley-on-Thames, ‘tastatores victualium’ are first men-
tioned in the early fifteenth century. Henley, pp. 48, 56, 70, 80.
86 Thomas Baron and Stephen Wyndont (1377 to 1379); John Webbe and Robert Barker
(1388–90); William Warderobe and Richard Sare (1403–5); John Lamb and John Porter
(1406–13); and Thomas Couling and Thomas Broun (1419, 1421–2).
87 Hilton, ‘Medieval market towns’, 21; Rubin, ‘Small groups’.
88 McIntosh, Autonomy and Community, pp. 181–6.
296 Medieval market morality

Newmarket and Clare beyond inferences from their roles as officers,

jurymen, creditors, debtors and capital pledges. There were also occa-
sional references to stall and shop transfers, but not enough to construct
a complete profile of the tenancies and property ownership in the town.
Nor are there surviving tax returns listing the Newmarket and Clare res-
idents for this period. Thus, any attempts to analyse the retailers accord-
ing to their socio-economic status is inevitably circumscribed by the
paucity of the records. We are, instead, left identifying the elite through
their roles in office-holding and administration. DeWindt has argued that
such offices were usually given to prominent and wealthier members of
a community.89 But Razi rightly pointed to the problem of any assumed
association between office and wealth as well as the factor of social mobil-
ity over time, both of which could skew the significance of office-holding
as a stratifying indicator.90 Nevertheless, even if office-holding should
not be considered a direct reflection of economic differentiation, it does
tend to indicate the social hierarchy within a small town. As such, records
of office-holding remain the best socio-economic indicator we have for
Newmarket and Clare households.
Some sixty-nine men were involved in different aspects of the adminis-
tration process in Newmarket over fourteen years, implying a less exclu-
sive elite than might be supposed. Jurymen, although often drawn from
Newmarket, could, in the fair and market courts, include men from
outside the town, reducing the exclusivity of these bodies and illustrat-
ing the importance of the town’s hinterland. In categorising the socio-
economic status of the traders, they have been divided them into four
main groups: those with primary status, for bailiffs, capital pledges and
constables; secondary status, for affeerers, tasters and jurors; and the
remainder as either outsiders or of low socio-economic status. The
detail of the Newmarket court rolls allows us to compare these cate-
gories to known occupations. Thirty-two traders had primary status,
their main trades being:91 innkeeper (eight), brewer (six), cook (four),
baker (three), butcher (two), malterer (one), smith (one), draper (one)
and spicer (one). There were thirty-seven with secondary status, with
their known trades being: butcher (seven), tanner or leather dealer (four),
spicer (four), innkeeper (three), brewer (three), cook (two), mercer (two),
draper (two), cordwainer (one), roper (one), ironmonger (one) and mal-
terer (one). Additionally, there were 189 other identified traders, which

89 DeWindt, Land and People, pp. 207–20; Bennett, Ale, p. 213.

90 Razi, ‘Toronto School’s reconstitution’, 147–8.
91 These are their main, identifiable trades, and it is possible that they were involved in
other trades as well.
 The behaviour of market traders 297

included both Newmarket residents and those of unknown origin, as well

as another thirty-eight known outsiders. It is striking how many of the
town’s elite were innkeepers and butchers, but generally, a wide range of
trades were represented within the offices of Newmarket.92 In Clare,
some seventy-two different men can be identified serving as bailiffs,
constables or aletasters from 1377 to 1425, again suggesting that the
officials of the town were drawn from an extensive number of families.
The composition of officials and jurors had a demonstrable impact on
how market laws were interpreted. The regulations could not be enforced
to such a stringent level as to antagonise a major portion of the commu-
nity, especially when the enforcers themselves had a vested interest in the
prosperity of retail trade.

The assizes of bread and ale

The court rolls of Newmarket and Clare both list a number of different
trading offences, but the vast majority of commercial entries concern
traders who breached the assizes of bread and ale. The authorities of
Newmarket and Clare were expected to stabilise supplies and prices
based on national assize legislation, and their court roll entries often
stated that the assizes were regulated according to statute law. However,
the presentments rarely provide additional details of the specific offences
perpetrated by named bakers and brewers. Rather, they list offenders
beneath the bland statements of ‘pistores panis et vendunt contra assisam’
and ‘brasiatores cervisie et vendunt contra assisam’. Despite this lack of
direct information, it is still viable to compare the national guidelines
with local patterns of presentment and amercement levels. Although the
reasons behind amercement levels are difficult to interpret, it is possible
that the highest penalties were related to offences that carried some moral
stigma, particularly if the wording of the presentment went beyond the
norm.93 A close analysis of the offenders and court roll entries in Clare
and Newmarket may shed some light on how regulations were interpreted
and enforced by small-town officials.
Several studies of assize enforcement in late medieval England have
noted the repeat offenders and continual small fines in court rolls,
which went against the stipulations for escalating punishments outlined
in Assisa Panis et Cervisie. Historians have traditionally argued that the

92 Butchers would have benefited from the increasing demand for meat in the fifteenth
century, as well as supplying subsidiary trades with hides, horn, fat, and other by-
products of animal slaughter.
93 Britnell, ‘Urban economic regulation’, p. 2; Britnell, ‘England: towns, trade’, p. 58.
298 Medieval market morality

local enforcement of the assizes was ‘largely illusory’ and that authori-
ties overlooked continual minor offences in return for a steady income.94
Most brewers and bakers thus broke the assize, either deliberately or
in simply trying to keep their cost and waste margins to a minimum.
Indeed, some leet court rolls simply stated that ‘all brewers’ were guilty
of infringements.95 Brewers may have regarded any penalty for such
offences as aptly offset by the gains made.96 It has thus been asserted
that the assizes were no deterrent to traders offending with impunity.
Frederic Maitland suggested that ‘the assize seems to have been broken
with as much regularity as the most orthodox of political economists
could possibly demand’.97 However, this emphasis on the laxity of assize
enforcement and the criminality of traders perhaps misunderstands the
way in which the law was interpreted and enforced.
More recent historians agree that the lists of those ‘breaking the assize’
were a legal fiction and they included everyone involved in the ale and
bread trades, not just those who had actually cheated.98 Judith Bennett
has argued that all brewers, good and bad, usually faced nominal amerce-
ments as a type of de facto licensing system. In effect, the lords or corpo-
rations were exacting a percentage of the traders’ profits.99 They perhaps
regarded this as a customary right. The ‘Seneschaucy’ (thirteenth cen-
tury) advised that ‘without warrant from the lord no baking or brewing
ought to take place on any manor’, and in many places, particularly in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, lords explicitly gave actual licences
or imposed tolls for brewing.100 The brewers of thirteenth-century Sev-
enhampton (Wiltshire) paid a flat toll of 1d. as well as being amerced
between 2d.–6d. for breaking the assize.101 Seabourne argues that in
some places there was a conflation of the toll system and the assize of

94 Lipson, Economic History, i, p. 296; Hudson (ed.), Leet, pp. xxxviii–xxxix; Norwich, i,
pp. cxxxviii–cxxxix; Beverley, p. liv.
95 Pugh (ed.), Court Rolls, pp. 6–7.
96 Post, ‘Manorial amercements’, 305, 308.
97 Maitland (ed.), Select Pleas in Manorial, p. xxxviii; Ratcliff (ed.), Elton, p. lxii; Powell and
Malden (eds.), Court Rolls, pp. xiii–xiv; Pugh (ed.), Court Rolls, p. 6; Wood, Medieval
Economic Thought, p. 98; Rosenthal, ‘Assizes’.
98 Bennett, Ale, pp. 4–5; Britnell, Growth and Decline, pp. 89, 195–7, 269–71; Britnell,
Commercialisation, p. 94; Dyer, Lords and Peasants, p. 346; Hilton, English Peasantry,
p. 45; Cam, The Hundred, p. 211. The by-laws of Petworth (Sussex) stated that every
brewer, tapster and baker would be amerced at the fair, which suggests that they
would pay whether they were guilty of an offence or not. West Sussex Record Office
(Chichester), 6/1/18 hvi.
99 Bennett, Ale, p. 163; Williamson, ‘Dispute settlement’, 137.
100 Oschinsky (ed.), Walter of Henley, pp. 270–1, c.22; Landor (ed.), ‘Alrewas court rolls’,
pp. 87–137; Barley (ed.), Documents, pp. 18–19, 33 (Newark, 1225–31); Ratcliff (ed.),
Elton, pp. xxi–xxii, lxiii, 7, 394.
101 Pugh (ed.), Court Rolls, pp. 6–7.
 The behaviour of market traders 299

ale, while elsewhere they remained separate.102 However, generally, the

assizes represented another means to impose an effective licence fee upon
all. In addition, the system of assize regulation also meant that brewers
could be presented more than once, for brewing, measures and regrating.
Variations upon a basic de facto licensing system can be seen across Suf-
folk by the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In Walsham le Willows,
amercements for the assize of ale ranged from 3d. to 12d. throughout
the fourteenth century, with the same two to four people being regularly
amerced year after year.103 Bennett provided an example from the small
village of Earl Soham in which Walter and Agnes Bele were presented
at every court from 1356 to 1376 for breaking the assize and brewing.
Other couples were presented in the village throughout the period 1378–
99, such as Ralph and Agnes Coluyll, John and Isabell Couyn and John
and Alice Nene, who were usually amerced either 12d. or 24d.104 These
high amercement levels either suggest that trade was brisk or else the
lord, Margaret Mareschall, Countess of Norfolk, was prepared to extract
a high fine from her tenants in order to supplement her income. A sim-
ilarly high level of amercements for brewers can be found at her larger
Suffolk manors of Walton and Trimley, where penalties were normally in
the range 12d.–24d. for 1381–99. Notably, amercement levels had fallen
significantly on both manors by the 1410s, when the average penalty for
brewing families in Earl Soham was 3d.–12d. and in Walton, 6d.–12d.,
even though the number of brewing amercements had remained fairly
constant. The evidence suggests that they were linked to production
and the manorial courts of Walton, Trimley and Earl Soham imposed
a standard 3d. amercement for every brewing batch. This ‘licence fee’
had fallen to 2d. sometime during the reign of Henry IV. Indeed, in late
fourteenth-century Walton and Trimley, the court justified the assize lists
by stating that the offenders had brewed and baked without licence of the
lord.105 In other towns and villages in Suffolk, those who had specifically
brewed once (‘semel’) were usually amerced 1d.–3d. and 6d.–12d. for
brewing twice (‘bis’) or on several occasions.106

102 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 109–10. In thirteenth-century Exeter, brewgavel,

baking-gavel and chepgavel were paid by brewers, bakers and retailers respectively as
essentially licences to trade; while in thirteenth-century Lincoln, brewers paid ale-toll
twice a year, though they were also subject to separate amercements for selling ale.
Schopp and Easterling (eds.), Anglo-Norman Custumal, pp. 30–1, no. 34 (1237–57);
Wilkinson, Women, pp. 100–3.
103 Lock (ed.), Walsham le Willows 1303–1350; Lock (ed.), Walsham le Willows 1351–99.
104 Bennett, Ale, p. 162; SRO (I), v5/18/1.2–1.4.
105 SRO (I), ha119:50/3/17–19 (1381–1413).
106 SRO (I), ha68:484/135 (Aldham, 1347–71); SRO (I), ha119:50/3/142 (Bacton, 1413–
23); SRO (I), hb8/1/663 (Bramford, 1354-); SRO (I), ha91/1 (Bradfield, 1318–77);
300 Medieval market morality

In effect, the assizes became a local seigneurial tax on brewing and

baking profits, and it appears that amercements were related, roughly,
to the level of production.107 However, the relationship between amerce-
ment level, production, social status, seigneurial power and the degree
of offence is not always clear-cut. Practices do seem to have differed
between courts and over time. For instance, some courts allied the reg-
ular amercements to individual production levels, while others cut the
administrative burden and set a standardised amercement for all. Never-
theless, this whole system may be related to the increasing dominance of
the presentment jury from the late thirteenth century, to which offenders
could not answer. This system had replaced the initiation of numerous
cumbersome lawsuits brought by individual manorial officers and thus
speeded up business and reduced costs.108 However, this does not mean
that the assizes were ineffectual as an enforcement tool. Notable cases
could still be raised by officials when the need arose, leading to harsher
penalties. Indeed, this specific, more rigorous application of the assizes
of ale and bread appears to have been the procedure in most leet courts,
and implied a more directed means of moral censure.109
Clare’s court rolls recorded an average of twenty-seven brewers
and just under six bakers in each listing of assize presentments (see
Table 2, below), though an average of four bakers was more common
after 1397. Similarly, Hilton found that Halesowen, a town of about 600,
had about twenty-five brewers and four to five bakers amerced annually
in the court rolls.110 The bakers and brewers of Clare, for the period
1377–1425, were dispersed around thirty-three baking households and
198 brewing households (see Table 4). In Newmarket, an average of nine-
teen brewers and twelve bakers were presented at each court, though this
included both regular and sporadic producers. Overall, seventy-seven
brewing households and sixty-one baking households can be identified
in Newmarket over fourteen years (see Tables 1 and 3). This was a large
number, perhaps incorporating nearly all the identifiable households in
Newmarket. There were almost twice the number of households engaged
in baking, at varying levels of intensity, compared to Clare, whose figures
are taken from a much longer period.

SRO (I), ha246/A1/1 (Higham, 1344–66); SRO (I), s1/10/9.1–9.11 (Holbrook,

1378-); SRO (I), hb8/1/778–89 (Tattingstone, 1335– ). See also Powell and Malden
(eds.), Carshalton, esp. p. 23, where brewers were fined 2d. for each brewing and one
man was fined 5s. 6d. for thirty-three brewings.
107 Britnell, Growth and Decline, p. 89; Postles, ‘An English small town’, 13; Hilton,
A Medieval Society, p. 155; Hilton, English Peasantry, pp. 45–6.
108 Beckerman, ‘Procedural innovation’, 226–50; Briggs, ‘Manor court procedures’, 541.
109 Bennett, Ale, pp. 3, 100–1. 110 Hilton, ‘Small town society’, p. 60.
 The behaviour of market traders 301

Table 1. Bakers and brewers amerced for breaking the assize, Newmarket,
1400–1413

Number of Average Number Average

brewers Total amercement of bakers Total amercement
a
Date of court amercedb amercementd per brewer amercedc d
amercement per baker

26 Apr 1400 12 4s. 8d.∗ 4.7d. 9 3s. 9d.∗ 5.0d.

9 Oct 1400 17 5s. 2d.∗ 3.6d. 10 4s. 2d.∗ 5.0d.
5 Apr 1402 16 4s. 9d. 3.6d. 13 3s. 1d. 2.8d.
6 Oct 1402 19 6s. 11d. 4.4d. 14 4s. 11d. 4.2d.
13 Oct 1403 18 7s. 1d.∗ 5.0d. 14 5s. 5d.∗ 4.6d.
16 Apr 1404 21 7s. 9d. 4.4d. 10 2s. 11d. 3.5d.
6 Oct 1404 19 9s. 10d. 6.2d. 13 3s. 6d. 3.2d.
9 Nov 1405 19 8s. 2d.∗ 5.2d. 8 3s. 5d. 5.1d.
28 Apr 1406 16 7s. 2d. 5.4d. 9 3s. 10d. 5.1d.
6 Oct 1407 17 6s. 3d. 4.5d. 11 4s. 3d. 4.6d.
16 Jun 1408 20 5s. 8d. 4.5d. 13 3s. 8d. 4.4d.
3 Nov 1408 19 6s. 3d. 3.9d. 9 3s. 2d. 4.2d.
11 Apr 1409 15 7s. 4d. 5.9d. 9 2s. 10d. 3.8d.
25 Nov 1409 15 5s. 1d. 4.1d. 11 3s. 10d. 4.2d.
16 May 1410 18 6s. 2d. 4.1d. 15 4s. 9d. 3.8d.
8 Nov 1410 29 15s. 2d. 6.3d. 9 4s. 1d. 5.4d.
23 Apr 1411 19 8s. 6d. 5.4d. 16 5s. 8d. 4.3d.
2 Nov 1411 19 6s. 6d. 4.3d. 13 5s. 3d. 4.8d.
16 May 1412 26 9s. 9d.∗ 4.5d. 16 4s. 8d.∗ 3.5d.
4 Nov 1412 26 6s. 8d. 3.8d. 9 2s. 10d. 3.8d.
16 Jun 1413 16 7s. 5d. 5.9d. 12 4s. 2d. 4.2d.

Total 396 £7 12s. 3d. 4.8d. 243 £4 4s. 2d. 4.2d.

Notes: a – the records of six courts are missing (out of twenty-seven) in the period April
1400 to June 1413; b – brewers who broke the assize; c – bakers who broke the assize; d –
the totals noted by the clerk in the Newmarket rolls were not always equivalent to the sum of the
individual amercements as written above the names of individuals. This was probably due to incorrect
calculations by the scribe or later additions and the differences were usually only 1d.–2d. The individual
amercements have been used and ∗ signifies a discrepancy between this total and the clerk’s. Certain
amercements were either illegible or not given (thirteen for the brewers and three for the bakers) and
these were not included in the calculations for the amercement averages, but were included in the num-
ber of offences.
Source: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48.

The market traders of Newmarket were obviously catering for more

than just local demand, attesting to the widespread nature of commod-
ity production, as well as the importance of the victualling trade in this
small town. However, many of the brewers and bakers may have specifi-
cally processed foodstuffs to meet the increased biannual demand at fairs
or simply disposed of their surplus domestic produce. Fifty-four of the
seventy-seven brewing households and forty-four of the sixty-one bak-
ing households in Newmarket were presented four or fewer times over
twenty-one general courts (see Table 3). In Clare, nineteen of thirty-three
Table 2. Bakers and brewers amerced for breaking the assize, Clare,
1377–1425

Number of Average Number Average

brewers Total amercement of bakers Total amercement
Date of courta amercedb amercementd per brewer amercedc amercementd per baker

13 Nov 1377 30 17s. 9d. 7.1d. 8 3s. 10d. 5.8d.

5 Oct 1378 42 (1) 26s. 1d. 7.8d. 7 3s. 0d. 6.0d.
12 Apr 1379 35 16s. 19d. 7.2d. 10 4s. 4d. 6.5d.
18 Oct 1379 37 19s. 2d. 6.2d. 8 4s. 6d. 6.8d.
3 Apr 1380 43 24s. 7d. 6.9d. 10 6s. 3d. 6.3d.
29 Apr 1382 33 8s. 7d. 3.2d. 8 2s. 8d. 4.0d.
6 Oct 1383 28 7s. 10d. 3.4d. 9 2s. 9d. 3.7d.
12 Apr 1384 29 (1) 15s. 11d. 6.6d. 8 3s. 9d. 5.6d.
10 Oct 1385 26 (1) 9s. 1d. 4.2d. 5 1s. 9d. 4.2d.
7 May 1386 41 (2) 16s. 6d. 4.8d. 7 2s. 3d. 3.9d.
14 Oct 1387 28 12s. 4d. 5.3d. 8 2s. 11d. 4.4d.
21 Apr 1388 38 (2)# 23s. 7d.# 7.4d.# 9 3s. 2d. 4.2d.
6 Oct 1388 37 15s. 10d. 5.1d. 7∗ 2s. 8d. 4.6d.
4 May 1389 35 (1) 19s. 1d. 7.2d. 7 2s. 8d. 4.6d.
21 Oct 1389 36 15s. 5d. 5.1d. 7 (1) 2s. 2d. 3.7d.
26 Apr 1390 42 (3) 19s. 4d. 5.5d. 7 2s. 6d. 4.3d.
8 Oct 1397 26 (1) 9s. 0d. 4.2d. 5 1s. 6d. 3.6d.
? Apr 1398 3 2s. 0d. 8.0d.
8 Oct 1398 24 (1) 11s. 1d. 5.5d. 4 2s. 8d. 8.0d.
15 Apr 1399 25 (2) 9s. 9d. 4.7d. 5 1s. 9d. 4.2d.
? Oct 1399 29 10s. 2d. 4.2d. 3 9d. 3.0d.
27 Apr 1400 40 (1) 12s. 4d. 3.7d. 5 1s. 6d. 3.6d.
13 Oct 1400 31 (1) 10s. 10d. 4.2d. 4 1s. 8d. 5.0d.
20 Apr 1401 31 (1) 9s. 8d. 3.7d. 4 1s. 1d. 3.3d.
9 Oct 1403 23 6s. 6d. 3.5d. 4 1s. 4d. 4.0d.
22 Apr 1404 25 7s. 1d. 3.4d. 6 1s. 6d. 3.0d.
7 Oct 1404 26 8s. 2d. 3.8d. 6 1s. 10d. 3.7d.
5 May 1405 27 8s. 3d. 3.7d. 4 1s.. 6d. 4.5d.
10 Oct 1406 29 (1) 8s. 4d. 3.4d. 5 1s. 8d. 4.0d.
22 Apr 1407 30 9s. 5d. 3.8d. 5 3s. 2d. 7.6d.
20 Oct 1411 24 7s. 10d. 3.9d. 4 1s. 6d. 4.5d.
19 Apr 1412 23 6s. 4d. 3.5d. 4 1s. 5d. 4.3d.
6 Oct 1412 20 6s. 3d. 3.8d. 4 1s. 6d. 4.5d.
2 May 1413 21 7s. 1d. 4.0d. 4 2s. 0d. 6.0d.
14 Oct 1416 19 6s. 2d. 3.9d. 4 1s. 3d. 3.8d.
21 Apr 1417 19 6s. 0d. 3.8d. 4 1s. 4d. 4.0d.
10 Oct 1419 17 5s. 2d. 3.6d. 4 1s. 4d. 4.0d.
? Apr 1420 16 5s. 0d. 3.8d. 5 1s. 8d. 4.0d.
14 Oct 1421 21 7s. 0d. 4.0d. 4 1s. 5d. 4.3d.
20 Apr 1422 20 7s. 2d. 4.3d. 3 1s. 0d. 4.0d.
6 Oct 1422 17 5s. 4d. 3.8d. 4 1s. 0d. 3.0d.
21 Apr 1423 14 3s. 11d. 3.4d. 6 1s. 4d. 2.7d.
17 Oct 1424 13 3s. 4d. 3.3d. 2 7d. 3.5d.
18 Apr 1425 13 2s. 11d. 2.7d. 3 8d. 2.7d.

Total 1183 (19) £23 8s. 9d. 4.5d. 243 (1) £4 13s. 1d. 4.5d.

Notes: a – the records of fifty-two courts are missing (out of ninety-six) in the period November 1377 to April
1425. The brewers amercements for April 1398 are illegible; b – common brewers who brewed and sold ale
against the assize; c – bakers who broke the assize and used false weights; # – brewers were also specifically
amerced in this court for not bringing their measures to court; ∗ includes two bakers of horsebread. Figures in
parentheses are the number of pardons for that court (included in the total). Certain amercements were either
illegible or not given (fifteen for brewers, three for bakers) and these were not included in the calculations for
the amercement averages, but were included in the number of offences.
Source: TNA, sc2/203/61–7.
 The behaviour of market traders 303

Table 3. Baking, brewing and regrating offences

in Newmarket, 1400–1413

Number of Baking Brewing Regrating

offences households households households

1 29 26 24
2 7 12 7
3 6 11 4
4 2 5 3
5 3 1
6 4 2
7 3 1 1
8 2 2
9 1 1
10 2 2 1
11
12 1
13 1 1 1
14 2 1
15
16 2 2 1
17 1 1
18 1 1
19 1 2
20 1 1
21 2
Total 61 77 47

Source: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48.

baking households and 109 of 198 brewing households can be deemed

irregular (see Table 4). There were significant numbers of sporadic pro-
ducers in both Newmarket and Clare, reflecting how easy it could be to
enter a victualling trade on an irregular basis.
Ale was the most widely commercialised product in medieval Eng-
land and even village courts had presentments of ale-brewers. Much ale
was brewed domestically because little equipment was needed for small-
batch production, and most women and men were capable of brewing.
The process of brewing only required a large pot, a vat, ladles and strain-
ing cloths. In addition, the brewer needed a supply of water and fuel,
as well as the barley itself.111 The barley was soaked for several days,

111 The 1454 will of John Newman, a baker of Sudbury, described how his wife should
be allowed access ‘to the bakehouse of the messuage for baking and brewing, and to
the well there for drawing water as necessary, and also to the yard of the messuage for
putting her firewood in’. Northeast (ed.), Wills, p. 295, no. 818.
304 Medieval market morality

Table 4. Baking, brewing and regrating offences

in Clare, 1377–1425

Number of Baking Brewing Regrating

offences households households households

1 9 55 19
2 5 21 4
3 4 21 1
4 1 12 2
5 2 16 2
6 1 13
7 2 10 2
8 1 9 1
9 5 2
10 4
11 1
12 4 1
13 2 2 1
14 6
15 1 3
16 1 5
17 2
18 2
19 1
20 1
>20 3 6
Total 33 198 35

Source: TNA, sc2/203/62–7.

then the excess water was drained away, resulting in germination. The
resulting malt was dried either in the sun or in a kiln, and many small
brewers may have purchased ready-made, kiln-dried malt. The malt was
then ground, hot water added for fermentation (‘mashing’), and the wort
drained off. Finally, herbs were added and sometimes additional yeast
beaten in. A bushel of barley was expected to produce about seven to
eight gallons of good ale and twice as much weaker liquor.112 Although
the process was widely practised, it was also time-consuming. For many,
it was doubtless more convenient to buy ale from commercial outlets,
particularly when disposable incomes increased after the Black Death.
Additionally, weak ale soured within days and transported badly, so
continual brewing may not have been cost-effective without a substantial
capital outlay and reliable demand in the immediate locality of a town.
112 Bennett, Women, p. 121; Bennett, Ale, pp. 17–18, 23–4.
 The behaviour of market traders 305

Nevertheless, commercial ale-brewing was a useful ancillary occupa-

tion, often undertaken on an irregular and modest scale. Indeed, many
women simply brewed for their families, but tried to sell any surplus ale
in order to prevent wastage and augment their domestic incomes. The
prominence of women in brewing and selling ale has received consider-
able comment from historians such as Judith Bennett, Helena Graham
and Helen Jewell.113 It was the most common cause for the entry of
women’s names into manorial court rolls, as numerous wives and sin-
gle women sought to earn extra income. In general, women engaged
in marginal, low-capital, low-skilled processing and retailing, while men
apparently dominated the more capital-intensive and specialised butcher-
ing and baking trades. Bakers, for instance, required their own special
oven in a structure that reduced the risk of fire, as well as troughs,
moulding boards, sieves, a brake (to mix the dough), measuring equip-
ment, tubs, pans and storage space. They also needed a plentiful supply
of water and fuel. Comparatively, baking was a much costlier enterprise
than brewing.
Because of the recording practices of clerks, there are certain method-
ological problems involved in identifying an actual brewer or household
group in court rolls. Often, a husband was named in lieu of his wife
because he was legal head of the household. In common law, a wife was
subordinate to her husband, even if she took primary responsibility for
brewing.114 Males were consequently named even when it was their wives
who undertook the trade. In Newmarket and Clare, both husbands and
wives were recorded in the assize presentments, though rarely at the same
session. Usually, the clerk named a man, or an unidentified ‘wife of A’ or
‘B, wife of C’, and only occasionally in these lists was a woman directly
recorded by herself. It is likely that such sole references referred to a
widow or single woman. The method of entry in Newmarket varied from
year to year, with the most popular style following the pattern ‘wife of
A’. In Clare it is noticeable that women were consistently recorded by
name in the courts from October 1352 to April 1384 and mostly between
October 1406 to May 1413. Before 1352 they tended to be named in
conjunction with their husband, though the practice was not consistent,
and again after 1384 recording practices were more sporadic though it
was again more common for women to be identified directly or indirectly
through their husband, unless they were single or widows. Whether these

113 Bennett, Ale; Bennett, ‘Village ale-wife’; Kowaleski, ‘Women’s work’; Graham,
‘A woman’s work’; Jewell, ‘Women’, 60–3; Hilton, ‘Women traders’.
114 Jewell, ‘Women’, 61–4; Bennett, Women, pp. 66, 176; Bennett, Ale, pp. 158–86; Jewell,
Women, pp. 72–3.
306 Medieval market morality

trends were due to a change in clerk or something more fundamental in

the aftermath of the Black Death is difficult to know.
Given the difficulties in interpreting the presentment lists, the various
alternatives are that the husband was the brewer, it was a joint house-
hold work, or the wife undertook all the brewing and her husband was
merely her legal representative in court.115 It is possible that the urban
brewing trade was not always monopolised by women to the same extent
it was in rural villages. In Newmarket, for example, members of house-
holds, including the male heads, seemed to be all involved in a wide
range of victualling activities. This was because victual production con-
stituted a primary occupation in the town as opposed to the ad hoc and
supplementary brewing of rural women married to agricultural workers.
However, any attempt to delineate the separate tasks of particular urban
household members is difficult, given the paucity of evidence. Certainly,
Newmarket was dominated by male innkeepers, cooks and butchers,
and the primary occupation of many men was victualling. Nevertheless,
specific references to brewing sales did refer to women, such as John
Redere’s wife who illegally sold thirty-six gallons of ale.116 Addition-
ally, regraters of ale were almost exclusively women, even in those years
when their husbands were named in assize presentments.117 Similarly,
in Clare, women were regularly named in both brewing and ale-selling
presentments, either under their own name or as a wife, but so were many
of their husbands and it is difficult to know for certain the exact division
of labour.
Nevertheless, the regular and irregular brewers of Newmarket and
Clare can be analysed, based upon the household unit, in order to reveal
aspects of the brewing trade in these small towns. The household, for
the purpose of this study, is deemed to be the primary unit of husband
and wife. Sons or daughters constitute another household unit. Regular
brewing households in Newmarket have been defined as those which
were amerced in eleven or more of the twenty-one courts (that is, over
50 per cent), semi-regular brewing households were those who appeared
in between five and ten sessions, while irregular brewers appeared in less
than five sessions (see Table 5). It is possible that some regular brewers
had reached the end or beginning of their regular production life-cycle at
the extremes of our data collection. However, these practitioners do not
appear to be significant in number, judging by those who only brewed
during the first three or last three courts of this data set. Additionally, it
is possible that a few traders moved from the town or to another trade,

115 McIntosh, Working Women, p. 143. 116 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/14.

117 See below, p. 324.
 The behaviour of market traders 307

Table 5. Newmarket households and their socio-economic status, 1400–1413

Regular Semi-regular Irregular

Pri Sec Other Outsider Pri Sec Other Outsider Pri Sec Other Outsider Tot.

Bakers 4 1 4 3 5 7 2 30 5 61
Brewers 13 5 1 4 9 7 32 6 77
Regraters 3 2 1 2 1 6 3 23 6 47
Innkeepers/ 3 1 1 10 3 9 1 28
Cooks

Notes: Pri: Primary office-holder (bailiff, constable, capital pledge); Sec: Secondary office-holder (ale-
taster, affeerer, juror). Regular brewers, bakers, regraters and cooks/innkeepers: amerced in 11–21
courts; Semi-regular traders: amerced in 5–10 courts; Irregular traders: amerced in 1–4 courts.
Source: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48.

Table 6. Clare households and their socio-economic status, 1377–1425

Regular Semi-regular Irregular

Pri Sec Other Pri Sec Other Pri Sec Other Tot.

Bakers 4 4 3 3 2 1 16 33
Brewers 21 2 9 24 1 32 18 6 85 198
Regraters 2 5 3 2 8 15 35

Notes: Pri: Primary office-holder (bailiff, constable, capital pledge); Sec: Secondary office-
holder (aletaster, affeerer, juror). Given the long time period involved, and the missing court
rolls, many bakers and brewers may have died or given up their trade within the period. The
same criteria have thus been used as for Newmarket, though the figures are not directly
comparable. Bakers and brewers: 1–4 appearances – irregular; 5–10 appearances – semi-
regular; 11 or more – regular. Regraters: 1–2 appearances – irregular; 3–5 – semi-regular;
6 or more – regular.
Source: TNA, sc2/203/62–7.

thus slightly affecting the validity of the figures. A similar criterion is

used for Clare, where forty-four extant leet courts cover forty-nine years.
This is a significant period of time and the occupations of most bakers
and brewers could be considered ‘regular’ if they appeared in more than
a quarter of these courts. Consequently, as with Newmarket, regular
brewing and baking households in Clare are deemed to be those that
were amerced in eleven or more of the courts, the semi-regular were
those appearing in five to ten, and the irregular between one and four
(see Table 6). Regraters were amerced infrequently in the Clare court so
308 Medieval market morality

regular regraters are defined as those appearing in six or more courts and
semi-regular in three to five.
Thirteen regular brewing households can be identified in Newmarket’s
court rolls, all of which had male heads with primary office-holding status
(see Table 5).118 This constituted over two-thirds of the average number
of brewers presented at each session. There were ten semi-regular brew-
ers, of whom five were primary office-holders and one was secondary.
Two others, namely Agnes Schoppe and Johanna Tapstere, were probably
single women and were not identified with men in any of their present-
ments. Of the remaining fifty-four irregular brewers, nine were primary
office-holders, seven were secondary and five were outsiders (from nearby
Sutton, Eriswell, Ashley and Exning). In Clare, there are also a signif-
icant number of regular brewing households (thirty-two (16 per cent)
of all brewing households), the majority of which had a primary office-
holder, while 44 per cent of semi-regular brewers were from the upper
echelons of the local community (see Table 6). For instance, John and
Johanna Broun were regular brewers, with some twenty-eight offences at
an average amercement of 4.5d., and he served as bailiff in 1378–9. John
Babir was similarly bailiff (1404–5), and he and Margaret Babir offended
against the assize of ale twenty-nine times at 5.8d. Even amongst the 109
irregular brewing households there was a significant presence of such
men, but the vast majority (78 per cent) were not connected and had
only minimal impact on the court rolls outside their brewing offences.
Thus, brewers came from a wide socio-economic background. How-
ever, most of the regular and semi-regular brewing households came from
leading families of the town. This was probably because they needed cap-
ital and equipment to brew commercially on a large scale, as opposed
to ad hoc production. There was apparently no inherent stigma attached
to brewing if such high-status members of the town’s community were
included in the assize presentments.119 Those who brewed occasionally,
in contrast, probably either used only a small amount of grain or bought
on credit.120 It is also likely that infrequent brewers were women brewing
for a supplementary income to support a household which was primarily
based in another trade, or else they were single women or at the start of
their life-cycle of court appearances.121

118 These were the households of John Ballone Smyth, John Barbor, Thomas Cook, Peter
Fedelere, William Fyschere, Thomas Pere, John Pere, William Ray, John Redere,
Robert Skynnere, Roger Smyth, Thomas Sowcere and John Waleys.
119 Britnell, Growth and Decline, pp. 89–90; Laughton, ‘Alewives’, p. 197; Britnell, ‘Town
life’, p. 164.
120 Bennett, Ale, pp. 30–2; Postles, ‘Brewing’, 140.
121 Smith (ed.), Land, Kinship, pp. 27–30.
 The behaviour of market traders 309

14

12

10
Average Amercement (d)

R2 = 0.029
6

4 R2 = 0.0781

0
0 5 10 15 20 25
Number of Offences

Figure 21: Scatter graph of amercements and brewing offences in New-

market, 1400–1413.
Notes: Each point on this graph represents a single household’s number
of brewing offences, 1400–13, and the average amercement for those
offences. For these calculations, a household is considered to consist
of a husband and wife; daughters or sons are considered to be sepa-
rate working units. Two polynomial trendlines are presented: Order 2
(black) and Order 6 (grey).
Source: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48.

The differences between regular and irregular brewers is partly seen

in the amercement levels paid by each group. Figure 21 suggests that
the level of amercement in Newmarket was more likely to be high if
the brewer regularly appeared at court. However, in general, there is no
statistical relationship between the level of amercement and the number
of offences. Although some occasional brewers were fined above-average
amounts, the majority were clustered around 2d.–4d. The overall average
amercement was 4.8d., but just ten of sixty-eight amercements over 7d.
were given to irregular brewers. A few regular brewers, such as John
Redere, Thomas Cook and John Waleys, received amercements of up to
14d. In line with an effective licensing scheme, it is likely that the level
of amercement in these cases was related to production output, rather
than that regular brewers committed greater offences against the assize.
However, the frequency and quantity of brewing was unspecified in the
Newmarket court rolls.
In Clare, from 1377 to 1425, the majority of brewing amerce-
ments were for 3d., 4d., or 6d., no matter how often you brewed
310 Medieval market morality

12

10

8
Average Amercement (d)

6 R2 = 0.1044

R2 = 0.0937
4

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Number of Offences

Figure 22: Scatter graph of amercements and brewing offences in Clare,

1377–1425.
Notes: Each point on this graph represents a single household’s number
of brewing offences, 1377–1425, and the average amercement for those
offences. For these calculations, a household is considered to consist
of a husband and wife; daughters or sons are considered to be separate
working units. Two polynomial trendlines are presented: Order 2 (black)
and Order 6 (grey).
Source: TNA, sc2/203/62–7.

(see Figure 22). Unlike Newmarket, the regular brewers of Clare and
their wives generally faced average amercements of 3d.–6d., which per-
haps contradicts any suggestion of a correlation with the level of produc-
tion. If one considers that the average wage for an unskilled labourer was
4d.–5d. a day in the early fifteenth century, then the amercement levels
were equivalent to one or two days’ wages. Only Thomas and Katherine
Danoun (8.2d.) and Adam and Johanna Stonhard (9.2d.), with sixteen
offences for each couple, had both regular levels of production and a high
average amercement. Why they were picked out for special attention is
uncertain. Other than them, it is a few irregular brewers who face high
average amercements over 8d.: the wife of William Brokhole, the wife
of Roger Barker, Agnes Markaunt, Matilda Goolde, Margaret North-
erne and Margery Robelard. One possibility is that they were deemed
recalcitrant users of false weights and measures. In 1377, Agnes and
Matilda had been amerced 12d. and Margery 6d., while Johanna Ston-
hard and Thomas Danoun had been amerced 6d. in 1377 and 1388
respectively, for failing to bring their measures to court. This offence
 The behaviour of market traders 311

sometimes generated a higher than normal amercement, but others saw

their amercements subsequently fall back. It is possible that this was a
repeated accusation against these particular individuals and the affeerers
imposed a heavier penalty in an attempt to bring them into line, though
this implies a new effort to enforce such standards.122
Bennett, McIntosh and Mate have all argued that there was a grad-
ual disappearance of casual and irregular ale-brewers in fifteenth-century
small towns, despite buoyant demand for their product. Instead, there
were more commercial brewers, operating on a larger scale and often
male.123 Bailey has noted how the number of brewers in both Sudbury
and Lakenheath declined significantly over the course of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, while brewing in Brandon became concentrated
in the hands of a few leading residents, many of whom ran inns.124 It is
possible that the same trends were also discernible in the baking trade,
allowing bakers to travel to markets to sell their bread. The trend in New-
market is difficult to decipher over such a short evidential period, though
brewing was certainly dominated by a number of individual households,
usually headed by a male innkeeper. In Clare, there was a notable drop
in the number of both brewers and bakers from the 1370s to 1420s, both
groups effectively halving in number (see Table 2).
Individual Newmarket bakers faced a similar regularity of amerce-
ments over time as brewers, apparently based on their level of output
rather than any overt breach of the regulations. For instance, John Redere
faced amercements of 8d.–14d. every year from 1400 to 1412, except for
three sessions in which he only faced a 4d. amercement. By defining the
bakers in a similar way to that adopted for brewers, regular and irregular
producers of Newmarket can be compared (see Table 5). Only five baking
households were regular: John and Mariot Choun; Thomas Cook and
his wife; John Redere and his wife; Roger Smyth and his wife; and John
Waleys and his wife. All but John Choun were primary office-holders
and he faced comparatively low fines of only 1d.–2d. compared with the
other regular bakers, who were given average fines of 3.8d., 5.7d., 6.8d.
and 10.3d. Of the twelve semi-regular baking households, four contained
primary office-holders, while a further five were from outside Newmar-
ket. The semi-regular bakers included householders like John Barbor,
Nicholas Chapman, Robert Cheyne, William Fyschere, Peter Fedelere
and John Smyth, all of whom were active in a myriad of victualling fields.

122 TNA, sc2/203/55. In 1359, the amercement for this offence was increased to 3d. for
each brewer.
123 Bennett, Ale; McIntosh, A Community Transformed, pp. 281–91; Mate, Daughters, Wives
and Widows, pp. 59–68; Mate, Trade and Economic Developments, pp. 60–80. See also
DeWindt and DeWindt, Ramsey, pp. 164, 227.
124 Bailey, Medieval Suffolk, p. 267.
312 Medieval market morality

Of the remaining forty-four irregular bakers, seven were primary office-

holders, two were secondary and four were outsiders, so the majority
(70 per cent) lacked such indicators of status. Overall, it was unusual
for those of a lower socio-economic status to be involved as regular or
even semi-regular bakers, reflecting the high levels of capital needed to
maintain a professional baking business.
Despite the fair number of irregular bakers, the five regular bakers and
twelve semi-regular bakers of Newmarket must have dominated produc-
tion, considering that the number of offenders year to year ranged only
from eight to sixteen and the total amercements at a court session from
34d. to 68d. (see Table 1). In terms of the conditions of the assize of
bread, whereby 111 loaves were expected to be produced for 4d. profit,
the five regular bakers of Newmarket between them would have needed
to produce at least 555 loaves in total if they were to earn that amount
every day.125 Given that an individual might have eaten one, possibly
two, loaves a day, the figures either suggest that the bakers supplied a
considerable number of the residents of Newmarket (plus travellers),
or that this profit was spread over more than one day. Nevertheless, the
socio-economic distribution of bakers in itself implies that regular baking
was worthwhile.
Similar conclusions are evident from looking at the regular bakers in
Clare. There were nine regular baking households in all, four of which
contained a primary office-holder. John Baker Litil (or ‘paruus’) first
appears in the court rolls in 1374 and died in 1404/5. He was amerced
for breaking the assize of bread twenty-five times at an average amerce-
ment of 6.7d. During this time he served as capital pledge, juror and
aletaster (1385–6), as well as being the plaintiff in six debt pleas and
the defendant seven times. There are also hints of his activities beyond
baking. He was amerced 10d. in April 1384 for allowing his pigs to tres-
pass on the castle’s outer bailey, while he and his wife, Johanna, were
amerced twelve times (at an average of 6.4d.) for brewing. Two of these
amercements occurred after John’s death, indicating that Johanna con-
tinued this by-occupation as a widow. John Priour was amerced some
nineteen times from 1390 to 1420. Like John Baker Litil, he also served
as capital pledge and aletaster (1416) and was involved in six debt pleas
as plaintiff or defendant, including one claim against Hugh de Godis-
ton for 5s. 6d. Also, like most regular baking households in Clare, his
wife, Isabella, was an active brewer, being amerced nine times. William
Baker was elected to the office of bailiff in 1421, having baked regularly
since 1404, while his wife brewed semi-regularly. Lastly, John Cook and

125 See above, pp. 235–6.

 The behaviour of market traders 313

his wife, Katherine, faced twenty-two baking amercements and eighteen

brewing amercements (all at an average of 3.8d.) from about 1397. He
was bailiff in 1411, capital pledge and aletaster. It appears that he took
over the business from his mother and father, Sarra and John Cook, some-
time between 1390 and 1399. It may well have been as early as May 1390
when he was convicted of forestalling grain and named as the son of Sarra
Cook. His parents had been regular bakers and brewers, though John
senior did not apparently rise to the same status and offices as his son. It
also seems that both mother and daughter-in-law were heavily involved
in the baking business since they were named as offenders against
the assize of bread on numerous occasions. Baking was truly a family
affair.
Two other regular bakers were possibly from outside the town as indi-
cated by their surnames, John Baker atte Barres and John Lydgate, and
thus would not have been officer-holders. In a similar manner, there
was a significant contingent of outside producers who came to New-
market to sell bread regularly. These outsiders were Gilbert Bakere of
Bottisham, Henry Baxtere of Bottisham, Robert Cheyne of Bottisham,
Mariot Deke of Eriswell and Richard Prat of Ashley, plus five irregu-
lar bakers from Fordham, Burwell, Kentford and Ely. Bakers commonly
carried wares into other villages and smaller towns, particularly by the
early fifteenth century, perhaps to sell directly at retail or in small-bulk
to regraters. In Earl Soham, four different foreign bakers were amerced
for selling bread against the assize and appeared in the court rolls for
the first time from 1413 to 1421. In the records of Saxted and Fram-
lingham for 1402–3, Robert Baxstere, Robert Foul and Thomas Brame
were recorded as having delivered bread from outside. Lastly, in Walton,
Augustus Baxter came from Ipswich regularly during the period 1398
to 1412 in order to sell bread. He was joined at various times by five
other bakers from Ipswich and John Spyser from Hemley and Richard
Bakere of Woodbridge.126 They appear to have usurped the local bakers
and the lord of the manor took the opportunity to impose heavy amerce-
ments of 8d.–20d. on their activities ‘against the assize’. Generally, in
towns and villages, there were many more outsiders among bakers than
brewers. This was partly because ale was difficult to transport, but also
reflected the more professional and capital-intensive nature of baking in
comparison with ale-brewing.

126 SRO (I), v5/18/1.3–1.4; Cambridge, Pembroke College, Framlingham Court Rolls c,
d1, d2; SRO (I), ha119:50/3/17–19. See also SRO (I), ha119:50/3/142; Bailey (ed.),
Bailiffs’ Minute Book, pp. 19–20; Sear, ‘Trade and commerce’, p. 42.
314 Medieval market morality

Nevertheless, there were those who only baked irregularly, presumably

cooking in small makeshift ovens or pans or in shared ovens, and sell-
ing small amounts of their domestic surplus for supplementary income.
These producers included women. For instance, in Newmarket, Agnes
Lexham, Margaret Lexham, Rose Grant and Johanna Tapstere were all
named as producing bread on one or two occasions. Females were also
sometimes cited as regular bakers, apparently aiding their husbands and
being cited with or instead of them in the court rolls. Baking in New-
market could be as much of a household affair as brewing. The most
significant women bakers for whom no husband was mentioned were
Mariot Deke of Eriswell and Agnes Schoppe. Mariot Deke faced pros-
ecution six times for an average fine of 5d., while Agnes Schoppe was
presented seven times for an average fine of 4.1d. It is very likely that
they were either single women or widows and they usefully illustrate the
point that a few women accumulated enough capital to bake on a rea-
sonably commercial scale. In Clare, only one women baker is mentioned
without reference to a husband, Petronilla Turnour. She was amerced at
a relatively low average of 3.7d. for each presentment and she brewed for
just three years. It is likely that she was producing very low-quality and
cheap bread on a sporadic basis. Most other irregular bakers in Clare
were men and only dabbled in the trade just once or twice.
A scatter graph of the number of offences against average fines for
individual bakers in Newmarket shows a trend of steadily increasing
amercements, much more clearly than for brewers (see Figure 23). Reg-
ular bakers faced, on average, 6d. fines. If they were making 4d. a day,
six days a week, than the yearly amercement of 12d. constituted a ‘tax’
of just 1 per cent. However, this theory assumes they sold the required
amount of bread and does not account for other losses. The semi-regular
and irregular bakers were given, on average, 3d.–4d. fines, and it is dif-
ficult to know whether this was proportional to their output or a higher
percentage tax on their overall turnover. In general, of thirty-six amerce-
ments of 8d. or over, only five were not given to regular or semi-regular
bakers and only one above 8d. was not given to a regular baker (see
Table 3). Regular bakers apparently produced more and were amerced
in relation to their output. However, this was not the case in Clare where,
like the brewers, the amercements were fairly standard without reference
to the regularity of production (see Figure 24). Indeed, the few higher-
than-average penalties were for irregular bakers, though one of these was
a William Baker who died in 1379/80 and had been a regular baker in
the previous decade.
An effectual licensing system appeared to be in operation in both New-
market and Clare, but was there any concern about a rigid enforcement
 The behaviour of market traders 315

12

10
R2 = 0.4183

8
Average Amercement (d)

R2 = 0.2892

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Number of Offences

Figure 23: Scatter graph of amercements and baking offences in New-

market, 1400–1413.
Notes: Each point on this graph represents a single household’s num-
ber of baking offences, 1400–13, and the average amercement for those
offences. For these calculations, a household is considered to consist
of a husband and wife; daughters or sons are considered to be sepa-
rate working units. Two polynomial trendlines are presented: Order 2
(black) and Order 6 (grey).
Source: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48.

of the statutes? In 1389–90, Parliament ordered that bodily punishment

should be enforced when required by statutory law.127 However, the
officials in Newmarket and Clare appear to have ignored this, despite
persistent offenders, and adopted their own standards of enforcement.
There were no cases of corporal punishment in Newmarket and only
two in Clare, both in 1360. In April 1360, John Bakere was not amerced
because he had undergone the judgement of the pillory for his baking
offences. The court rolls show that he was amerced 8d.–12d. in five
previous sessions, but, despite corporal punishment, he continued to be
amerced a comparatively high 24d. for the next two sessions, before this
was reduced to 6d.–8d. thereafter.128 In the same year, Alice Slyman was
sent to the ‘colliari’ (probably a type of thewe, an upright post with a
neck-ring) for a brewing offence. She had not previously been entered in
the rolls for any offence and was only to appear once more the following
year for the unusually high fine of 18d.129 The physical punishments and

127 Statutes, ii, p. 63, 13 Ric.II st.1 c.8 (1389–90). See pp. 269–70.
128 TNA, sc2/203/54–8. 129 TNA, sc2/203/56–7.
316 Medieval market morality

10

7
Average Amercement (d)

R2 = 0.0799
6

5
R2 = 0.0357

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Number of Offences

Figure 24: Scatter graph of amercements and baking offences in Clare,

1377–1425.
Notes: Each point on this graph represents a single household’s number
of baking offences, 1377–1425, and the average amercement for those
offences. For these calculations, a household is considered to consist
of a husband and wife; daughters or sons are considered to be separate
working units. Two polynomial trendlines are presented: Order 2 (black)
and Order 6 (grey).
Source: TNA, sc2/203/62–7.
high fines, which were well above average, even for regular offenders,
imply that both John Bakere and Alice Slyman were flagrant offenders.
Such cases suggest that the use of corporal punishment was regarded as
exceptional rather than customary, reserved for those who had incurred
the community’s strongest disapproval.130 Seabourne has also noted that
there were few signs of corporal punishment being used for offenders
against price regulation at any level of jurisdiction, from the royal courts
to the Wakefield tourn rolls and Sutton court rolls.131 In late thirteenth-
century Tamworth, Bennett found only one case of corporal punishment
amongst over 500 assize cases.132

130 Britnell, ‘Urban economic regulation’, pp. 2–3. In Tottenham (Middlesex) in 1377,
William Bakere was found deficient in the weight of half-penny loaves of white bread
by 23s. 4d. and Robert Bakere was deficient by 13s. 4d., and both were sent to the
pillory as well as being fined 16s. 8d. between them. This was a significant departure
in wording and from the usual fines of 3d.–12d. for breaking the assize in that same
year. Oram (ed.), Court Rolls, pp. 179–80.
131 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 102–4.
132 Bennett, Ale, pp. 104–5. Bennett has posited that corporal punishments may have been
under-recorded because it brought no pecuniary benefits to the court, corporation or
 The behaviour of market traders 317

The best interests of the town were not usually served by using pillories
and tumbrels. Instead, money fines were more attractive and could pro-
vide a regular income for a town’s lord. Also, officials probably did not
want to temper a baker or brewer’s productivity since they contributed
to the prosperity and stability of the market. Market traders generally
worked within much smaller margins of error than merchants of luxury
products and could not afford to allow their transaction costs to fluctu-
ate greatly. Rather, market traders needed to spread their risks and keep
costs low. The authorities in Newmarket and Clare seemed to recognise
this and gave market traders a greater margin for error by interpreting the
assizes as a licensing system. This conceit provided traders with a con-
venient legal and moral cover for both potential minor misdemeanours,
while reducing the administrative burden on the court officials and pro-
viding revenue for the lord.133
Presentment for breaches of the assize was so commonplace that it was
not considered a stigma in itself, and many leading residents and local
officials were included in the lists. Indeed, it should not be assumed that
all who were presented broke the stipulations of the assizes and there are
examples where aletasters noted those who sold honestly.134 Even if they
did commit offences, it was seen as within margins that were regarded
as acceptable by the community, especially given the difficulties of the
everyday working environment that all had to face. However, for this
system to work, everyone had to accept that there were moral limits to
these margins. This was not a carte blanche for breaking the assizes.135
It was deliberate, as opposed to unavoidable or technical, transgressions
that were frowned upon and the officials were discriminate in identifying
those offences that the community considered flagrant. Thus, alongside
the main lists for ‘offenders’ against the assize we also see occasional
cases where particularly notable offences were separately presented.
Bennett has argued that offences involving fraudulent quality and false
measures were usually punished more heavily than other trading mal-
practices, mostly with substantial monetary fines.136 Similarly, in Clare
and Newmarket, there were a handful of ale and bread offences which

lord. However, offenders were not usually both pilloried and amerced, and most courts
would have noted why no amercement was being levied.
133 Seabourne is probably right to downgrade the suggestion that the prime purpose of the
assizes was to raise revenue. The varying annual income, as well as the relative lesser
importance of such revenue compared to rents and fines for land transactions, sug-
gests that other motives were equally influential. Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 108
(n. 297), 110–11.
134 Bennett, Ale, p. 3; Hudson (ed.), Leet, p. 30.
135 Bennett, Ale, pp. 162–3; Seabourne, Royal Regulation, p. 110.
136 Bennett, Women, p. 120.
318 Medieval market morality

were recorded outside the assize listings and that did incur heavy censure.
In Clare, in December 1379, three bakers faced distraint and extra fines
because they had baked loaves well below assize stipulations: Robert Bul-
tel made cocket bread deficient in weight by 10s., John Baker by 6s. 8d.
and Sarra Cook by 6s. 8d.137 In 1370, four regular bakers were identified
in December, outside the leet court, for selling bread with false weights.
Cristina Sygor (18d.), John Lydgate (12d.), William Baker (18d.) and
John Baker (18d.) all paid amercements some 6d.–10d. higher than they
normally did during the 1360s and 1370s, which suggests that this was an
extraordinary punishment.138 Similarly, in Newmarket on 5 April 1402,
Thomas Cook was fined 3s. 4d. and John Waleys 12d. for bread weighing
‘below how it ought for 8s.’.139
In Clare, certain brewing offences were presented separately within
the leet court, such as a failure to submit to aletasters or selling ale at
a particularly high price. In July 1371, four brewers were distrained for
selling ale at 3d. a gallon. A further brewer, Cristina Pacher, had been
selling her ale at 4d. and she was distrained and amerced twice during
that year in addition to the usual assize of ale payments.140 Three times
between 1372 and 1374, a large group of Clare brewers were named
and specifically fined for selling ale at an excessive price. In Newmarket,
John Redere’s wife was ordered to pay 4s. 6d. for holding back thirty-
six gallons of ale from local men so that she could sell it at a higher
price to strangers, in a similar manner to Langland’s character ‘Rose
the Regrater’.141 Refusing to sell ale that had been made in bulk was
considered as much an offence as not calling for the aletasters.142 The
case against John Redere’s wife was presented at court because of the
vehement complaints of her disaffected customers.
Beyond the basic assize presentments, courts apparently relied heavily
upon consumer pressure. This highlights the importance of an accepted
moral environment within the marketplace. In addition, competitive
forces were increasingly significant as the number of permanent ale-
houses and inns grew in number in the fifteenth century, providing ale
and bread on a continuous basis.143 Part-time officials would have found
it difficult to keep a track of all victualling traders in such a commercial
environment. Authorities thus relied greatly upon consumer vigilance to
guard against exceptionally fraudulent activities, as well as using compet-
itive forces to ensure self-regulation. The large number of brewers and

137 TNA, sc2/203/62.

138 TNA, sc2/203/60. A fifth irregular baker, Simon Skynnere, was amerced 6d.
139 SRO (B), Acc. 1476/1/8. 140 TNA, sc2/203/60. 141 SRO (B), Acc. 1476/1/14.
142 TNA, sc2/203/59. 143 See below, pp. 335–40.
 The behaviour of market traders 319

bakers in a town like Newmarket or Clare in itself ensured that there was
less opportunity for producers to collude in monopoly practices.144
Nevertheless, local courts asserted legal as well as popular pressure on
their traders. Market towns or franchise holders were required to appoint
inspectors annually to uphold the assizes and brewers were supposed to
summon these ‘aletasters’ whenever they produced a batch.145 There
were cases where brewers failed to send for the aletaster as required by
law. In Clare, William Brokhole and the wife of Peter le Smyth were
attached by 40d. and 80d. worth of ale (at 2d. a gallon) respectively
in order to answer this charge.146 Such rare cases, noted separately in
the court rolls, perhaps indicate that the supervisory mechanisms of the
assizes were taken very seriously and that the community had a collective
interest in ensuring that the authority of the officials was upheld and
respected.147 In Newmarket, only eleven different men served as ale-
tasters from 1400 to 1413 and all were fined 3d. each year they served
for ‘non fecerunt officium’. The same regular amercement was imposed
upon the aletasters of Clare for failing to undertake their office suffi-
ciently. Nevertheless, a number of aletasters were consistently elected to
serve more than once, and in Newmarket all but two served as a bailiff
or capital pledge.
It is likely that aletasting was an onerous duty in towns with so many
brewing households and it is perhaps hardly surprising that many ale-
tasters were amerced for failing to properly fulfil their office. Indeed, this
was a common entry in many medieval court rolls, commonly related to
aletasters failing to maintain the requirements of their oath of office.148
In Earl Soham and Walton, the aletasters, none of whom were brewers

144 Britnell, Growth and Decline, p. 90.

145 Brewers could be amerced for selling before the aletasters were summoned. Ratcliff
(ed.), Elton, pp. 194, 236–8; Pugh (ed.), Court Rolls, pp. 6–7; Ault (ed.), Ramsey,
pp. 183, 188, 191, 195–6, 199.
146 TNA, sc2/203/49.
147 Seabourne notes that ‘failures to present or to comply with the tasters do not seem to
have been common’. Seabourne, Royal Regulation, p. 113, nn. 329–30.
148 SRO (I), hd:68/314 and 484/76 (Horham, 1393–1408); Cambridge, Pembroke Col-
lege, Framlingham Court Rolls c, d1, d2 (Framlingham and Saxtede, 1400–21); SRO
(I), ha68:484/135 (Aldham, 1347–71); SRO (I), ha119:50/3/142 (Bacton, 1413–23);
SRO (I), ha91/1 (Bradfield, 1318–77); SRO (I), ha6:51/4/4.7 (East Bergholt, 1382–);
SRO (I), hb9:50/13/2.1–2.11 (Hacheston, 1347– ); SRO (I), ha246/A1/1 (Higham,
1344–66); SRO (I), s1/10/9.1–9.11 (Holbrook, 1378– ); SRO (I), hb8/1/778–89 (Tat-
tingstone, 1335–); Ratcliff (ed.), Elton, pp. 7, 34, 39, 92, 261, 303, 311, 391, 393;
Powell and Malden (eds.), Carshalton, pp. 22–3; Ault (ed.), Ramsey, p. 178; Lock
(ed.), Walsham le Willows 1303–1350; Lock (ed.), Walsham le Willows 1351–99. Only in
occasional jurisdictions do we find aletasters who are not amerced and are considered
to have ‘presented well and truly and have concealed nothing’. Oram (ed.), Court Rolls,
pp. 241, 251, 282 (Tottenham); Amphlett and Hamilton (eds.), Court Rolls, i, p. xxxvi.
320 Medieval market morality

or bakers themselves, were amerced up to 6d. every year for not keep-
ing their office.149 The office could also be occasionally unpopular and
raise tensions between the aletaster and his neighbours. For instance,
in Clare in 1338, Catherine Pentelowe was amerced 12d. for hindering
the aletasters in their office and abusing them.150 In 1352, Edmund le
Taillour was insulted by Thomas le Mason while undertaking his ale-
tasting and he sought damages as recompense.151 Several other brewers
in the 1360s and 1370s were also amerced for showing contempt to
the aletaster while he was attempting to do his office.152 Similar disre-
spect for the aletaster can be seen in other Suffolk markets, such as in
late fourteenth-century Walsham le Willows, where John Lester, a regu-
lar brewer, twice obstructed the aletasters as they tried to taste his ale,
insulting them, threatening them and even tearing their clothes.153
It is possible that the purpose of the amercements upon aletasters was
to punish them for neglect in their office, which might be expected in
the face of such obstacles. It must have been easy to miss a brewing,
forget a case, or misjudge the quality of a batch. However, the regularity
of the amercement of aletasters in court rolls raises speculation as to the
nature of these annual fines. It could be argued that the standardised
amercement was an accepted financial arrangement to allow aletasters
a margin of liability in their duties.154 They could not hope to inspect
all brewings, especially when they had their own trades to administer,
and thus minor amercements gave them some leeway for error. It was
perhaps comparable to the fixed and regular ‘beaupleder’ fines imposed
upon jurors in thirteenth-century sheriffs’ tourns as a means of excusing
them from a myriad of minor oversights.155 The regularity of fines did not
therefore mean that aletasters were negligent or took bribes. Indeed, ale-
tasters were occasionally upbraided separately for specific corruption.156
In early fourteenth-century Elton (Huntingdonshire), aletasters were fre-
quently amerced for generally failing to perform their office, but there
were also specific, separate accusations of concealment or neglecting to
confiscate inferior ale.157 Most aletasters appear to have performed their
role satisfactorily.158 The more regular amercements of aletasters were
therefore legal fictions, rather like assize amercements, imposed both as a

149 SRO (I), v5/18/1.3–1.4 (1378–99, 1413–22); SRO (I), ha119:50/3/17–19 (1381–
1413).
150 TNA, sc2/203/43. 151 TNA, sc2/203/49. 152 TNA, sc2/203/59–60.
153 Lock (ed.), Walsham le Willows 1351–99, pp. 108 (1370), 149 (1385).
154 Bennett, Ale, p. 161. 155 Brand, Kings, Barons and Justices, pp. 87–90.
156 Britton, Community, p. 100. 157 Ratcliff (ed.), Elton, pp. 34, 92.
158 Seabourne, Royal Regulation, pp. 113–14; Britnell, Commercialisation, p. 96; Bennett,
Ale, pp. 112, 163.
 The behaviour of market traders 321

revenue raiser and for jurisdictional security. Paradoxically, the amerce-

ment can even be seen as a means of ensuring that all brewers accepted
the testimony of the aletasters, because the fines suggested that an ale-
taster’s minor misdemeanours had already been censured in advance, or
at least in retrospect.
Interestingly, the Newmarket aletasters, Peter Brabon, Peter Fedelere,
William Fyschere, John Pepyr, John Pere and John Ray, all presented their
spouses for breaking the assize of ale.159 Similarly, being an aletaster in
Clare did not preclude their wives from brewing and being amerced.
John Ascelote’s wife was amerced in 1344 (though she was not amerced
for the next two years while her husband was in office), John Stoke’s
wife in 1350–1, Robert Turnour’s wife in 1382–3, William Warderobe’s
wife in 1397 and John Priour’s wife in 1415–16, all while their husbands
were serving as aletaster. However, equally, John Porter appears to have
stopped brewing a few years before he served a long stint as aletaster
from 1406, and neither John Costyn or John Ponney and their wives
brewed while they were aletasters in 1416–17 and 1419–20 respectively.
Nevertheless, it has been argued that familial relations might have actually
encouraged cooperation with the court and confidence in the assize of
ale.160 It appears that aletasters were prepared to present all brewers and
that there was no real social stigma attached to being included on the
assize lists.
Overall, the assizes of ale and bread should best be seen in the con-
text that producers were given the opportunity to operate without cum-
bersome and perpetual interference. The rarity of heavy amercements
implies that most acted within the margins of acceptability and breaches
of the assize were regarded as minor offences, with only slight detrimen-
tal effects upon the community. However, certain offences were regarded
as outrages against moral propriety and social justice. If it were deemed
necessary, town authorities were prepared to stamp down on flagrant
lawbreakers within the remit of assize legislation.
Britnell has suggested that the lenient punishments of trading offend-
ers, in conjunction with the regularity of breaches of the assize, mean that
it is inconceivable to think that there was any close connection between
legal and moral precepts in the late Middle Ages. The way that the assizes
were enforced in such a technical manner, with little regard for the detri-
mental effects of traders’ actions, demonstrated a sceptical attitude that

159 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/4, 8, 12, 14, 23, 24, 26, 39, 44, 48. Bennett found the same in
Brigstock; Bennett, Women, pp. 122–3. In Clare, Robert Barker presented his wife for
breaches of the assize of ale. TNA, sc2/203/63–4.
160 DeWindt and DeWindt, Ramsey, pp. 225–6.
322 Medieval market morality

was in contrast to the demands of law and moral writings.161 Indeed,

many medieval moralists warned that the law was not upheld strictly
enough and market traders were negligent of their own spiritual welfare.
If all assize presentments were effectively regarded as taxes by the public
and officials, then moral considerations and criminal associations were
perhaps being negated under such generalised accusations of malprac-
tice. The assizes had become another means of assuaging collective guilt
about not upholding the strictest moral standards in the face of the reality
of everyday life.
However, we should not totally dismiss morals as irrelevant to the
actual conduct and regulation of traders. When there were infringements
considered harmful to the general community, or instances of exces-
sive profit-making beyond the margins allowed by local officials, the
court rolls of Newmarket and Clare show that offenders were punished
quite severely. This was a demonstration of law degenerating into a form
of local custom, which was flexibly interpreted according to parochial
standards and interests.162 Some social ideals remained influential in
such local interpretations of the law, even if many late medieval writ-
ers lamented at the way in which local practice deviated from Church
doctrine. Indeed, the perception of moral boundaries still continued
to be prevalent in towns, especially when trading actions were consid-
ered to be excessively harmful to communal prosperity and ‘reasonable
prices’.
Linked to concepts of morality, assize amercements were sometimes set
according to a person’s ability to pay and many were pardoned because
of their poverty (‘quia pauper’). In other words, a fine for a minor offence
was not expected to affect a person’s means to live; pardons were an insti-
tutional means to show mercy and charity.163 In Clare, there were several
pardons on the grounds of poverty, but most occurred before the Black
Death when perhaps economic conditions were harsher for the average
townsman. Similarly, in Sudbury, the cases of pardons from brewing
amercements due to poverty all occurred before the Black Death.164

161 Britnell, ‘Morals’, pp. 27–9. 162 Ibid., p. 29.

163 May, ‘An index’; Casson, ‘A comparative study’, pp. 206–7, 431–2. A medieval treatise
on court procedures stated that everyone should be fined according to his trepass
‘saving to a gentleman the contenement of his house, to a merchant his merchandise,
to a land-tenant his plough and cart’. Maitland and Baildon (eds.), Court Baron,
p. 101.
164 TNA, sc2/203/112–115, sc2/204/3–20. For other pardons due to poverty, see Baildon
(ed.), Court Rolls, i, p. 121; Pugh (ed.), Court Rolls, pp. 6–7; Lister (ed.), Court Rolls,
pp. 123–4; Marcham (ed.), Court Rolls, pp. 3, 9, 19, 35; Ratcliff (ed.), Elton, pp. 91,
195, 237–8.
 The behaviour of market traders 323

Several brewers also had their amercements remitted by Clare’s court

as a type of occupational perk because they were in office as bailiffs or con-
stables, or because they had provided hospitality and victuals for guests at
the castle.165 For instance, Thomas Cumbwell’s wife was a regular brewer
and twice, in 1388–9, she was pardoned because her husband was serv-
ing as bailiff. Similarly, the wives of John Warde, John Chaundeler, John
Wynchester and Nicholas Parsey were pardoned from brewing amerce-
ments while their husbands held the office of bailiff.166 Whether this was
because they had abstained from brewing as stipulated by the 1389–90
statute, or this was a benefit of the job, is difficult to ascertain. However,
Thomas Cumbwell’s wife, Sara, did pay 3d. in October 1388 which sug-
gests that she was still brewing while he held office during 1388, as were
Adam Stonhard’s wife, Johanna, and John Broun’s wife, Johanna, during
1378–9 while they were bailiffs. Such pardons were also less frequent
by the fifteenth century.167 It is thus possible that some assize amerce-
ments were assessed to fit the ability of the offender to pay them or as
a type of fealty, but this does not detract from the likelihood that most
amercements were part of a more standardised licensing system.

Regrating and forestalling

Brewing and baking were spread across the social spectrum, but those in
the upper strata of the town community dominated regular production.
By contrast, we might expect regrating, as a low-capital venture, to be
concentrated in the hands of poorer sectors of the community, includ-
ing single women. Regraters usually distributed the produce of regular
brewers and bakers, either hawking victuals in the streets or selling ale
by the mugful in temporary or permanent alehouses. An apt definition of
regrating is found in the Newmarket court rolls: ‘John Brunne and John
Ostler are regraters of horsebread, that is they bought three loaves for a
penny and sold two loaves for a penny’.168 However, regraters of bread
were rare in Newmarket and these two men were only fined 1d. and 2d.
respectively for selling at an excessive profit. Regraters of ale were more

165 See also Coleman (ed.), Court Roll, p. 99.

166 These pardons extended beyond brewing: William Darnel for fishmonger offences,
Thomas Bory as butcher, William Paycock as tanner. The same pardons for amerce-
ments due to office-holding, or service to the steward, occurred in Sudbury after
the Black Death (1354–5, 1357–8, 1380, 1385, 1388–9, 1391–2, 1396, 1405, 1430).
TNA, sc2/203/112–115, sc2/204/1–20.
167 Similarly, in Ramsey from the 1380s, there are no mentions of special considerations
or excused fines. DeWindt and DeWindt, Ramsey, p. 226.
168 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/38.
324 Medieval market morality

common than those of food, perhaps because of their social connec-

tion with alehouses. Alehouses were usually a regrater’s or brewer’s own
home, from which they not only sold ale to be taken away in customers’
own vessels, but also vended drink in cups and pots to be consumed
on the premises at rough benches and tables. This is why so many were
amerced for using illegal cup measures. Not all regraters had a sufficient
turnover or home to operate an alehouse from and the more irregular
were probably hucksters who wandered through the streets and market.
Forty-seven Newmarket households were amerced for regrating ale,
with an average of ten presentments per court (see Tables 3 and 7).
Only six regular regraters of ale can be identified, of whom three were
from households of secondary status. Of all the other regraters, six were
from households of primary rank and four were from those of secondary
rank (see Table 5). The presented offenders were mostly wives or single
women, with only three men ever presented for ale-regrating in Newmar-
ket (Simon Baldewyne, Nicholas Hurton and John Odye). In particular,
there were two identifiable single women, Matilda Rokelond and Johanna
Tapstere, as well as the daughters of Robert Barkere, Robert Doushole
and Robert Gateward. The regrating of ale was therefore primarily a
female occupation and generally a more lowly socio-economic trade than
regular brewing; though it may have been merely an initial stage of the
work life-cycle for single women. Overall, ale-regraters in Newmarket
received a higher average amercement than brewers of 7d., with seven
to thirteen offenders presented per session (see Table 7). However, this
average amercement figure was skewed by the fines given to half a dozen
regraters, who faced particularly high average amercements, like the wives
of Robert Doushole, John Greyne, John Odye and Richard Wryte, who
were fined an average of 12.6d., 12.9d., 11.5d. and 6.3d. respectively, and
who may have been working from inns. Figure 25, where most regraters
are clustered in the bottom-left corner of the graph, highlights the point
that most irregular regraters were given relatively low amercements of
2d.–3d.
Comparatively, in Clare, most regraters were amerced 2d.–3d.,
whether they were regular malefactors or not (see Figure 26). There were
many more regraters of bread in Clare, perhaps reflecting the concentra-
tion of baking in fewer hands and the sale of bread from inns and cook-
houses. Also, a greater percentage of regraters in Clare were of primary
or secondary socio-economic status. For instance, Thomas Coupere was
both capital pledge and briefly an aletaster (1383–4) and Adam Glouere
was a capital pledge. Households like that of John and Johanna Ston-
ham were brewing regularly at the same time as they were regrating
bread. However, there were also a significant number of regraters who
 The behaviour of market traders 325

18

16

14

12
Average Amercement (d)

10

8
R2 = 0.2837
6

R2 = 0.4212
4

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Number of Offences

Figure 25: Scatter graph of amercements and ale-regrating offences in

Newmarket, 1400–1413.
Notes: Each point on this graph represents a single household’s number
of regrating offences, 1400–13, and the average amercement for those
offences. For these calculations, a household is considered to consist
of a husband and wife; daughters or sons are considered to be separate
working units. Two polynomial trendlines are presented: Order 2 (black)
and Order 6 (grey).
Source: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48.

are less visible in the records, such as Robert and Margaret Cornmon-
ger, William and Johanna Hunte, and John and Margaret Exale. Looking
further back in the records, certain individuals who had been regraters
in the early 1360s, seemingly moved forward in their business, such as
Peter Colyrob, who went on to become bailiff in 1366 and 1370–1.
Whether the level of amercements was related to the amount of regrat-
ing activity (as with the assizes in Newmarket) or actual offences is
uncertain. The different amercement practices relating to regraters in
Newmarket and Clare are notable, with much more variation and higher
average penalties in the former. It is possible that regraters of ale and
bread in Newmarket were regarded with more suspicion than produc-
ers. The margins of flexibility provided for regular regraters may therefore
have been depressed, even though the potential to make reasonable profit
within the confines of the regulations was low. On the other hand, many
regraters perhaps operated out of alehouses, which may have made super-
vision by officials difficult and possibly encouraged the use of an assessed
326 Medieval market morality

4.5

3.5

R2 = 0.0143
3
R2 = 0.0692
Average Amercement (d)

2.5

1.5

0.5

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Number of Offences

Figure 26: Scatter graph of amercements and regrating offences in

Clare, 1377–1425.
Notes: Each point on this graph represents a single household’s num-
ber of regrating offences, 1377–1425, and the average amercement for
those offences. For these calculations, a household is considered to
consist of a husband and wife; daughters or sons are considered to
be separate working units. Two polynomial trendlines are presented:
Order 2 (black) and Order 6 (grey).
Source: TNA, sc2/203/62–7.

fine based on perceived activity. Certainly, many regular regraters of

ale continued to practise their trade and were seemingly able to cover
their costs, despite being amerced repeatedly in the Newmarket court
rolls. Regraters in Clare were amerced at a much more consistent and
lower rate, redolent of a licensing style but demonstrating little distinc-
tion between different levels of activity. The level of official supervision
in Clare may have been much lower than in Newmarket, thus lead-
ing to standardised amercements. Alternatively, regrating was simply a
lesser activity, as suggested by the lower numbers presented in the Clare
court rolls, and perhaps often combined with other trade and production
activities.
The main anxiety regarding regraters was that they raised prices
through the reselling of commodities. Newmarket was a small town that
relied extensively on the provisioning of travellers, and may have there-
fore ostensibly displayed greater concern about those who made excessive
profits or sold goods at ‘unreasonable’ prices, ranging from ale and bread,
 The behaviour of market traders 327

to meat, fish, tar and candles. Richard Tornor, for example, was amerced
2s. for selling tar at 8d. a gallon, which he had bought in the same mar-
ket for 4d. a gallon.169 However, there is little indication that officials
were actively seeking to stamp out regrating or forestalling through court
punishments. Given the disdainful attitude towards forestallers in the
regulations and literature, one imagines that officials would take a harsh
line against such activities. This does not seem to be borne out by the
court roll evidence.
Numerous goods were forestalled by market traders, but fish was the
commodity most associated with forestalling, with over 80 per cent of
cases in our small towns involving this foodstuff. Fish was an impor-
tant part of the medieval diet, not only during Lent but for the whole
of the year and large amounts were transported inland from Yarmouth
and other fishing towns of East Anglia. Saul has noted that the Clare
households regularly sent fish carts to Yarmouth from Bardfield (Essex)
and Bury St Edmunds.170 Sea-fish was either preserved in salt or brine,
or smoked or dried, while fresh fish was stored in wet reeds and trans-
ported as quickly as possible because of its perishable nature. Conse-
quently, freshwater fish was often expensive and stocks were jealously
guarded. A late fifteenth-century assize specifically stated that no fish
should be regrated or forestalled and should only be sold in the ‘playne
market’. Fishers (meaning those who sold fish, either fishermen them-
selves or fishmongers) were to take only a penny out of a shilling of fish
as profit and were not to sell any fish that had gone bad.171 In Clare,
there were several fishers (or fishmongers) who were regularly amerced
for selling either corrupt fish or at excessive prices in the late fourteenth
century, such as William Norfolk, who was amerced eight times (average
of 6d.). These trading malpractices did not prevent him from officiating
as a capital pledge, constable and bailiff (1391–2 and 1403). His wife,
Johanna, was fined 12d. in 1399 for ‘contemptuously selling ale outside
her home’, while more generally they were amerced twenty-three times
between them for brewing (average 5.2d.). In a similar manner, William
Darnel sold corrupt fish four times between 1384 and 1388, but was only
amerced 2d. on three occasions and on the fourth was excused the fine
because he was serving as bailiff.
In enforcing the forestalling laws, the court officials of Newmarket
and Clare appear to have been similarly ambivalent. In early fifteenth-
century Newmarket, Thomas Cook, John Greyne and John Pepyr all
forestalled fish and meat before the cross to the nuisance of all in the

169 Tar was used as a sheep-salve. 170 Saul, ‘Herring’, 37.

171 BL, MS Lansdowne 796, fol. 5r.
328 Medieval market morality

town.172 John Bogeys of Wilbraham was accused of forestalling sheep

and chickens ‘ad finem ville’ (at the end of town), so that neither the
town nor the neighbourhood were served.173 Overall, only twelve traders
were named as forestallers in Newmarket, but their fines of 1d.–6d.
probably did not cover the value of the goods forestalled, as prescribed
by statute. This was despite a coda following the offences, which stated
that they were ‘ad commune nocumentum contra statutum’. This picture
of leniency is enhanced by a particular sequence of persistent forestalling
conducted by four traders, Thomas Cook, John Leyseter, John Lane
and John Redere. The court finally asserted that things were getting
out of hand when they warned them in April 1411 that they should
no longer offend under threat of a penalty of 40d. each. Yet, by May
1412, three of them were again amerced for the same offences at only
1d. each.174 It can only be surmised that the court initially feared a
monopolistic coalition of four such prominent traders, but that these fears
had receded a year later. Fears of scarcity were thus simmering beneath
the surface of town regulation, yet the court usually reverted to a more
lenient path than statutory requirements demanded. Overall, those who
forestalled or sold meat and fish at excessive prices in Newmarket never
faced penalties above 6d. Most forestallers at Clare also faced relatively
minor amercements of 2d.–6d. for forestalling diverse victuals on the
roads outside the town.175 William Darnel was amerced just 2d. for
forestalling victuals and fish in 1386. Three years later, John Serle from
Honington (north Suffolk) was amerced 6d. for forestalling victuals. In
1390, 3d. amercements were placed upon Richard Pety as the seller and
John son of Sarra Cook as buyer of the same corn before it came to the
market.
It appears that greater opprobrium was attached to forestalling before
and just after the Black Death in comparison to later years. In the
1340s and 1350s, suspected forestallers in Clare were often distrained
to respond to the lord and community and judged by an inquisition
jury, rather than simply presented and amerced. Some were found not
guilty and those convicted were generally only amerced 6d., but the fact
that such offences went through these procedures suggests that offenders
were concerned about damage to their reputation if they were convicted
in court of forestalling.176 The language of the courts stressed that such

172 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/12. If this refers to the market cross, then it might suggest that
forestalling and regrating were sometimes used as interchangeable terms, but it may
refer to markers placed at the edge of the town.
173 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/14. 174 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/39, 44.
175 TNA, sc2/203/63–5. 176 TNA, sc2/203/45–9.
 The behaviour of market traders 329

activities were to the damage of the community.177 In 1351, the Clare

jury presented that Peter le Smyth and Johanna le Pulter bought corn in
‘le Cornhel’ before the set time and all their neighbours had been unable
to have their market share.178 Other notable cases included Robert Bory
and Peter Colyrob, who were both fined 12d. for contempt in forestalling
victuals in 1360, while Alex de Newtone, a cook, faced consistently
high penalties of 12d.–18d. for forestalling various victuals in the early
1370s.179 However, after the 1370s, forestalling appears infrequently in
Clare’s court, with amercement levels consistently below 6d. A similar
pattern can be seen in the small town of Sudbury. For most years in
the 1350s, significant numbers were amerced in Sudbury for forestalling
victuals to the prejudice of the market or community. However, there
were no such amercements just before the Black Death and few after
1370.180
Forestalling was increasingly considered a minor practical problem
in the markets of Clare and Newmarket, causing only moderate price
increases, though it was still considered essentially immoral. Indeed, an
element of the moral stigma attached to forestalling can be seen in the
Clare court rolls in 1360, which recorded a feud between Richard Punge,
an aletaster, and Robert Bory. In July, Richard claimed that Robert
had assaulted him so badly that he had lost his hearing and asserted
that Robert had also called him false and untrustworthy for having pre-
sented Robert for forestalling. Richard claimed that such slander had lost
him credence in the neighbourhood to damages of 20s. The subsequent
inquiry in August found that Robert, along with Peter Colyrob, had been
guilty of forestalling and amerced them both 12d., but Richard Punge
was amerced 6d. for a false plea of trespass.181 Richard would not let the
matter lie and pursued his plea again at the leet court in October. An
inquiry in November agreed that Robert had committed trespass against
Richard, but the plaintiff received only minimal recompense of 6d.
damages. Nevertheless, this incident does highlight the importance of
reputation in the market for both traders and officials. The accusation of
forestalling had aroused Robert Bory’s violent indignation and Richard
Punge was determined to defend his own standing in the community.

177 TNA, sc2/203/50. 178 TNA, sc2/203/49.

179 TNA, sc2/203/57.
180 TNA, sc2/203/112–115, sc2/204/1–20. In Colchester, the amercement of ‘common
forestallers’ was abandoned from 1412. Britnell, Growth and Decline, p. 132; Britnell,
Britain and Ireland, p. 360. DeWindt and DeWindt noted a similar disappearance of
forestalling cases in the court of Ramsey after 1412. DeWindt and DeWindt, Ramsey,
p. 165, n. 56.
181 TNA, sc2/203/56–7.
Table 7. Regraters, cooks and forestallers in Newmarket, 1400–1413

Average Average Average

Number of amercement Number of amercement Number Average amercement
regraters of per regrater regraters of per regrater of cooksa amercement Number of per
Date of court ale of ale bread of bread amerced per cook forestallersb forestaller

26 Apr 1400 13 5.8d. 2 2.5d. 2 2.0d.

9 Oct 1400 8 6.8d. 1 2.0d. 1
5 Apr 1402 13 4.5d. 7 2.6d.
6 Oct 1402 8 6.8d. 1 2.0d. 11 3.5d.
13 Oct 1403 11 8.5d. 9 2.6d. 2 6.0d.
16 Apr 1404 9 6.1d. 3 4.7d. 2 3.0d.
6 Oct 1404 10 7.2d. 4e 4.5d.
9 Nov 1405 10 7.2d. 7 3.4d. 3 3.0d.
28 Apr 1406 9 5.4d. 2 4.5d. 1 4.0d.
6 Oct 1407 9 9.0d. 3 6.3d.
16 Jun 1408 7 6.1d.
3 Nov 1408 8 6.4d. 2 2.5d.
11 Apr 1409 10 7.9d. 1 4.0d.
25 Nov 1409 11 4.2d. 2 2.5d.
16 May 1410 12 9.8d. 2 1.5d. 10 2.6d.
8 Nov 1410 -c 7 2.7d. 5 4.2d. 3 2.7d.
23 Apr 1411 9 10.0d. 5 4.0d. 4 3.5d.
2 Nov 1411 7 9.0d. 5 3.6d.
16 May 1412 -c 16d 3.5d. 5 2.2d. 4 1.0d.
4 Nov 1412 -c 5 3.0d.
16 Jun 1413 8 5.6d. 3 2.0d. 1 -f
Total 172 7.0d. 26 2.4d. 87 3.2d. 28 3.2d.

Notes: a – Cooks sold corrupt foodstuffs (such as fish, meat and other victuals) or at excessive price; b – Forestallers dealt in a variety of goods,
some of which were included under the generic phrase ‘diversorum victualium’, and others which were specifically stated as fish, oysters, meat,
sheep and chickens; c – these cases were perhaps included with the breakers of the assize; d – these regraters were included with bakers selling
contrary to the assize; e – John Pepyr was fined twice, presumably for two different offences; f – no amercement was noted.
Source: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48.
 The behaviour of market traders 331

In a small town, forestalling and regrating were still seen as disreputable

and potentially problematic, but, in reality, few traders had the capital to
hoard enough goods to raise general prices to an excessively harmful level.
Those traders with sufficient capital would deal directly with producers
and buy in bulk, and this was not considered illegal. Forestalling was more
of a survival strategy for poorer market traders.182 The authorities realised
the functionality of certain middlemen and used the legislation to raise
revenue for the lord, while equally recognising that such transgressions
were mostly small-scale affairs intended to turn a quick profit on the
margins of the market. The court was consequently more lenient than
statutory requirements and imposed amercements that seemed worthy
of the offence.

Weights and measures

All petty traders of Newmarket and Clare were subject to regulations
concerning the weights and measures they employed. National legisla-
tion promoted the use of standard weights and measures throughout the
country. All vessels and weights were expected to be checked regularly
by local authorities and marked by a seal, with any improper weights
or measures supposedly destroyed.183 However, this practice was rarely
recorded in Newmarket, with the only instance being when Thomas
Brasyer used false measures that were subsequently seized into the lord’s
hands.184 In most cases, traders were simply fined for failing to bring
their measures to court for inspection. This happened so regularly with
brewers and regraters of ale that sometimes, in both Newmarket and
Clare, the offence was merely combined with breaches of the assize. At
some sessions, the offence was not mentioned at all. When it was listed
separately, there was no consistency about whether traders were fined
1d., 2d. or 3d., even though there were many repeat offenders.
Presumably, if there was a general feeling that the use of improper
measures was getting out of hand, there would have been tougher mea-
sures in court. There were regular instances of the use of improper,
unsealed measures in Newmarket by William Cleydon, William Spyser
(from Haverhill), Thomas Predyngton (from Fordham) and Thomas
Tornor, who all traded in oil and tar. At almost every court they were
fined 2d.–3d. for selling by the wrong measures, or for failing to bring

182 Britnell, Growth and Decline, p. 40; Rigby, English Society, p. 273.
183 E.g. Statutes, i, pp. 201–2, ‘Judicium Pillorie’; i, p. 117, 25 Edw I, Magna Carta c.25
(1297); i, p. 285, 14 Edw.III st.1 c.12 (1340); ii, pp. 63–4, 13 Ric.II c.9 (1389–90).
See pp. 189–96.
184 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/45.
Table 8. Regraters, butchers, fishmongers and tanners in Clare, 1377–1425

Number Average
of Average Number Average amercement Average
regraters amercement of amercement Number of per Number of amercement
Date of court of breada per regrater butchersb per butcher fishmongersc fishmonger tannersd per tanner

13 Nov 1377
5 Oct 1378
12 Apr 1379
18 Oct 1379 3 3.0d.
3 Apr 1380 3 3.0d. 10 9.2d. 1 6.0d. 5 8.0d.
29 Apr 1382 2 2.0d. 14 3.3d. 1 3.0d. 5 3.2d.
6 Oct 1383 3 2.0d. 1 3.0d.
12 Apr 1384 3 2.0d. 14 3.4d. 12 2.6d. 4 5.0d.
10 Oct 1385
7 May 1386 3 3.0d. 19 2.9d. 12 2.7d. 6 3.5d.
14 Oct 1387 4 3.5d.
21 Apr 1388 4 2.8d. 16 4.1d. 7 5.1d. 5 6.0d.
6 Oct 1388 2 3.0d.
4 May 1389 2 3.0d. 16 4.9d. 8 4.9d. 5 6.0d.
21 Oct 1389 2 3.0d.
26 Apr 1390 3 3.3d. 20 3.1d. 20 2.7d. 6 3.4d.
8 Oct 1397
? Apr 1398
8 Oct 1398 4 3.0d.
15 Apr 1399 4 3.0d.
? Oct 1399 4 3.0d. 1 4.0d.
27 Apr 1400 7 3.0d. 5 3.6d.
13 Oct 1400 4 3.0d.
20 Apr 1401 7 2.1d.
9 Oct 1403 5 3.0d.
22 Apr 1404 6 2.5d.
7 Oct 1404 4 4.0d.
5 May 1405 8 3.0d.
10 Oct 1406 6 3.0d.
22 Apr 1407 3 3.0d.
20 Oct 1411 2 3.0d.
19 Apr 1412
6 Oct 1412 3 3.0d.
2 May 1413 2 4.5d. 3 12.0d. 1 12.0d.
14 Oct 1416 2 3.0d. 1 3.0d. 2 4.5d.
21 Apr 1417
10 Oct 1419 2 6.0d.
? Apr 1420 1 3.0d.
14 Oct 1421 4 3.0d. 2 9.0d. 2 5.0d.
20 Apr 1422 1 3.0d. 2 3.0d.
6 Oct 1422 3 3.0d. 2 3.0d. 4 3.0d.
21 Apr 1423 1 3.0d. 1 3.0d.
17 Oct 1424 2 3.0d.
18 Apr 1425 2 2.0d.
Total 114 2.9d. 126 4.7d. 78 3.5d. 36 5.0d.

Notes: a – Regraters mostly sold bread and horsebread against the assize, though some also sold ale from 1404; b – Butchers were accused of
selling corrupt meat and meat at an excessive price; c – Fishmongers sold corrupt fish and fish at an excessive price; d – Tanners sold leather at
an excessive price and badly tanned their leather.
Source: TNA, sc2/203/62–7.
334 Medieval market morality

them to court to be checked. John Smyth of Exning, William Spyser and

John Spicer of Haverhill did not even use a measure to sell oil.185 In Clare
in the 1350s, there were several entries in the court rolls where brewers
were specifically accused of using unsealed measures, such as cups and
bowls, and were each amerced 1d.–2d.186 For some ten years after 1367,
the butchers and chandlers of Clare were fined 1d.–3d. at least six times
for selling by false measures. On the last recorded occasion in 1377, the
penalty for six offenders was increased to 12d. and this seemingly served
as a deterrent for there were no further references to this offence in the
court rolls. It appears that, in cases of false weights and measures, the
authorities were prepared to overlook some persistent offences and show
flexibility in standards, leaving an element of choice in the hands of the
consumer, especially for commodities like ale and tar. Selling ale by the
mugful, or tar in unstandard barrels, meant that an exact correlation of
prices could be difficult for the public. But, equally, customers could
obtain a bargain or a deal of convenience if they were willing to take a
risk in balancing the market indicators of volume, quality and price for
themselves. As already discussed, Newmarket’s officials intervened only
when individual traders overstepped the flexible margins of acceptable
practice. Otherwise, the town courts seemed content to allow irregular
measuring practices to continue, in return for a small fee.
However, an illustration of what the courts considered to be unac-
ceptable practices can be seen in their condemnation of users of the
‘auncel’. The auncel had been banned by statute law in 1351–2 because
it depended very much on the integrity of the trader whose hand did the
balancing.187 At Wentford fair, Clare, in 1362, a ‘false’ auncel and twenty
woollen cloaks were forfeited by Peter Risby.188 By 1390, Clare’s court
issued a by-law, reinforcing statute law, that no one was to use the aun-
cel or else they would face a penalty of half a mark.189 In Newmarket in
1410, John Byrd of Qwye was fined 12d. because he was accused of having
used hand-measures in selling flour in order to ‘fraudulently deceive the
neighbourhood’.190 Thomas Predyton, John Felyp and William Ropere
were similarly fined for not selling ropes and canvas by the balance.191
The courts also kept a watchful eye on bushel measures of grain, indi-
cating a desire to control both the price and marketing of this particular
commodity. John Baker Litil was amerced 6d. in Clare in February 1380
for a substandard bushel. The courts and officials may have been fairly

185 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/3.

186 TNA, sc2/203/49–50. See also SRO (I), hd:68/314 and 484/76 (Horham, 1393–4).
187 Statutes, i, pp. 321–2, 25 Edw.III St.5 c.9 (1352). See pp. 195–6.
188 TNA, sc2/203/58. 189 TNA, sc2/203/64.
190 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/38. 191 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/3, 7, 8, 14, 26, 43.
 The behaviour of market traders 335

lenient about the margins of ale and bread production, but the initial cost
of the grain presumably needed to be protected and less open to fraudu-
lence, if confidence in the market was to remain stable. Thus, in Newmar-
ket in 1403, twenty-four men, probably middlemen from the surrounding
area, were fined either 3d. or 8d. each for using heaped measures when
selling malt, ‘contrary to statute’.192 In Newmarket, it was the regular
victuallers and innkeepers, such as John Redere, William Fyschere, John
Smyth, Thomas Cook, Peter Fedelere, John Waleys, John Barbor and
John Greyne (see Table 9), who were continually warned about bringing
their grain and fodder measures to court. However, despite the persis-
tence of their neglect, they were only amerced 1d.–3d. each time.193

Innkeepers and cooks

Innkeepers and cooks were some of the most prominent and influ-
ential traders in the small towns of Newmarket and Clare. By 1472,
we find thirteen inns or larger alehouses recorded in the Newmarket
account rolls, but evidence of at least half a dozen can also be found in
the early fifteenth-century court rolls, owned by men like John Redere,
Thomas Cook and John Waleys.194 These were not all merely drinking- or
victualling-houses, and a number did offer accommodation to travellers,
as shown by Thomas Playter, whose expenses for a journey to London
in 1459–60 indicated that he paid 6d. ‘for my dyner and horsmete’ at a
Newmarket inn.195 In Clare, there are also occasional references to inns,
such as ‘le Swan’ or ‘Quilters’, which was mentioned in the 1361 court
roll.196 Similar inn names were seen in the late fifteenth-century account
rolls of Newmarket.197
The main medieval drinking establishments were the inn, alehouse and
tavern, each of which provided a particular service. The alehouse was a
drinking house, often temporary, though becoming a more permanent
fixture in many towns and villages by the fourteenth and fifteenth cen-
turies. The tavern offered wine and some food, usually to a higher class
of clientele. Such places were not common in small towns and there are

192 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/14. 193 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/8, 23, 24, 26, 38, 39.
194 SRO (B), Acc.359/3.
195 Richmond, ‘Expenses’, 46. See also Edelen (ed.), Description, p. 399.
196 TNA, sc2/203/57.
197 SRO (B), Acc.359/3. Each was given a name: Angel, Bear, Bell, Bull, Christopher,
Hart, Griffin, Ram, Swan, Sword, Saracen’s Head, Ship, and Fanfair. Other towns saw
a proliferation of inns and alehouses in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see
Searle, Lordship and Community, p. 409; Keene, Survey, i, pp. 166–7; Rosser, Medieval
Westminster. John Lee notes the activities of Cambridge inns in selling firewood, hiring
out horses and buying saffron. Lee, Cambridge, pp. 109, 148, 161.
336 Medieval market morality

only a couple of references in Clare to William Gosenol, Mabilia Boterie

and Isabel Howy selling wine against the assize in 1363–6.198 The inn
provided a variety of drinks, food and accommodation to travellers. How-
ever, any demarcations should not be overemphasised in the Middle Ages
when even alehouses may have provided rudimentary accommodation or
food, while inns in small towns may have been poor cousins to their bor-
ough counterparts. Nevertheless, it seems that all these institutions grew
in number, size and function after the Black Death, with their licensing
first codified in the sixteenth century.199 Britnell noted a growth in the
number of inns, shops and taverns in Colchester after the Black Death.200
Inns also proliferated in late medieval Southwark and Winchester, though
this may have been partly a documentary aberration due to the naming
of these establishments which highlighted them in the records.201 Shops
and inns had long existed in English towns, but the fifteenth century was
perhaps an important period for the development of the ‘public house’
and the village shop.202
Inns were important focal points for social activities in England. This
has been attributed to a decline in private and charitable hospitality after
the Black Death, but perhaps partially reflected increasing standards
of living, the proliferation of petty consumption and the mobile nature
of society. All social groups were increasingly dependent upon public
accommodation and hospitality, while popular activities moved from the
churchyard to the alehouse.203 In his study of the small town of Bran-
don, Bailey identified a large number of inns which existed in 1471, many
of which were associated with suspicious clientele, prostitution, games
and gambling.204 The condemnation of morally illicit activities in inns
was common in regulations and the keeping of a brothel was consid-
ered more heinous than selling at an excessive price. In York, Colchester
and Lynn there was specific legislation to forbid brothels being estab-
lished and to prevent common tapsters from frequenting inns.205 There
was also a suspicion of strangers lodged at inns, inferring a connection
between inns and criminality. Beverley innkeepers were expected to har-
bour only ‘honest folk’ and no one was to stay for an excessive time

198 TNA, sc2/203/58–9.

199 Clark, Alehouse, pp. 6–14; Hunter, ‘Legislation, royal proclamations’, pp. 1–28.
200 Britnell, Growth and Decline, p. 131.
201 Keene, Survey, i, pp. 167, 274; Carlin, Medieval Southwark, pp. 191–200.
202 Dyer, Lords and Peasants, p. 349.
203 Heal, Hospitality, pp. 55–6, 201–4, 229, 238–9, 300, 365; Clark, Alehouse, pp. 23–34.
204 Bailey, A Marginal Economy, p. 169.
205 Prestwich (ed.), York, pp. 16–17; King’s Lynn, p. 268, no. 325; Red Paper Book, p. 19;
BL, MS Lansdowne 796, fol. 5v.
 The behaviour of market traders 337

unless registered.206 A curfew was often imposed on drinking establish-

ments, and innkeepers were answerable for the deeds of anyone who
lodged there for more than a day and a night.207 Indeed, McIntosh has
argued that the increasing local anxieties about disorder and immorality
in late fifteenth-century alehouses and inns was a contributory factor in
the decline of female proprietresses.208 The fifteenth-century court rolls
of Clare certainly provide references to disturbances of the peace taking
place in alehouses.209 However, other direct references to immoral activ-
ities within drinking establishments were not conspicuous in the court
records of either Clare or Newmarket.
Innkeepers of late medieval England were often involved in a variety
of trading activities. A concern of one late fifteenth-century assize was to
ensure that innkeepers did not abuse their occupation by selling goods
at excessive prices. This assize fixed the gain innkeepers could make on
‘provandre’ as a penny on every bushel bought at the market price. They
were to offer a ‘botell’ of hay weighing 7lb. at 1/2d. and charge nothing for
the litter from which a horse could feed. A pot of three pints of ale was
to cost 1d., but if they brewed, they were to sell according to the assize
of ale. Even the dimensions of a faggot of wood were strictly defined
and priced by length and girth. Additionally, the assize stated that no
innkeeper was to bake bread to sell: this was a common prohibition
in town ordinances and drew upon central legislation.210 However, this
prohibition was seemingly not applied to the innkeepers of Newmarket
or Clare, as the offence does not appear in the court rolls of either town
and many of the innkeepers appear to have both baked and brewed.
Indeed, this multiplicity of activity is one indicator of a general trader
or innkeeper, and although the potential innkeepers of Clare are not as
clearly identifiable as in Newmarket, it is possible that John Wode, Elias
Wheler and John Stoke all ran such establishments (see Table 12).
We certainly find several innkeepers in the Newmarket court rolls,
as well as cooks, though where the differentiation between these occu-
pations lay is often difficult to tell. Twenty-eight households were pre-
sented for reheating victuals, selling victuals at an excessive price or being
‘common cooks’, usually of fish or meat. Whether they were regular
offenders or irregular cooks, their amercements were mostly between 2d.

206 Beverley, p. 15. See also Liber Albus, pp. 234, 409.
207 Ratcliff (ed.), Elton, p. 66. See also Liber Albus, pp. 240–1.
208 McIntosh, Working Women, pp. 178–81.
209 TNA, sc2/203/72; Thornton, A History of Clare, p. 104.
210 BL, MS Lansdowne 796, fol. 5v. This was influenced by the ‘Statute of Victuallers
and Hostelers and other Sellers of Victuals’, in Statutes, ii, p. 63, 13 Ric II st.1 c.8
(1389–90).
338 Medieval market morality

and 4d., at an overall average of 3.2d. (see Table 7). Only John Redere
had a slightly higher individual average amercement at 5.3d. Three of
the regular offenders were of primary office-holding status, and even
among the irregular offenders, ten were primary, three secondary and
two were outsiders (see Table 5). It appears that the professional and
regular provisioners of Newmarket can be found among these present-
ments, either running inns, cookhouses or market stalls for victuals.211
It also seems that these establishments were household concerns and
attempting to differentiate between the general roles of husband and wife
is perhaps disingenuous. We can thus examine the ‘prominent victuallers’
and households of Newmarket, defined here as those who appeared in at
least three of the five main listings of offences (see Table 9).
Only five ‘prominent victuallers’ were not from households with pri-
mary or secondary office-holding status. Two of these, Matilda Rokelond
and Johanna Tapstere, were apparently unmarried women (whether sin-
gle or widowed). Their irregular forays into varying aspects of victualling
suggest a huckstering or alehouse lifestyle, as does Johanna’s surname.
Conversely, most of the prominent victualling households in Newmar-
ket constituted a significant element of the governing class of the town.
Sixteen held primary offices and two secondary. Several of these house-
holds baked and brewed regularly or semi-regularly and also cooked and
regrated. Some were certainly innkeepers, and figures such as Thomas
Cook and John Redere were ubiquitous traders in Newmarket who
(together with their wives) paid small fines for myriad offences. These
could total some 2s.–3s. a year.
Peter May has identified John Redere as the landlord of the ‘Hart’
inn,212 while Thomas Cook seems to have rented his tenement from
another resident, as seen in a claim by John Prat for his rent in Novem-
ber 1407.213 It appears that both men ran inns or permanent cookshops
in Newmarket and, consequently, dealt in a variety of victuals. Redere
and Cook also served as capital pledges, while John Redere was bailiff in
1406. Additionally, they were involved in credit dealings and the proce-
dures of debt recovery, acting as pledges for the plaintiffs, as well as being
holders of attachments for the defendants. Their role in community and
commercial administration suggests that they were trusted and promi-
nent members of Newmarket. Nevertheless, they apparently tried many
ruses to make money and were presented for numerous trading offences,

211 A similar trend, towards more general victuallers who sold a variety of foods and goods,
can be tracked in both Durham and the small town of Ramsey in the fifteenth century.
Bonney, Lordship, pp. 149–50; DeWindt and DeWindt, Ramsey, pp. 165, 167–8.
212 May, ‘Newmarket and its market court’, 35.
213 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/28.
 The behaviour of market traders 339

Table 9. The prominent victuallers of Newmarket, 1400–1413

Status Baker Brewer Regrater Cook Forestaller

Simon Baldewyne and wife Pri I ∗ ∗

John and Amicia Barbor Pri S-R R ∗ ∗
Thomas Bette and wife I S-R ∗ ∗
Thomas Bolehed and wife I I ∗
John Chaundeler and wife Pri I I ∗ ∗
Robert Cheyne and wife Pri S-R S-R ∗ ∗
John and Mariot Choun Sec R I ∗ ∗
Thomas Cook and wife Pri R R ∗ ∗ ∗
Richard and Mariot Deke I I ∗ ∗
Peter Fedelere and wife Pri S-R R ∗ ∗
William Fyschere and wife Pri S-R R
John and Beatrix Greyne Sec I I ∗ ∗ ∗
Thomas Maynard and wife Pri I I ∗
John and Matilda Pepyr Pri I ∗ ∗ ∗
John Ray and wife Pri I S-R ∗
John Redere and wife Pri R I ∗ ∗ ∗
Matilda Rokelond I ∗ ∗ ∗
Robert Skynnere and wife Pri R ∗ ∗
John Smyth and wife Pri S-R S-R ∗ ∗
Roger Smyth and wife Pri R R ∗
Thomas Sowcere and wife Pri I R ∗
Johanna Tapstere I S-R ∗ ∗
John Waleys and wife Pri R R ∗ ∗

Notes: Pri: Primary office-holder; Sec: Secondary office-holder; R: Regular offender; S-R:
Semi-regular offender; I: Irregular offender. Where both husband and wife are named in
presentments, they are entered jointly here. The petty traders entered in this table were
listed in at least three of the five stated categories of offences in the Newmarket court rolls.
Source: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48.

which, presumably, were minor enough to be constantly overlooked by

customers. Indeed, in Newmarket, Redere, Cook and other innkeepers
opened their tenement doors onto the market or fair without the licence
of the lord and were fined 3d.–24d. for doing so.214 The court rolls
recorded the reasoning behind such amercements by stating that Robert
Cartere, by opening his door onto the market, had avoided tolls of the lord
to the value of 40d.215 However, licences were made available to those

214 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/21, 23, 34, 38, 39, 42, 44, 45, 48.
215 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/32. Similarly, any Leicester resident who opened their doors onto
the marketplace during the market day, faced fines and even imprisonment. Leicester,
ii, p. 292 (1467).
340 Medieval market morality

who applied for permission to open their doors, such as that obtained
by John Ray in 1413. Enterprising activity can therefore be seen in the
formalisation of inns and cookhouses. These establishments opened on
a daily basis, provisioned both travellers and locals, and gradually their
owners became more diversified in their sales and commercial activities.
Overall, everyday demand was apparently significant enough to sustain
quite a number of inns, alehouses and cooks.
Whereas innkeepers were sedentary traders based in permanent
premises, cooks were more likely to hawk their pasties, pies and roasted
meats in the marketplace, or from market stalls, like medieval ‘fast-food’
vendors. For instance, John and Beatrix Greyne and Richard and Mariot
Deke travelled into Newmarket from Exning and Eriswell respectively
to sell their cooked foodstuffs: roasted meat, pies, pastries and stews.
However, in late medieval England, suspicions surrounded cooks con-
cerning the wholesomeness of their food and practices. National and
local regulations, as well as much literature, depicted a continual fear of
unhealthy or badly cooked food.216 Bailey and McIntosh have suggested
that the proliferation of victual traders did not reduce any suspicions
towards them, but instead, led to more claims of immoral excess and
aberrant behaviour.217 However, the court rolls of Newmarket and Clare
do not show an excessive number of vehement accusations. In Clare,
several cooks were accused of selling unwholesome meat and fish, and
even corrupt candles, oil and butter.218 However, they were only amerced
between 2d. and 6d. each, which does not correspond to the opprobrium
expressed in late medieval laws and literature.
There was perhaps a practical acceptance in local trading communities
of the problems involved with perishability, storage and quality differ-
ences. Several butchers in Clare were accused of selling corrupt meat,
but were fined just 4.7d. on average (see Table 8). William Auncel was
presented nine times in the surviving court rolls for selling corrupt meat
or at an excessive price, but he faced average amercements of just 4d.
Outside butchers from Stanesfield and Stoke-by-Clare also faced aver-
age amercements of less than 4d. In July 1352, John Bory was amerced
3d. for selling an unbaited bull ‘to the damage of all the community’.219

216 See above, pp. 115–16 and 221–2.

217 Bailey, A Marginal Economy, pp. 169–70; McIntosh, Autonomy and Community,
pp. 255–9.
218 TNA, sc2/203/62–7. There are also earlier cases of cooks selling reheated meat. TNA,
sc2/203/49–59.
219 TNA, sc2/203/49. Increasingly, by the fifteenth century, there were town ordinances
that demanded that butchers should not kill any unbaited bulls; baiting usually involved
dogs and was thought to make the meat tender. Coss (ed.), Early Records of Medieval
Coventry, p. 42 (1278); Jeayes (ed.), Court Rolls, i, pp. 96–8 (1330); CLB, k, p. 10
(1423); West Sussex Record Office (Chichester), 6/1/18 hvi Petworth (1440); Great
 The behaviour of market traders 341

Several Clare butchers who were amerced regularly for excessive price
and putrid meat were also capital pledges and jurors in the town, such as
William Auncel, John Bory and William Gapold, while Thomas Skot and
Thomas Bory even served as bailiffs. These were prosperous tradesmen,
in the local context, and their influence may have been significant in tem-
pering the level of punishment. However, it is also possible that a certain
margin was accepted in the dealing of perishable foodstuffs, as long as
it was not considered to be deliberate fraud. Similarly, in Framlingham,
in the first few years of the fifteenth century, there were a few instances
where butchers were accused of selling unwholesome and stale meat ‘in
abomination and prejudice’ but were only amerced 3d.–6d.220
In Newmarket, there was a distinct lack of such presentments for cor-
rupt meat. The election of a meat-taster, Richard Farwell, suggests that
butchering had become an ample trade in Newmarket by the early fif-
teenth century, but there were no regular presentments on the scale of
the assizes of bread and ale.221 Occasionally, there were harsher fines,
like the case recorded in 1421, when William Humfrey of Clare faced
an amercement of 12d. for selling reheated horse meat in the market.222
However, the general level of amercements for commercial offences was
quite low. Figure 27 illustrates that the majority of amercements for New-
market brewers, bakers, regraters, cooks and forestallers lay between 2d.
and 4d. (60 per cent) or 2d. and 6d. (73 per cent), with an additional
few at 8d. and 12d., presumably the more regular traders or innkeepers.
Beyond that it was mostly individual regraters of ale who faced the high-
est amercements, rather than cooks or forestallers. In Clare, it is even
more noticeable that there were just a handful of baking and butcher-
ing offences that faced 12d. amercements, along with some brewers, but
that the majority of offences (60 per cent) were grouped in the 2d.–4d.
range or even the 2d.–6d. range (81 per cent) (see Figure 28). There
was perhaps a generally low level of actual commercial malpractice and
fraud, which has been obscured behind the fiscal nature of the numerous
small-town presentments for trading offences.

Quality and the consumer

There were few other instances of trading infringements in the New-
market and Clare court rolls, beyond the statutory requirements for

Red Book, i, p. 144 (1452); Leicester, ii, pp. 133 (1363), 289 (1467), 321–2 (1489?);
BL, MS Lansdowne 796, fol. 5r (late fifteenth century); Beverley, p. 129 (1510).
220 Cambridge, Pembroke College, Framlingham Court Rolls c, d1, d2.
221 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/31. 222 TNA, sc2/203/66.
 250

200

150

Number of
Offenders

100

50

0
0d 1d 2d 3d 4d 5d 6d 7d 8d 9d 10d 11d 12d 13d 14d 15d 16d 17d 18d 19d 20d 24d 40d
Forestallers 4 9 4 5 1 3 1
Cooks 9 25 24 16 7 2 1
Regraters of Ale 1 6 18 32 21 1 23 4 21 1 3 19 3 5 1 2 4 3 1
Bakers 19 50 62 43 2 28 21 1 8 3 3
Brewers 17 71 89 75 10 42 11 21 9 8 2 18 3 2 2 1 2
Amercement

Figure 27: Frequency of amercements for trading offences in Newmarket, 1400–1413.

Notes: The total number of offences: brewers (383), bakers (240) regraters of ale (169), forestallers (27), cooks (84).
A number of amercements were illegible or not given and they are not included here.
Source: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48.
 600

500

400

Number
300
of Offenders

200

100

0
0d 1d 2d 3d 4d 5d 6d 7d 8d 9d 10d 11d 12d 13d 14d 15d 16d 17d 18d 24d
Tanners 1 2 5 9 13 5
Fishmongers 1 3 16 35 7 15 1
Butchers 1 17 42 44 12 1 9
Regraters of Bread 21 90 3
Bakers 4 16 47 89 59 1 15 9
Brewers 23 8 48 309 349 273 69 28 3 7 48 2 1
Amercement

Figure 28: Frequency of amercements for trading offences in Clare, 1377–1425.

Notes: The total number of offences: brewers (1168), bakers (240), regraters (114), butchers (126), fishmongers (78),
tanners (35). One amercement for a tanner was not given and is not included here.
Source: TNA, sc2/203/62–7.
344 Medieval market morality

assizes, weights and measures, reasonable price, regrating and fore-

stalling. Indeed, there were hardly any indications of the flagrant decep-
tions so vividly described by medieval moralists, and only a handful of
court entries concerning susceptible quality. It is possible that some of the
greater frauds were referred to the royal courts and thus escape mano-
rial court rolls. Nevertheless, within local courts, there were sporadic
instances where offences were evidently considered to be more signifi-
cant, and perhaps more iniquitous, than breaches of the assize. They were
often also brought to the attention of the court by individual consumers,
rather than by court officials, suggesting that more controversial matters
were not always captured by the system of presentment. In the court rolls
for Newmarket, in 1407, Richard Derlyng claimed that Thomas atte Heel
had fraudulently sold him a horse ‘knowing it to be unsound in wind and
limb’ (‘tubiis et membris’) and yet warranting otherwise. Derlyng was
awarded damages, including and above the 10s. value of the horse.223
This was the type of offence that was directly condemned by works like
Ayenbite of Inwyt.224 Another case of quality and deception occurred in
1413, when William Parmenter was fined 20d. for selling insufficiently
tanned leather to Robert Reeshin. This was the highest amercement for a
tanning offence in Newmarket (most were fined just 3d.), suggesting that
the offence was perhaps more flagrant or deliberate than usual.225 The
only other specific example of fraud listed in Newmarket’s court rolls
took place in 1408, when Laurence Horn sued John Baxtere, a stranger,
for damages of 3s. 4d., claiming that he had been sold a brass pot that
was actually made of lead. In fact, the jury decided that it was made of
brass but had been badly cast (‘insipida’) and they only awarded damages
of 4d.226
In Clare, there were similarly few cases of blatant deceit and most
were initiated by individual pleas, which allowed a controversial case to
be dealt with by a specially empanelled jury of inquisition. For instance,
in 1357 John Onyton brought a plea of trespass against Richard Munde
for selling him incompetently tanned leather; they reached a final agree-
ment privately.227 Otherwise, the tanners’ amercements for badly tanned
leather and excessive price appear to have become mere licence fees of
between 3d. and 6d. This had long been the case, with Richard Munde’s
penalties of 12d.–24d. in the 1350s being the exception rather than the
rule. In 1358, William Herde brought a suit against John Jay of Cavendish
concerning fifteen pounds of woollen yarn he had given him for weaving.

223 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/28. 224 Ayenbite of Inwyt, p. 44. See also above, p. 76.
225 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/47. 226 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/20.
227 TNA, sc2/203/54.
 The behaviour of market traders 345

When Jay produced the finished cloth for William it weighed less than
eight pounds, though Jay denied the accusation.228 In 1365, William
Coupere sold and warranted to John Cardemaker a barrel containing
twenty-four gallons of ale, but the ale proved to be defective and John
claimed damages of 13s. 4d.229 Beyond these cases, it seems that the
extent of deceitful trading was either much lower than many moralists
espoused or else traders were exceptionally good at escaping detection.
The above instances also demonstrate that quality was monitored as
much by consumers as by officials, through personal pleas and juries of
inquisition.230 The actions of buyers were very important to the prac-
tices of trade. Dyer has argued that the decisions of consumers largely
conformed to the geographical theories of purchasing, based on choice,
quality and convenience, as well as their own purchasing power and
transport.231 But there were occasional idiosyncrasies in trading patterns
based on personal links, preferences or inadequate information. Con-
sumer awareness and choice were therefore important ingredients in the
mix of trading behaviour. Modern anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, sug-
gested that the reputed links between petty traders and deceitful activities
arose mainly from asymmetry of information in a periodic market econ-
omy, rather than from the uninhibited ‘acquisitive impulse’ of men.232
He argued that when a poor labourer or peasant, with little intensive
knowledge of commercial conditions, bought from a retailer with busi-
ness skills and information, the transaction could arouse suspicions and
accusations based upon ignorance by the customer. This explains why,
in medieval England, there was a widespread need for assizes and official
intervention in the exchange of staple products. The system of the assizes
standardised information that might otherwise be lacking and provided
a basis upon which consumers could assess trading practices and prices.
Equally, the assizes allowed bakers and brewers some flexibility and pro-
tected them from possibly inaccurate accusations of infringements.
Besides official regulatory tools, trading competition and personal rep-
utation were the two main elements of ‘informal’ enforcement and cost
minimisation, and both relied on consumer awareness. Where goods were
widely available in the marketplace, consumer choice could help keep
prices at the level demanded by law. This process of competition required
a market in which the production of commodities was not restricted to a
few. Indeed, a consumer’s role in setting the conditions of a bargain was

228 TNA, sc2/203/54. 229 TNA, sc2/203/59.

230 See also p. 318 for customer complaints against the wife of John Redere, and pp. 79–83
for moralists’ views of customers.
231 Dyer, ‘Consumer’; Dyer, ‘Trade, towns and the church’, pp. 66–7.
232 Geertz, Peddlers, p. 34.
346 Medieval market morality

heightened when there was abundance in vendors and commodities and

reduced when there was scarcity. In times of abundance, traders who did
not conform to expected basic levels of quality and fair price could suf-
fer, for consumers simply took their business elsewhere. But when there
were shortages in either staples or goods with growing demand (such
as meat and wine), officials probably felt obliged to take action as the
circumstances dictated.233
Conversely, for products of elastic demand, like cloth and spices, sell-
ers and buyers were better placed to conduct a process of haggling. In
his studies of the modern towns of Modjokuto (Indonesia) and Sefrou
(Morocco), Geertz observed that haggling was a skilled process that
allowed buyers and sellers to explore their respective market positions and
needs in order to achieve a reasonable, agreed price. Bargaining itself was
not merely utilitarian but could be hedged by mutually accepted moral
and social etiquettes.234 This rendered the process more transparent, for
it enabled buyers to assess the risks and level of trust involved in the deal.
Some moralists, such as John Gower, complained of lies and exaggera-
tion during the bargaining process and an element of this naturally took
place,235 but excessive lies and failure to evoke trust could temper the
possibility of concluding a deal.
In theory, long-term and reciprocal economic relationships (‘clienteli-
sation’) reduced the costs of transacting by imposing their own social
restraints, and would have been actively cultivated by both sellers and
buyers.236 The risks attached to making a bad purchase from an unknown
trader were larger (if also potentially more profitable) than from a known
trader where previous deals had been satisfactory. Reciprocal dealing
would have existed at a high level in the petty trade of towns like Newmar-
ket and Clare, unlike the impersonalised, short-run, maximising deals
between strangers that epitomised classical economic theory and much
modern marketing.237 Few traders would have been actively involved
in flagrant fraud if they thought they would be discovered or if it ulti-
mately lost them business. An illustrative case occurred in West Halton
(Lincolnshire) in 1315, when Cecily Ode called William the Clerk false
for selling unsound ale. The court found that her slander had cost William

233 Britnell, ‘Forstall’, 102. 234 Geertz, Peddlers, pp. 32–6; Geertz, ‘Suq’, pp. 221–9.
235 See pp. 71–2.
236 Plattner, ‘Economic behavior’; Geertz, ‘Suq’, pp. 204–8, 217–21. Douglass North
stated that repeat dealings and personal knowledge of participants lowered transaction
costs. North, ‘Transaction costs’, 560; North, Institutions, p. 51.
237 Modern businesses recognise the worth of reciprocal relationships. They invest in the
advertising of brand-names and quality-assurance as part of the attempt to encourage
customers to engage in repeated dealings.
 The behaviour of market traders 347

some 40d. in sales due to lost reputation.238 The 1435 regulations for
wiredrawers, smiths and girdlers in Coventry extolled the importance
of not using ‘gyle or disseyte’ in their work ‘lest he lost his custemers’.
An imaginary conversation between a wiredrawer and smith outlined
the consequences for those selling deceitful wares: ‘Sir, I hadde of you
late badde wire. Sire, amend your honde, or, in feithe, I wille no more
bye of you.’239 A mixture of rational self-interest and moral integrity
was needed to maintain an economic relationship. According to Geertz,
knowledge of a trader’s personality, family and past became intrinsic to
the exchange and the level of risk, as well as criteria of the law.240 In a
similar vein, Dyer also remarked on the importance of mutual trust and
working for the common good within medieval communities. Traders
who were defamed or ‘lost credit’ through failing to meet their debts
could damage their own precarious livelihoods.241
Medieval consumers were probably, as today, looking for the right
price, choice and quantity, and the flexible conditions of a small town
market might offer potential bargains for those prepared to accept the old
maxim of caveat emptor. But transactors also had the added protection of
a formal court system and of bailiffs watching day-to-day practices in case
flagrant abuses took place. The legal mechanisms of most late medieval
courts were undoubtedly influenced by cultural mentalities of the time.
The language of Clare and Newmarket’s court rolls, for example, reflects
the borrowing of ideas or phrases from Church sermons, moral tracts and
other forms of literature. The clerks of Clare and Newmarket repeatedly
used expressions like ‘for the common good’ and ‘excessive price’ in jus-
tifying the prosecutions of offending traders, even if there was no definite
notion of their meanings or applicability.242 The tag ‘common’ was fre-
quently attached to brewers in the court roll presentments, advancing the
notion that they produced for the common profit or that they were more
regular and professional. Deveson has suggested that the epithet ‘com-
mon’ applied to traders presented for multiple offences, perhaps those
running more permanent establishments as hostelers.243 However, the
term ‘common’ was used generically in Clare and Newmarket for a vari-
ety of bakers and brewers, regular and irregular, and seems to be more
a reminder of their duty to the public and the common good. Overall,
trading offences were recorded in court rolls in a very formulaic way and
generally referred to communal profits or peace. Nevertheless, elements

238 Goldberg (ed.), Women in England, p. 174. 239 Coventry, pp. 180–4 (1435).
240 Geertz, ‘Suq’, pp. 221–9. 241 Dyer, ‘Urbanizing of Staffordshire’, 26–7.
242 Geertz, ‘Suq’, pp. 207–10. 243 Deveson, ‘Medieval Whitchurch’, 105.
348 Medieval market morality

of legal flexibility and personal reputations also came into play beyond
the mere reiteration of substantive law.244
In terms of the presentation of market traders, there was some variance
between the information contained in Clare’s and Newmarket’s court
rolls and the moralistic writings and sermons of churchmen. According
to what the court rolls tell us, traders committed fewer major offences
or deceits than medieval writers implied. The number of exceptional
presentments or controversial pleas every year in Newmarket and Clare
was meagre compared to the mass of trading transactions reflected in the
volume of debt pleas. It is likely that local courts were highly pragmatic
in choosing which infringements they considered to be more important
(for example, those involving grain) and were willing to deal leniently
with minor offences, or leave buyers and sellers to establish their trading
relationships. In the prevailing economic circumstances of the fifteenth
century, small town authorities like those of Newmarket and Clare pre-
ferred a lightly regulated, but efficient and competitive, marketplace, to
the heavily controlled one which medieval writers like Langland and
Gower demanded.

Credit and debt

Credit was vitally important in maintaining regular trade and its vitality
hinged upon the good reputation of its participants and, most impor-
tantly, the ability of the court to handle speedily disputes and small
debts. An examination of the debt pleas in both Newmarket and Clare
reveals the effectiveness of the towns’ market regulations as well as the
informal mechanisms that existed in credit relationships.
A market court was held every two to three weeks in Newmarket and
this institution handled the practical business of the market, particularly
the settlement of debt disputes in personal pleas. These debt cases illus-
trate the diversity of commercial exchange within Newmarket.245 Never-
theless, litigation itself only shows a small percentage of the transactions
that actually occurred, since most were uncontentious. In addition, the
amount of debt litigation is not necessarily a direct indication of the lev-
els of credit at any given time, but rather the number of debtors unable
to make repayments. It is likely that social pressure was often brought
to bear before a dispute became intractable and a debt plea begun.246

244 McIntosh, Controlling, pp. 38–40; Schofield, ‘Peasants and the manor court’.
245 For a discussion of the pleas of the market court, see May, ‘Newmarket and its market
court’.
246 Briggs, ‘Manor court procedures’, 524. For a full discussion of the intricacies involved
in interpreting the evidence of debt cases, see Briggs, Credit and Village Society.
 The behaviour of market traders 349

However, an intricate network of credit is still revealed by the debt pleas,

demonstrating vigorous economic activity and a capital market that oiled
the wheels of trade.247
In the market court, a plea was initiated by the plaintiff either for
debt, trespass, contract, or detention of chattels. Debt pleas accounted
for 85 per cent of known pleas in Newmarket’s courts, some 292 over
174 extant court roll sessions (across fifteen years) being a testimony to
the availability of credit. However, any study of debt records, particularly
in small towns, is hampered by the lack of detail provided by the rolls
and the formulaic nature of the entries. Also, credit in late medieval small
towns rarely involved written financial instruments and most remained
oral and undocumented. In Newmarket, John Farewell and Thomas
Stonham were both ordered to pay their debts when a written ‘recogni-
tion’ was produced, but there were no other instances.248 Of the debts
themselves, seventy-nine pleas gave details, but forty-one of these merely
stated monetary values and it is difficult to know whether these were sales
or money loans. A further twenty-nine concerned deferred payment for
goods or advance payment for goods promised.249 The goods mentioned
in such debt cases included cloth, pots, utensils, sheep, horses, barley,
malt, skins, leather, wool, pepper, onions, oats and a saddle. The remain-
ing nine pleas involved rents, services, amercements or arrears. It appears
that only a minority of pleas were initiated by non-traders since a signif-
icant majority of claimants were designated as ‘mercator’. Although in
some cases this was clearly a secondary occupation, the label confirmed
the trading context of the plea.
The commercial nature of many of the pleas in the Newmarket records
is also suggested by the value of the claims, as represented by either the
stated amount or the value of detained goods. In either case, the major-
ity of pleas were over 2s. and a very significant number were over 10s.,
amounts that indicated exchanges much larger than those merely for
personal consumption (see Table 10).250 Additionally, two deals involv-
ing sheep for £3 and 50s. respectively, and another for wool for £6 2s.
6d., show that the nominal upper limit of 40s. for local debt cases in

247 Clark, ‘Debt’; Schofield, ‘L’endettement’; Postan, ‘Credit’.

248 In theory, a manorial court did not have the competence to test the validity of written
instruments except tallies. Schofield, ‘L’endettement’, p. 81.
249 Newmarket appears to have been more commercialised than Whittle, where Clark
identified 50 per cent of all debts as involving credit sales. Clark, ‘Debt’, p. 254.
250 Postles found that 47 per cent of loans at Loughborough involved debts over 5s., while
in the villages of Kibworth Harcourt and Kibworth Beauchamp only 30 per cent were
over 5s., and in the village of Barkby only 3 per cent. Postles, ‘An English small town’,
17–18.
350 Medieval market morality

Table 10. Value of debt pleas in Newmarket courts, 1399–1413

<1s. 1s. 1d.–2s. 2s. 1d.–5s. 5s. 1d.–10s. >10s.

Stated values 3 8 14 22 22
Attachments 15 17 36 40 53

Notes: The actual value of the debt claim, whether for money or goods, is known
in sixty-nine cases, and these are shown as ‘Stated Values’. An approximate
value of the debt plea can also be ascertained by reference to the value of the
attachment, which varied according to the particular case and often mirrored
the debt claim where both values are specified (but could also be merely the
items that were available to be attached at the time). These are listed under
‘Attachments’.
Source: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48.

Table 11. Value of debt pleas in Clare courts, 1377–1422

<1s. 1s. 1d.–2s. 2s. 1d.–5s. 5s. 1d.–10s. >10s.

Stated values 14 15 15 17 26

Notes: The value of the debt plea is known in seventy-seven cases.

Source: TNA, sc2/203/62–7.

manorial courts was not always adhered to.251 Nevertheless, most debts
over 40s. (mostly long-distance trade) were probably handled in central
or large borough courts, while the majority of cases in Newmarket were
transactions of petty trade.252 For instance, there were several credit-
based exchanges of animal by-products, from butchers to tanners or
chandlers.253 Similarly, small grain transactions are documented within
debt pleas: John Coupere, a brewer, was a defendant in a debt case with
a dealer in barley, Ralph Parker; and Robert Cheyne, a cook, was twice
in debt within a year and a half to John Bakere, a maltster, probably from
Cambridge.254
The borough court of Clare handled debt cases in a similar fash-
ion to Newmarket and, again, a significant number of claims were over
10s. in value (see Table 11). 517 debt pleas can be discerned from the

251 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/16, 43; Beckerman, ‘Forty-shilling’, pp. 110–17.

252 For instance, in 1390, John atte Mere of Newmarket owed John Hadde, citizen and
draper of London, £8 6s. 8d., either registered in Chancery or sealed under a recog-
nisance of the Staple of Lynn, and Chancery issued a writ for the recovery of the debt
and imprisonment of Mere. TNA, c131/208/3, 14.
253 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1, 16, 29. 254 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/35, 36, 40.
 The behaviour of market traders 351

surviving Clare courts for the years 1377 to 1422. Taking into account
the missing court rolls for both towns, this is comparable to the number
of debt cases per year presented in Newmarket. Nominally, there were
19.5 debt cases per year in Newmarket, but to this figure can be added
pleas of contract and the majority of the unknown pleas, so the final
average is closer to twenty-six, which is just above the average number of
debt cases per year in Clare (around sixteen to twenty). This is perhaps
surprising given the larger size of Clare, but it is perhaps an indication
of just how commercialised and organised Newmarket and its courts
had become. The Clare pleas are generally less informative than those
in Newmarket, but some useful material can be gleaned. There were
some 264 different plaintiffs and 267 different defendants in the Clare
debt pleas, demonstrating the wide use of the court. Of these, some forty
were plaintiffs in three or more cases and thirty-seven were defendants
in three or more cases. Some notable individuals can be identified from
those who appear most in debt pleas (five or more as either a plaintiff or
defendant).
Table 12 almost reads like a Who’s Who of Clare’s society and the
men who dominated the local community. William Orgon, a prominent
butcher who was often amerced for selling meat against the assize, seem-
ingly had ongoing transactions with skinners, tanners, cooks and other
butchers in the town, some of which led to debt cases. One debt plea for
John Chapman in 1407 sought to gain payments of 7s. 6d. and 5s. for
meat and herring sold to John Grey some five years previously. In 1411,
he also recognised a debt of 18s. 9d. owed to John Caketon.255 It was this
group of creditors and debtors who were involved in many of the pleas for
large sums: Thomas Coulyng faced claims for debts of 42s. and 12s., one
of which at least was for woollen cloth, while Giles Strut had a debt of
42s. 8d. As plaintiff, Hugh Fraunceys was owed some 23s. by a butcher
of Clare. However, it is noticeable that, apart from Hugh Fraunceys,
John Burgeys, Agnes Imberd and William Orgon, those who pursued
debt pleas most often were men who had served as officers within the
town.
A number of the Clare debt pleas identify the commodities of trans-
action, such as woollen cloth, spun wool, barley, malt, straw, bark, pigs,
calves, meat and herrings. One credit exchange for 8s. worth of calves
even stipulated that they were bought on 2 May 1420 and would be paid
for on 26 May. The claim for an unpaid debt was sent to inquisition
on 17 June.256 Additionally, Clare had several pleas which were judged
according to lex mercatoria. Merchant Law was used in five cases, from

255 TNA, sc2/203/65. 256 TNA, sc2/203/66.

352 Medieval market morality

Table 12. Regular debtors and creditors in Clare, 1377–1422

Plaintiff Defendant
(no.) (no.) Officesa Occupation

John Baker Litil 6 7 CP, J, A Baker

William Baker 9 2 B, CP Baker
John Barker 3 6 Tanner?
William Brokhole 7 1 B
Imbert Brus 5 0 B, CP, A
John Burgeys 11 3 Butcher
John Chapman 7 5 CP, J Merchant
Thomas Coulyng 2 6 A Cloth-merchant
Alex Eustace 7 0 C, CP, J
John Fadirless 5 2 B, C, CP, J, A
Hugh Fraunceys 8 0 Merchant?
John Fuller 5 1 CP, J Thatcher
Agnes Imberd 5 0 Brewer
William Orgon 7 5 Butcher
William Praty 5 1 CP, J, A Cloth-merchant
John Robat 4 8 Fishmonger
Thomas Scot 5 7 B, CP Butcher
William Smyth 6 0 C, CP
John Stoke 5 1 B, CP, A Innkeeper?
Adam Stonhard 5 1 B, CP
Giles Strut 1 5 CP, J
Elias Wheler 0 5 Brewer/Innkeeper?
John Wode 2 5 B, C, CP, J Brewer/Innkeeper?
William Wryghte 1 9 Butcher?

Notes: This table includes all individuals who appeared at least five times either as a plaintiff
or a defendant. Offices are listed if they served at least once: a – bailiff (B), constable (C),
capital pledge (CP), juror ( J), aletaster (A). It is not possible to assign occupations to all
these individuals. Those which have been designated are taken from references in the court
rolls and assize amercements. It is possible that they undertook more than one trade or
changed trades during this period.
Source: TNA, sc2/203/62–7.

1377 to 1422, all for fairly substantial amounts (3s., 5s., 5s. 8d., 7s.
and 21s. 6d.).257 Thornton has argued that these pleas emanated from
a separate market court held by burgesses for the speedy settlement of
trading disputes in the market or fair; there are just a couple of references
to such a court in the 1340s but it may have continued in the hands of
the burgesses.258 Instead of viewing it as separate court with different

257 TNA, sc2/203/40, 62, 64. 258 Thornton, A History of Clare, pp. 37–8, 177.
 The behaviour of market traders 353

officials or court rolls, it is more likely it was an exceptional subsidiary

of the borough court that allowed Merchant Law and piepowder pro-
cedures to be utilised at short notice. It was held infrequently and the
results were collated at the borough court. Clare either did not have the
level of business or little inclination to constitute a market court more
formally in the manner of Newmarket.
Overall, the commercial bias of debt pleas in Newmarket and Clare
is perhaps unsurprising, given their dominant market profiles. The fol-
lowing summary of the local commercial credit system is based mostly
around Newmarket, but relevant comparisons are drawn with Clare. In
all, there were 204 different plaintiffs and 195 defendants in Newmar-
ket debt cases, including thirty-nine plaintiffs and thirty-four defendants
who resided outside the town. In addition, fifty-four plaintiffs made two
or more pleas, of whom eight were of primary status and twelve of sec-
ondary. Similarly, of fifty multiple defendants, there were only four of pri-
mary status and six of secondary. This tentatively suggests that wealthier
Newmarket residents were more likely to be creditors, but not exclusively.
Indeed, a number of higher-status individuals were involved in debt cases
as both plaintiffs and defendants.
Women were also not excluded from pleading, but only a handful
of debt cases in Newmarket show women as sole plaintiffs or defen-
dants. It is possible that most of these women were widows or single
women, and that husbands generally acted as legal representatives for
their wives in debt pleas.259 Beatrix Skynnere was certainly a widow
when she appeared as a defendant in 1406, while Matilda Rokelond,
Cristina Croxton, Mariot Fokes, Elisabeth Brunne and Amicia Leeff can
also be identified as single women at the time of their debt cases. Con-
versely, Dionisia Petrych was actually named with her husband when
she appeared as a debtor in 1403, as was Agnes Tapstere (and her hus-
band) in a plea of broken contract in 1409. The evidence of the rolls,
however, suggests that men were considered to be the primary suit-
ors in court and this makes it very difficult to estimate the true extent
of female credit participation. There were no provisions for femme sole
and independent agency in Newmarket. This does not mean that wives
were not involved in debt and credit relations, merely that their husband
had legal responsibility. Married women would have had the support of
their husband’s capital and credit networks, as well as his representation

259 Bennett found that no married women appeared as parties to pleas of debt or bro-
ken contract in Brigstock. Mostly it was single or widowed women. Bennett, Women,
pp. 110–11.
354 Medieval market morality

in court.260 However, conversely, this might have affected assessments

of risk and marginalised women’s ability to obtain credit on their
own.261
On many manors, it appears that few women were involved directly
in credit relations, usually less than 10–15 per cent of all litigants if the
evidence of debt records is a valid indicator.262 This situation appears
to pertain in Clare, where thirty-three different women appear across
twenty-four debt cases as plaintiff and twenty-two as defendant, which
together constitute some 9 per cent of all cases and 5 per cent of par-
ticipants. The most notable female individuals in Clare were Matilda
Hale, Margaret Coulyng and Agnes Imberd, who all appear in debt
pleas more than once, with Matilda and Margaret acting as both plaintiff
and defendant in separate pleas. Matilda Hale’s debts were sometimes
fairly substantial, ranging from 1s. to 12s., while in one case she was
owed 4s., though this was well below the level of many debts incurred by
male suitors. Margaret Coulyng was certainly married, but it is uncertain
whether the other two were; all were amerced several times for brewing
and selling ale. It is possible that their debt pleas were related to the
ale trade, both in purchases of malt and in sales credit. However, this is
only a supposition because the cases rarely provide details of the reasons
behind the debt. Nevertheless, there is another example of a common
female by-occupation when Margaret Praty claimed 3s. from Thomas
Haner in 1379 for spun wool.263 In all forty-six cases the woman is solely
named; there are only five additional cases where the husband and wife
appear together, which appears to be an exceptional arrangement. This
does not mean that all these other women were single or widows and,
indeed, some can be identified as married, which suggests that in certain
commercial pleas they could act alone, effectively operating as femme
sole even if this privilege was not formally enrolled. It is also notable
that women acted as executors of their husband’s wills, such as Avelena
Imberd who defended a significant debt claim from John Seler in 1401
for £4 10s. of woollen cloth.264 The courts were certainly not closed to

260 McIntosh, Working Women, pp. 96–7.

261 Briggs, ‘Empowered or marginalized?’, 23–5. Briggs argues that the role of women in
credit relations may have been greater during the sixteenth century. See also Muldrew,
Economy of Obligation. Bennett and Mate have both suggested that the popular depiction
of alewives as corrupt and deceitful may have affected the credit-worthiness of women.
Bennett, ‘Misogyny’; Mate, Daughters, Wives and Widows, pp. 66–7.
262 Briggs, ‘Empowered or marginalized?’, 13–15; Clark, ‘Debt’, p. 252; McIntosh, Auton-
omy and Community, p. 219; Postles, ‘An English small town’, 28.
263 TNA, sc2/203/64. 264 TNA, sc2/203/65.
 The behaviour of market traders 355

female suitors in Clare and some took advantage of this to engage in credit
dealings.
The use of credit did involve a wide range of people and traders from
various backgrounds. Some historians have noted that in rural courts,
vertical ties of dependence were common because loans were mainly
for consumption and were made repeatedly from wealthier to poorer vil-
lagers. However, Chris Briggs has challenged this traditional view and has
highlighted the extent of horizontal borrowing in the medieval villages
of Cambridgeshire, often for investment as much as consumption.265 In
market centres we would similarly expect to find a broad pattern of hori-
zontal indebtedness where parties acted as both debtors and creditors.266
In Newmarket, thirty-four people were both creditors and debtors. This
included five of primary status, ten of secondary status and three out-
siders. Nearly all of them were involved in capital-intensive trades, as
can be identified by cross-referencing the information within the court
rolls. These trades were: six barley, malt or grain dealers; eight butchers,
leather or livestock dealers; seven ‘prominent victuallers’ or innkeepers;
four cloth traders; two spicers; a saddler; and a timber trader. Capital
flow was dependent upon complicated commercial relationships and the
welfare of creditors and debtors was interlinked.267 Like clientelisation
in exchange, the use of credit in a town like Newmarket involved a level
of trust, which could be diminished by the failure of one party to keep
to an agreed schedule. Additionally, in petty trade, it is unlikely that
a creditor wanted individual debts to mount up, since debtors would
then control too much of his capital and the risk of default was also too
great for the creditor to bear the financial burden.268 Reciprocity was one
means to temper this liability, with repeated credits and debts effectively
cancelling each other out. Unless there was a reciprocal movement of
money and commerce, which kept the overall debt small, most traders
probably preferred to recoup their debts at regular intervals.269 In the
Clare court rolls, for instance, many of the named commodity debts
were brought to court around Easter, when accounts were traditionally
settled.270

265 Briggs, Credit and Village Society.

266 Clark noted a high level of horizontal and reciprocal debt at Writtle, reflecting a
relatively significant amount of commercial activity. Clark, ‘Debt’, pp. 264–71. See also
Britnell, Growth and Decline, p. 104. Kowaleski noted otherwise in Exeter. Kowaleski,
Local Markets, p. 108.
267 Clark, ‘Debt’, pp. 269–70; Geertz, Peddlers, p. 37.
268 Dyer, Standards, pp. 179–80; Schofield, ‘L’endettement’, p. 77.
269 Geertz, Peddlers, p. 37. 270 TNA, sc2/203/66.
356 Medieval market morality

Personal plaints began by an oral approach to the court officers and

then the defendant was summoned. They were allowed five essoins
(excuses), one at each consecutive court, before they had to appear before
the court and answer the plea. John Skynnere and Richard Gardyner, for
example, both lost cases because they failed to appear at one of five con-
secutive Newmarket court sessions.271 During this time distraint could
be taken and personal pledges found for their attached goods. Pledges
might be required at other points during the plea for both the plaintiff
and defendant. There were then several ways by which a debt plea pro-
ceeded in court: the defendant defaulted by failing to appear; the plaintiff
withdrew his plea; the defendant recognised the debt; both parties agreed
to a private settlement away from the court (‘licentia concordandi’); or,
if the defendant denied any liability, the case was decided by a jury or the
‘waging of one’s law’ (compurgation). In Table 13, a large percentage of
the known cases for Newmarket (35.6 per cent for debt pleas) led to a
request for a licence of concord, whereby the defendant paid 3d. and the
parties were allowed to reach a private settlement outside the court. In
these cases, both parties would have weighed up the costs and benefits
of ending a plea early compared to pursuing the more fulsome mecha-
nisms of the court for dispute settlement. In a further 23.8 per cent of
debt pleas, the defendant appeared at court (‘ponit se’), but no further
decision was recorded, perhaps implying that an agreement was reached
privately without using any further mechanisms of the court, or that the
defendant had recognised the debt and agreed to pay.272 This could also
be the reason for the 13.8 per cent of cases where a plaintiff did not pros-
ecute after initially bringing the plea. Alternatively, the plaintiff may have
realised the futility of continuing the plea to a successful conclusion. In
these instances, the plaintiff was liable to pay an amercement to the lord’s
coffers. Generally, the figures for ‘debt pleas only’ are similar to those for
all pleas, as can be seen in Table 13. Interestingly, if a decision was taken
by the court, as in 22.7 per cent of ‘all pleas’, it was four times more
likely to go in favour of the plaintiff. In debt cases this ratio increased
slightly to 5:1, with 26.8 per cent of debt pleas being decided within the
court.
It is possible that many plaintiffs merely tried to spur defendants into
agreeing to a licence of concord by initiating a plea. The conclusive bias of
court decisions in favour of plaintiffs may have left most defendants with

271 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/16.

272 May argued that ‘ponit se’, entered above a defendant’s name, meant that the court
agreed that the case could be settled privately; May, ‘Newmarket and its market court’,
37. However, if there are no further mentions of the case, it can only be surmised that
the defendant either admitted liability or else a private settlement was reached.
 The behaviour of market traders 357

Table 13. Debt plea decisions in Newmarket, 1399–1413

Debt pleas All pleas

No % No. %

Defendant to settle privatelya 72 35.6% 127 39.4%

Defendant presents himself at courtb 48 23.8% 78 24.2%
Plaintiff does not proceed 28 13.9% 44 13.7%
Decision in favour of plaintiff 45 22.3% 58 18.0%
Decision in favour of defendant 9 4.5% 15 4.7%
Sub-total 202 322
Unknown outcomec 90 140
Total 292 462

Notes: a – this generally referred to a licence of concord; b – a defendant appeared

before the court (‘ponit se’) but no further action was taken or noted; c – several
cases were initiated by the plaintiff but there was no further mention or detail
in the court records; ‘All pleas’ includes 118 pleas of unknown type, twenty-one
trespass, fourteen contract, eight detention of chattels and nine miscellaneous.
Source: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48.

little choice. If a defendant did deny liability, they had two basic options.
The first course was waging law, or compurgation, which involved the
testimony of a certain number of ‘sufficient’ men as to the good character
and honesty of the defendant. They were, in effect, character witnesses
and could be used when no firmer written or oral proof was available. If
a defendant met the requirements of the court for a certain number of
wagers, then he was quit of all charges. In Newmarket, eleven debt cases
were concluded by a defendant waging their law, while in Clare, there
were four (between 1377 and 1422), with each case requiring a different
number of pledges (from three to six).273 The weakness of compurgation
was that it might favour residents against outsiders, as well as those
of higher socio-economic status. For instance, in Newmarket, when a
servant pleaded against John Beck for 5s. worth of unpaid services, the
latter man had sufficient social status to be able to successfully wage his
law with six hands. However, this system did not necessarily prejudice
outsiders, provided they had local connections; in Clare, in 1377, John
Sadeler of Newmarket successfully waged his law with three hands that
he did not owe 18d. to Reginald Colemaker.274

273 TNA, sc2/203/62, 65. 274 TNA, sc2/203/62.

358 Medieval market morality

The other alternative for defendants was a trial by an ‘inquisition’

jury of twelve men. This occurred in Newmarket on thirty-eight occa-
sions in debt pleas and the jury could either uphold the plaintiff’s plea
or decide that they had brought an unjust plea. It could be argued that
the formalisation of the jury system encouraged plaintiffs to litigate in
the expectation of more predictable results.275 Certainly, Newmarket’s
court rolls give no indication of dissension against the decisions of juries
and the vast majority of decisions went in favour of the plaintiff. There
were, however, occasional problems in gathering twelve jurors to judge
the case, with groups of them defaulting at the allocated time. The fines
for shirking jury-duty were low at first, indicating that the authorities of
a town were sympathetic to the problems of time-management. How-
ever, the bailiffs who organised these juries were also anxious to uphold
the integrity of the market court and protect the court’s ability to con-
clude cases. Thus, continual delays could lead to severe penalties of 2s.–
3s. being threatened and sometimes enforced on persistently defaulting
jurors.276
Judging by the evidence, market court officials attempted to deal with
cases as swiftly as possible. Most cases in Newmarket were initiated at
one court session and a decision about the procedure to be adopted,
including licences of concord, was heard at the next court a fortnight
or so later. From the initial plea to a final conclusion, the time span
varied from six to twenty-one weeks, depending partly upon the number
of sessions during that period. However, the majority, even those partly
delayed, were completed within three months.277 A further facility was
available to some plaintiffs to call the defendant five times during one
session. There were fifteen instances of this procedure in the Newmarket
court rolls, including some in the fair court, such as between Thomas
Tenersham and Peter Wanton on 29 October 1408. Similarly, on 3 July
1408, Walter Truyt failed to appear after being called five times in a plea
brought by John Grase.278 Although the term was not used in the rolls,
this procedure was the equivalent of a ‘piepowder court’, which allowed
a speedy decision for plaintiffs who might have business elsewhere.279
Outside of the fair, plaintiffs presumably had to show good reason to

275 Beckerman argued that there was an increasing use of trial juries in manorial courts
from the late thirteenth century, replacing the hitherto dominant role of the whole
body of suitors and encouraging more litigation; Beckerman, ‘Procedural innovation’.
276 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1, 6, 7, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 25, 28, 35, 36, 43, 46, 47.
277 In the manorial court of Oakington, Briggs found that most pleas, in the period 1351
to 1380, took under six months to complete. Briggs, ‘Manor court procedures’, 541.
278 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/29. 279 See p. 208.
 The behaviour of market traders 359

demand such a piepowder court, which was potentially disadvantageous

for defendants.
The court rolls of Clare are much less informative than those of
Newmarket regarding debt cases and seemingly less intensive in their
enforcement mechanisms. Nevertheless, the following observations can
be made. Plaintiffs could initiate pleas upon payment of 1d.–3d.280 Fur-
ther amercements were required at the second (3d.–4d.), third (3d.–6d.)
and fourth (6d.–12d.) summons, but it is not clear whether this was
payable by the defendant or plaintiff. Plaintiffs were, however, charged
an additional 2d.–4d. if that plea was found to be false or if they failed
to pursue the prosecution. Defendants faced amercements of 2d.–6d. if
the inquisition found against them, in addition to payment of the debt
and damages. Defendants could be distrained to encourage attendance,
and the court rolls suggest that they could be summoned up to five times
before they forfeited any attachment. Giles Strut was exceptionally called
five times before he recognised a debt of 42s. 8d. to Nicholas Andrew, but
he also had to pay 12d. damages on 15 December 1416. John Casse was
called four times between 8 October and 24 December 1397 to answer
Thomas Gerold in a plea of debt, before they decided to pursue a pri-
vate agreement through a licence of concord on 28 January 1398. John
Belcham and William Vynt took four summons and nearly six months
(2 August 1412 to 14 January 1413) before they too accepted a private
settlement.
Licences of concord were the most dominant form of debt settle-
ment in Clare, with some 66 per cent of pleas being settled privately (see
Table 14) after a payment of 2d.–3d., probably by the defendant. In addi-
tion, there were forty-two recognitions by the defendant that they were
liable for the debt and the cases are no longer pursued after a payment
of 2d.–3d. by the debtor and an order that payment be levied. It may be
that in these cases the level of proof was strong enough to ensure that the
defendant did not dispute the claim. Yet, equally, in a large number of
cases (14 per cent) the plaintiff failed to proceed with the prosecution by
not appearing in court to pursue their plea. In another sixty-nine cases,
the debt was disputed and several options were used. In fifty-six cases the
plea was considered through an inquisition by jury, while six followed the
procedures of law merchant, and five were resolved by compurgation. On
two further occasions the defendant defaulted by failing to appear. As
in Newmarket, there does appear to have been some difficulty in getting

280 By comparison, Briggs found in his village case studies that, unless the case was lost,
plaintiffs were not charged by the lord for initiating debt litigation. Briggs, Credit and
Village Society, p. 13.
360 Medieval market morality

Table 14. Debt plea decisions in Clare, 1377–1422

Debt pleas

No. %

Defendant to settle privatelya 334 66.1%

Defendant recognises debtb 42 8.3%
Plaintiff does not proceed 72 14.3%
Decision in favour of plaintiff 29 5.7%
Decision in favour of defendant 28 5.5%
Sub-total 505
Unknown outcomec 12
Total 517

Notes: a – this generally refers to a licence of concord; b – a defendant appeared

before the court and recognised that he/she was liable for the debt, which the
court ordered should be paid; c – several cases went to inquisition but there was
no further mention or detail in the court records.
Source: TNA, sc2/203/62–7.

the juries to assemble to inquire into debt cases and there are several
cases of non-appearance by jurors, leading to individual amercements of
2d.–4d. However, there are forty-five inquisition cases where a decision
can be discerned or is implied. In eleven cases the outcome is not known.
In nine cases the jury assessed the amount of debt and damages, which
suggests that a decision was made in favour of the plaintiff. In inquisition
cases, plaintiffs and defendants are almost equally balanced in achiev-
ing favourable outcomes. However, when law merchant was employed
in six cases, to quicken the proceedings, then plaintiffs invariably proved
successful (in five out of six), while the opposite was true for the five
occasions when compurgation was used (four for the defendant and one
unknown).
Newmarket and Clare officials enforced the decisions of the court
through powers of distraint and attachment. To ensure the defendant’s
compliance upon the initiation of a plea, the bailiff retained property
from the defendant as security. Any defaulting defendant forfeited their
attached goods. These attachments mirrored the value of the debt being
pleaded, though they also reflected what was available to be attached at
the time. This accounted for the prevalence of horses (52 per cent) as
attached items in Newmarket, which were a vital tool for the itinerant
trader (see Figure 29). Other prominent attachments, such as meat,
leather and grain, illustrate the commercial property of the debtors. There
 The behaviour of market traders 361

Misc.

Horses

Money

Leather/
Skins

Meat

Horses Meat Leather/Skins Money Grain/Barley Cart Shops/Stalls

Cloth Foodstuffs Utensils Other Livestock Miscellaneous

Figure 29: Attachments in Newmarket debt cases.

Source: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48

were even attachments of market stalls.281 Similarly, in Clare, the items

distrained in debt cases, from 1377 to 1422, included horses, woollen
cloth, skins, pots, bowls, clothes, boots, cards, a pair of shears, a cart,
pigs, money and a lead vessel. All attachments were valued by fellow
traders. In Newmarket, there was a pound for horses and animals, while
other commodities were put into the hands of trusted members of the
community, usually bailiffs or ex-bailiffs. The system of distraint and
attachment in these towns appears to have been organised and fairly
effective.
One of the most important elements of the plea procedure was the sys-
tem of pledging. Although there is no evidence that this system was used
in Clare, pledges were seemingly a vital aspect of the Newmarket debt-
case procedures. Pledges were needed in Newmarket at various stages of

281 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/33.

362 Medieval market morality

a case, to allow the plaintiff to proceed with a suit, to ensure a defendant’s

appearance and to guarantee payments. Plaintiffs often required a pledge
to initiate a plea so that an amercement could be guaranteed if they lost
the case, or if they were judged to have brought an unjust plea.282 The-
oretically, the pledge was responsible for the defaults of those they had
pledged for, but there are no recorded cases of this happening in New-
market. Pledges had to be acceptable to the court and were either the
bailiff or regular, respectable stallholders, who were probably chosen via
their relationship with the claimant as a friend, relative or business asso-
ciate. The most consistent pledges in Newmarket were Thomas Sowcere,
William Godard, Thomas Pere, Adam Foster, Peter Fedelere and John
Chaundeler. These bailiffs and ex-bailiffs constituted 59 per cent (130
of 211 prosecution pledgings; 12 of 30 defence pledgings) of all pledges
in debt pleas. It is likely that they were pledges as part of their official
duties. Additionally, those of a higher socio-economic status (including
bailiffs) undertook 81 per cent of pledgings (169 of 211 prosecution
pledgings; 26 of 30 defence pledgings) and consequently dominated the
court mechanisms of security.
Edwin DeWindt and Ambrose Raftis argued that reciprocal pledging
emphasised the solidarity of community and that a decline in pledging
demonstrated a weakening of community spirit. However, Martin Pim-
sler suggested that most pledges were paid and non-reciprocal; while
Dave Postles maintained that pledging was an institutional relationship
and did not always reflect friendship or kinship, merely the social control
of the elite. Similarly, Richard Smith highlighted socio-economic divi-
sions and status as significant in pledging. Consequently, the pledging
system worked against outsiders and much pledging took place within a
small nucleus of principal men. A core elite was distinguished by recip-
rocal pledging from the majority who relied upon official pledges.283
For some, therefore, pledging was intended as a reciprocal arrangement
and encouraged cooperation and mutual support. If traders could call
upon someone they trusted, this encouraged the initial use of credit and
ensured lower negotiation and enforcement costs. Those who regularly
visited Newmarket from the surrounding region were perhaps also able
to call upon trusted pledges. However, those from further afield may have
been at more of a disadvantage and probably had to rely upon the bailiff
to support their claim.

282 May, ‘Newmarket and its market court’, 35

283 DeWindt, Land and People, pp. 242–63; Raftis, Tenure and Mobility, pp. 101–4, 263–75;
Pimsler, ‘Solidarity’; Postles, ‘Personal pledging’; Smith, ‘Kin and neighbours’; Olson,
‘Jurors of the village court’, 245–7.
 The behaviour of market traders 363

Kowaleski has found that the courts of Exeter had a clear bias in
favour of burgesses, with outsiders and the unenfranchised being less
successful in obtaining guilty verdicts and more often declared to have
false claims.284 Was such a bias evident in the small town of Newmarket,
which did not have the apparatus of a borough charter? Outsiders can
sometimes be identified in the records because they were documented
as a stranger or their home town was listed, perhaps as an aide to the
bailiff ’s duties of distraint. A cautious comparison of all pleas involv-
ing outsiders and Newmarket residents can be made, given the data
available. An examination of cases where a defendant failed to turn up
shows that outsiders were much more recalcitrant than Newmarket res-
idents, though this may have been more logistical than deliberate. In
comparing the cases won by the plaintiff to those won by the defendant,
outside plaintiffs had only a 21/2 to 1 ratio of finding a decision went in
their favour, whereas Newmarket plaintiffs had a success ratio of 6 to
1. This implies an element of bias or advantage for locals. Conversely, a
Newmarket defendant was more likely to lose his case, at 8 to 1, while
an outside defendant faced only a 3 to 1 ratio of having to pay (see
Table 15). Residents of Newmarket were probably more readily attached
and impelled to come to court and this was reflected in a high percentage
of Newmarket defendants proceeding to jury or oath.
The figures, based on Newmarket’s court rolls, are very difficult to
interpret, especially since so many did not record the final outcome.
Also, the generally low number of decisions in favour of the defendant
(only nine in debt cases and fifteen in all) means that the ratios are not
necessarily significant as statistical evidence. The additional difficulty of
identifying the home town for all outsiders means that a comparison
between those from the immediate hinterland and those from further
afield is impractical. The general impression given is that there was some
bias in decision-making, but much of this may have been due to practical
and logistical concerns, rather than a deliberate prejudice. For instance,
outside defendants did not significantly suffer in decisions compared to
Newmarket defendants, and there was also representation by outsiders
from the immediate hinterland on market court juries and as pledges.
It is likely that outsiders who appeared frequently in the local market
increased their creditworthiness. An interesting case in 1405 involved
two outsiders who appear to have chosen the Newmarket court as neu-
tral ground in order to settle their dispute. John Maliard of East Dereham
brought a plea of debt against John Wynde of Bury St Edmunds con-
cerning arrears in his accounts of ten marks, the latter being Maliard’s

284 Kowaleski, Local Markets, pp. 215–21.

364 Medieval market morality

Table 15. Plea decisions for resident and outside litigants in Newmarket,
1399–1413

Defendants from Defendants from Plaintiffs from Plaintiffs from

Newmarketa elsewhereb Newmarketa elsewhereb

No. % No. % No. % No. %

Defendant to 28 40.6% 37 39.4% 38 45.2% 38 8.1%

settle privately
Defendant 14 20.3% 25 26.6% 18 21.4% 19 24.1%
presents
himself at
court
Plaintiff does not 8 11.6% 8 8.5% 8 9.5% 8 10.1%
proceed
Decision in 17 24.6% 18 19.1% 17 20.2% 10 12.7%
favour of
plaintiff
Decision in 2 2.9% 6 6.4% 3 3.6% 4 5.1%
favour of
defendant
Sub-total 69 94 84 79
Unknown 47 36 41 29
outcome
Total 116 130 125 108

Notes: a – residents who are named as being from Newmarket or are known to be so from
other references; b – the court rolls often specifically identified the home town of plaintiffs
and defendants. The data are taken from all pleas, a large number of which may have been
debts but are not specifically identified as such (see Table 13). Unfortunately, there are not
enough data and identifications of origin to be able to compare conclusively known debt
pleas.
Source: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48.

bailiff.285 The men perhaps had links to the market or residents of the
town, while the lord would not have discouraged additional jurisdic-
tional revenue. Ultimately, this was an example of two men who probably
trusted the efficiency and procedures of the Newmarket court, as well as
appreciating how the procedures of the court had developed to suit the
needs of litigants.
Overall, the procedures in Newmarket’s market court were standard-
ised and seemingly efficient, which would have bred confidence in cred-
itors even when debtors defaulted. The costs of pleading were also not

285 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/25; May, ‘Newmarket and its market court’, 32.
 The behaviour of market traders 365

excessive, especially when one considers that most debt claims were over
2s. The main amercement of 3d.–6d. for the plaintiff was apparently for
the initiation of the plea. The defendant was then amerced for failures to
appear and for licences of concord. The main burden of expense thus fell
upon those defendants who continually delayed proceedings. In 18 per
cent of cases plaintiffs had to pay extra costs when they decided not to
continue the prosecution or if they lost their case, and this small risk had
to be balanced against the sum they could possibly recover and any dam-
ages they might receive. Presumably the plaintiff had previously resorted
(unsuccessfully) to more informal means of recovery. Considerations of
cost and time were then taken into account before proceeding to litiga-
tion. Some plaintiffs returned several times to enforce varied debts in the
courts. The number of presentments and the recording of attachments
in a significant number of cases seem to indicate that decisions were
successfully implemented. There were certainly instances of attachments
being yielded to the plaintiff when the defendant defaulted. With the
majority of cases being decided, often by licence, within one to three
months, the process of litigation appeared to be relatively efficient. Over-
all, compared to central courts where delays and deliberate stalling were
common, the cases at Newmarket were speedy and plaintiffs had a good
chance of recovering their debt. Indeed, Elaine Clark argued that plain-
tiffs considered it worthwhile to pursue a case if the result was either an
agreement to settle privately, a defendant presenting themselves at court,
or a decision in favour of the plaintiff.286 Some 82 per cent of known
outcomes ended in one of these scenarios for plaintiffs in Newmarket.
Similarly in Clare, 80 per cent of cases were decided this way, though
many more went to licence of concord in Clare than in Newmarket.
It should not be assumed that interest was charged on credit deals,
which were often reliant on intangible personal and social rewards. How-
ever, there must have been occasions when supplementary incentives
to extend credit were required. Usury was illegal and condemned as
immoral by the Church and thus any interest charges were hidden.287
There are few overt cases in Newmarket or Clare. In an unusual entry
for Clare in 1347, John le Parker was fined 40d. as a ‘common usurer
of divers things in his merchandise’, perhaps reflecting an exception-
ally flagrant offence.288 In the normal run of cases, interest was possibly

286 Clark, ‘Debt’, p. 253.

287 It has been argued that by the fourteenth century only extortionate usury was forbidden
by the Church, though this might have applied more to consumption loans than trading
deals. Most might have preferred to conceal interest rates to avoid accusations. See
above, pp. 213–15.
288 TNA, sc2/203/46.
366 Medieval market morality

Table 16. Damages claimed and awarded in Clare and

Newmarket courts

% of principal

No. of cases Inter-quartile range Mean

Newmarket
Original Claim 20 25–50% 36.3%
Adjusted by Jury 15 2.8–15.4% 12.2%
Clare
Original Claim 8 33.3–66.7% 64.9%
Adjusted by Jury 34 4.5–11.1% 9.3%

Notes: The Newmarket figures are from 1399–1413; Clare from

1377–1422.
Source: SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/1–48; TNA, sc2/203/62–7.

concealed in ‘purchase price advances’, where cash was paid immediately

but the delivery of goods came at a later date when the market price of
those goods had changed.289 Alternatively, did the awards of ‘damages’
represent a way of charging licit interest payments? Plaintiffs could claim
damages and, in response, jurymen decided what they considered rea-
sonable. This decision was perhaps dependent on the type and value of
the deal, the costs of initiating the plea, or else related to whether the
creditor had lost money due to the delay in repayment. There was a fine
theoretical margin between damages as recompense for loss and as an
interest charge.290 Briggs found that there was no systematic guarantee
of damages in rural debt pleas, nor did creditors regularly claim them.291
In addition, payment of damages was reliant on default by the debtor,
so they did not provide a guaranteed profit upon loans, unless there was
some form of collusion between the creditor and debtor. Damages were
perhaps not directly analogous to interest charges, but rather represented
a penalty on overdue debts.
Newmarket’s court certainly accepted damages as routine in debt
pleas. On average, in twenty cases, the plaintiffs requested damages of
36.3 per cent of the principal, with the majority distributed around this
figure.292 Rarely did they receive such amounts and the juries lowered
the rate to an average of about 12 per cent (see Table 16). Even this

289 Briggs, Credit and Village Society, pp. 38–9, 74–7.

290 Schofield, ‘L’endettement’, pp. 92–3; See also Bailey, ‘Peasant welfare’, 243.
291 Briggs, Credit and Village Society, pp. 77–9.
292 This should not be confused with an annual interest rate, the calculation of which
would require (unavailable) information on the duration of loans.
 The behaviour of market traders 367

percentage was skewed by three of fifteen cases where unusually high

damages claims of 50, 33 and 33 per cent were accepted rather than
lowered; if these are removed the average figure drops from 12 per cent
to 5 per cent.
The figures for Clare debt cases show an even higher disparity, with
original claims averaging 64.9 per cent of the principal and those awarded
by the jurors just 9.3 per cent (see Table 16). Interestingly, two of the
three cases in Newmarket where the jury awarded high damages involved
large transactions in wool and skins valued at £6 2s. 6d. (damages of 40s.)
and 13s. 4d. (damages of 6s. 8d.), perhaps because the jury recognised the
harm caused to plaintiffs by the absence of a large amount of capital.293
In effect, the decisions of the jury set the bounds of damages, striking
a balance between borrower equity, attracting capital and encouraging
mercantile enterprise.294 The jury’s general tendency to reduce claims
to much lower levels might also imply a notion of reasonable and non-
usurious limits for damages.
Overall, informal means and the moral pressures of client relation-
ships may have been the primary method of compulsion in pursuing
trade debts. Litigation in court was a formalised and more aggressive
action for traders to protect their interests, but even in this forum a high
percentage of cases resorted to ‘licences of concord’ and more amica-
ble settlements. However, there was apparently a willingness to use full
court procedures if needed. Debt recovery was an important influence
on whether outsiders used a market. Traders desired courts that could
compel defendants to appear, were limited in their financial costs, and
were efficient in their expedition of pleas. In Newmarket, litigation was
relatively cheap and efficient and the procedures of the court were rarely
questioned, especially since many of the constituents of the court were
themselves regular users of its mechanisms. In Clare, there was a greater
resort to licences of concord, no ostensible use of pledges, and some
problems in empanelling juries of inquisition (though this also occurred
in Newmarket). One suspects that Newmarket’s market court had a
formidable reputation for a small town, whereas Clare’s legal structure
was more ordinary in its debt-recovery facilities. This may, in turn, have
influenced the use of their markets by foreign traders. The fact that so
many outsiders chose to settle their trading disputes in Newmarket’s
court points towards a local repute for efficient and effective justice.

293 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/43, 35, 36.

294 Searle, Lordship and Community, pp. 401–3. In Battle, juries generally awarded damages
of 15–30 per cent of the principal. In the late fourteenth-century Suffolk village of Earl
Soham, across a sample of just nine cases, the court awarded damages of just 3–10 per
cent at a mean of 5.5 per cent. SRO (I), v5/18/1.3.
368 Medieval market morality

It is likely that credit enforcement needed to be more secure as trade

expanded and impersonalised credit relationships were formed, often
stretching beyond local confines and informal means of control. Gener-
ally, confidence in efficient credit relationships was highly important for
petty trade, and those of Newmarket and Clare were established upon a
complex foundation of legal and moral assumptions.

Administering the marketplace

Small-town authorities had to administer the physical marketplace itself
to ensure a conducive and safe environment for trade and to make sure
that the rights of the lord were upheld. The basic offences and proce-
dures highlighted in the court rolls appear to conform closely to those
outlined in the regulations of major towns. For instance, in 1453, the
bailiffs of Clare proclaimed that no one should sell victuals, or trade on
Sundays, which was a straightforward repetition of the statute enacted by
Henry VI.295
Within the marketplace, officials kept a close eye on the renting of shops
and stalls, with particular attention to their maintenance. In Newmarket’s
fair court there were several instances of ruined stalls and deteriorating
shops leading to threats of severe penalties, including forfeiture, if they
were not repaired. It is not entirely evident that such threats were always
effective, since traders like Richard Farwel consistently appeared in the
records for such offences, being amerced 3d.–6d. on each occasion. But
the threats were not entirely without teeth, as both Robert Gateward and
John Coupere had their stalls seized for neglect or failure to comply with
the court’s orders. Indeed, Robert Gateward’s persistent negligence in
upkeeping his holdings led to increasing penalties being held over his
head: 2s., half a mark, 20s. and, finally, a second threat of forfeiture.296
It is not known whether any of these sanctions were carried out.
Formal markets also carried the implied right for the lord to levy stal-
lage and tolls.297 Consequently, a major duty of bailiffs was the collection
of tolls in the weekly market, though it is possible that others were hired to
carry out the practical rounds. The burgesses of Clare were actually freed
from payment of tolls as part of their acquired liberty, whereas the resi-
dents of Newmarket did not have such privileges and were often accused
of avoiding tolls and stallage. For instance, Ralph Brabon, a Newmarket

295 TNA, sc2/203/70.

296 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/3, 5, 9, 21, 22, 26, 30, 32, 38, 39.
297 Mate, ‘Rise and fall’, 66–7; Kowaleski, Local Markets, pp. 192–202.
 The behaviour of market traders 369

resident, apparently sold forty-nine ‘mattys’ in the market and fair with-
out paying the lord’s toll and in 1403, John Fabyan of Exning was fined
6d. for striking the bailiff and refusing to pay a tax of a farthing on four
bushels of barley.298 Fabyan’s reaction appears to be out of proportion
to such a small tax. Excessive tolls were not only condemned by central
government, but discouraged visiting traders. Consequently, most tolls
only totalled 1/4 d. to 1/2d., perhaps accounting for 1 per cent of the value
of goods exchanged.299 Did the traders really consider these charges to
be burdensome enough to risk larger fines for evasion? It seems likely
that instances of toll evasion were not commonplace, though we cannot
of course know how many people successfully avoided tolls and escaped
detection. However, it is noticeable that three of the Newmarket cases
were taken to trial because the defendants denied having avoided tolls in
the first place.
Other prime considerations for town officials included keeping urban
spaces safe, orderly, hygienic and accessible. At every leet court of New-
market the bailiffs presented a few individuals for obstructing the roads
or water-courses of the town.300 Those who obstructed it with timber
may have been attempting to draw off water more efficiently for their
own use in brewing or tanning processes.301 Other residents dug gutters
and banks in the road to prevent floods entering their houses but, in
turn, obstructed street traffic.302 Commonly, offenders discarded waste
in the roads: dung, intestines or the corrupted remains of an animal were
probably unwanted by-products of the livestock industry. For instance,
William Bocher was presented for placing intestines in the king’s road to
the public nuisance.303 The widespread problem of dung being dumped
around the common land became serious enough for the court of New-
market to enact a by-law that this was to happen no more under the threat
of a penalty of 40d. to the lord and 40d. to the chapel of Blessed Mary.304
A similar set of offences were listed in the Clare court rolls. According to
the records, residents commonly obstructed the road, ditches and river
with timber, dung and gutters, as well as various kinds of domestic and
commercial rubbish. In the 1360s, the butcher John Bory was accused
of leaving blood and offal by the door of John, servant of Robert Mar-
chal, so that there was a bad smell and no one would come to his house,
while William Slaughtere had left his waste next to the church.305 The

298 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/7, 14, 27, 32, 42.

299 Masschaele, Peasants, p. 68; Kowaleski, Local Markets, p. 194.
300 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/2, 10, 17, 18, 26, 37. 301 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/2, 10, 17.
302 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/10, 18. 303 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/18.
304 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/18. 305 TNA, sc2/203/58, 60.
370 Medieval market morality

repetition of cases suggests that pollution and waste was a continual

problem in even small marketplaces.
Many of the waste products that littered towns stemmed from animal
husbandry. Breeding pigs and other animals provided useful supplemen-
tary foodstuffs or income for a variety of townsfolk, even though only a
small amount of pasture was available and was tightly controlled.306 In
Newmarket, Walter Clak and John Manston regularly let their pigs tres-
pass on the cornfield, while Robert Bocher, John Redere and Nicholas
Chapman allowed their cows and horses onto the lord’s meadow without
permission.307 The number of trespassing animals, as well as complaints
of dung and offal in the streets, suggests attempts by townsfolk to take
advantage of an increasing demand for pork and bacon. In Clare, in
1384, John Gardener and Cristina Brokhole were both upbraided for
placing pigsties in the main road to the nuisance of others.308 However,
in both cases the offenders only paid amercements of a few pence, which
appeared to be de facto licences in a similar way to assize presentments.
Although the communities of small towns like Newmarket and Clare
exerted personal influences and social pressures upon local traders, we
must be careful not simply to characterise small towns as harmonious
and self-regulating environments. Individual acts of waste disposal, tres-
pass and negligence were sometimes committed in the face of commu-
nal opinion or the best interests of the public. The act of bargaining
could also inflame spirits and a certain level of ‘communal policing’ was
required, especially on market day. The record of assaults and quarrels
in the court rolls unfortunately does not include any details of the ori-
gins of spats. Only occasionally can we infer that a trade dispute was
involved, such as when Richard Bocher scuffled with a ‘foreign’ butcher
in 1402–3.309
Searle has suggested that the locals of Hastings (East Sussex) received
more lenient treatment than foreigners in the leet court and that the more
unusual criminal or assault cases involved foreigners.310 A similar com-
parison can be made in Newmarket and Clare. About 28 per cent of the
cases before the Newmarket leet court involved a foreigner as either the
offender or the victim, but unfortunately the lack of detail means that we
cannot always establish the context of these fights. The most interesting
cases involved bailiffs and constables who were assaulted while employed

306 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/4, 8, 12, 14, 23, 31.

307 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/10, 17, 38, 39.
308 TNA, sc2/203/62. The trespass of pigs and encroachment of pigsties had been a long-
term problem in Clare. TNA, sc2/203/45. Similarly, in Earl Soham several brewing
and baking families had pigs, which they allowed to trespass on the lord’s land. SRO
(I), v5/18/1.3–1.4.
309 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/10. 310 Searle, Lordship and Community, pp. 392–3.
 The behaviour of market traders 371

in the tasks of their office.311 There were seven cases of men illegally
recovering attached goods from bailiffs or constables and, in the process,
assaulting them. Presumably these were usually minor scuffles, reflected
in the low 3d.–12d. fines on men like Walter Skynnere, Richard Farewell,
John Walter and William Denys. These were also local men who may have
been subjected to more informal means of sanction. By contrast, when
John Landwade, John Godard and Simon Tanherde attacked the consta-
ble, John Ballone, they were given fines of 40d. each. The high fines may
have been given because the act was a group assault, but additionally,
the attackers seem to have been outsiders. John Landwade, for example,
was from Reach, while the other two men are not mentioned in any town
context. Similarly, Depyng Taylour, probably a foreigner, was fined 40d.
for striking the constable and drawing blood.
However, townsfolk also faced heavy sanctions when their actions were
deemed excessive, such as when John Odye and John Heyham, both of
Newmarket, separately prevented the bailiff from carrying out the duties
of his office. They had their tenements seized as the ultimate penalty. Dis-
respect towards officials was not countenanced. The court rolls of Clare
also recorded assaults upon officials while they attempted to undertake
their duties: a servant of Robert Cook of Lavenham was amerced 2s.
for attacking the bailiff John Babir; John Pedder of Colne was fined 6d.
for assaulting Robert Barker the aletaster; and a servant of the Lord of
Clopton was fined 10s. for assaulting Thomas Cumbwell the bailiff and
beating him.312 All these cases, it should be noted, involved outsiders.
However, as seen in Newmarket, even local men were rebuked heav-
ily if they violently contravened local official controls. In 1388, another
stranger attacked and badly hurt the Clare bailiff while he was trying to
collect toll. The stranger took shelter with a local man, William Mylde
(who went on to serve as bailiff the following year), and then they both
fled the town. In response, an inquisition ordered that all of William’s
goods and animals were distrained in lieu of a severe 40s. penalty.313 For
the administrative apparatus of a town to operate efficiently, the author-
ity of those who supervised the market had to be upheld and seen to
be upheld, especially when the supposed elite of the town spurned the
mechanisms of justice.

Enterprise and efficiency

The institution of the market itself represented a means of lowering
the transaction costs of search, negotiation and enforcement.314 These

311 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/2, 10, 17, 18, 26, 37. 312 TNA, sc2/203/64, 65.
313 TNA, sc2/203/64. 314 Kowaleski, Local Markets, pp. 179–80.
372 Medieval market morality

could be regarded as the primary aims of any market administration,

but these elements had to be balanced against the needs and wants of
the local community, its leaders and the traders themselves. The elite
might seek extra revenues and privileges that counteracted attempts to
keep costs low. Additionally, a trader’s costs could be adversely affected
by inefficient and incompetent administration. Thus, the administrative
tools of town officials, and especially how these tools were used, were
highly influential factors in gauging the intentions and efficiency of a
small town market.
Britnell felt that late medieval entrepreneurial ambition was deterred
by increasing government intervention and extensive regulations in larger
boroughs, where the burgesses had become more protectionist and dis-
trustful of outsiders during the fifteenth century. Profit-making became
easier in smaller, less-regulated communities.315 In her work on fifteenth-
century Romford and Havering, McIntosh identified a lack of regula-
tion, a broad dispersal of capital and an absence of concentrated finan-
cial power. These conditions created an environment in which personal
efforts had maximum scope for enterprising action and reward. She sug-
gested that there was no ‘moral economy’ and that individual behaviour
was heightened by the commercial environment.316
The market traders of Newmarket and Clare were not wealthy indi-
viduals and many lived on marginal profits. However, this does not mean
that they lacked the spirit of entrepreneurs. In Newmarket, enterpris-
ing activities can be discerned in various court roll entries signifying an
extensive use of credit, the accumulation of property and stalls, and the
expansion of shops and businesses. Even some of the offences, such as
forestalling, regrating and opening windows onto the marketplace, can
perhaps (though not always) be regarded as indicative of initiative and
flexibility. For these traders to be truly entrepreneurial, in the strict sense
of the term, they would have had to change long-established patterns
of commercial activity. This was often not the case, but what we can
sometimes observe are traders with enterprise and business acumen.
A few individuals had two or three servants, which could imply that
they had larger-scale enterprises than their neighbours.317 Servants, jour-
neymen and apprentices are, however, rarely mentioned in the court rolls
except in incidental references. In Newmarket, John Ballone Smyth, Wal-
ter Bocher, Thomas Cook, John Kyrkeby, John Langham, Thomas Pere,
John Smyth and John Waleys apparently had two or three servants, and

315 Britnell, Commercialisation, pp. 177–8.

316 McIntosh, Autonomy and Community, pp. 176–8.
317 Hilton, English Peasantry, p. 80.
 The behaviour of market traders 373

these men were all heavily involved in all different aspects of victualling
and provisioning trades, with most probably running inns or large cook-
houses (see Table 9). John Kyrkeby was also regularly amerced 6d. for
displaying a signpost by the door to his house or inn, perhaps because
it was too large or low and therefore caused an obstruction.318 His per-
sistent offending suggests that the advertisement for his inn was more
than worth the minor inconvenience of a 6d. amercement every year.
Such infringements upon the margins of the law were perhaps the con-
sequence of entrepreneurial activity. Similarly, John Ballone Smyth was
fined 6s. 8d. for making a window in his tenement and having a stall
annexed to the same window, thus encroaching on the lord’s land.319
Although the trader faced a large fine, it is probable that its payment
meant the extension became a permanent fixture. Similarly, in 1472,
Thomas Pyngyll paid 4d. a year for an empty plot in front of the window
of his shop to display his merchandise on a board.320
There are other occurrences in property transactions which illustrate
the accumulation, consolidation and expansion of shops by some New-
market individuals. John Odye sublet three shops to William Sygo, Robert
Doushole and Robert Gateward, and went to court in 1409 to obtain the
rents due to him.321 He was also sued by Thomas Clerk and had to
pay damages of 10s. for taking the rent for a shop but failing to hand
it over.322 Thomas Tornor had to pay a 40d. fine for enlarging his two
shops, while Richard Farewell, Robert Gateward and Alexander Barkere
all owned several stalls in different areas of the market, which proba-
bly indicates the widening scale of their interests.323 The administrative
bodies of towns had to adapt their regulations in order to reconcile exist-
ing legislation with the issues created by new trading conditions, while
also finding ways of keeping up revenues to the lord. Flexible, but firm,
regulation allowed a range of personal initiatives, though at a small cost
to the trader. There was no real interference in the running of inns
and shops, provided they did not encroach upon the lord’s rights and
kept within the margins of acceptable trading behaviour. There was little
pro-active encouragement of entrepreneurial behaviour, but neither was
entrepreneurial behaviour necessarily opposed to communal effort and
moral influences, as was suggested by McIntosh. The court systems in
Newmarket and Clare, at least, seem to have operated fairly successfully
and were based on cooperation, trust and a fairly wide inclusion of local

318 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/2, 10, 17, 18, 26. 319 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/32.
320 SRO (B), Acc.359/3. 321 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/21.
322 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/36.
323 SRO (B), Acc.1476/1/3, 5, 9, 21, 22, 26, 27, 30, 32, 38, 39.
374 Medieval market morality

tradesmen. Many disputes were solved amicably, while regulations were

sometimes lenient and conducive to trade.
The courts were pragmatic in choosing which infringements were pun-
ished severely or leniently and when to leave the buyers and sellers to their
own devices. Many poorer retailers may have transgressed trading reg-
ulations as a necessary survival strategy, as much as for extra profit.324
Regraters often operated on very fine economic margins and this was
problematic when selling foodstuffs that were usually highly perishable.
For bakers and brewers it was probably difficult to process the right
quantity of goods for sale without ending up with unsold produce, espe-
cially when the assizes ostensibly provided little room for error and losses.
Hucksters and regraters filtered some of the risks for producers by tak-
ing on the sale of excess output, but regraters themselves had no such
insurance and needed to sell all their goods to make any profit accord-
ing to the law. Some poorer traders may thus have pushed the margins
of the law in order to make a reasonable living. Additionally, the vari-
able quality of goods was perhaps unavoidable for medieval producers,
compared to the standardised products we take for granted today. There
was a considerable difference between deliberate fraud and slack quality
production, even if medieval legislation could not frame such subtleties
without providing unwanted ambiguities and loopholes. The officials of
the small towns like Newmarket and Clare appear to have understood
this dilemma and allowed some flexibility in their application of the law,
especially since a level of competition and consumer-awareness guarded
against greater infringements. For instance, the assizes became effectively
a means of licensing, but their presence also ensured that traders did not
take too many liabilities in pushing the acceptable margins of price and
quality.
Admittedly, the development of the assizes into a licensing system was
also linked to the inability of part-time officials to inspect an increasingly
professional and full-time victualling sector. However, when the courts
and officials were challenged to uphold their authority, they could stamp
down hard on traders. Equally the financial rights of the lord were consis-
tently upheld, perhaps to ensure a steady income was maintained so that
the lord had little reason to interfere directly. Nevertheless, as long as the
market was flourishing, there seemed little need for excessively restrictive
law-keeping in small towns. The Newmarket administration did not seem
to act too jealously to maintain the interests of its own residents; this was
partly because the people of Newmarket did not possess privileges that

324 Britnell, Growth and Decline, pp. 39–41.

 The behaviour of market traders 375

needed protecting, which meant they operated a more open and accessi-
ble market than perhaps found in large boroughs. Inevitably, Newmarket
traders had the advantage of first-hand knowledge of the market and
officials, but equally, they were more easily attached and distrained when
needed. Administrative and legal mechanisms had their limitations, and
some persistent problems did continue to affect the efficiency of the mar-
ketplace, but generally regulations ensured that the costs of enforcement,
negotiation and search remained competitively low.
The commercial regulations and operations of Newmarket can be fur-
ther understood in the context of wider changes in the economy and
market networks in the later Middle Ages. From the thirteenth cen-
tury, English society was becoming increasingly market-oriented and
institutional commercial growth was widespread, including the emer-
gence of small towns and village markets to meet the demand for basic
foodstuffs.325 After the Black Death, as Mark Bailey has pointed out,
many urban centres suffered from decline in the face of new competitive
realities, with the contracting trade in foodstuffs biting into their pros-
perity. Nevertheless, there was generally a leaner marketing structure,
with economic resilience demonstrated by the surviving small towns.326
Newmarket may have been one of the towns that prospered in this new
competitive environment, just as Buntingford did in Hertfordshire, with
its roadside location and lack of lordly control.327 Both Bailey and Epstein
have suggested that there was a weakening of seigneurial and urban
authority and jurisdiction after the fourteenth century, which may have
aided the development of trade in these difficult economic conditions.328
There was certainly a relaxation of seigneurial pressures in many small
towns and a reversion to controls by traders themselves, via the manorial
courts.
The administrative structure of places like Newmarket was highly
advantageous and leading men seemed to recognise the need to provide a
flexible, lenient, but potentially strong, marketing structure. Newmarket
not only survived but prospered in the fifteenth century, when its market
stall and shop rents increased almost continuously from £1 16s. 10d. in
1402–3 to £6 15s. 7d. in 1472–3. The town was also able to build a new
‘Tolbooth’ and add further stalls by 1472. Income from the courts also
remained fairly buoyant over the early fifteenth century, despite some

325 Britnell, ‘Proliferation’.

326 Britnell, Commercialisation, p. 166; Bailey, ‘Historiographical’.
327 Bailey, ‘A tale of two towns’, 358, 362–6, 370. Romford market was also prospering
commercially due to its lightly regulated and politically autonomous state. McIntosh,
Autonomy and Community, pp. 51, 89, 129–37, 176–8.
328 Bailey, ‘A tale of two towns’, 355–6; Epstein, ‘Regional fairs’.
376 Medieval market morality

fluctuations, though the perquisites of the market court did fall notably
in the 1470s.329 Interestingly, the profits of the town’s fair fell significantly
over the same period and its June fair appears to have ceased operation in
the late 1430s, perhaps due to the increasing attractions of Stourbridge
Fair at nearby Cambridge. Newmarket found it difficult to compete in
the luxury and wholesale trades of Stourbridge Fair, but its local market
and everyday provisioning was thriving. Newmarket provided a relatively
attractive site to traders, with fairly secure surroundings, relaxed regula-
tion, quick adjudications and steady customers.
Conversely, Clare did not prosper significantly from its cloth trade in
the fifteenth century, unlike nearby Hadleigh or Lavenham. Instead, it
appears that the town was staving off a general economic downturn. Clare
was one of the thirty-two surviving markets in fifteenth-century Suffolk,
though it was ranked only twenty-third in assessed wealth compared to
other markets in the 1525 lay subsidy.330 In 1425, the bailiffs sought a
reduction in the amount of rent to be collected. A jury also reported
that eleven stalls could not be let and that Wentford Fair had not been
held since 1421 because nobody went there.331 Additionally, there are
no references in Clare’s court rolls to burgess rights by the fifteenth cen-
tury and the practice may have lapsed or been recorded in a now lost
document.332 Despite its early borough privileges, and the control of
trading matters by the burgesses through their farm or market income,
Clare did not gain additional chartered liberties nor did it develop any
occupational guild structures. It could be argued that Clare’s burgesses
squandered any potential advantages they had in the fourteenth cen-
tury, such as in the local cloth industry. Thornton has suggested that
Clare failed to develop significantly because of strong lordship and local
competition.333 The relationship between Clare’s inhabitants and its lord
(and lord’s officials) was certainly much closer than was the case for New-
market. Clare remained the centre of administration for the Honor, even
when the lands became royal possessions, and the Honor court was held
by the steward on the same day as the borough court. However, there
is still evidence that the burgesses had gained greater de facto control of
Clare’s market and its regulation by the fifteenth century, as amercement
levels fell and enforcement was relaxed.334 This may well have propped

329 SRO (B), Acc.1476/12–13, Acc.359/3; May, ‘Newmarket 500 Years Ago’, 263.
330 Sheail, Regional Distribution, ii, pp. 321–36.
331 TNA, sc2/203/67; Britnell, Growth and Decline, pp. 190, 208.
332 Thornton, ‘A study’, 96; Thornton, A History of Clare, p. 37.
333 Thornton, A History of Clare, pp. 42–6.
334 For a discussion of the long-term developments in the retail trade of Clare, throughout
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see J. Davis, ‘Selling food and drink in the
 The behaviour of market traders 377

up the weekly market and aided the business of the town’s remaining
retailers and innkeepers.

Piety and morality

The preceding examination of the marketplaces of Newmarket and Clare
has demonstrated the complex relationship between medieval morals,
laws and behaviour. It is hard to know the extent to which traders broke
the law or infringed upon perceived levels of moral behaviour, especially
since many offences listed in the court rolls were often de facto licences,
while informal sanctions may have operated undocumented. However,
evidence from a number of wills does suggest that traders experienced
contrition as well as an understanding of general moral concerns.
A handful of wills survive from fifteenth-century Newmarket, all dated
after 1438, and these can be compared more generally with wills of
traders from fifteenth-century Suffolk.335 Two of these wills were left by
men who were prominent in the extant court rolls of Newmarket: John
Grene (will dated to 1452) and John Ray (1459). Generally, the only
wills we have are those of the more affluent and influential men of the
town. Other testators included John Joos (1449) who owned the ‘Bear’
inn, Arthur Greysson (1479) who owned four inns in Newmarket, and
William Baron (1439) who owned the ‘Gryffyn’ inn as well as significant
lands worth over £20 in Ditton Valens, Saxton and Cheveley. The trading
bias of the testators of Newmarket was shown not only in the properties
they owned, but also the bequests they made. John Ray gave 6s. 8d. for the
repair of Saxton Lane and another 6s. 8d. for Dermundeslane. He also
gave his daughter his best cauldron, reflecting his household’s interest in
the brewing trade. Similarly, Adam Colakyr (1477) bequeathed barley to
several people and a brass pot to Matilda Grene.
Like John Ray, numerous Suffolk traders made bequests to maintain
roads, ways and bridges, the maintenance of which served traders’ best
interests.336 In 1453, William Curby of Lavenham donated 20s. to repair-
ing the highways between Lavenham and Sudbury, while John Holm of
Barrow in 1443 made a significant bequest of 100s. for ‘the emendation
of the muddy and faulty ways in the town of Barrow, starting at the
entrance of my house, towards the town of Bury’.337 Most bequests were

aftermath of the Black Death’, in M. Bailey and S. Rigby (eds.), England in the Age of
the Black Death (forthcoming, 2011).
335 The surviving wills were collated in May (ed.), Twenty Newmarket Wills. For a wider
set of Suffolk wills, see Northeast (ed.), Wills.
336 Northeast (ed.), Wills, pp. 67–8, 353, 359, nos. 180, 1009, 1035.
337 Ibid., pp. 106–7, 277, nos. 290, 768.
378 Medieval market morality

more modest, but traders’ interests remained predominantly local, such

as Thomas Wodesey’s gifts of 3s. 4d. and 20d. for mending the roads
around his home of Stoke by Nayland.338 Occasionally, bequests were
more obscure in terms of their motivation. In 1441, Thomas Dobbys of
Sudbury left 6s. 8d. ‘to the repairing of a cross’ at Wiggen End, which
may have been inspired by piety, nostalgia, civic pride or self-esteem.339
Testamentary evidence is notoriously difficult to examine, given the
mixture of idiosyncratic individual statements and conventional formu-
lae. Many were written by clerks who possibly exaggerated the orthodoxy
of a testator’s statements since the wills were often formulaic in content
and form. Additionally, most wills from the fifteenth century were those
of relatively wealthy men, rather than the poorer retailers.340 Despite
these problems, preambles of wills illustrate basic beliefs that resonated
within communities, particularly highlighting the testators’ beliefs in the
power of intercessionary acts and the worth of the parish church as a
focus of lay piety. There are even occasional glimpses into personal cir-
cumstances and attitudes, expressed through the prism of the clerk’s text.
We cannot quantify the level of piety among these traders from wills (or,
indeed, from any other form of evidence), but they can reveal individu-
alistic pangs of conscience from certain traders.
Most of the surviving wills from Newmarket made basic provision for
wives and children. However, additional connections outside the town
were also mentioned, with executors and beneficiaries from Soham,
Kirtling, Bury St Edmunds, Fordham, Saxham Parva, Thetford and
Cambridge. Some testators gave money to churches and institutions, as
well as individuals, within and outside Newmarket. John Bonde (1476)
gave money to Snailwell Church and Saham Church, while Arthur
Greysson (1479) bequeathed money to the Cathedral Church of Nor-
wich. However, most bequests were made to Newmarket All Saints’
Church and the chapel of Blessed Mary Within. Such donations to
churches were common and expected, while many Suffolk testators also
gave readily to prisoners and the poor as acts of charity.341 The desire to
make legacies to the poor and needy was intimately related to notions of
mercy and social justice that were constantly invoked from the pulpit.
The usual formulaic concern for the health of one’s soul was com-
monplace in wills, with bequests of cash to the Church to be used for
the provision of prayers, Masses and torches. In 1440–1, John Place of
Lavenham wanted a significant amount of his goods sold after his death

338 Ibid., p. 331, no. 930. 339 Ibid., p. 71, no. 188.
340 Heath, ‘Urban piety’, p. 212.
341 Northeast (ed.), Wills, pp. 51–2, 67–8, 93–4, 106–7, 195, 277, 311, 353, nos. 130,
180, 254, 290, 511, 768, 865, 1009.
 The behaviour of market traders 379

and then for his executors ‘to sell and dispose the money for my soul
and the souls for whom I am bound’.342 More specifically, some traders
picked up on the idea of restitution and asked for any outstanding debts to
be paid in full. William Palgrave of Newmarket (1451) stated: ‘I will that,
for the health of my soul, if there be any man or woman who by reliable
witnesses and by true and legal evidence can well and justly prove that I
the aforesaid William have taken anything unjustly from them, restitution
should be made by my executors for what has been taken unjustly’.343 He
also made several contributions to the Church and friars, including 10s.
for a chaplain to say a trental. John Joos, an innkeeper, similarly asked
for his debts to be paid and charitable works to be performed, including
the distribution of 40s. among the poor and eight marks for a chap-
lain to celebrate his soul. The insertion of such clauses, though partly
conventional, might suggest that traders experienced anxiety about the
fraudulent potential of exchange. These fears were perhaps influenced
by ideologies transmitted by the clerics, friars and guilds.
Other East Anglian wills show traders were fearful about their wealth
and guilty about possible cheating and unpaid bills.344 Thomas Gatle of
Great Livermere (1440) asked for ‘the true payment of my just debts’,
while John Bownde of Lavenham (1452) required that his executors were
‘firstly to pay debts which are proved genuine as quickly as possible’.345
John Derby, a mercer of Sudbury, also asked in his will of 1453–4 that
his ‘debts for which I am bound in any way to be paid first’.346 Wills
do display a certain concern that debts were paid, undoubtedly linked
to spiritual messages about restitution communicated from the pulpit.
Thomas Sheperde of Botesdale (1460–1) was prepared to leave his shop
to his son, John, but only on the condition that he paid all his father’s
outstanding debts; otherwise his wife would receive the shop.347 It was
commonplace to see the residue of goods explicitly left to executors to
pay for debts, particularly tithes, whether the testator was a trader or not.
However, the image of repaying debts suggests that commercial language
was readily combined with religious ideas of restitution.348

342 Ibid., pp. 48–9, no. 126. See also ibid., pp. 50, 72–3, 195, nos. 127, 193, 511.
343 May (ed.), Twenty Newmarket Wills, p. 21.
344 McMurray Gibson, Theater of Devotion, pp. 27–8; Tanner, Church, p. 106; Dyer,
An Age, p. 122.
345 Northeast (ed.), Wills, pp. 67–8, 195, nos. 180, 511.
346 Ibid., p. 289, no. 803. See also ibid., pp. 268, 295, 296, 311, 312, 370, nos. 740, 818,
820, 865, 868, 1068.
347 Ibid., p. 465, no. 1341. See also Tymms (ed.), Wills, pp. 81–3; York, iii, pp. 45–7.
348 For other wills asking for debts to be repaid: Northeast (ed.), Wills, pp. 35, 46, 58, 59,
63, 69, 75, 77, 78–9, 92, 94, 98, 157, 163, 188, 193, 200, 201, 224, 234, 268, 271,
273–4, 291, 334, 363, 387, 470, 473.
380 Medieval market morality

In his will, Adam Colakyr made mention of a Guild of St Thomas

in Newmarket. Although the institution is not mentioned elsewhere, the
reference shows that a parish guild did exist in this town for mutual
religious and social support. Robert Percyvale had attachments to guilds
outside Newmarket and gave 20d. to those of St Peter in Stetchworth
and Holy Trinity in Ditton. Many other towns in Suffolk had similar
socio-religious guilds, as seen in the returns to the king for 1389.349 For
instance, Clare had the guilds of St Mary, St Peter, Corpus Christi and St
John the Baptist. Augustinian friars were also a daily presence in Clare,
both as preachers and customers. John Barkere and John Watlok of Clare
both bequeathed money in 1440 to Austin friars in their town.350 The
presence of such friars within Newmarket is illustrated by the testament
of John Upryght (1445), who was the guardian of the chapel of Blessed
Mary. He gave a pocket breviary to Nicholas Laycestre and five marks to
John Avys, an Augustinian friar.
Ultimately, the wills of traders followed testamentary conventions for
burials, purgatory and donations, but these were sometimes also prefaced
by particular commercial concerns in both practical and spiritual matters.
There is no indication that the statements of deathbed conscience were
not sincere, but, equally, whether these were reflective of their views
during the majority of their lifetime is difficult to know. The perils of
purgatory could be a great impulsion to last-minute repentance. Nicholas
Amor also found that the clothiers of Suffolk were prepared to invest
heavily in spiritual insurance through Masses for their soul and bequests
to the friars.351 A more pertinent question is not whether late medieval
clerks expressed profound piety in drafting these wills, but whether they
took on board popular criticisms of the trading classes. It appears that
some traders had and tried to meet the requirements of ‘social justice’ in
their wills, and the language of debt and credit had become increasingly
pervasive.

Conclusion
This chapter has demonstrated that there was a crucial difference
between passing legislation and enforcing it in the medieval marketplace.
In the small towns of Newmarket and Clare, the penalties for traders
were relatively low and much more was tolerated than medieval literary

349 Redstone, ‘Chapels’; Westlake, Parish Gilds, pp. 225–30.

350 Northeast (ed.), Wills, pp. 17, 43, nos. 43, 112. See also ibid., pp. 151–2, 195, 295,
nos. 130, 511, 818; Thornton, A Short History, p. 14.
351 Amor, ‘Merchant adventurer’, 424, 428–9.
 The behaviour of market traders 381

depictions or legislation might suggest. Consequently, petty trade was

not exceptionally encumbered by legal tenets and decrees of the Church.
Indeed, the fact that large numbers of bakers, brewers, innkeepers, cooks
and butchers could thrive in small towns suggests in itself that the appli-
cation of laws was not overly restrictive. It seems that the local interpre-
tation of law evolved to accommodate social and economic changes and
support the efficiency of the market. In essence, local market authorities
and users were manipulating the proclamations of the state to suit their
own commercial circumstances. Regular amercements were collected,
but they were not so heavy as to jeopardise a trader’s productivity and
livelihood.352 There was seemingly an implicit, basic understanding of
the market economy and the best means to maintain institutional effi-
ciency within the economic, legal, administrative and social realities of
the time. Royal and parliamentary legislation, as well as the admonitions
of the pulpit, were sticks to wave at erring traders, but they were employed
sparingly and judiciously.
Newmarket’s courts, in particular, were run by local traders for the
benefit of commercial interaction. The regulatory structure of this small
market town offered an effective and flexible framework within which
traders could make a living and yet also feel protected against deceit.
The system worked because it kept transaction costs down for both
traders and purchasers through openly acquiescing with the medieval
concepts of fairness and justice. Market traders were allowed by officials
to work within acceptable margins of the law on payment of an annual
amercement. This provided a flexibility that was vital given contemporary
commercial circumstances and productive constraints. However, traders
were not given a free hand and all knew that officials and neighbours
would stamp down on flagrant breaches. There was therefore a selective
element in how morality and laws were interpreted in order to facili-
tate everyday life. As Mark Bailey has noted, market and court officials
‘consciously sought to maintain a pragmatic balance between minimal
interference in the dealings of market traders and preventing persistent
or serious misconduct’.353 This was a fairly effective and flexible means
of facilitating market trade within the constraints and moral environment
of late medieval England, drawing actively upon common conceptions of
morality, trust and cooperation.
This was not an entirely harmonious or successful environment: debts
were not always recovered, market deceits occurred, and officials had to

352 Raftis argues that a similar arrangement can be seen in late medieval Ramsey. Raftis,
Peasant Economic Development, p. 119.
353 Bailey, Medieval Suffolk, p. 143.
382 Medieval market morality

act strictly against those who challenged their authority. Also, whether
local officials constrained growth and entrepreneurship through some
aspects of law-enforcement, such as against middlemen, is more than
possible. Marketing growth was fairly haphazard in the fifteenth cen-
tury, as illustrated by the long-term fortunes of Newmarket and Clare.
Additionally, developments in rural industries and informal trade suggest
other attempts were made to circumvent existing trade regulations, which
perhaps lagged too far behind the needs of many enterprising traders and
manufacturers. Although the practice of trade and interpretation of law
in small towns was adaptable and flexible, officials still worked within
the broad conceptual boundaries and constraints defined by legislation
and moral preconceptions, rather than constructing a new commercial
infrastructure. The trading behaviour of local petty traders still remained
bound by traditional moral and legal considerations. However, the regu-
latory framework generally worked and small towns like Newmarket may
have provided a more accessible and open trading environment than most
boroughs by the fifteenth century, showing that market traders could
flourish without formal burgess status.354 These small Suffolk towns,
while still espousing the veneer of traditional medieval ethics, were thus
in the process of accepting the values of commercialisation.

PA RT I I : T H E B O R O U G H M A R K E T O F I P S W I C H

It remains to place the market trade of small towns into a broader context
by briefly considering the conduct of commerce in larger towns and
boroughs. The evidence from the small towns of Newmarket and Clare
suggests that strict regulation of equitable participation and price control
was becoming less appropriate in the fifteenth century. Traders needed
more room for entrepreneurial manoeuvre in an increasingly competitive
environment. Many offences merely became revenue raisers for towns in
need of cash and the authorities were often prepared to overlook minor
trading infringements. By comparison, borough corporations and craft
guilds seemingly became highly protective and stringent in the face of
expanding commercial and manufacturing competition. The emergence
of the craft and trade guilds as regulatory bodies with extensive powers
led to stricter controls on quality and supplies, at least within their own
jurisdictions.355
Can we therefore surmise that there was more room for petty enter-
prise in small market towns than large boroughs?356 Certainly, many large

354 Ibid., pp. 144–5. 355 See pp. 169–75.

356 Hilton, ‘Medieval market towns’, 21–2.
 The behaviour of market traders 383

towns had suburbs where petty retailers tried to escape the authority of
the town corporation and could proliferate unmolested.357 Compared to
small towns, there was also a greater gap between the ruling merchant
elite and the mass of petty traders. The vested interests of the whole-
saling mercantile elite therefore took precedence over those of retailers.
However, it is possible that the extent to which retailers faced height-
ened controls in larger towns has been tainted by our knowledge of the
mercantile and manufacturing sectors. There are many important issues
raised by a comparison between small and large towns, which cannot all
be addressed within the scope of this book. The following analysis will
thus look only briefly at these questions, in order to highlight further
areas of investigation for the study of market ethics. In keeping with the
focus of these case studies on Suffolk, the following survey will look at
retail trade in the large borough of Ipswich.
Ipswich (‘Gippeswych’) was the prime town of Suffolk, in both its
administrative and marketing role. It had developed its self-governing
administration since the charter of 25 May 1200 and been a borough
since before the Domesday Book of 1086.358 It was not in the very top
rank of medieval English towns but, along with the Suffolk towns of Bury
St Edmunds and Sudbury, Ipswich was ranked among the fifty wealthiest
in England in 1334.359 The late fourteenth-century population of Ipswich
can be estimated at 3,000–3,500, based upon the 1377 Poll Tax, which
gives 1,507 over the age of fourteen, though this did not include the very
poor and inevitable evasions.360 Stephen Alsford estimates that there
were some 150–350 freemen in Ipswich, a fairly small number of men
who held privileges and dominated executive offices within the town.361
Lying on the rivers Orwell and Gipping, Ipswich served as a sheltered
port for its prosperous agricultural hinterland. The town also probably
placed an extensive demand for foodstuffs and raw materials upon the
hinterland, which stretched up to fifteen miles in radius.362 Several local
manorial lords purchased exemptions from tolls for the produce they

357 Keene, ‘Suburban growth’.

358 DB, 290a–b; RCh, i, p. 65. See also Martin, ‘The governance of Ipswich’, pp. xvii–xxix.
359 Ipswich was ranked nineteenth, while Bury St Edmunds was twenty-sixth. Both had
improved to ninth and fourteenth respectively by 1524. Bailey, Medieval Suffolk,
pp. 128–30; Britnell, ‘Economy of British towns’, p. 329; Kermode, ‘Greater towns’,
pp. 441–65.
360 Fenwick (ed.), Poll Taxes, ii, pp. 496–536; VCH: Suffolk, i, p. 647. In 1381, 963 were
assessed.
361 Alsford, Towns, ‘The Men Behind the Masque: Office-Holding in East Anglian Bor-
oughs, 1272–1460’, ch. 3.
362 As a comparison, Lee argued that the local hinterland for Cambridge extended between
ten and fifteen miles in radius around the town, though goods like stone and fuel had
to be brought from further afield. Lee, ‘Feeding the colleges’, 243–64.
384 Medieval market morality

brought to Ipswich market.363 It had few nearby rivals for its commercial
dominance, the nearest large towns being Yarmouth and Norwich to the
north, Colchester and Maldon to the south and Cambridge and Bury
St Edmunds to the west. Dunwich had long been in decline by the
late fourteenth century. Ipswich’s burgesses had quickly asserted their
authority over Woodbridge in 1233 and obtained half of their tolls, as
well as the right to trade in Woodbridge’s market without paying toll.364
Its main rival had been Harwich, which was situated at the mouth of
the Orwell and had the powerful patronage of the Earl of Norfolk in the
late thirteenth century.365 However, legal action in 1340 later confirmed
Ipswich’s jurisdiction over the port.
The Orwell estuary was the principal commercial artery, making
Ipswich into a safe haven and an international port. Its merchants traded
with the Low Countries, the Baltic and the Rhineland, importing wine,
spices, fruits, dyes, oil, salt, iron, timber and many other wares, and
exporting wool and the cloth from the small towns of the Stour Valley.366
The enrolled customs accounts suggest that a fair amount of raw wool was
exported by Ipswich’s citizens throughout the fifteenth century, though
the figures fluctuate between a few hundred and a couple of thousand
sacks each year.367 The customs accounts show that the peak of cloth
exports occurred in the late 1430s and 1440s, after the signing of a treaty
between England and the Hanseatic League in 1437.368 This resurgence
for both local and German merchants was followed by a relative slump in
the 1470s and 1480s. Nevertheless, Ipswich benefited from the general
growth of the East Anglian cloth trade in the fifteenth century, but more
as a centre of distribution than as an industrial centre. The hub of this
export trade was at the Quay and the small wharves on the Orwell, which
handled both overseas and coastal traffic.
Retail markets were mostly located in the north of the town, partic-
ularly on Cornhill. These markets exchanged both imported goods and
those of hinterland producers who bought their commodities through
the North and West Gates. Cornhill lay at the heart of the town and
comprised the centre of the retail market infrastructure, with the market
cross and also a moothall or ‘Tolhous’ on its south side, abetting com-
mercial administration. Many commodities were retailed here but, like

363 Alsford, Towns, ‘History of Medieval Ipswich – Economy’.

364 Curia Regis Rolls, xiv, pp. 353–4. 365 Bailey, Medieval Suffolk, p. 124.
366 Redstone, Ipswich, pp. 27–33, 37; Wodderspoon, Memorials, pp. 131, 165; Martin,
‘Borough and the merchant community of Ipswich’, p. 171; Power and Postan (eds.),
Studies, pp. 330, 339.
367 Carus-Wilson and Coleman, England’s Export Trade, pp. 134–5.
368 Ibid., pp. 102, 152–3; Britnell, Growth and Decline, pp. 170–1. However, Britnell also
notes that the enrolled customs records combined Ipswich, Harwich, Colchester and
Maldon for administrative purposes.
 The behaviour of market traders 385

many large boroughs, market activity spread into the sprawling streets.
A shambles was situated on its south side, while more markets for cattle,
dairy, poultry, cloth, wine, timber, wooden wares and fish lay further
afield. Inns, taverns, alehouses and cookshops were scattered throughout
the town, though there was a specific Cook’s Row. Trade also took place
at the Quay in the south-east of the town, particularly wholesale bargains
for wine, grain and fish as they arrived on ships. As the dominant urban
settlement for the region it is likely that the markets were open daily,
except Sundays. From the mid-fourteenth century, the revenue sources
for many of the different retail markets and other customs were farmed
out to individual burgesses for lump sums, but this was discontinued
by 1400.
A huge variety of products were bought and sold, as illustrated by toll
lists.369 Thirty-seven occupations are mentioned specifically in the leet
rolls,370 and a further seventeen might be implied from surnames, but this
is an unreliable source of occupational data by the fifteenth century. One
would, of course, expect a wider range of trades and occupations in a large
borough compared to the occupational profile of Clare or Newmarket.
Overall, Ipswich had a fairly stable and prosperous economy by the early
fifteenth century, based on a wide number of economic functions and
its role as a cloth and wool distributor. There are only a few indicators
that it was suffering from the widespread urban malaise seen elsewhere
in English towns.371 There were several wealthy merchants in Ipswich
who were heavily involved in the import–export trades and who also
comprised a significant element of the town’s governing and propertied
class.372 Ipswich was primarily a centre of trade and its burgesses tried to
protect their privileged position against the incursion of outsiders. The
royal charter of 1200 formally gave burgesses the right to choose their

369 Black Book, ii, pp. 178–207 (c.1309).

370 These were baker, barber, beerbrewer, bowyer, brewer, butcher, butler, card-maker,
carpenter, carter, clerk, cook, cooper, cordwainer, ditcher, drover, dyer, fishmonger,
fletcher, fuller, furbisher, hunter, innkeeper, mariner, mason, merchant, ploughman,
roper, shepherd, skinner, smith, tailor, tanner, vintner, weaver, woad dealer and wright.
The additional occupational surnames were chandler, chapman, cobbler, cork-maker,
draper, glover, goldsmith, haberdasher, net-maker, patten-maker, porter, potter, sad-
dler, spicer, taverner, tiler and turner.
371 In 1447 the chamberlains were ordered to repair decaying houses. Richardson (ed.),
Annalls of Ipswche, p. 104. A charter of 1463 did complain about problems raising
money due to a burdensome fee farm and royal tallages, losses in shipping, and the
emigration of wealthier burgesses. Allen, Ipswich Borough Archives, p. 6; CChR, vi,
pp. 197–9. However, it is not easy to interpret how these complaints relate to the general
and per capita prosperity of Ipswich in light of the post-Black Death population decline
and administrative difficulties. See Dobson, ‘Urban decline’ and above, pp. 13–14.
372 Nicholas Amor has identified some thirty-six Ipswich burgesses in the 1390s who were
involved in overseas trade, especially the export of cloth and import of wine (personal
communication). See also Bailey, Medieval Suffolk, p. 281.
386 Medieval market morality

own officers, collect and pay a farm of £40 to the royal Exchequer, control
their own jurisdiction, and be impleaded in the borough courts regarding
their tenements and debts contracted within the town.373 Those who
were at ‘lot and scot’ also had freedom of tolls and stallage throughout
the town and country.

The government and courts of Ipswich

Ipswich had the greatest powers of self-government of any borough in
Suffolk, and throughout the later medieval period the borough continued
to receive numerous confirming or amending charters, usually expanding
their liberties.374 In the early fourteenth century (1328), all freedom-
holders had to own a house in the borough within a year and a day of
being made a burgess, partly to help the enforcements of distraint in court
but also to ensure they had a stake in town affairs.375 The community of
Ipswich was keen to outline who did and did not have access to rights and
liberties. The charters and burgess status emphasised unity and loyalty,
the delineation of certain privileges and the obligations of residents. By
the fourteenth century, the main governing body of the borough was to
consist of two bailiffs, four coroners (reduced to two in 1317) and twelve
chief portmen, as well as officers such as sergeants, chamberlains and
clerks.376 The twelve portmen of Ipswich were the representatives of the
parishes and were supposedly elected by ‘common assent’. However, all
the candidates were drawn from a narrow selection of the ‘better, more
discreet’ men of the borough and so urban authority was concentrated in
the hands of a small elite.377 Only freemen of the town were eligible for
office, and the early bailiffs also served as coroners and all coroners as
chief portmen. There were thus, each year, four men who were dominant
in Ipswich’s governance.
The charter for Ipswich also formalised a guild merchant, which effec-
tively established the commercial hierarchy. The merchant guild may

373 RCh, i, p. 65; Gross, Gild Merchant, ii, pp. 116–23.

374 See Martin, ‘The governance of Ipswich’, pp. xix–xxv.
375 Alsford, Towns, ‘History of Medieval Ipswich – Development of Local Government’;
Martin, ‘Ipswich’, pp. 91–2; Black Book, pp. 154–7, c.63 [61] (c.1309).
376 The town government remained largely in this form until the mid-fifteenth century.
The office of mayor never developed in medieval Ipswich. In a charter of 1446, Ipswich
was formally incorporated and gave the borough the formal right to a common seal
and to acquire corporate lands and rents, both of which had long been in use. Royal
officials were excluded from the liberties, and the powers of Justices of the Peace were
vested in the two bailiffs and four of the chief portmen. CChR, vi, pp. 54–5; Alsford,
Towns, ‘History of Medieval Ipswich – Development of Local Government’; Martin,
‘The governance of Ipswich’, p. xxvii.
377 Bailey, Medieval Suffolk, p. 136.
 The behaviour of market traders 387

well have existed informally before then, even acting as a de facto town
council.378 In thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century Ipswich, there was
a close connection between the merchant guild and town government.
The town hall was called the guild hall and the officials of the guild,
such as the aldermen, were originally elected by parish representatives of
the town. However, the merchant guild was reconstituted as the Corpus
Christi Guild by 1325 and had a more ceremonial purpose, organising
the annual pageant and feast in order to reinforce the solidarity of the
town community. The pageant also asserted the comparative status and
prestige of the individual trade groups. It is possible that the guild still
played a lesser governmental role in the later period, particularly in reg-
ulating certain artisans. Aldermen were still elected, all burgesses were
members of the guild, and no formal trade or craft guilds (with ordi-
nances) were established in Ipswich. However, it does appear that much
of the trading regulation became based around the borough officials and
courts.
The charter of 1200 formally granted the townsmen a degree of auton-
omy and surely bolstered their communal self-confidence. The town
courts and officers now upheld the customs of the borough and the priv-
ileges of the burgesses. The main judicial institution at this time was the
Portmanmote, which handled admissions of burgesses, pleas initiated by
royal writ and pleas relating to burgage tenements. By the fourteenth
century, the business of petty pleas had been devolved to the petty court,
while the Portmanmote often became known as the great court, respon-
sible for great pleas. However, while the great court was ostensibly the
main judicial assembly, by the late fourteenth century its administrative
business had been seemingly hived off to a general court.379 In addi-
tion, the administration of land transactions was supported by the more
regular recognisance court (or Petty Court of Recognizances). The Port-
manmote lost its pre-eminence completely after the Black Death and lay
in abeyance for long periods due to lack of business. Indeed, the Petty
Court was probably the most active court in Ipswich, dealing not only
with personal pleas but also with matters of public policy.380 Sometime
during the early fifteenth century, the structure was formalised and the
Portmanmote was responsible only for infrequent real actions, while the
general court (which now itself came to be called the Great Court) was

378 Ibid., pp. 139–40.

379 Martin, ‘The governance of Ipswich’, p. xxvi; Allen, Ipswich Borough Archives, pp. 42–4.
380 The Petty Court rolls provide a wealth of detail regarding the broader dimensions of
trade in Ipswich, particularly debts and contracts. An extensive study is being under-
taken by N. R. Amor for his forthcoming book, Late Medieval Ipswich.
388 Medieval market morality

the assembly of free burgesses, issuing ordinances, admitting burgesses

and electing officers.381
There was also the leet court, an ancient institution which annually
dealt with policing matters of the four wards of the borough. The jurisdic-
tion of the leet and the system of frankpledge was a franchise delegated by
the Crown.382 The bailiffs had oversight in Ipswich, but the sub-bailiffs
(or sergeants) were the chief regulatory and enforcement officers for the
decisions of the courts and councillors. They were easily recognisable,
dressed in the borough’s livery, and they were expected to uphold the
assizes and regulation of victuals and other trading regulation, as well as
deal with nuisances and minor assaults.383 Most retail trading offences
were thus recorded at the yearly leet court, held on Tuesday in Whitsun
week, to which all males over the age of twelve were compelled to attend.
A separate court was held for the four wards (North, South, East and
West) and was presided over by the two bailiffs and three capital pledges
(or ‘headboroughs’) for each ward, who constituted the jury. Affeerers
decided on the level of amercement for offences. With no craft guilds and
the declining influence of the merchant guild, a small group of officials
and merchants thus controlled the government of Ipswich and regulated
trade. There are a number of sources from Ipswich with which to recover
evidence of the daily regulation and activity of retail trade, such as the
debt litigation in the Petty Court rolls. However, the main sources used
for this case study are fifteen surviving borough leet court rolls up to 1468
(those from 1359, 1415, 1416, 1419, 1421, 1423, 1424, 1434, 1436–8
and 1465–8).384 These in turn only cover forty-two of the sixty courts
held in the four different wards.385 This makes it difficult to analyse the
data in any systematic way and this brief survey will only highlight some
of the main impressions that these leet courts provide. The prosecutions
and presentments can also be compared to Ipswich’s trading ordinances.
As already seen, the trading regulations of boroughs were partly based
upon national laws and partly upon their own codification of privileges
and customs. In Ipswich, these customs were compiled into a text called

381 After Edward IV’s charter of 1463, the Portmanmote’s judicial role contracted even
further. Martin has discussed the administrative changes that took place in Ipswich in
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; Martin, ‘The governance of Ipswich’. See also
Allen, Ipswich Borough Archives, pp. 42–4.
382 See above, pp. 147–9. 383 Bailey, Medieval Suffolk, p. 135.
384 A single leet court roll also survives for the 1440s/50s, but the ward is not identifiable
and it has not been used for this study. SRO (I), c/2/8/1/12. This study only looks at
the years up to 1468, but further leet court rolls are available from 1471 onwards.
385 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/1–11, c2/10/1/2–6 (with sincere thanks also to Nicholas Amor for
allowing me to view his own data from these courts).
 The behaviour of market traders 389

‘le Domesday’, one of the earliest custumals in England. After the orig-
inal custumal was stolen in 1272 by a former common clerk, John le
Blake, a new set of ordinances was compiled from memory (and with
amendments) in 1291 by twenty-four of the burgesses. There was a con-
certed attempt to preserve ancient usages but, as Martin states, it is likely
that the burgesses were ‘dignifying some current practices with the stamp
of antiquity’.386 This new Domesday roll does not survive, but several
rescensions were made thereafter until the late fifteenth century, with
the earliest dated to around 1309.387 There were few notable additions
regarding specific market regulations through to the fifteenth century,
and the longevity of many trade ordinances emphasises consistent con-
cerns about the medieval marketplace.
However, one notable development was the emphasis on forestalling
in the 1320 reforms, following a royal charter acquired in 1317 and ear-
lier petitions to the Crown by ‘poor men’ of Ipswich in 1304.388 The
document also emphasised that it was a common right, by reason of
the franchise, that every burgess paying scot and lot and contributing to
aids of the town had equal entitlement to a share in any merchandise
being sold in the town (a principle that forestalling undermined). How-
ever, certain burgesses had contravened this, particularly by becoming
hosts of outsider merchants and selling their goods for them in pri-
vate places, sometimes even without consent of the visiting merchants,
and claiming a quarter of the merchandise as their hostage fee. Conse-
quently, the following ordinances (which went far beyond correction of
the problem identified in the preamble) were enacted. Goods brought
into Ipswich by outside merchants were to be sold only in official mar-
ketplaces, without any interference from hosts or forestallers. Anyone
convicted of forestalling was to forfeit the merchandise involved and be
disenfranchised. Contracts of sale, including the dates of payment and the
names of sureties, were to be confirmed in the presence of the bailiffs,
which ensured that possessions could be attached if payment was not
made. These 1320 ordinances also decreed that all merchandise should
be freely offered for sale in the town, and that strangers who kept to the
good usages of the town deserved protection.389

386 Martin, ‘The governance of Ipswich’, p. xxii.

387 Martin, Early Court Rolls, pp. 7–9. The versions in Black Book, ii, pp. 16–207, are an
early fourteenth-century (c.1309) French edition (BL, MS Additional 25012) and
a fifteenth-century English edition (BL, MS Additional 25011). There are other
thirteenth-century copies, such as the Black Domesday (SRO (I), c/4/1/1) and the
White Domesday (SRO (I), c/4/1/2). Allen, Ipswich Borough Archives, pp. 412–21.
388 CChR, iii, pp. 344–5; Allen, Ipswich Borough Archives, pp. xxiii–xxiv; Alsford, Towns,
‘History of Medieval Ipswich – Development of Local Government’.
389 Martin, ‘The governance of Ipswich’, p. xxiii.
390 Medieval market morality

The earliest extant ‘Little Domesday’ of Ipswich was thus an early

fourteenth-century modification of the town’s ordinances. It exempli-
fied the controls of the corporation over commercial matters. In the
eighty-three chapters of this custumal, most covered rights of property
and laws of inheritance, ten concerned the conduct of officials, and a
further fifteen covered aspects of marketing. There was a particular con-
cern with the devices of credit, debt and contract, which were the lubri-
cants for a successful market community. The custumal ordered that
wardens be assigned to the market to ensure that the regulations were
upheld ‘for the common profit of the town and surrounding region’,
and that ordinances were announced publicly in the market. All goods
coming to Ipswich were to be freely and openly offered for sale. Bar-
gains were to be acknowledged before the bailiffs and goods brought to
appointed places of sale and not forestalled.390 Traders and pedlars from
outside the town were not to sell before the hour of prime and only in
open market.391 These ordinances were mainly to allow all burgesses
the right to share in bargains. However, the suspicion remained that
many merchants hosted foreign traders and privately bargained for their
goods.
Another basic condition of the custumal was that all measures of the
town were approved and sealed with the town seal. Anyone caught using
unsealed weights and measures was to be heavily amerced. As in Clare
and Newmarket, Ipswich’s authorities specifically watched out for those
who sold by the auncel, ‘contrary to statute’, and several wool merchants
were upbraided for this offence in 1415.392 Bailiffs had the power to
test weights and measures at any time, to prevent fraud ‘in the forseyd
toun of Gippeswich among such maner of mesurys in esclaundre of the
toun, ne of damage to the pepele’.393 A few cases appear in the leet
court which highlighted this need for standardisation in weights and
measures. For instance, in 1466, Remkyn Taylour was fined 40d. for
having a weigh-beam within his inn, when he should have been using
the common weigh-beam of the town. He was ordered to desist under
pain of a further 40s. penalty. The rhetoric of communal benefit and a
fear of harming the town’s reputation were thus constant themes in the
custumal and, as seen below, were repeated in court roll entries. The
interests of resident merchants and manufacturers were protected, but
the customs also drew upon broader principles of trade conduct and
ethics.

390 Black Book, ii, pp. 100–1, c.26 (c.1309). 391 Ibid., ii, pp. 102–3, c.28 (c.1309).
392 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/2. 393 Black Book, ii, pp. 176–7, c.83 [80] (c.1309).
 The behaviour of market traders 391

The assizes of bread and ale

The bulk of leet court trading prosecutions in Ipswich were for breaches
of the assizes of bread and ale. The Ipswich Custumal concerning the
assize of bread drew upon statute law, in that bakers were to be amerced
according to the enormity of their trespass, with a fourth offence leading
to the pillory. Additionally, as in many larger boroughs, a fifth offence was
deemed significant enough for a baker to give up his business. Bakers were
also expected to specialise in particular breads: either wastel, cocket and
trayt; simnel and trayt; or wholewheat and corn breads.394 In another
local specification, the Ipswich Custumal included an extra entry on
equipment. Any bakers who made wastel, simnel or first cocket, were
to use a fine bolter from Rennes, or else their bolter would be burned
beside the pillory. Similarly, in the leet court itself, bakers were warned
for not bringing their bolters to be checked, to the ‘grave damage of the
community’, and there was concern about the fineness of flour. However,
there are no indications of any bakers facing the pillory or being expelled,
and they appear to have been amerced according to the size of their
output.
There were relatively few bakers presented in any of the wards.395 It
seems that baking in Ipswich was concentrated in the hands of a few,
large-scale commercial operations, with poorer, irregular bakers either
pushed out or to the fringes. Overall, an average of one to two bakers
are presented in each of the North, South and East Wards per session,
and just over three in the West Ward. This constitutes an average of just
eight bakers each year for the whole of Ipswich. All were men except for
a single reference to Gundre Joye, the widow of the baker Richard Joye,
who was amerced 40d. in 1421, again implying that large-scale baking
was a household affair.396 The individuals listed in the leet court were
often termed ‘common bakers’ of bread and could be fined quite large
amounts. The amercements for each ward averaged between 23.8d. and
33.2d. per baker, though individual amercements could reach as high as
4s.-10s.
There were a number of individuals who dominated production in
the 1420s and 1430s. Three bakers were prominent in the West Ward:
Gilbert Bobat (average amercement of 35d.) and the two John Turnours
(averaging 36d. and 29d.). Thomas Bast, in the North Ward, was fined

394 Ibid., ii, pp. 172–5, c.80 [77] (c.1309). 395 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/1–11, c2/10/1/2–6.
396 The male domination of urban baking is attested in other studies. Goldberg, Women,
Work, and Life Cycle, pp. 88–92; Kowaleski, Local Markets, p. 139; McIntosh, Working
Women, pp. 182–6.
392 Medieval market morality

extensive sums for baking against the assize, an average of nearly 60d.
across six courts between 1423 and 1438. John Wode (East Ward) was
another central figure in the baking trade, as well as many other trading
activities in Ipswich, for which he received the second-highest average
amercement at 44d. By the 1460s it was men like Robert Doye (West
Ward, average 32d.), Ralph Laurence (North, average 22d.) and Thomas
Medewe (North, average 24d.) who were predominant in the baking
trade, though their average amercements were slightly less than those
working some thirty to forty years earlier. Despite the high amercements
in several cases, and the promulgation of stringent borough regulations,
it appears that the fifteenth-century assize of bread was as much an
effectual licensing scheme in Ipswich as in Newmarket and Clare. There
were recurrent offenders, listed year after year, and little indication that
the employment of corporal punishment was even considered. Amerce-
ments levels varied year to year, but did not necessarily rise annually as
stipulated by both statute and municipal laws. Instead, the high levels
of amercements seemingly reflect the output and prosperity of certain
bakers, and such a ‘production tax’ certainly generated a useful income
stream for the corporation (an average of nearly £1 per year for all four
wards).
There is evidence that not all large towns operated the assize of bread
in this manner. In early fourteenth-century Oxford, the wide variation
in amercements and regular use of the pillory appear to suggest that
actual offences, as well as production levels, were being monitored in
a carefully regulated market, though again there are cases of bakers
being amerced consistent amounts over long periods.397 Similarly, in
late fifteenth-century Southampton, where there was an intensive reg-
ulatory system that made assize checks every two to four weeks, there
are numerous occasions where bakers are noted as having produced
bread of ‘good weight and satisfactory’ and they are not amerced. It
appears that in some larger towns, at times when the sale of bread
was contentious and under strain, assize regulations were enforced more
strictly.398
The bailiffs of Ipswich announced the assize of ale every Michaelmas
and any brewing contrary to the assize was to be judged according to the
statutes of the realm.399 In the leet court rolls, the standard formula for
offences against the assize of ale increasingly included the statement that
the amercements were also for brewers who were using cups and dishes

397 Salter (ed.), Medieval Archives, ii, pp. 143–82.

398 Anderson (ed.), Assize of Bread Book, pp. 2–9.
399 Black Book, ii, pp. 174–5, c.81 [78] (c.1309).
 The behaviour of market traders 393

instead of lawful measures. In contrast to the bakers, ale-brewers faced

consistently low amercements, averaging 6.7d.–7.1d. per offence across
the four wards. Many of the individual brewers were amerced every year,
such as Thomas Hawe who faced 6d.–8d. penalties every recorded year
between 1421 and 1438. Only occasional individuals faced an amerce-
ment higher than 12d. This included John Wode, a regular brewer as
well as baker, who was amerced 12d.–24d. throughout the 1410s to
1430s. In South Ward, the number of brewers averaged fourteen per
year, in the North, sixteen, in the West, twenty-three, and in the East,
eighteen. This meant an average of seventy-one brewers for the whole
of Ipswich per year, and perhaps some 270 separate brewing house-
holds appearing in the surviving court rolls from 1415 to 1468. If we
assume that most were part of a larger household, many of whom would
have partaken in the brewing process, then the brewers of Ipswich con-
stituted about a tenth of the urban households in any one year. From
1415 to 1468, we can identify thirty-eight brewers who were amerced
10d. and above and it is likely that they were the more regular and
substantial producers. This included fifteen men who were owners of
‘common inns’ and thus needed a regular supply of ale and bread (see
Table 17). Again, the regularised nature of the presentments and contin-
ual amercements at a standard level, without any indication of corporal
punishment, are suggestive of a licensing system allied to production
levels.
It was mostly men who were presented for brewing offences in the
Ipswich leet, possibly in lieu of their wives. Indeed, many men named as
brewers or sellers of ale can be identified as pursuing a more notable pri-
mary occupation, whether as a tanner, dyer, baker, butcher, fishmonger
or even mason. However, there were also a handful of women presented
each year. In all, there are sixty-eight appearances by sole women in
the 723 surviving offences for the assize of ale, which constitutes nearly
10 per cent of the cases. These included women who appear four times
in the surviving court rolls, such as Agnes Davy (1419–24), Beatrice Toly
(1434–8) and Joan Gigoo (1465–8). Given the predominance of men in
the lists, it appears that the privileges of femme sole did not extend to
presenting married women in these lists. It seems more likely that such
presented women were unmarried or widows, such as Margery Thorp
who was listed as the widow of William in 1421 and amerced the hefty
amount of 24d. for brewing against the assize. It is difficult to determine
what role married women played in the brewing trade and it is too easy
to assume that their husbands were simply presented at court in their
place. Bennett, McIntosh and Mate all argue that urban brewing was
becoming more professionalised and concentrated in male hands during
394 Medieval market morality

the fifteenth century, particularly the larger urban operations.400 Many

of the men presented for brewing in Ipswich were also on the lists as
bakers, butchers, innkeepers or fishmongers, and it is very possible that
the production and sale of victuals was a joint household activity, espe-
cially for the more regularly presented, who were perhaps selling from
permanent shops or inns.401 The more irregular traders might be con-
cealing a supplementary brewing by an alewife. Untangling the actual
division of labour within a household is problematic given the available
court records and the complications of patriarchal presentment.
Several ‘Duchemen’, perhaps part of the immigrant community for
the cloth industry, were also fined in the leet court for illicit brewing of
beer.402 Beer became increasingly popular in England during the fifteenth
century, drawing on continental expertise in its early manifestations.403
The addition of hops meant that it lasted longer and was more easily
transported, making a more viable and profitable commodity. However,
it was also more capital and labour intensive in its production. It appears
that in the 1410s and 1420s, beer-brewers like Geoffrey Pape and Dirrik
van Graven required a licence from the borough authorities in order
to brew and sell this new product. They faced fines of up to between
4s. and 13s. By the 1430s, however, they too were subject to an assize
and were accused of both excessive prices and selling with unlawful
measures. This could incur heavy penalties of between 1s. and 10s. for
this early generation of beer-brewers in England.404 It is difficult to know
exactly why amercements were so much higher for beer-brewing than
ale-brewing. It might be a case of discrimination against aliens or against
this new product, or possibly beer had already developed into a high-
profit business. Many of the lesser fines for beer-brewing occur between
1423 and 1434, either side of which the amercements are significant
across the board. One could suggest that the early years were an attempt
to bring beer-brewing fully within the auspices of the town authorities;
once achieved, for a short period they treated the beer-brewers much like
the ale-brewers. Indeed, in 1437, Pape was amerced 6d. as an ale-brewer,
even though he was surely making beer as he was in the years both before
and after, including 160d., 120d. and 6d. as beer-brewer in 1419, 1421

400 Bennett, Ale; McIntosh, A Community Transformed, pp. 281–91; Mate, Daughters, Wives
and Widows, pp. 53–71.
401 See also Newman, Late Medieval Northallerton, pp. 94–8.
402 ‘Duchemen’ could refer more generally to northern, continental Europeans.
403 For a discussion about the emergence of beer-brewing in England, see Mate, Trade
and Economic Developments, ch. 5; Bennett, Ale, ch. 5; Britnell, Growth and Decline,
pp. 195–7; McIntosh, Working Women, pp. 163–6.
404 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
 The behaviour of market traders 395

and 1434 respectively. However, by the 1460s the Ipswich authorities

were making a firm distinction between ale and beer and attempting to
draw maximum revenue from these brewing immigrants who might be
less able to complain.
There are other indications in the leet court that these ‘Duchemen’
were discriminated against while undertaking their trades in beer, leather
and cloth. In 1421, Geoffrey Pape was amerced a hefty 80d. for depositing
filth, excrement and the malt dregs of beer in the water gates, from
which a very bad smell arose to the nuisance of the people, as well as the
destruction and raising of the gates. He was ordered not to do so in the
future under penalty of 40d. When Matthew Duchman assaulted Richard
Duchman and John Duchman in 1424 he was amerced 6s., a significantly
higher amount than for similar assaults. It is possible that it was an
especially brutal assault, or else it was an indication that officials wished
to keep these outsiders in order. Similarly, in 1437, Joice Duchman
was fined 2s. for assaulting Isabell Duchewoman. Cornelius Duchman
and Gerard Duchman also faced significant fines of 44d. and 40d. for
their leather-making in 1468. Alien residents were seemingly subject to
rigorous penalties if they transgressed.

Regraters
The Ipswich Custumal expressed a continual dislike of middlemen, based
upon principles of the common good and the maintenance of public
order. No non-burgess or regrater was to make a bargain outside of the
market or town, or else they faced forfeiture and then imprisonment. Any
forestallers of fish or poultry were to face forfeiture and imprisonment
for the first offence, the pillory for the second, and abstaining from
his occupation for a year and a day for a third.405 No regrater in the
market was to buy from another regrater, since this pushed prices up.
Again the stipulated punishments for repeat offences were confiscation,
imprisonment, pillory and finally giving up their occupation for a year
and a day.406
However, in the actual leet court, there is little indication of moral
opprobrium and regraters of bread and ale were nearly all amerced 3d.–
4d. over a number of sessions.407 Compared to brewing or baking, the
average amercement levels for regrating were much lower, indicative of a
more humble activity that generated very low profits. In the East Ward,
in 1424, regraters were accused of selling cupfuls of ale at 1/2d. each

405 Black Book, ii, pp. 100–1, c.26 (c.1309). 406 Ibid., ii, pp. 102–3, c.27 (c.1309).
407 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/1–11, c2/10/1/2–6.
396 Medieval market morality

where ten of these cups made a gallon in volume. Consequently, these

regraters were effectively selling a gallon of ale for 5d., well above the
assize rate which was normally not more than 11/2d.–2d. a gallon, yet
they were generally amerced only 4d. each. As with brewing, significant
numbers of regraters were amerced a standard amount at each court
session. For instance, either Edmund Bercok or his wife, Katherine, were
amerced 4d. for gannoking ale at eight separate leet courts in the 1420s
and 1430s. These consistently low amercement levels again indicate a
type of licensing system, without any appreciable attempt at deterrence.
There was no real indication of greater penalties, besides occasional fines
of 8d.–12d., despite warnings against using cups and dishes instead of
sealed measures.
In Exeter, Kowaleski found that large numbers were fined small
amounts (3d.–6d.) for retailing without membership of the freedom or
for forestalling and regrating. She suggested that this was a clear sign
that the ruling elite found it impossible to restrict retailing and middle-
men activities to the franchised members of the town. The authorities
thus used regulations as a means of licensing, control and raising rev-
enue, rather than as a true deterrent. Nevertheless, higher fines were used
when certain retailers challenged trading monopolies or price controls.408
Regraters perhaps served a recognisably useful purpose in larger towns,
where there were fewer bakers and brewers per head. There were specific
ordinances which limited regraters to later times of the day, but they
served as redistributors of produce, aiding producers and consumers.
There was an average of twenty-two regraters of bread presented each
year, dispersed fairly evenly across all four wards, and sixty-three ‘gan-
nokers’ (ale-sellers). Over the span of the court rolls, there are hints of
an occupational cycle, with certain individual households rising up the
business tree. Edmund Lamb was recorded as a gannoker from 1421–4
but as a brewer in 1434–8, and similarly Alexander and Margery Ford-
ham rose from gannokers to brewers during the 1420s. Just eighteen (8
per cent) of the 198 cases for regrating bread were specifically named
as women, while just 6 per cent (38 from 679 cases) of the gannokers
were named as women. This is a surprisingly small number, but may
simply reflect the same tendency seen in the assize of ale for husbands
to be named in leet courts instead of their wives. The named females
were probably single women or widows, perhaps selling ale and bread
from temporary alehouses, alongside their husbands in inns or shops,
or by cupfuls in the street.409 Dozens of petty retailers sold both bread

408 Kowaleski, Local Markets, p. 186.

409 Mate, Trade and Economic Developments, p. 74.
 The behaviour of market traders 397

and ale and a handful of them also forestalled a variety of victuals. It

is possible that this all points to the existence of more general shops in
Ipswich, where households sold ale, bread, meat, poultry, eggs, fish and
even candles.

Innkeepers
Fifty-five different Ipswich households were recorded as running guest-
houses or inns (‘hospicium’) across the surviving leet courts for 1415 to
1468. On average, there were apparently some eighteen inns in operation
at any one time across the city, if the recorded offences cover all the
establishments. The main innkeeping offences were to bake white bread
and horsebread against the assize, and to sell victuals, bread, fish, meat,
hay and oats for excessive profit, to the ‘grave damage of the town’.
These baking offences were not included under the standard baking
assize list and were considered to be particular to innkeeping. In the
1410s to 1430s, John Wode (of the North then East Ward) faced heavy
amercements of between 32d. and 160d. (average of 90.5d.), for baking in
his inn. In comparison to the amercements handed out to others he paid
significantly heavier fines, perhaps indicating flagrant breaches of the law
or a larger operation than most.410 He was indeed a very active man from
1415 to 1437 in both brewing and baking, and his exceptionally heavy
amercements slightly skew the figures for innkeepers in the East. Indeed,
the high overall average amercement of 14.2d. for Ipswich innkeepers is
determined by the activities of a few prominent individuals with average
amercements of 18d. or more, notably John Wode, Robert Blomfeld,
Walter Colk, John Denys, John Joye and John Sudbury (see Table 17).
In the 1430s, Walter Colk’s fines averaged over 40d. for his excessive
profits in his North Ward inn. He was also regularly amerced 6d.–12d. for
brewing and selling ale and 4d. for selling bread. In effect, Colk and Wode
were amerced three or four times at every court, including increasingly
large amounts for brewing and innkeeping. We cannot be certain whether
these fines were indicative of growing, profitable businesses or of a court
trying to rein in illegal, belligerent activities.
Most other innkeepers were fined 4d.–12d. for selling at an exces-
sive price, either ‘two pennies for that worth 1d.’, or ‘three pennies for
the value of two pennies’.411 In 1424, John Robard baked white and
horsebread forty times in his inn and did not keep the assize, but he
only paid a 6d. amercement.412 They were probably taking advantage
of the private nature of their transactions, as well as using a variety of

410 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/2, 3, 6, 7. 411 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/6, 7. 412 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/7.
398 Medieval market morality

unsealed measures. Like John Wode and Walter Colk, many of the iden-
tifiable innkeepers or their wives appeared in the leet court for other
trading offences, demonstrating a range of activities that could be tied
into the services offered by inns (see Table 17). It was quite common
that innkeeping households also brewed; indeed, some forty-one of the
fifty-five households (75 per cent) were amerced at some stage for brew-
ing against the assize of ale, while twenty-four households gannoked ale
(44 per cent). The function and size of these inns appears to have been
diverse, catering not just to travellers but also operating as victualling
houses in providing food and drink to local people. It is difficult to deter-
mine who within the household actually ran the inn on a day-to-day
basis. Most of the named proprietors were male but, like brewing, the
presentment procedures might hide the actual division of labour. There
are only a few recorded instances that suggest that women did run inns,
such as Katherine Aldham who was amerced just 4d. in 1465 and 1466
for innkeeping offences. John Hardyng’s wife appears to have taken over
the inn in 1468 upon the death of her husband, while Anna Watkyn
was also recorded as a widow in 1465–7. A similar scenario is found in
Exeter, where a small number of widows ran inns, perhaps suggesting
that they were also primarily responsible when their husbands were alive,
or at least contributed to the inn’s upkeep, perhaps by brewing.413
Some of the more notable innkeepers, Robert Blomfeld, John Depyng,
Richard Maiet, John Myddlylton and John Wode, were also involved in
the wine trade. This was easily the most valuable of all Ipswich’s import
trades, perhaps accounting for nearly 90 per cent of the value of all
imports in the late fourteenth century, when wine imports were reaching a
peak across England.414 The Ipswich Custumal outlined that the taverns
and cellars of the town should be searched and the wine tasted each year
by the bailiffs and some honest vintners. Any wine that was unfit to drink
or be mixed (‘ony wyn that be corrupt and perlous to drynkyn for mannys
body, or for to medelyn with newe wyn’) was to be seized. The ordinance
decreed a public and humiliating ritual for the disposal of corrupt wine. It
would be poured into the high street while the bailiff publicly condemned
it: ‘there in comoun sight of men dampnyn the tunne of the pipe’.415 In
1424, John Wode was amerced 20s. as a ‘vintner’ for selling 600 gallons
of red wine in his tavern (or inn) at 8d. a gallon when statute law stated
the price should be 6d.416 This was obviously considered a flagrant and

413 Kowaleski, Local Markets, p. 144; Mate, Women, p. 45; McIntosh, Working Women,
pp. 202–9.
414 Personal communication with Nicholas Amor.
415 Black Book, ii, pp. 176–7, c.82 [79] (c.1309). 416 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/7.
 The behaviour of market traders 399

Table 17. The innkeepers of Ipswich, 1415–1468

Regrater
Average
Innkeepers amercement Brewer Baker Ale Bread Fisha Meat Vintner Office

Katherine 4d.
Aldham
John Asselot 12d. ∗ ∗
Henry Barbour 12d. ∗ ∗
Robert Blomfeld 23d. ∗ CP, A
John Bunt 3d. ∗
Alexander Bush 15.3d. ∗
Thomas and 6.8d. ∗ ∗ CP
Isabel Cadon #
John Caldewell 12d. ∗ B
John Campyon 6d. ∗ A
William – ∗
Chambre
Walter Colk 28.9d. ∗ ` ∗ ∗
Anthony Denys 12d. ∗
John Denys # 18d. ∗
John Depyng 13d. ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
John Deve 4d. ∗ ∗ ∗ CP
Robert Deye 10.5d. ∗
Richard Disse 9d. ∗ ∗
(and wife)
Thomas Dobill 5d. ∗ ∗
John Dust 6d. ∗ ∗
Robert Fynche 3d. ∗ ∗
Reginald 12d. ∗
Gardyner
Richard 6d. ∗ ∗
Godfreyb
John Hardyng 5d. ∗
(and widow)
John Hecham 7d. ∗ ∗
Robert Heryngc 4d. ∗ ∗
John Joye 18d. ∗ B, C
Robert 5d. ∗ ∗
Kyrkehous
John Kyrre 5d. ∗ ∗
Nicholas Lamb 4d. ∗ ∗
William 8d. ∗ ∗
Langlonde
Richard Maiet 10d. ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
Robert Martyn 5d. ∗
(cont.)
400 Medieval market morality

Table 17. (cont.)

Regrater
Average
Innkeepers amercement Brewer Baker Ale Bread Fisha Meat Vintner Office

Adam Mey 4d. ∗

John Myddylton 17.3d. ∗ ∗
Peter Parker 4d. ∗
John and 5d. ∗
Katherine
Peyton
Thomas Prat 8d. ∗ ∗ ∗
John Priour 4d. ∗
John Robard 6d. ∗
John Smyth 6d. ∗ ∗
(at the quay)
John Smyth 12d. ∗ ∗
(dutchman) #
Thomas Smyth 4d. ∗ ∗
William Smyth 4d. ∗ ∗
William Snow 11.3d. ∗ ∗
William 8d. ∗ ∗
Sparhaukd
Matthew 4d. ∗ ∗
Stabeler
John Sudbury 24d. ∗ ∗ ∗
Remkyn Taylour 6.7d. ∗
John Turnour 4d. ∗ ∗
(dyer)
Anna Watkyn 12d.
(widow)
William 10d. ∗ B, C
Whethereld
Robert/ 5.3d. ∗
Walter/
Margaret
Whytlok
John Wode 90.5d. ∗ ∗ ? C
Robert Wulcy # 3.5d. ∗ ∗
Thomas Wynter 6d. ∗ CP, A

Notes: a – includes forestalling fish; b – sold candles for excessive profit; c – forestalled
wheat; d – sold badly tanned leather; B – bailiff; C – coroner; CP – capital pledge; A –
affeerer; # – allowed fornication and prostitutes within their houses.
Source: SRO (I), c/2/8/1/1–11, c2/10/1/2–6.
 The behaviour of market traders 401

significant offence. By comparison, John Tonge, a taverner, was fined

only 12d. in the same session for selling 100 gallons of red wine at 8d.
a gallon, and William Debenham and John Kneppyng, both formerly
bailiffs, were fined 2s. each for selling eighty gallons at 8d. There were
several cases in the 1460s of wine sold at an excessive price and most
were amerced only 4d.–6d., such as William Wattys who was both a
capital pledge and affeerer when presented. The exception was Godfrey
Makynham who was amerced 10s. in this decade for dealing ‘contrary to
the ordinances of the town and the proclamation of the bailiffs, selling
wine for 8d. a gallon’. This severe penalty again suggests a flagrant breach
of the laws that the authorities wanted to punish effectively.
It is likely that certain innkeepers, particularly those involved in the
wine trade, ran substantial establishments, while lesser innkeepers ran
places that were more akin to alehouses but with a couple of guest
rooms. Overall, however, many Ipswich innkeepers appear to have been
fairly prosperous and influential men. There were a number who served
as bailiff at some point during their careers: John Joye (1420–2, 1425–
6), William Whethereld (1428–9), John Caldewell (1425–6, 1436–7);
while John Joye (1419–20, 1424–5), John Wode (1419–21) and William
Whethereld (1421–3, 1425–6, 1436–8) were elected as coroners. This
was despite the statutory legislation of 1382 against victuallers holding
urban office,417 and the fact that, by 1429, the Ipswich Custumal specif-
ically stated that no bailiff was to sell ale or victuals, nor own a hostelry,
during his term of office, or else face a heavy fine of £10.418 This ordi-
nance was perhaps intended to prevent abuse of the office for personal
profit, though it also had implications for the dignity of such retailing
professions. Both John Wode and William Whethereld certainly faced
amercements for innkeeping offences while they were serving in office
as coroners, but it is not known whether they did so while serving as
bailiff.419 Other individuals also appear in the assize amercement lists
while acting as bailiffs, such as John Joye in 1421, Edmund Wynter in
1467 and William Style in 1468. Style was amerced the hefty amount
of 40d., perhaps because he was contravening the prohibition on retail-
ing while in office.420 Ultimately, however, innkeepers in Ipswich rose to
the top of the official tree and it seems likely that they would continue
to do so. Kowaleski similarly found that Exeter innkeepers, taverners

417 See pp. 167–8. 418 Alsford, Towns (Ipswich, Appx 2, c.86).
419 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/5, 6.
420 Britnell likewise found that most bailiffs in late fourteenth-century Colchester were
involved in commerce, either wholesaling or retailing. Britnell, Growth and Decline,
p. 111. See also Holt, ‘Gloucester’, p. 150.
402 Medieval market morality

and hostelers were relatively wealthy, involved in occupations outside

hostelling, and found among the upper ranks of citizens and officials.421
The reputations of innkeepers must have been fairly resilient. McIn-
tosh argued that smaller inns were often viewed by authorities as poten-
tial hotbeds of disorder, attracting vagabonds, whores, thieves and the
unruly.422 Whether the inns of Ipswich were readily associated with dis-
reputable activities is not certain.423 In 1434, John Asselot was amerced
12d. for bypassing the public market (where fish should be sold) and
selling instead from his private inn. He was threatened with an 80d. fine
if he continued to undermine the basic precept of the ‘public market’. He
was also fined for a lean-to that encroached into the road, presumably
an attempt to expand his inn’s area for customers. Another activity that
might have brought innkeepers into disrepute was the harbouring of pros-
titutes and thieves. There were five cases from 1415 to 1422, but these
concerned men who are not identifiable innkeepers. The entries specifi-
cally state that it was their home or a common brothel, rather than an inn
or hostel, including the home of Robert Lucas, who was to become bailiff
the following year. However, these places may have been operating as ale-
houses. Thomas Barbour was a common gannoker and also convicted in
1416 of harbouring prostitutes and thieves in his house, while in 1419
Adam March (a brewer and seller of bread and ale) secretly entertained
strangers and nightwalkers in the middle of the night. However, many
more cases occurred in the 1460s, especially in 1468 when it appears
that there was an extensive clamp-down on brothels, both in alehouses
and inns. Fourteen individuals in 1468 were amerced between 1s. and
8s. (average 30d.) for encouraging fornication, adultery and prostitutes
within their houses. Some, like Roger Bour, Peter Deye and John Heynes,
were common gannokers and it is likely that they too were running ale-
houses. At least four others (Thomas Cadon, John Denys, John Smyth
dutchman and Robert Wulcy) ran inns, which hints at how these estab-
lishments too might overstep common standards of moral behaviour.

Butchers, cooks and fishmongers

The other increasingly dominant victuallers, in terms of wealth and posi-
tion, were the butchers. Britnell argued that the economic problems of
the fifteenth century, and the competitive environment, encouraged town

421 Kowaleski, Local Markets, pp. 143–7. See also Swanson, Medieval Artisans, p. 23.
422 McIntosh, Working Women, pp. 204–5.
423 Keene suggested that running an inn was seen as dishonourable. Keene, Survey, i,
pp. 274–6.
 The behaviour of market traders 403

authorities to pursue wider commercial regulation. For instance, by the

1420s, they began to punish more regularly butchers and innkeepers who
sold their goods at an ‘excessive’ price.424 Certainly, there were more
cases of innkeepers and butchers being presented for trading infringe-
ments, but this might have reflected their increased numbers and height-
ened demand due to rising standards of living, as much as greater enforce-
ment.
The hygiene problems of a large-scale butchering industry put
increased pressure on many large towns. Several Ipswich butchers were
prosecuted for leaving entrails and bones in the road and by their stalls,
and for slaughtering animals in unauthorised places and streets.425 In
the 1430s and 1460s, there was a significant number of prosecutions for
butchers who failed to bait bulls in Cornhill before slaughter; the penalty
for this varied widely between 3d. and 12d. There were also butchers
condemned for selling corrupt and putrid meat, with average amerce-
ments of 9.9d. (from thirteen cases) compared to 10.9d. for selling at
excessive price. Some care has to be taken with these figures because
of the terminology employed by the court clerk. For two separate leet
courts in the West Ward, in 1421 and 1423, the same butchers were
amerced similar amounts for corrupt meat in 1421 and excessive price in
1423 and no other butchery offences are recorded in those years, while
in 1468 these offences were specifically delineated in the same court.426
Nevertheless, there are hints that the selling of corrupt foodstuffs carried
a certain stigma. The customs of Ipswich apparently allowed butchers
to sell unwholesome meat from beneath the pillory, the market sym-
bol of communal disapproval, ensuring that any sub-quality meat was
advertised.427 There is no evidence to tell us if butchers were actually
prepared to risk their reputation in this way.
The customs of Ipswich also tried to halt the selling of meat from
stolen animals (‘wher off oftyn tyme gret slaundre is in the cuntre to gret
dishonour to the toun’) by demanding that any carcasses brought into
the town should be accompanied by their skins and hides, which bore the
owners’ marks. Otherwise it was deemed suspicious and the meat was
thus confiscated. No skins or hides were to be removed from public view
before the hour of prime.428 Some seventeen cases survive with butchers
being amerced (average 5d.) for failing to bring the hides of their animals

424 Britnell, Growth and Decline, pp. 236–8. 425 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/5,6,7.
426 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/5,6,7.
427 Black Book, ii, pp. 144–7, c.58 [57] (c.1309). Davis, ‘The cross and the pillory’,
pp. 258–9.
428 Black Book, ii, pp. 142–5, c.57 [56] (c.1309).
404 Medieval market morality

into Ipswich market. This law not only provided protection against stolen
goods, but also ensured a regular supply of skins into the town.
The customs of Ipswich also condemned cooks and poulterers who
sold foodstuffs past their reasonable storage time, or any that were rotten
and unsuitable for consumption.429 Cooks faced confiscation of their
chattels, then the pillory, and then expulsion from their occupation for
a year and a day. A fourth time and they were ordered to give up the
occupation for ever. If the cook had no chattels to forfeit he was to suffer
the pillory the first time, implying that there were many cooks who were
poor retailers with few assets.430 However, there are no specific recorded
instances of cooks selling unfit food in the extant leet court rolls, though
this may be because they were amalgamated with fish and meat offences.
There were certainly cooks plying their trade; men like John Cok and his
wife, who were amerced for selling ale and bread, and William Cok, who
was amerced for gannoking ale and leaving entrails and waste in the road
and river. There was also John Aleyn, who was convicted of selling bread
and corrupt fish, and forestalling eggs, fowl and butter in 1416 and 1419.
Much more common in the court rolls were prosecutions for those
selling putrid fish. According to the custumal, any regrater who displayed
any spoiled or out-of-date fish was to have their fish confiscated and given
to the poor. On the second occasion, they faced the pillory, and on the
third, they had to give up their occupation for a year and a day.431 All
fish (such as ‘purpays, samoun, cungger and turbut’) brought to Ipswich
were to be cut up only ‘in the comoun place of the market’, and no fish
were to be stored privately and overnight without being shown to the
keeper of the fish market.432 Those who brought mussels, oysters and
other shellfish to Ipswich quay were to be sold by the same men who
carried them, without the meddling interference of middlemen, upon
pain of confiscation and a 40d. amercement, ‘as wel for the comoun
profit of poure men as of ryche’.433 The regulations for the fish trade
were thus dominated by concerns for the price and edibility of this most
perishable commodity, as well as its supply. Leet court prosecutions
reflect the same concerns for health and price, especially fresh fish that
was too old and had become fetid. Several fishmongers were amerced
4d.–24d. for displaying over-aged, poorly stored, corrupt and stinking
fish in the common market ‘to the grave damage of all the community’.

429 Ibid., ii, pp. 104–5, c.32 (c.1309). 430 Ibid., ii, pp. 146–7, c.59 [58] (c.1309).
431 Ibid., ii, pp. 104–5, c.30 (c.1309). 432 Ibid., ii, pp. 102–3, c.29 (c.1309).
433 Ibid., ii, pp. 160–1, c.69 [67] (c.1309). Alsford suggested that the term ‘medele’ (i.e. to
meddle) has etymological associations here with middlemen; Alsford, Towns (Ipswich,
App. 2, c.69).
 The behaviour of market traders 405

This rhetoric was repeated constantly and victuallers were left with no
doubt as to the expectation of their common responsibility.
Why the affeerers decided on different amercements for similarly
described offences is difficult to discern. Some like Robert Kyrkehous
and John Stabeler were amerced escalating amounts (4d., 6d. or 8d.,
24d.) in 1465–8 for selling corrupt fish, while John Depyng faced consec-
utive fines of 8d., 12d. and 8d. for the same offences. However, generally,
amercements for selling corrupt fish were greater than those for selling
at an excessive price. Fishwives like Agnes Skylly, Anne Reed, Isabel
Stepyng, Joan Thompson, Alice Brookmane and Mrs John Roberd were
simply amerced 2d.–4d. every year for selling at excessive profit over
1466–8.434 In 1467–8, the main fish-selling offences were recorded sepa-
rately in the same East Ward leet court. Fourteen were accused of selling
fish for excessive profit and were amerced on average 3.6d., while the
thirteen traders presented for selling unwholesome fish were amerced an
average of 9.8d. This gives an indication of the relative stigma of these
practices. There appears to have been a case-by-case assessment based
on the perceived severity of the offence.

Forestallers
In terms of the number of presentments and the level of amercements,
one of the greatest concerns for officials was the tendency of fishmongers
to forestall fish at the Quay. For example, in 1424, John Parmenter
forestalled 200 mackerel outside Ipswich, priced 6s. 8d. (i.e. five mackerel
for 2d.), and John Catfield forestalled twenty baskets of mackerel and
mullet, valued at 40s.435 Across ninety-four cases for forestalling, the
average amercement was nearly 12d. Forestallers, on average, thus faced
a much heavier penalty than for most other trading infringements, except
certain bakers and innkeepers. Yet, some forestallers of fish, like Robert
Smith, Alice Gateward, John Sherrene, Alice Maykyn, Alice Kendale,
Alice Sygor and Alice Kertelyng, were only amerced 4d.436 They were
not mentioned as fishmongers in other contexts and it is likely that they
were low-capital regraters, buying fish from ships at the Quay to sell on.
This was termed forestalling by the clerk because it took place before the
fish had been officially landed, but the term ‘forestalling’ was used for
a wide number of offences by the fifteenth century. Although fish was
the most common item specifically mentioned as forestalled ‘to the grave

434 Female fish-sellers were found in major towns across England. E.g. Kowaleski, Local
Markets, p. 139; McIntosh, Working Women, pp. 194–6.
435 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/7. 436 SRO (I), c/2/1/8/3, 5,6,7.
406 Medieval market morality

damage of the community’, other victuals were also named in the court
rolls: wheat, eggs, butter, cheese, bulls, pheasants, pigeons and small
birds. Many of the accused went out of Ipswich both by land and water
to intercept goods, and places like Stoke (a suburb south of the river)
and Caldewell (probably Cauldwell, a suburb about one mile east) were
specifically named as places where wares were forestalled
It is difficult to discern precisely why some offenders faced amerce-
ments of only 4d. while others were given heavier penalties of up to
24d., unless it was related to the severity of the offence. The main fear
of enhanced prices is sometimes noted in the court rolls, but there is no
pattern in the amercements related to the, admittedly formulaic, descrip-
tions. Robert Kyrkehous and Geoffrey Gerard were amerced 6d. in 1465
for forestalling fish coming to the market and were ordered not to do
so again under pain of a further penalty of 40d. They both offended
again the next year and were specifically reprimanded for not heeding
the warning of the last leet. However, they were then only amerced 12d.
each, a higher penalty but not as great as threatened. There were some
consistent offenders, like the fishmonger William Burstall who appeared
five times for forestalling fish and other victuals, between 1419 and 1424,
and received fines that increased from 4d. to 12d. to 24d., which might
indicate escalating punishment aimed at deterrence. Joan Fadinor, on
the other hand, received amercements of 24d. in 1434 and just 6d. in
both 1436 and 1437 for the same forestalling offence, while her husband,
Robert, was convicted five times between 1416 and 1423 for fluctuat-
ing amercements. John Marcavit, Alice Rolf and Beatrice Leme were
amerced just 4d. for their offences between 1436 and 1438. In 1416,
John Smyth forestalled 200 quarters of grain, thereby greatly enhancing
the price, but he only faced a 6d. fine. There was no real consistency
in such amercements, despite the demands of statute law. Each case
appears to have been judged on its individual merits, and when previous
offences were taken into account the penalties were not always as harsh
as threatened.
Britnell identified a great deal of consternation over individual cases of
forestalling in Colchester, especially in the fish trade through Hythe, but
generally less concern over petty forestallers.437 A similar situation can
be discerned in Ipswich. For instance, both Robert Fadinor and his wife,
Joan, forestalled various victuals, alongside selling corrupt fish and ale
by improper measures. From 1416 to 1437, Robert Fadinor or his wife
were amerced between 4d. and 24d. (average 11.5d.) for their forestalling

437 Britnell, Growth and Decline, pp. 131–4.

 The behaviour of market traders 407

activities.438 Their daughter, Joanna, continued in both selling ale and

forestalling in the late 1430s. In the mid-1410s, the family had been
selling from their home in St Stephen’s Lane, where they were accused
of leaving dung and household sweepings in the street, as well as erecting
a post, perhaps for a building extension or to hold up an awning for
an unofficial stall. They also entertained various prostitutes within their
home. The Fadinor family were small-scale retailers, involved in a variety
of petty trades and drawing the occasional attention of the court, as well
as reasonably high, but variable, amercements. Conversely, John Breklys
was heavily amerced at 20s. for forestalling twenty quarters of wheat at
the Quay. This was a forestalling offence that obviously involved a great
deal of capital by a more significant merchant, and it might have had
more significant and wider consequences for the ‘common price’.439 He
was also bypassing the privileges of the burgesses and this could not be
condoned by the authorities.

The market environment

As well as petty trading offences in Ipswich, there was the usual mishmash
of encroachments, obstructions and waste disposal. The ditch surround-
ing the town was often used as a refuse pit for animal, craft or household
waste, which should have been carried to the town’s dunghill on Col-
hill. Dung, timber and carcasses were also just left or dumped in the
road. Both tanners and butchers were accused of throwing ‘skepfuls’ of
waste (entrails and dung) in the river at Friar’s Bridge, thereby impeding
the mill’s dam. This bridge provided access to communal pasturage so
was frequently used by butchers. Waste from the fish market was often
discarded by the walls of St Stephen’s Lane or into the marketplace.
John Sewale and John Parmonter were both amerced 4d. in 1423 for
depositing fish entrails and straw in the fish market.
Industrial waste was generally a nuisance. Tanners often dug pits in the
streets and allowed their waste to seep into the common watercourses that
ran down the centre of Brook Street; while water tainted with dyes (woad
and madder) flooded streets and seeped into the common waterwells
and rivers, thereby polluting drinking water and damaging fish stocks.
Brewing waste from the holding of Simon Bierbrewere so raised the
channel that the district was flooded. Brewers who did not maintain
their drains appear to have been a consistent irritant. Innkeepers were
also warned about drains that were causing a nuisance and posts, perhaps
for awnings or signs, which had to be removed. In 1438, Nicholas Lamb

438 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 439 SRO (I), c/2/8/1/4.

408 Medieval market morality

was specifically upbraided for putting cooking filth in the common way.
A consistent problem for innkeepers appears to have been the disposal
of horse dung, accumulating from their guests’ animals. For instance,
Walter Colk was presented for depositing forty loads in the ditch by the
north gates, as well as by the churchyard of St Laurence. Many in Ipswich
also had pig-sties in the street, which caused a nuisance. The owners of
pigs included innkeepers, presumably for provisioning their customers
and meeting the growing demand for meat. Pigs often escaped and were
found wandering in the streets. Indeed, pigs, sheep, horses, geese and
cows were all discovered illegally grazing on the embankments, ditches
and common ways within the town. These everyday hazards were all part
of the problems that came with developing market trade.

Conclusion
This brief examination of the retail marketing environment of Ipswich
has raised aspects of both similarities and differences to the small towns
of Suffolk. There were certainly instances of leniency in larger commu-
nities, with a complex interplay of forces at work to discourage repressive
action by the authorities. The assumption that the larger towns were
stricter may have been expressed in the tighter and more detailed ordi-
nances and moral rhetoric, but in practice retailers apparently faced very
similar controls to those exercised in smaller towns. The basic premise
of the regulations remained the same mixture of morals, practicality and
vested interests: to safeguard privileges, to keep prices low, and to protect
the health of the general consumer. An increase in written regulations
did not necessarily mean that the authorities became stricter. The main
differences between small and large towns were largely due to pressure
on resources and space, leading to a greater number of presentments for
waste and hygiene issues. There were also more retailers and victuallers in
Ipswich than Newmarket or Clare, and some were relatively prosperous.
This may have led to higher average amercements for certain bakers and
innkeepers, based as much on output as offences. Fishmongers, butch-
ers and innkeepers certainly faced greater direct control than before, but
this was partly due to their increasing numbers and heightened consumer
demand.
However, it must be noted that Ipswich was on the smaller side of
the larger corporate boroughs. The civic authorities may not have overtly
raised the level of retail regulation, except for forestalling, flagrant offend-
ers and aliens, but whether this was also the case in other provincial cen-
tres is debatable. For instance, the lack of craft guilds in Ipswich may have
allowed retailers to enjoy a wider scope of action than in, say, Norwich,
 The behaviour of market traders 409

York or London. Attitudes and levels of enforcement may have differed

between borough markets, depending on vested interests and those who
controlled the courts. There also remained a strong ethos of localism, as
well as paternal concern, in the way traders and consumers viewed their
marketplace and how outsiders were regarded.
Nevertheless, all borough authorities had to achieve a pragmatic amal-
gam of overarching supervision and facilities that bred trust and lowered
transaction costs, alongside an understanding of the vagaries inherent in
certain medieval trades and the flexibilities required to allow tradesmen
to prosper. Market users recognised the basic laws and moral principles,
but they also identified those offences which were worthy of the com-
munity’s censure and those which could pass for a minor amercement
without further comment. These petty fines assuaged the trader’s con-
science, lined the corporation’s or lord’s pockets, and reminded all of
the legal oversight and constraints of assizes and other market regula-
tion. Effective law did not require zero-tolerance enforcement in order
to facilitate an efficient market. Cultural and religious views permeated
everyday trade, but this does not mean that they were incompatible with
a regard for the opportunities of the market, the needs of traders, and
how a prosperous market could benefit all. Even the idealism of literature
and law demonstrated recognition (sometimes grudgingly) that honest
commerce needed its way smoothed. This was a paternalistic economy,
but not in the restrictive, unbending way that this phrase has been made
to suggest.
4 An evolving market morality?

In 1971, E. P. Thompson wrote a seminal article entitled ‘The moral

economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century’, which has
spurred historical debate ever since.1 What made this topic so intriguing
was that an ‘old moral economy of provision’, based on the needs of the
consumers and control of the market, was juxtaposed against a develop-
ing eighteenth-century ‘new political economy of the free market’, which
sought to diminish interference and controls.2 For Thompson, this moral
economy was a selective reconstruction of paternalist legislation stretch-
ing back to medieval and sixteenth-century England; a holistic moral
economy hostile to a Smithian free-market, laissez-faire model. This book
has already addressed the complexities involved in unravelling medieval
conceptions of a ‘moral economy’. If eighteenth-century attitudes of the
‘crowd’ were embedded in long-held notions of market morality and
behaviour, then it is worth reconsidering why they had survived for so
long in the face of economic change.
The attitudes of English market users were gradually formed during
centuries of commercial and market development. However, attempt-
ing to track a definitive chronology of transition from subsistence-based,
collective ethics to individualistic, profit-based motivations is not only
elusive but problematic in its basic premise. Changes in commercial
ethics and market culture were slow and piecemeal, and traditional mores
remained important even while new economic attitudes were shaped. The
marketplace was an intense and complex arena of cultural negotiation
between a variety of forces – ideology, laws, economics, vested interests
and social needs. Indeed, we should not create too stark a dichotomy
between concepts of a traditional ‘moral economy’ and an emerging

1 Thompson, ‘Moral economy’; Thompson, Making, pp. 66–78; Thompson, ‘Moral econ-
omy reviewed’. Numerous historians have been influenced by Thompson’s work and
concept of the ‘moral economy’. E.g. Williams, ‘Morals’; Stevenson, ‘Moral economy’;
Bohstedt, ‘Moral economy’; Randall and Charlesworth (eds.), Moral Economy.
2 Bohstedt, ‘Moral economy’, 266; Thompson, Making, pp. 67–73.

410
 An evolving market morality? 411

‘market economy’ as though they are diametrically opposed and incom-

patible. Recourse to moral justifications does not necessarily exclude
motivations of self-preservation or profit, while market relations were
interpreted in the way they impacted on notions of communal justice. A
moral language permeated commercial regulation.3 As John Stevenson
has suggested, ‘if anything like a moral economy can ever be said to have
existed, it was remarkably flexible and adaptive to change’.4
As we have seen, historians stress that medieval concepts of the econ-
omy were not necessarily incompatible with market values. The works
of Hilton, Britnell, Dyer, Campbell and other medieval historians have
shown that England was already highly commercialised in the thirteenth
century and that society was becoming increasingly market-oriented. The
growth of medieval marketing institutions and opportunities served to
awaken market values, such as competitive bargaining and an acquisitive,
monetarised impulse. There is no doubt that the Church was dubious
of the market and such money-making impulses, and that scholars and
moralists did not support gain for its own sake. However, a closer exami-
nation of the imagery and representation of medieval traders presents
a more nuanced picture than simply straightforward suspicions and
outmoded notions of a natural economy or an anti-market ethos. Ulti-
mately, moral norms and accepted behaviour were adapting to the chang-
ing medieval market conditions and there was perhaps a greater flexibility
in ethics, law and enforcement than many historians once thought.
However, it is the early modern period that is viewed by some histori-
ans as the significant period of economic transition and tension, leading
to a new questioning of economic attitudes and culminating in Adam
Smith’s Wealth of Nations.5 For instance, Keith Wrightson has argued
that medieval economic culture was antagonistic to individual economic
freedom and the pursuit of gain, as well as lacking the concept of a
self-regulating market order. Medieval people assessed the legitimacy of
economic activity ‘in terms of moral imperatives and their attitudes were
both enshrined in their economic institutions and expressed in practice’.6
Wrightson argued that they recognised the utility of the market but were
anxious about the potential abuses and ambivalent about market prac-
tices. There remained a desire for close regulation and the subordina-
tion of the market to ethical considerations. However, in many ways,
this argument depends upon how medieval contemporaries constructed
the notion of a ‘moral economy’ and how they interpreted their actual

3 Muldrew, ‘Interpreting’, 176–8. 4 Stevenson, ‘Moral economy’, p. 238.

5 Muldrew, ‘Interpreting’, 180–1. 6 Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, pp. 29, 110.
412 Medieval market morality

relationship to the market. There is an assumption that a moral economy

and an efficient market system are somehow incompatible.
Some historians of early modern England have tended to define the
moral economy within the context and certainties of classical theories
of political economy, rather than always understanding the complex
preconceptions of the communities that adhered to this value system.
Smithian notions that the free and unfettered market was the only true
and inevitable market culture still have a strong hold over opinion, as do
Polanyi’s and Tawney’s views that market institutions and participants
needed to break away from the hindrances of the medieval Church, soci-
ety and culture in order to achieve their potential.7 In this paradigm, the
‘moral economy’ of medieval and sixteenth-century England is regarded
as an anti-market ideology that subordinates all trading activity to the
protective needs of society and to the detriment of commercial advance-
ment. Consequently, some have asserted that any early modern vestiges
of a ‘moral economy’ that drew upon the concepts of medieval and
sixteenth-century England were, by their very nature, antagonistic to
market efficiency. A traditional moral economy was based on unrealistic
ideas of a ‘natural’ economy, which stressed subsistence living and direct
links between farmer and consumer.
As a counter to such assumptions regarding marketing in late medieval
England, Craig Muldrew posited that a clearer understanding of the
importance of regulation and morals in medieval markets is needed as
a comparative basis when studying early modern markets.8 In this vein,
this chapter seeks to take forward the discussion and findings of the pre-
vious chapters in order to make some comparative observations with the
prominent commercial concerns of early modern England. Historians
should not only consider the nuances of late medieval market moral-
ity, and its confluence with pragmatic economic anxieties, but also the
longevity of basic social concerns. This perhaps accords with Thomp-
son’s classic thesis on the ‘moral economy’ of the eighteenth-century
crowd, whom, he argued, sought to reassert traditional moral norms and
regulations in the face of dearth.9 However, the extent to which such
ethical assertions were anti-market or anachronistic can be further elu-
cidated through a clearer understanding of the medieval principles that
underlay such market morality. This chapter is intended only as an initial
sketch of the potential questions that could be raised when considering
the development of market morals and mercantile ethics over the last
millennium. There has been extensive historical discussion about the

7 Polanyi, Great Transformation; Polanyi, ‘Our obsolete market mentality’; Tawney, Religion.
8 Muldrew, ‘Interpreting’, 174, n. 61. 9 Thompson, ‘Moral economy’.
 An evolving market morality? 413

development of early modern commercial ethics and I will only touch

upon some of these debates by considering retail traders, the assizes and
middlemen, particularly as regards the trade in vital foodstuffs.

Profit and the commonweal in the early

modern economy
There were undoubtedly developments in the early modern economy that
meant that market relations grew in scale, pervasiveness and power. In
the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries we see the expansion of a consumer
society, new crops and industries, inflation, a renewal of demographic
growth and growing overseas markets. A growing social polarisation has
been highlighted, contrasting a wealthy ‘middling sort’ with increasing
general poverty.10 Urbanisation also continued apace in England, though
the country was still dominated by small towns before the late eighteenth
century. London’s growth and demands continued to outstrip other
urban centres, and agriculture and supply networks were increasingly
organised for the capital’s needs, though how quickly England became
an integrated commercial system is debatable. Nevertheless, the devel-
opment and increasing scale of internal trade from 1500 to 1750 was
significant, with regional markets linked by improving transport routes.11
Agricultural surpluses and specialisation increased in response to com-
mercial pressures, and it could be argued that large-scale middlemen,
badgers (middlemen in grain) and pedlars came into their own in dis-
tributing both the commodities of the countryside and those imported
from overseas.12 Below the national nexus of trade, there remained the
flow of daily and weekly transactions in the local marketplaces and a
hierarchy of market centres that served regions and hinterlands. The
market remained the principal institution in pre-industrial England for
the exchange of rural produce and urban goods or services.13 These
structural changes, and continuities, were accompanied by notable peri-
ods of crisis, particularly during 1580–1630 when population growth
was at its height, with price inflation and disastrous harvests.14 Dearth
brought food riots, social disorder and a strain upon the government’s
ability to maintain grain supplies.15 After a time of relative stability in the
late seventeenth century, England again faced intermittent harvest crises
during the eighteenth century.

10 Wrightson, English Society, pp. 140–2. 11 Chartres, ‘Marketing’, pp. 220–46.

12 For a detailed discussion of middlemen and their activities in early modern England,
see Everitt, ‘Marketing’; Chartres, ‘Marketing’; Spufford, Great Reclothing, pp. 5–12.
13 Dyer, ‘Market towns’, 123–34. 14 Wrightson, English Society, pp. 142–59.
15 Sharp, ‘Popular protest’, pp. 285–7; Walter, ‘Grain riots’, pp. 71–7.
414 Medieval market morality

There were thus some important economic and commercial changes,

as well as social upheavals, during the early modern period. But how
far were these accompanied by shifts in attitudes towards commerce and
the marketplace? Much ink has been used in discussing the Protestant
work ethic, the growing mercantile class, mercantilism and individu-
alism – the supposed creeds of ‘capitalism’. It is a frequent assertion
by historians that merchants and their thrifty, hard-working ways were
becoming newly lauded by the late sixteenth century,16 and that during
the seventeenth century there was a transition from government policies
that favoured consumers and good order to one that favoured producers
and merchants, giving them more freedom in their commercial activi-
ties. Margo Todd has argued that medieval theologians denigrated any
notion of profit, even that used for the commonweal, while merchants
were left out of the ‘hierarchy of callings’. The humanists and puritans,
by contrast, venerated industry, secular vocation and discipline, and also
justified a certain profit, provided it was used for the common good.17
Men like Richard Baxter espoused the virtues of work and supposedly
encouraged economic individualism: ‘Every one that is able, must be
statedly and ordinarily imployed in such work as is serviceable to God,
and the common good’ (1673).18 However, there is not a word in Bax-
ter’s writings that urges the pursuit of private profit as a way of earning
favour from God.19
Paul Seaver has posited that puritan economic attitudes were essen-
tially conservative and traditional, seeking less a sanctification of
entrepreneurialism and profits than an assurance that good intention
was enough.20 For instance, Francis Bacon, in 1625, saw that trading
profits could be honest, provided they were achieved through diligence
and fair dealing. This was little different from the medieval definition
of reasonable gains. Bacon also disparaged those traders who sought to
profit from the necessities of others, used cunning in their bargains, and
indulged in the practice of regrating.21 Similarly, Thomas Dekker (1606)
was wary of merchants with their apparent credit-worthiness, thrift and
humility, which might be an artifice to grow rich and then forgo on larger
credit deals.22 Chaucer’s merchant was perhaps mocked for a similar

16 Stevenson, Praise and Paradox; McVeagh, Tradefull Merchants, pp. 1–30.

17 Todd, Christian Humanism, pp. 127, 147–9, 156–7, 174.
18 Baxter, A Christian Directory, p. 133. 19 MacKinnon, ‘Longevity of the thesis’.
20 Seaver, ‘Puritan work ethic revised’; Seaver, Wallington’s World, ch. 5.
21 Richard Bacon, The Essayes or Counsels, Ciuill and Morall, of Francis Lord Verulam,
Viscount St Alban (London, 1625), cf. Fisher and Juřica (eds.), Documents, p. 510.
22 Thomas Dekker, The Seven Deadly Sinnes of London (London, 1606), in Collier (ed.),
Illustrations, ii, pp. 17–18.
 An evolving market morality? 415

façade. George Gascoigne in The Steele Glas (1576), in a very conserva-

tive vein, saw that the merchant’s role was to enrich the whole country
by his toil, but that they were often led astray by avarice and vanity.23
There may have been a slightly different emphasis on personal profit
in the writings of early modern moralists, but ultimately the trader’s role
was service to the commonweal, which should be undertaken without
sin and with concern for social justice. This was essentially a reiteration
of medieval social and divine models, which declared that the diligent
pursuit of individual callings was beneficial to society as a whole and
thus to the individual’s own prosperity and ultimate salvation. Although
poverty was no longer an ascetic virtue, excessive luxury was still despised
and merchants were expected to be stewards of wealth for the greater
good. Medieval attitudes were not easily displaced and were recycled with
new Renaissance emphases on work, material prosperity and the proper
use of wealth.24 Profit was still to be used for the common good, while
excessive gain and an appetite for money was regarded as a temptation
to sin and avarice.
As in medieval teachings, traders were warned about the sins of deceit
and greed, while moderation was exhorted as part of godly living. Sur-
plus profits, beyond the needs of the household, were to be distributed
as charity to serve the Church, state and poor.25 Although work and
wealth could be a sign of election, early modern traders were expected to
remain subordinate to godly living, including closing shops on Sundays.
Such attitudes were encapsulated in the diary of Nehemiah Wallington
(d. 1658):
My conscience tells me I have been very remiss and unwise in some kind both in
getting and in spending. But I hope and trust the Lord hath forgiven me this and
all other of my sins . . . It is the desire of my heart that in everything I either buy
or sell that I take God with me in lifting up of my heart to God saying shall I buy
or shall I sell that, or thus, Lord give me wisdom in my buying and selling.26

If there was a development of a distinct entrepreneurial ethic among the

mercantile and middling classes of England, it was a very long drawn-out
process that perhaps did not see dramatic shifts in general attitudes until
the late eighteenth century.27 Praise for material accumulation as a sign
of God’s favour was still couched with traditional caveats regarding the
temptations of avarice and the need for charitable giving. As Stevenson
noted: ‘In times of social change, tradition has greater psychological

23 Wallace (ed.), George Gascoigne’s ‘The Steele Glas’, pp. 121–2, ll. 750–7. See also Grosart
(ed.), Life and Complete Works, xi, p. 230; Stevenson, Praise and Paradox, pp. 133–6.
24 Stevenson, Praise and Paradox, pp. 136–7. 25 Todd, Christian Humanism, pp. 152–3.
26 Ibid., pp. 154–5 (cf. BL, MS Additional 40883, fol. 15v).
27 Stevenson, Praise and Paradox, pp. 156–8.
416 Medieval market morality

appeal than innovation’.28 Traditional denunciations of trading sins thus

remained prominent in early modern literature. William Perkins declared
in 1612:
In the calling of the merchant and tradesman, there is false weights, and false
measures, divers weights and divers measures; ingrossing, mingling, changing,
setting a glosse on wares by powdering, startching, blowing, darke shops, glozing,
smoothing, lying, swearing, and all manner of bad dealing.29

Perkins was even more disparaging of the producers and middlemen who
took advantage of dearths, in lines that appear to reiterate the sentiments
of medieval moralists:
In the husbandman and cornemonger, there is exceeding injustice, in hording up
graine till the time of further advantage: and in taking whatsoever they can get
for their own, though it be to the shedding of the blood of the poore.30

Was the medieval model of ideal marketing practice essentially differ-

ent from depictions we find in the early modern period? One of the
most evocative principles underlying medieval mentalities was the moral
duty of traders towards the common good. Similarly, in his sermons of
1550, Thomas Lever recognised the veracity of mercantile endeavours
and those who laboured ‘with faithful diligence to provide for the com-
mon wealth’.31 The concept of vocation, ‘so every man travail in his
degree’, remained a predominant theory. William Perkins in 1612 stated
that there was ‘a certain kind of life ordained and imposed on man by
God for the common good’ and ‘there be sundry parts and members
and every one hath his several use and office, which it performeth not
for it self but for the good of the whole body; as the office of the eye
is to see, of the ear to hear, and the foot to go’.32 John Cook too, in
Unum Necessarium (1648), was forthright about the moral context of
economic activities. Men should cooperate and accept their responsibili-
ties because of their natural needs. Those who profited from the scarcity
of corn to the risk of other men’s lives were no better than criminals.
Instead, he argued: ‘if the magistrate inforce him to sell at a reasonable
rate, it is but just by the law of God . . . that one man’s superfluity should
give place to another man’s conveniency, his conveniency to another’s
necessity . . . every man to live according to the rule of nature and right

28 Ibid., p. 6.
29 William Perkins, A Treatise of the Vocations or Callings of Men (London, 1612), in Breward
(ed.), Work, pp. 467–8.
30 Perkins, A Treatise, i, p. 771.
31 Williams (ed.), English Historical Documents, pp. 360–1.
32 Perkins, A Treatise, in Breward (ed.), Work, pp. 446–7, 449. See also Waddell, ‘Economic
immorality’, 170–1.
 An evolving market morality? 417

reason’.33 These have been viewed as intellectual creations of Protestant

reformers – a concept of divinely ordained vocation.34 However, although
there was a slight change in its secular emphasis, the continuity of these
thoughts with medieval ideas is striking. The acquisition of wealth should
not be achieved to the detriment of the common good and the traders’
own salvation. Everyone had a responsibility to the commonweal.35
A petition to the Justices of the Peace in 1629 from the inhabitants
of Blackburn demonstrated this general attitude of common responsi-
bility. They complained that badgers were causing shortages of meal in
the marketplace and several, particularly one Lawrence Hargreaves, were
transporting grain elsewhere in order to make a better profit outside the
open market and ‘doth unjustlie enrich himselfe against all equitie and
good conscience . . . to the overthrowe and impoverishment of your peti-
tioners and many more who cannot buy one halfe pecke of meale or
lesse’.36 The petitioners argued that such a situation needed to be
redressed for the good of the commonwealth and that it was also contrary
to statute law. The marketing of food and foodstuffs remained subject
to traditional, moral scrutiny. Joyce Appleby argued that in seventeenth-
century England, ‘social purposes and religious doctrines were so clearly
defined that deviations could not escape notice’.
The prime factor that drove all these interpretations of the economy
was that, in matters affecting the feeding of the people, individual actions
based purely on considerations of private gain were sufficiently detri-
mental to the commonweal to be named crimes.37 Indeed, in an early
seventeenth-century court account, a corn merchant of Burnham Deep-
dale (Norfolk) was described as:
a man of very covetous mind and desire, and hunting exceedingly after gain and
bargains, and engrossing of corn . . . thirsting and greatly desiring to enrich him-
self thereby; . . . many poor people . . . endure want and fare much the worse.38

The rhetoric of the moral economy had entered the vocabulary of every-
day marketing. A maltster of Marlborough was similarly accused of ‘little
respecting the necessity of the commonwealth . . . but wholly seeking his
own gain and the extremest advantage of his bargain’.39 Alan Everitt
noted that appeals to social justice did sometimes fall on deaf ears. A
maltster of Over (Cambridgeshire), accused of covetousness and hard
dealing, replied that the complainant had endangered his credit and

33 Cook, Unum Necessarium, p. 13; Appleby, Economic Thought, p. 56.

34 Hill, Society and Puritanism, ch. 4. 35 Cox and Dannehl, Perceptions, pp. 21–2.
36 Richardson and James (eds.), Urban Experience, pp. 52–3, no. 46.
37 Appleby, Economic Thought. 38 Everitt, ‘Marketing’, pp. 568–9.
39 Ibid., p. 570.
418 Medieval market morality

weakened his estate with his indiscreet bargains.40 We thus see grain
sellers defend themselves by emphasising the legality of contracts made
in the market rather than countering the accusations of sin. Everitt argued
that the notions of social duty were no longer of practical interest to
the merchants and middlemen of early modern England. However, the
examples he provided are not necessarily an example of capitalist values
overcoming social idealism and Christian morals. They could be inter-
preted as a way of fighting one piece of moral rhetoric with another, rather
than an explication of personal convictions. In general, moral ideals and
appeals to social obligation were still a prominent part of the commercial
language of dispute.
Similarly, the just price remained an important consideration for the
pre-industrial market economy. In the late seventeenth century, John
Locke’s conception of the just price was the market price, free from
cheating, extortion or oppression.41 The market price was determined
by forces of labour, supply and demand rather than the natural inherent
properties of the grain or product. Similar to medieval scholastic writers,
there was no absolute just price, rather it was the absence of fraudulent
intent and the need for transparency that were the prime preconditions.
Taking advantage of anyone’s ignorance, necessity or distress was deceit-
ful and against justice. Indeed, according to Locke, strict justice ensured
that all traders sold at the market price equally to all consumers, so that
sellers could make a livelihood, middlemen would be discouraged, and
the poor would be served. A trader had to make a reasonable profit or
else he would have no livelihood, but such profit was difficult to predeter-
mine and was better left to market mechanisms. If deals were undertaken
scrupulously and honestly, then the trader’s profits would be reasonable
and not excessive. Perhaps drawing on Aquinas, Locke also recognised
that prices of corn increased during famine, though he appealed to the
virtues of charity that traders should recognise others’ necessities at times
of desperation and try not to leave them without the means for subsis-
tence. This was an offence both against the commonweal and also against
the merchant’s own soul.
The basic moral principles had not altered much since medieval times.
A just price was one based on a common market estimation, partly taking
into account original cost, but more so scarcity and utility in the place
where a commodity was sold. Locke was also no more accommodating
than many medieval moralists concerning the bargaining mechanisms
that were involved in reaching a just market price: ‘The measure that
is common to buyer and seller is just that if one should buy as cheap

40 Ibid., pp. 570–1. 41 Kelly (ed.), John Locke, ii, pp. 496–500.
 An evolving market morality? 419

as he could in the market the other should sell as dear as he could

there, every one runing venture and takeing his chance, which by the
mutual and perpetualy changing wants of mony and commodities in
buyer and seller comes to a pretty equal and fair account’. Similarly,
Samuel Ward of Ipswich stated in 1612: ‘Let the mutual profit of buyer
and seller be the rule of buying and selling, and not the gain of one
of them alone’.42 In essence, this was a reiteration of standard scholas-
tic arguments regarding commutative justice, mutual benefit, bargaining
and the equilibrium of exchange. Indeed, many early modern writers,
such as Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Wilson, Richard Baxter and William
Scott, viewed bargaining in the marketplace as a means towards achieving
justice and equity in exchanges through common estimation.43 Richard
Baxter warned against taking advantage of another’s need (lyther bargain-
ing) and emphasised that traders should take due account of their duty
to aid the poor.44 They were drawing directly on the theories of medieval
scholars. There were even examples, at times of dearth, where corn mer-
chants actually sold grain to the needy below the market rate, simply
as an act of charity.45 Profit should not be made through deceit, usury
and other harmful means, but only earned through honest labour and
sale. Little had really changed. The problem of allying moral concerns to
economic pragmatism was not one that disappeared after the medieval
period.

Early modern retailers

The petty trader who neglected both his social duty and spiritual salva-
tion remained a commonplace character in sixteenth- and seventeenth-
century literature. Like the late medieval commentator, John Gower,
late sixteenth-century ballads appealed to a golden past, one of them
asserting that ‘trew dealyng now is fled and gone’ and that most traders
flattered and deceived.46 Gascoigne despaired of the frauds and deceits
of shoe-makers, tailors, tanners, tinkers, weavers, pewterers and cut-
lers in their crafts and selling.47 Other early modern moralists repeated
medieval accusations that a draper might use dark shops to ‘shadow

42 Todd, Christian Humanism, p. 149. 43 Muldrew, Economy of Obligation, pp. 44–6.

44 Richard Baxter, Chapters from a Christian Directory, cf. Muldrew, Economy of Obligation,
pp. 45–6.
45 Walter, ‘Social economy’, pp. 103–4, 106–7, 114.
46 Wright and Halliwell (eds.), A Collection, pp. 134–8.
47 Wallace (ed.), George Gascoigne’s ‘The Steele Glas’, pp. 134–5, ll. 1066–1109.
420 Medieval market morality

the dye and wooll of his cloth’ to fool their customers, while crafts-
men worked deceitfully at night.48 Indeed, the actual cloth-sellers of
early seventeenth-century Norwich were disparaged for their ‘corrupt
desires’ that led some to sell false clothes, untruly measured and dyed.
They regarded such activities as ‘to the great dishonour of this king-
dome and the slander and discreditt of this great comoditie, and the
hindrance and losse of the buyer’.49 In The Defence of Conny-Catching
(1592), Robert Greene accused numerous traders, through their ‘coose-
nage’ and ‘knaueries’, of taking advantage of simple men and their
lack of trading knowledge, caring only for private gains. Through
their subtleties they would ‘beguile the poore communalty’ with infe-
rior goods, poor craftsmanship, forestalling, excessive price and lyther
bargaining.50
Thomas Dekker (1606) believed that the art of lying and forswear-
ing permeated every trade, alongside false weights and measures. In his
view, any buyers and sellers ‘abused by such hell hounds’ of lying and
fraud gained but a little silver since these sins would ultimately destroy
their souls.51 The imperilment of traders’ souls through false swearing
and deceit remained a consistent theme. The early seventeenth-century
poem, Times’ Whistle (c.1614–16), despaired that dealers were interested
only in gain and took no account that they would ‘sell their soules vnto
eternall paine’.52 It also lamented that tradesmen allowed the Sabbath
to ‘reeke with sweat of their vngodly labour, when they should repaire to
church with other men’.53 Such condemnations were mirrored in laws
against trading on Sundays or during divine service, which continued to
be enacted and were joined by new edicts against selling meat and other
victuals during Lent.54
The deceitful, avaricious and unrepentant retailer thus remained
a stock figure for moral commentators.55 Nancy Cox has remarked
how the ‘intellectual and regulatory environment’ for retail tradesmen
remained fairly hostile through the sixteenth and much of the seven-
teenth centuries.56 Hugh Alley, in the 1590s, spoke of a ‘Greedie kinde of

48 Grosart (ed.), Life and Complete Works, xi, p. 69; Dekker, Seven Deadly Sinnes, in Collier
(ed.), Illustrations, ii, pp. 31, 34–5. See also Camp, The Artisan, pp. 87–91.
49 Norwich, ii, pp. 259–66 (1613 and 1638).
50 Grosart (ed.), Life and Complete Works, xi, pp. 260–87.
51 Dekker, Seven Deadly Sinnes, in Collier (ed.), Illustrations, ii, pp. 27–8.
52 Cowper (ed.), Times’ Whistle, pp. 43, 54. 53 Ibid., pp. 16–17.
54 Beverley, p. 130 (1554); Northampton, ii, pp. 281–2 (1558), 305 (1624); TRP, iii,
pp. 204–9 (1600); SRP, i, pp. 413–16, 450–4 (1619).
55 Cox, ‘Beggary of the nation’, pp. 36–43.
56 Ibid., p. 43. Cox concentrated on ideas about luxury, balance of payments, the open
market and credit.
 An evolving market morality? 421

people, inhabitinge in and aboute the citty, and suburbs of the same,
called haglers, hawkers, huxters, and wanderers, uppe and downe the
streets, in buyenge into their owne handes, to rayse the prices, for their
owne luker, and private gayne’.57 Accusations against market traders
regarding the selling of unwholesome victuals, excessive price, false
weights and measures and outright deceit remained prominent. John
Powell’s treatise in 1601 included fears that butchers sold meat from
diseased animals, sold unbaited bulls, ‘or geld the kidneys of their mut-
tons, veales, or lambes, taking away the fatte thereof, nor deceitfully
raise the same kidneyes, with any stopping or underputting them, to
deceiue the ignorant buyers therof’.58 Robert Greene asserted that butch-
ers would prick and ‘puffe vp his meate to please the eye’ and wash old
meat with new blood ‘in deceiuing the poore’.59 Many of Greene’s other
rhetorical, entertaining complaints similarly reflected medieval concerns:
millers were still accused of having a ‘golden thumbe’, bakers for falsi-
fying the weight of their loaves, brewers for adulterating their ale and
beer, horse-corsers for beguiling their customers and vintners for mixing
water with wine.60 His cooks sold ‘filthy meat . . . when it is bad enough
for dogs’, badly cooked or reheated, poisoning ‘some honest poore
men’.61
As in medieval texts, early modern bakers were regarded as inher-
ently dishonest, greedy and potentially harmful to the common good.
Andrew Boorde, in the 1540s, exhorted bakers to make good bread that
would ‘comforte, confyrme, and doth stablysshe a mannes hert’, but he
despaired of them in a later edition of the same treatise, saying: ‘And evyll
bakers the whyche doth nat make good breade of whete, but wyl myngle
other corne with whete, or do not order and seson hit, gyvinge good
weight, I wolde they myght play bopepe thorowe a pyllery’.62 Robert
Greene’s view in the late sixteenth century was even more disparaging,
declaring how the baker loved to be seen in the pillory. He argued that
the baker:

craue but one deare yeare to make your daughter a Gentlewoman, you buy your
corne at the best hand, and yet wil not be content to make your bread weight by
many ounces, you put in yeast and salt to make it heuie, and yet al your policy

57 Archer, Burrow and Harding (eds.), Hugh Alley’s Caveat, pp. 15–29, 35–6; Muldrew,
Economy of Obligation, p. 49.
58 Powell, Assise of Bread, f2v.
59 Grosart (ed.), Life and Complete Works, xi, pp. 69, 273–4. See also Taylor, Works, ‘The
Trauels of Twelve-Pence’, p. 70.
60 Wallace (ed.), George Gascoigne’s ‘The Steele Glas’, pp. 134–5, ll. 1066–1109.
61 Grosart (ed.), Life and Complete Works, xi, pp. 281–2.
62 Ibid., p. 261 and p. 260, n. 5 (edition of 1547).
422 Medieval market morality

cannot make it but fine for the pillory: the poore crie out, the rich find fault, and
the lord maior and the sheriffs like honorable and worshipful maiestrats, euery
day walke abroad and weigh your bread, and yet al will not serue to make you
honest men.63

Similarly, brewers and tipplers were still being upbraided for brewing
unwholesome or weak ale and beer, using unsealed measures, and gen-
erally failing to heed the assize.64 Boorde’s diatribe against brewers and
alewives continued the growing antagonism towards these particular ven-
dors:

euyl ale-brewers and ale-wyues, for theyr euyl brewyng and euyl measure, shuld
clacke and ryng theyr tankardes . . . standynge in the Temmes [Thames] vp to
the harde chynne, and iii ynches aboue, that whan you do come out of the
water you myght shake your eares as a spanyell that veryly commeth out of the
water.65

Brewers were accused of adulterated ale that poisoned their customers,

or making weak brews of ‘smale beare’ in order to make more profit.66
In a poem by John Taylor in 1630, tapsters were characterised as small
thieves because they ‘nick’ their pots, thus cheating men of full measures.
Tapsters also allegedly took advantage of their customer’s drunken state,
though Taylor saw this as almost sweet justice.67 Taylor drew on earlier
depictions, such as by Robert Greene (1592), and accused alewives of
raising the bottom of their ale-pots or using smaller cups (‘petty cannes’)
than standard for their weak beer, half-filled with froth; though he also
suggested that they did such deceits in order to scratch a living.68 Indeed,
some fairly positive images of alewives and alehouses were disseminated,
such as Donald Lupton’s early seventeenth-century image: ‘if her ale
bee strong, her reckoning right, her house cleane, her fire good, her
face faire, and the towne great or rich, shee shall seldome or neuersit
without chirping birds to beare her company, and at the next churching
or christning, shee is sure to be ridd of two of three dozen of cakes and
ale by gossiping neighbours’.69 Similarly, a seventeenth-century ballad
recited:

63 Grosart (ed.), Life and Complete Works, xi, p. 275.

64 Strype (ed.), Survey, ii, pp. 201–4; Powell, Assise of Bread, e3v–e4v.
65 Furnivall (ed.), Compendyous Regyment, pp. 260–1.
66 Wright and Halliwell (eds.), A Collection, p. 63; Grosart (ed.), Life and Complete Works,
xi, pp. 274–5.
67 Taylor, Works, ‘The Trauels of Twelve-Pence’, p. 70, and ‘A Thiefe’, p. 118.
68 Grosart (ed.), Life and Complete Works, xi, pp. 68, 275–6.
69 Lupton, London and the Countrey, pp. 130–1; Thirsk and Cooper (eds.), Seventeenth-
Century Economic Documents, p. 348.
 An evolving market morality? 423

A man that hath a signe at his doore,

and keeps good ale to sell,
A comely wife to please his guests,
may thrive exceeding well.70

These were more endearing portrayals than Skelton’s Elynour Rummyng,

even if the gossiping woman using her feminine wiles to attract customers
was still predominant.
In a similar manner, Greene complained of vintners who were an easy
friend to both customers and their money.71 His innkeepers were able to
sell ‘a crab for a pipping’ [crab apple for a pippin] to simple men,72 while
Taylor’s innkeepers were thieves who deliberately underfed the horses and
thus deceived their customers.73 Dekker exclaimed: ‘shoote but your eye
through the iron grates into the cellers of the vintners, there you shall
see him hold his necke in a jin made of a clift hoope-sticke, to throttle
him from telling tales, whilest they most abhominably jumble together
all the papisticall drinkes that are brought from beyond the sea’.74 Such
admonitions against the adulteration of wine were repeated in the edicts
of law, where vintners were warned not to ‘mix or alter the verdure and
proper nature of their wines’.75
These condemnations of literature and moralists were reflected in
the rhetorical anxieties of early modern market laws.76 For example,
sixteenth-century Oxford brewers were ordered to sell ale or beer at the
set price-rate and in sealed measures, and not to hold back or refuse to sell
any available drink to those that demanded it.77 In the early seventeenth
century, common brewers were ordered to desist from making their ale
and beer too strong and thus out of the price range of the ‘poorer sort’.78
Bakers and innkeepers were still upbraided for short-weight, wine-sellers
for breaking the assize, butchers for disreputable slaughtering practices,

70 Chappell (ed.), Roxburghe Ballads, i, ‘Choice of Inuentions’, p. 109, ll. 113–16.

71 Grosart (ed.), Life and Complete Works, xi, pp. 68–9, 278–9.
72 Ibid., xi, pp. 68–9. 73 Taylor, Works, ‘A Thiefe’, pp. 118–19.
74 Dekker, Seven Deadly Sinnes, in Collier (ed.), Illustrations, ii, pp. 34–5.
75 Powell, Assise of Bread, f2r–v.
76 Chartres, ‘Marketing’, p. 247; e.g. Statutes, v, pp. 421–2, 14 Car II c.26 (1662); vi,
p. 98, 1 Gul&Mar c.33 (1688); viii, p. 49, 1 Anne c.9 (1702); ix, pp. 248–51, 8 Anne
c.19 (1709).
77 Stanford (ed.), Ordinances of Bristol, pp. 24–5 (1555–6). A hefty penalty was proposed,
consisting of disenfranchisement until a fine of £40 was paid for readmission. See also
Coventry, p. 713 (1532); Morgan (ed.), Hereford, pp. 2–3, 12 (1554–76); Tawney and
Power (eds.), Tudor Economic Documents, i, pp. 127–8 (Norwich, 1564); Turner (ed.),
Selections, pp. 400–2 (Oxford, 1579); Stanford (ed.), Ordinances of Bristol, pp. 72–3
(1581); Northampton, ii, p. 303 (1606).
78 SRP, i, p. 201 (1608), also p. 455 (1619).
424 Medieval market morality

and fishmongers for corrupt fish.79 There was little that was starkly new
in the principles underlying market supervision, and much drew directly
upon medieval laws.
The assizes of bread and ale remained a mainstay of commercial law
and were frequently reinforced and revived during times of dearth. How-
ever, it has been argued by historians that the assize of bread was generally
ignored by bakers in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries,
with punishments rarely invoked even when traders continually broke the
assize’s stipulations.80 As we have seen, the assize of bread was often not
fully invoked in the medieval period, except as a means to prevent flagrant
abuses. A lenient enforcement of regulations was not incompatible with
a strong moral desire for such legislation to remain in place in order to
be implemented when necessary. Indeed, the stark protests of early mod-
ern bakers do suggest that the assize of bread was still taken seriously,
and we need to be careful in interpreting lists of infringements against
the assize. There is other evidence that the continued enforcement of
the assize of bread was an important, real presence, rather than a lapsed
one by the start of the eighteenth century as suggested by the Webbs
and by Petersen.81 There are numerous offences noted throughout
eighteenth-century court leets: lists of assize prices, justices setting the
assize, and local identification of short-weight bread. Wendy Thwaites
finds little evidence of disobedience by bakers in eighteenth-century
Oxford and the inhabitants appeared committed to the legislation.82 It
was still set according to the market price of wheat and bakers were
accorded an allowance for their livelihood and expenses.
The assize of bread epitomises the debates about the moral economy
and the market and how the two could potentially co-exist. The medieval
assize of bread was meant to react to market conditions and the fluctuat-
ing price of wheat, and thus provide a fair compromise for both consumer
and producer. It was also intended to give bakers the opportunity to make
a profit within the consensus of the ‘moral economy’. It was not a fixed
allowance, as Thompson has implied by arguing that bakers could only
enhance their profit beyond the allowance by the illegal methods of short
weight and adulteration. In fact, they could legitimately increase their
profits by enlarging their consumer base.

79 Tawney and Power (eds.), Tudor Economic Documents, i, pp. 127–8 (Norwich, 1564);
Powell, Assise of Bread, f1r– f2v.
80 Benbow, ‘Court of aldermen’, 109–11; Boulton, ‘London’s “dark ages”?’, 489; Boulton,
Neighbourhood and Society, p. 76; Thrupp, Company of Bakers, pp. 25–30.
81 Webb and Webb, ‘Assize’, 198–9; Petersen, Bread, p. 99.
82 Thwaites, ‘Assize of bread’, 174–6.
 An evolving market morality? 425

However, Thwaites notes that bakers were seemingly able to sell bread
more cheaply than the assize indicated, except at times of dearth when it
caused them hardship, especially if they failed to obtain grain at the price
set by assize officials.83 Early modern bakers often complained that the
stipulated allowance was insufficient. There was, unfortunately, an error
in the early modern calculation of the assize compared to the medieval
system. The former assumed that the level of consumption was constant
rather than the amount available to spend on bread.84 Thus, as the price
of grain increased an early modern baker needed to sell more loaves
in order to make a profit, which contradicted the entire premise of the
medieval assize. Complaints about the inadequacy of the allowance led
to it being increased over the centuries to account for inflation in the
cost of living; but this did not take into account the generally increasing
grain prices. This is possibly why there were downward revisions in the
amount of bread that it was considered could be made from each quarter
of wheat, from 418lb. in the seventeenth century to 365lb. in 1758, in
order to compensate the bakers.85 The early modern reconstitutions of
the assize of bread also failed to solve its integral mathematical flaw that
had mistakenly left bakers unable to supply brown bread to the poor
at an adequate allowance.86 In 1795 there was an attempt by London
aldermen to revise the assize tables for wholemeal bread so as to provide
a better allowance to the bakers. However, this ended in failure when
they declared that they could not fathom the principles upon which the
assize was founded.87 Lastly, fluctuating flour prices no longer matched
wheat prices. In 1735 the Bakers’ Company complained to Parliament
that the assize needed to be set according to the price of flour and meal.88
The integral flaws in the early modern assize undoubtedly undermined
its efficacy.
Nevertheless, the authorities, bakers and consumers all seemed to feel
that the assize of bread remained of value well into the eighteenth century.
Most importantly, the regulatory apparatus of the assizes added a sense
of security and helped maintain social order. Thompson argued that the
assize of bread was the visible paraphernalia of paternalism and protected

83 Ibid., 179.
84 The baker’s allowance was now added directly to the price of wheat from which the
assize weight was determined (e.g. if price of wheat was 5s. 3d. and the allowance 1s.
3d., the assize was set in relation to 6s. 6d. on the table). This distorted calculations
compared to the medieval assize, for the amount a baker earned was no longer directly
proportional to the number of loaves they sold but rather the weight of bread they sold.
See Davis, ‘Baking’, 488, 493–4.
85 Thwaites, ‘Assize of bread’, 171–81. 86 Davis, ‘Baking’, 493–4.
87 Brown, ‘A just and profitable commerce’, 315.
88 Nicholas, ‘Assize of bread’, 336; Thrupp, Company of Bakers, pp. 23–4.
426 Medieval market morality

bakers from the worst excesses of popular wrath.89 Thwaites has found
evidence that the assize of ale was still being set in Oxford as late as
1701, while the assize of bread continued for much longer.90 In 1756 at
Leicester, in order to undermine potential collusion among native bakers
and maintain supplies, several country bakers were allowed to freely
enter the borough and sell their bread, as long as they kept to the assize
of bread.91 Charles Smith commented in 1764 that ‘in large towns and
cities it will be always necessary to set the assize, in order to satisfy the
people that the price which the bakers demand is no more than is thought
reasonable by the magistrates’.92 The assize of bread thus remained in
the same essential form from the thirteenth to eighteenth centuries.93
In a similar manner, problems and frauds involving the use of unlawful
weights and measures were ongoing throughout the early modern period.
William Harrison pronounced that every market town employed a dif-
ferent bushel measure, while many ‘unconscionable dealers’ used one
measure to sell by and another to buy with.94 An Elizabethan proclama-
tion of 1587 lamented that ‘the greatest part of her loving subjects of this
realm of England and Wales be ignorant of contents, differences, and
true knowledge and uses of the weights of the same realm, and that the
weights commonly used within the realm be uncertain and varying one
from another to the great slander of the same and the deceiving of many,
both buyers and sellers’.95 Many boroughs continued to demand that all
equipment be sealed and enforced the use of a common beam for bulk
deals.96 All weights, Troy and Avoirdupois, were expected to conform to
the standards found at the Westminster Exchequer. Elizabeth I ordered
the mayors and bailiffs of every borough and town to send men to the
Exchequer to receive and pay for standards to then be kept and used for
the commonalty in each town in sealing local weights and measures. Reg-
ular inspections were expected to take place and false items destroyed.
However, some fifteen years later, there were again complaints that the

89 Thompson, ‘Moral economy’, 105–7; Thwaites, ‘Assize of bread’, 179; Walter and
Wrightson, ‘Dearth’, 37–40.
90 Thwaites, ‘Oxford food riots’, pp. 142–3.
91 Fisher and Juřica (eds.), Documents, p. 271.
92 Cf. Thompson, ‘Moral economy’, 106.
93 The assize of bread was repealed in London in 1822 and all over England in 1836.
Statutes of the United Kingdom, xxii, p. 1036, 3 Geo IV c.106 (1822), xxviii, p. 108, 6&7
Will IV c.37 (1836).
94 Edelen (ed.), Description, pp. 251–2. See also Grosart (ed.), Life and Complete Works, xi,
pp. 68, 259.
95 TRP, ii, pp. 543–8 (1587).
96 Richardson and James (eds.), Urban Experience, p. 48, no. 41 (Devizes, 1617); Stanford
(ed.), Ordinances of Bristol, p. 56 (1574); Roberts (ed.), Evesham, p. 1, no. 1; Turner
(ed.), Selections, pp. 400–2 (Oxford, 1579); Strype (ed.), Survey, ii, pp. 257–8.
 An evolving market morality? 427

standards had been neglected or abused and variations in weights and

measures were still rife.97 In 1670, a statute of Charles II complained
about the great variety of measures and ordered that there should be
‘one measure of brasse provided and chained in the market-place’.98
A royal proclamation in 1619, concerning and extending the jurisdic-
tion of the royal Clerk of the Market, lamented the ‘frauds and abuses
now generally used in buying and selling (especially by Inne-keepers and
Victuallers)’.99 The Clerk of the Market was still expected to inquire into
the weights, measures and deceit of victuallers and retailers, ensuring
that their products were wholesome or of good quality, as well as sold
at a reasonable price.100 The just price remained an important consid-
eration and the notions of ‘reasonable gains’ and ‘excessive prices’ were
increasingly exemplified, as seen in regulations for the price of victuals,
meat and tallow. For instance, several royal proclamations were issued
regarding the retail price of meat, particularly in London, though they
had to be continually adjusted upon petition from butchers to account
for seasonal variations. The butchers of sixteenth-century England were
to be allowed reasonable gains ‘as they might honestly live withal accord-
ing to their behaviors’; several ordinances were adapted to take into
account gross and retail margins. However, they would face (undefined)
‘uttermost perils’ if they were deemed to have sold at excessive prices.101
Similarly, a statute in 1548 decried conspiracies to sell victuals at unrea-
sonable prices and threatened severe penalties for transgressors: ‘for the
first offence £10 to the king’s highness, or twenty days imprisonment on
bread and water, and for the second offence £20, or the pillory, and for
the third offence £40 and the pillory with the loss of one of his ears’.102
Orders to local justices enjoined them to make lists of victuallers and
inquire into those selling their wares at excessive prices.103 They were
increasingly given the power to set reasonable prices for victuals when
required ‘for relief’. A proclamation of 1587 declared that unreasonable
prices needed to be redressed because of the queen’s ‘princely care and
love towards her people, utterly condemneth and earnestly desireth to
remedy for the relief of the poorer sort’. Elizabeth I was quite prepared
to intervene and impose price controls if the ‘poorer sort’ were seen to

97 TRP, iii, pp. 241–5 (1602). See also SRP, i, pp. 416–17 (1619).
98 Statutes, v, pp. 622–3, 22 Car II c.8 (1670).
99 SRP, i, p. 417 (1619). 100 Ibid., i, p. 418 (1619).
101 TRP, i, pp. 208–9 (1533), 212–15 (1534), 218–19 (1534), 226–7 (1535), 233–4
(1535), 237–8 (1536), 240–1 (1536), 287–8 (1540), 291–3 (1540), 331–5 (1544),
464–9 (1549); SRP, i, pp. 86–7 (1604), 297–9 (1613).
102 Statutes, iv (i), pp. 58–9, 2&3 Edw VI c.15 (1548). See also ibid., iii, pp. 436–8, 25
Hen VIII cc.1–2 (1533); TRP, i, pp. 464–9 (1549).
103 Tawney and Power (eds.), Tudor Economic Documents, i, pp. 148–50.
428 Medieval market morality

be suffering or supplies were being held back from the market. At a time
of international crisis, and to protect the provisioning of her army, a list
of maximum prices for a wide range of corns and victuals was issued in
1588.104
Linked intimately to issues of just price was a concern that supplies
of victuals should be maintained. For instance, a Winchester brewer,
Robert Bagger, was accused in 1550 of refusing to brew an ‘abundance
of malte redye in his howse to have byn brewed’ at a time of dearth and
scarcity. The injunction described him as neglectful of the townspeople
and the poor ‘to thevill example of the rest of victuallers’; his actions
were ‘ungentill and unnaturall’ and he was henceforth prohibited from
brewing again.105 The bakers of sixteenth-century Northampton were
accused of buying up large quantities of grain and conveying it out of the
town at times of crisis ‘to their own great lucre and advantage and to the
raysyng of the price’ against the commonwealth. Restrictions were thus
placed on the amount of grain that could be carried into the country so
as to protect the borough’s own supply.106 A Southampton tallower, Mr
Barwycke, was accused of dominating the trade and taking advantage
of a time of scarcity in 1587: he ‘does presently refuse to serve the
inhabitants at any reasonable price’. The presentment emphasised that
he was neglecting his duty to serve the community, particularly ‘the
poorer sort of people [who] are most of all pinched’, and was instead
more interested in his own gain.107
The substance and rhetoric of medieval marketing laws had thus
endured and even become more virulent in its tone. The early mod-
ern marketplace itself was also subject to similar controls to those seen
in the medieval period. The need to keep the marketplace clean and
free from obstructions or filth required increasingly detailed munici-
pal proclamations.108 Ordinances still complained about corrupt and
unwholesome meat, and the unsanitary practices of butchers, partic-
ularly regarding the disposal of blood and entrails.109 The butchers
of Northampton, Winchester and London were warned about selling

104 Statutes, iii, p. 438, 25 Hen VIII c.2 (1534); iv (i), p. 120, 3&4 Edw VI c.21 (1550);
TRP, ii, pp. 532–4 (1587); iii, pp. 19–22 (1588).
105 Winchester, pp. 181–2 (1550). For similar concerns, see Turner (ed.), Selections, p. 10
(1512–13).
106 Northampton, ii, p. 278 (1553?).
107 Williams (ed.), English Historical Documents, p. 985 (Southampton, 1549); Fisher and
Juřica (eds.), Documents, p. 251 (Southampton, 1587).
108 Strype (ed.), Survey, ii, pp. 306–7 (1562).
109 Turner (ed.), Selections, p. 144 (Oxford, 1536); Morgan (ed.), Hereford, pp. 3, 5, 12
(1554–76); Strype (ed.), Survey, ii, p. 307 (1562).
 An evolving market morality? 429

diseased or out-of-date meat, as well as for undertaking dubious slaugh-

tering practices.110 The market day also continued to be delineated by
ringing of a market bell, with householders allowed to buy provisions
for their own use first, followed by retailers who would be condemned
as forestallers or regraters if they bought before the appointed time.111
For instance, the temporal division of the market day was reiterated in
Beverley in 1555, where no bakers could buy any grain at the market
before 1pm nor store any grain in their houses on market day, except
for their own use.112 All grain and victuals entering the market had to
be brought to the open forum for sale and badgers were not allowed to
transact business until the second ringing of the bell. Consumption needs
had to be met before middleman practices were allowed.113 If anything,
sixteenth-century market regulations became more precise, detailed and
comprehensive.114
The open marketplace, especially for victual transactions, continued
to be a mainstay against forestallers and regraters, and certain traders,
particularly outsiders, were compelled to deal in assigned places.115 For-
eign bakers entering the sixteenth-century market of Coventry were only
allowed to come on Wednesdays and Fridays and sell only in ‘Fleete-
streite and Jordan’well’, while the fishmongers and sellers of tanned
leather has to stand beneath the Cheeping Conduit.116 The London
authorities wanted hucksters and country sellers of victuals to stand
in certain areas of the market ‘to the intent they may be perfectly
known’. They were also to deal only on assigned market days. In the
seventeenth-century suburbs, itinerant hawkers, pedlars, fishwives and
other petty hucksters were expected to keep on the move and not lay
their goods on the ground, causing obstructions, or remain standing
without paying stallage fees.117 Those who owned fixed shops were par-
ticularly hostile to itinerant traders and Parliament legislated in favour of
shopkeepers.118
The retail market trader of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was
just as unpopular in common culture as retailers of the medieval period.

110 Northampton, ii, pp. 280–2 (1558); Atkinson, Elizabethan Winchester, pp. 195–6; Strype
(ed.), Survey, ii, p. 307 (1562).
111 Strype (ed.), Survey, ii, pp. 309–10 (1697). 112 Beverley, pp. 39–40 (1555).
113 Morgan (ed.), Hereford, pp. 5–6, 13 (1554–76); Northampton, ii, p. 303 (1586).
114 E.g. Northampton, ii, pp. 280–3 (1558); Turner (ed.), Selections, pp. 333–4 (1570–1).
115 TRP, i, p. 527 (1551); Statutes, iv (i), p. 119, 3&4 Edw VI c.19 (1549).
116 Coventry, pp. 798–9 (1551). See also Turner (ed.), Selections, pp. 106–9 (Oxford,
1531–2); Northampton, ii, p. 283 (1568).
117 Strype (ed.), Survey, ii, pp. 308 (1562), 309 (1697); Boulton, Neighbourhood and
Society, pp. 74–5.
118 Cox and Dannehl, Perceptions, ch. 3.
430 Medieval market morality

This is demonstrated starkly by legal and literary attitudes towards

pedlars and hawkers. For instance, they were still restricted in their
movements around the streets of Bristol and threatened with forty days
imprisonment.119 Regraters or hucksters of victuals were banned from
the city for two years, 1566 to 1568, before an order in 1570 limited
the numbers of hucksters in Bristol selling fruit to five and those selling
oatmeal to two. These wandering traders were bound by two sureties of
£5 each towards their good behaviour, in particular that they would not
regrate and forestall commodities. Consumers were given an incentive
of 5s. to report any hucksters that broke these prohibitions.120 If any-
thing, the moral opprobrium towards petty traders, as reflected in the
literature, ordinances and prescribed penalties, was increasingly strin-
gent throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. William Cup-
per preached in 1592 that ‘vserers, also brokers, badgers and hucksters,
and such like locusts that eat vp the poore and cause the markets to be
inhaunced should bee bridled to the ende the poore may haue things
better cheape’.121
By the late sixteenth century, itinerant pedlars and petty chapmen were
deemed to be rogues and vagabonds.122 Since Edward VI’s reign, and
well into the eighteenth century, pedlars and traders had to be licensed
by designated officers and sureties collected.123 In 1618, there was recog-
nition that certain ‘industrious, honest’ chapmen were useful to the trade
of the realm, particularly in supplying remote areas, but associations with
‘rogues and idle wandering persons’ was still prominent. The dislike of
the pedlar was allied to his itinerant activities, which meant that much
of his trade circumvented official markets and their regulations. They
were deemed both damaging to local, settled tradesmen and socially dis-
ruptive due to begging, larceny and drunkenness.124 In both literature
and regulation, pedlars were socially marginalised.125 Greene described
the pedlar and tinker as ‘both cozin germaines to the deuil’. His tinker
was a bawdy, drunken thief who made more holes than he mended and
had no fear of God; while his pedlar was a worse villain, wandering the

119 Stanford (ed.), Ordinances of Bristol, p. 25 (1555–6).

120 Ibid., pp. 34 (1566), 38 (1568), 42 (1570). By 1585, fifteen hucksters were allowed in
the city (presumably dealing in a variety of goods). Ibid., p. 84 (1585).
121 Cupper, Certaine Sermons, p. 343; Archer, Pursuit of Stability, p. 53.
122 Statutes, iv (i), pp. 590–2, 14 Eliz c.5 (1572); iv (ii), p. 899, 39 Eliz c.4 (1597).
123 Ibid., iv (i), p. 155, 5&6 Edw VI c.21 (1552); SRP, i, pp. 393–5 (1618); Spufford, Great
Reclothing, pp. 7–10; Willan, Inland Trade, pp. 54–5.
124 Beier, Masterless Men, pp. 89–91; Blondé, Stabel, Stobart and Van Damme (eds.),
Buyers and Sellers, introduction, pp. 7–30.
125 Woodbridge, ‘The peddler’.
 An evolving market morality? 431

country with his mistresses (‘docksey’) and being placed in the stocks for
drunkenness and lechery.126
In reality, the potential competition of pedlars, hawkers and tinkers was
resented and resisted by the town authorities and shopkeepers. In 1691,
a petition was offered to Parliament arguing that the activities of pedlars,
hawkers and petty chapmen were damaging the trade of more worthy
traders ‘to the great inconvenience and danger of the whole nation’.
Although Parliament rejected this petition as only benefiting shopkeep-
ers and inconvenient to customers, highlighting the utility of pedlars in
certain aspects of commerce, an act was passed in 1696–7 to reinforce
the licensing of hawkers and pedlars.127 It could be argued that the ongo-
ing attempts to license pedlars and petty chapmen actually legitimised
their activities, giving them some respectability and even encouraging
retailers to cooperate with them. Alternatively, it is also possible that
licensing disrupted supply as much as aided it, by reinforcing suspicions
of itinerant traders and by making ambiguous the position of many itiner-
ant wholesalers through all-embracing definitions.128 More importantly,
those outside the system were disparaged and castigated as vagrants and
rogues by both Parliament and fixed-shop retailers. However, whether
consumers viewed them the same way is questionable, especially given
the success of such traders even as they operated on the margins of
acceptability.
Many other traders had to be formally licensed to operate.129 During
the early sixteenth century in Winchester, only twenty-four appointed
tipplers could receive and sell ale from the brewers.130 These twenty-
four, and all other regraters, were prohibited from selling eggs, butter or
poultry, except by consent of the mayor.131 Badgers of corn (and victuals)
and drovers of cattle were declared unlawful engrossers and forestallers
unless they were licensed by the Justices of the Peace.132 Licences for
running alehouses first became mandatory in 1552, when keepers had
to post bonds to maintain good order. By July 1577, the Privy Council

126 Grosart (ed.), Life and Complete Works, xi, pp. 282–3. The reputation of tinkers and
pedlars as flirtatious and lecherous was reinforced in several ballads, e.g. Chappell
(ed.), Roxburghe Ballads, iii, ‘Room for a Jovial Tinker: Old Brass to Mend’, p. 230.
127 Thirsk and Cooper (eds.), Seventeenth-Century Economic Documents, pp. 417–21 (1691–
3), 423–6 (1696–7). See also ibid., pp. 428–9 ( John Houghton, A Collection for the
Improvement of Husbandry and Trade (1727)); Spufford, Great Reclothing, pp. 12–14.
128 Cox and Dannehl, Perceptions, pp. 50–2.
129 Stanford (ed.), Ordinances of Bristol, pp. 72–3 (1581).
130 Winchester, pp. 140 (1525), 147 (1531), 157 (1535), 167 (1540); Atkinson, Elizabethan
Winchester, pp. 186–7. See also Greaves (ed.), First Ledger Book, pp. 72–3, 85, nos. 88
and 107 (Wycombe, 1527 and 1559).
131 Winchester, pp. 179 (1549), 182 (1550).
132 Statutes, iv (i), pp. 439–41, 5 Eliz c.12 (1563).
432 Medieval market morality

ordered full returns of the names of those licensed as keepers of taverns,

inns and alehouses.133 Owners of inns and alehouses in sixteenth-century
Coventry had to be given permission by the mayor and Justices of the
Peace in order to operate.134 Throughout Tudor and Stuart England,
such places were considered havens for the undesirables of society (‘evyll
dysposed personns’ or ‘certeyne lewde persons’) who got drunk and
gambled.135 They were seen to contribute nothing to social harmony or
order, only idleness, immorality and ungodliness.
Peter Clark argues that, in reality, ‘criminal activity centred on ale-
houses was amateur, small-scale, and sporadic’, though there does appear
to have been an increasing tendency towards drunkenness.136 Alehouses
were also important centres for the local community, but they still
remained susceptible to accusations of marketing misdemeanours, such
as regrating and engrossing, as well as the traditional short-measures and
adulterated drink.137 The borough of Evesham sought to establish com-
mon brewhouses from 1611 as a means to suppress ‘meane typplinge and
blind alehouses’ that brewed contrary to the law and failed to supply the
needs of the poor at reasonable prices.138 A royal proclamation of 1600
declared that there was a surfeit of alehouses and victualling houses in
England, which were a haven of ‘waste, riot, and expenses’ as well as ‘infi-
nite idleness, thefts, and other inconveniences and disorders’.139 Justices
of the Peace were ordered to keep down the number of such establish-
ments and only allow respectable persons to run them, who were then
bound by financial sureties to maintain good order. It was important
that action was seen to be taken. Licences and recognisances issued to
alehouse-keepers in 1619 outlined their duty to prevent unlawful games
within their premises, close on Sundays, during divine service and after
curfew, keep the assizes of bread, ale and beer, and report to the consta-
ble any strangers who stayed longer than a day and a night.140 Ultimately,
the authorities did not want any vagabonds, rogues or thieves resorting

133 Ibid., iv (i), pp. 157–8, 5&6 Edw VI c.25 (1552), pp. 168–70, 7 Edw VI c.5 (1553).
See also SRP, i, pp. 409–13 (1619).
134 Coventry, p. 781 (1546).
135 Ibid., p. 808 (1553); Northampton, ii, p. 301 (1570); Dyer, City of Worcester, p. 144;
Clark, ‘The alehouse’; Wrightson, ‘Alehouses’, pp. 11–13, 17–18; Mayhew, Tudor Rye,
pp. 225–8; Yates, Town and Countryside, p. 100.
136 Clark, ‘The alehouse’, pp. 57–9.
137 Ibid., p. 68; Wrightson, ‘Alehouses’; Slack, ‘Books of Orders’, 16–17.
138 Roberts (ed.), Evesham, p. 10, no. 40.
139 TRP, iii, pp. 205–6 (1600); Statutes, iv (i), p. 422, 5 Eliz I c.5 (1563).
140 SRP, i, pp. 409–13 (1619). See also Statutes, iv(ii), pp. 1026–7, 1 Jac. I c.9 (1603);
iv(ii), pp. 1141–3, 4 Jac. I cc.4–5 (1606); iv(ii), p. 1167, 7 Jac. I c.10 (1609); iv(ii),
pp. 1216–17, 21 Jac. I c.7 (1624); v, p. 3, 1 Car. I c.4 (1625); v, pp. 26–7, 3 Car.
I c.4 (1628).
 An evolving market morality? 433

to these establishments and local men of ‘the better sort’ were expressing
their social anxieties through such legislation.141 However, the actual leet
court records suggest that not all illegal alehouses were suppressed, par-
ticularly in the seventeenth century, as officials sought to profit from their
existence or did not wish to overburden poor families.142 As in medieval
England, the strict letter of the law was not always enforced and local
officials exercised flexible, but effective, discretion in identifying what
they saw as the true moral dangers from the popular, local operations
that provided regular fines.
As Susan Amussen has stated, regulations were often advanced by local
notables ‘to get rid of undesirables, but not harm the worthy’.143 She pro-
vided the example of an Anne Bassham, in Castle Rising in 1657, who
had been serving small beer to the disadvantage of the poor, but when
she withdrew this service it was recognised that this was equally harmful
as her brewing was ‘necessary and for the good of the greatest part of
the town’. Regulations that overly inhibited the flow of trade and pre-
vented traders from earning a livelihood suited no one. Nevertheless,
there was a stark paternalism behind early modern regulations, whereby
market traders were expected to operate to the benefit of the common-
wealth and the poor.144 Notions of the just price and mutual communal
responsibility were still prominent.

Middlemen and dearth

Maintaining the supply of corn, at reasonable prices, remained a mantra
of early modern authorities, who were especially fearful about dearth
at a time of population renewal.145 Regulation and intervention in the
marketing of grain was thus common at times of harvest failures, largely
to maintain social order.146 Indeed, well into the eighteenth century,
‘traditional paternalistic moral notions about the entitlement of the poor
to locally produced grain resulted in legislation which gave magistrates
the power to intervene in local markets’ if there was a likelihood of
potential food shortages and disorder.147

141 Wrightson, English Society, pp. 159, 166–70, 227; Wrightson, ‘Alehouses’.
142 King, ‘Regulation of alehouses’; Clark, ‘The alehouse’, pp. 49, 70; Roberts,
‘Alehouses’, 54.
143 Amussen, An Ordered Society, p. 155. 144 Ibid., pp. 155–6.
145 Everitt, ‘Marketing’, pp. 562–71, 576–86.
146 Walter and Wrightson, ‘Dearth’; Walter, ‘Social economy’; Outhwaite, ‘Dearth’; Ren-
ton, ‘Moral economy’, pp. 116–17, 133; Brown, ‘A just and profitable commerce’,
330.
147 Muldrew, Economy of Obligation, p. 47.
434 Medieval market morality

Corn-dealers who moved corn from place to place had long been
regarded as legitimate, as long as they were not denuding the former
location of necessary supplies and were meeting important demand else-
where. A statute of 1552 allowed badgers, who were licensed by three
Justices of the Peace, to buy grain, cattle, fish, butter or cheese where
they wished and resell or transport them.148 In 1627, traders were able
to sell grain both inside and outside pitched markets and transport it
where they wished, but only when corn was below a certain price.149
Outside of times of dearth, middlemen had a fairly free scope of action.
However, middlemen who merely intervened to turn a quick profit, with
little extra labour, were disparaged, particularly forestallers, engrossers
and regraters.150 Statutes and royal proclamations were issued regularly
against these activities, which were seen as causing scarcity to the detri-
ment of the commonweal. If anything, these laws became more vehement
in their condemnation, perhaps reflecting the more pressurised economic
circumstances of the sixteenth century. In 1534, a royal proclamation
declared: ‘there is no just ground or cause why such grain should be so
high enhanced in price as it is’, blaming it on ‘the subtle invention and
craft of divers covetous persons’.151 In 1551, another proclamation stated
that excessive prices were mostly caused by ‘the greedy and insatiable
covetous desires and appetites of the breeders, broggers, engrossers, gra-
ziers, victuallers and forestallers (minding only their own lucre without
respect of the commonwealth, to the great damage, impoverishing, and
disquieting of his majesty’s subjects)’.152 This ordinance was effectively
an abridged version of Statutum de Pistoribus, though it sought to punish
price-enhancers by means ‘more sharp and penal than any former law or
proclamation heretofore made or ordained hath been’.
Elizabethan and Jacobean proclamations also asserted that covetous-
ness, engrossing, forestalling and false rumours were causing dearth and
high prices in the country. The Book of Orders, first promulgated in 1587

148 Statutes, iv(i), p. 148, 5&6 Edw VI c.14 (1552); Everitt, ‘Marketing’, pp. 579–81. See
also Statutes, iv(i), p. 439, 5 Eliz c.12 (1563), p. 562, 13 Eliz c.25 §7 (1571).
149 Statutes, v, p. 30, 3 Car I c.5 §5 (1627). See also ibid., v, p. 449, 15 Car II c.7 (1663).
150 Sacks, ‘The greed of Judas’.
151 Statutes, iii, p. 422, 24 Hen VIII c.6 (1532); iii, p. 440, 25 Hen VIII c.4 (1533); TRP,
i, pp. 172–4 (1527), 180–1 (1528), 188, 190–1 (1529), 221–2 (1534). The export of
grain, victuals and other goods was also repeatedly forbidden or controlled due to fears
that such activities raised prices. Ibid., i, pp. 201–3 (1531), 419–20 (1548), 423–4
(1548), 429–30 (1548), 490–1 (1550); iii, pp. 61–2 (1590); iv (i), pp. 243–4, 1&2
Philip & Mary c.5 (1555); SRP, i, pp. 187–8 (1608), 285–6 (1613), 521–2 (1621);
ii, pp. 271–3 (1630), 312–14 (1631); Gras, Evolution, pp. 138–43, 221–32; Sharp,
‘Popular protest’, pp. 279–80; Outhwaite, ‘Dearth’, 389–92. After 1670, controls on
export of corn were relaxed.
152 TRP, i, pp. 526–7 (1551); ii, p. 182 (1562).
 An evolving market morality? 435

but effectively a codification of past practices, attempted to keep the

grain trade out of the hands of such speculators.153 It allowed Justices of
the Peace and local juries to regulate stores of corn, licences of badgers
and sales of surpluses, and to ensure the priority of poor consumers.
Just as in medieval laws, wholesale purchasers were not permitted to
deal during the first part of the market day, which was reserved for the
poor and other consumers, while grain was meant to be transacted in
the open, public market.154 The regulations also controlled the use of
grain for non-essential purposes, such as in unlicensed alehouses, dis-
tilling and starch-making.155 Most notably, however, the royal council
appealed to the justices to suppress profiteering middlemen, engrossers
and regraters.156 In 1598, royal orders stated that: ‘the wicked and unsa-
tiable greediness of sundry bad-disposed persons, who, preferring their
own private gain above the public good . . . forestall, regrate, and engross
all manner of grains and so raise high prices thereby, to the great oppres-
sion of the poorer sort’. It was proclaimed that both corporal punishment
and fines should be used by local justices and magistrates for the chastise-
ment of offenders.157 In the reign of James I, the Privy Council could find
no other reason for the high prices of corn and victuals than the practices
of engrossing and withholding supplies from the marketplace.158 The
Books of Orders were a clear effort by the government to show they were
on the side of the poor consumer against the profiteering middlemen
and farmers, with the ultimate aim of defusing potential discontent and
disorder.159
The Book of Orders was reissued several times (1587, 1594, 1608, 1622,
1630) and its effect was felt widely in the community. For example, in
1608 in Leicester, husbandmen, tradesmen and others were held back
from the market for barley so ‘that the poor and others which buy for
provision of bread may be first served’.160 In 1630–1, in Lutterworth,

153 Slack, ‘Books of Orders’; Sharp, In Contempt of All Authority, pp. 50–80.
154 Dyer, City of Worcester, pp. 140–1.
155 Slack, ‘Books of Orders’; Gras, Evolution, pp. 236–42; Roberts, ‘Alehouses’, 47.
156 Appleby, Famine, pp. 142–4.
157 TRP, ii, pp. 276–8 (1566), 532–4 (1587); iii, pp. 165–6 (1596), 193–5 (1598); Orders
Deuised by the Especiall Commandement of the Queenes Maiestie, for the Reliefe and Stay
of the Present Dearth of Graine within the Realme (STC 9194, London, 1586); A New
Charge Giuen by the Queenes Commandement (STC 9202, London, 1595).
158 SRP, i, pp. 186–8 (1608); Orders Appointed by his Maiestie to be Straightly Obserued for
the Preuenting and Remedying of the Dearth of Graine and other Victuall (STC 9217,
London, 1608). The Book of Orders was reissued in 1630 (STC 9253); SRP, i,
pp. 563–5 (1622); SRP, ii, pp. 298–304 (1630).
159 Clay, Economic Expansion, p. 228.
160 Goodacre, Transformation of a Peasant Economy, pp. 182–3.
436 Medieval market morality

as arrangements were made to help the poor of Leicester after a disas-

trous harvest, John Price was accused of being ‘a forestaller of our market
which maketh out corn very dear that we cannot get corn to relieve our
poor but at excessive rates and scarce to relieve our own families’.161 It
seems likely that he was purchasing corn to resell outside the area, some-
thing that was increasingly common when prices were high. However,
John Goodacre argues that his actions were defended by others in the
town who had wide commercial connections and wanted to trade freely,
and there was perhaps a ‘direct conflict of interests between people at
opposite ends of the economic scale’.162 The poor were competing with
the cornmongers, maltsters, bakers and innkeepers for the weekly bread-
corn. In 1662, William Petty accused corn traders of ‘being onely a kind
of Gamesters, that play with one another for the labours of the poor;
yielding of themselves no fruit at all, otherwise then as veins and arteries,
to distribute forth and back the blood and nutritive juyces of the Body
Politick’.163 In this manner, more and more of the grain supply was being
withdrawn from the open market and entering wider (more integrated)
networks, and consequently the authorities were struggling to cope at
times of grain shortage. The common people looked to traditional regu-
lations of the ‘moral economy’ to be upheld in order to protect supplies,
but the realities of commerce were not so easy to counteract.
Demand for grain was fairly inelastic and supplies were still subject to
notable fluctuations. Despite its increasing complexity, the corn market
remained susceptible to speculation and middlemen. This was exacer-
bated by the fact that much of the trade was operating beyond the open
market and within the ‘private’ sector, such as at the farmgate or inn.164
‘Private marketing’ was certainly not new, but it does appear that inns
and private houses were increasingly used in the early modern period for
a myriad of wholesale exchanges, storage and credit functions. Everitt
described inns as ‘the hotel, the bank, the warehouse, the exchange,
the scrivener’s office, and the market-place of many a private trader’.165
The improper receiving of corn into private houses, rather than being
placed in the open marketplace, was a recurrent concern.166 In Warmin-
ster (Wiltshire), in 1576, no foreigner was to buy any corn in the market
before 11am and all corn was to be displayed in open market and not
hoarded, so that ‘the poorer sort of the town and country shall first be

161 Ibid., pp. 184–5, 231. 162 Ibid.

163 Gras, Evolution, pp. 203–4; Petty, A Treatise, p. 11.
164 Baker, ‘Marketing of corn’, 139.
165 Everitt, ‘Marketing’, p. 559; Palliser, Tudor York, p. 184; Boulton, Neighbourhood and
Society, pp. 76–7.
166 Winchester, p. 149 (1531); Wells, Wretched Faces, p. 81.
 An evolving market morality? 437

suffered to buy before badgers and other strangers’.167 A letter from the
overseers of the market at Middlewich, in 1648, complained about corn
being sold privately to bakers rather than openly in the market, ‘so the
poor are forced to have it upon their terms or else starve’.168
Paternalist language and pejorative moral overtones were widely
reflected in local petitions and laws. Sixteenth-century York ordinances
argued that grain was hoarded due to ‘insatiable greediness against all
charity’ and beyond any household needs, and that such engrossers cared
not who perished in their search for gain. It was argued that engrossing,
forestalling and regrating of grain caused unreasonable prices, dearth
and destruction to the people. A judgement in Star Chamber in 1631
remarked that the engrossing of corn by Archer of Southchurch (Essex)
was an offence ‘of high nature and evil consequence, to the undoing of
the poor’. He was fined 100 marks to the king and £10 to the poor,
and was also made to stand in the pillories of Newgate, Leadenhall and
Chelmsford markets for an hour each, with a paper detailing his crime
of enhancing the price of corn.169 However, it should be noted that the
regulations also highlighted the utility of badgers and stated that they
should not be molested in carrying grain from market to market, as long
as they did so without fraud and greed.170
Statutes and laws regarding forestalling, regrating and other trading
activities were expected to be proclaimed publicly in the markets and
fairs of England, while town officials were enjoined to enforce such edicts
with all due diligence.171 Similarly, in the early seventeenth century, it
was ordered that the duties of the Clerk of the Market and his deputies
should be announced in every market town and displayed ‘where it may
continue to be seene and read by any that will’. The proclamation was
also to be read by the minister in every parish church on the Sunday
before the feast of All Saints, and twice more in the year, as well as
displayed in the church permanently.172 The early modern punishment
for middleman offences was even more stark than those envisaged by
medieval statute law: two-months’ imprisonment for the first offence;
six-months’ imprisonment and forfeiture of double the value of the goods
for the second; pillory, forfeiture and imprisonment for the third.173 In

167 Fisher and Juřica (eds.), Documents, pp. 250–1 (1576).

168 Ibid., pp. 518–19 (1648).
169 Bland, Brown and Tawney (eds.), English Economic History, pp. 391–6 (1631).
170 Williams (ed.), English Historical Documents, pp. 992–3 (York, 1549); Thirsk and
Cooper (eds.), Seventeenth-Century Economic Documents, p. 36 (Nottinghamshire,
1630–1).
171 TRP, i, p. 527 (1551). 172 SRP, i, pp. 420–1 (1619).
173 Statutes, iv (i), p. 148, 5&6 Edw VI c.14 §.4, 5, 6, 9, 14 (1552).
438 Medieval market morality

1697, the common council of London printed and reissued sections from
past statutes, such as Judicium Pillorie and Statutum de Pistoribus, in order
to reiterate their moral disgust about forestalling and the need for strict
punishment.174 The moral stigma attached to the offences of forestalling
and engrossing had, if anything, become stronger since medieval times
though the rhetoric was noticeably similar.
Literary references to middlemen throughout the sixteenth and sev-
enteenth centuries also appealed to the same sentiments as medieval
literature, though they concentrated more consistently on the specific
iniquities of forestallers and engrossers. It is possible that the increas-
ing frequency of dearth in the early modern period served to intensify
condemnation of these middlemen. In the mid-sixteenth century, Robert
Crowley told forestallers to repent for manipulating needful foodstuffs
or else the Clerk of the Market would punish them all.175 Thomas Lever
(1550) was utterly disparaging of middlemen and regraters, whom he
characterised as ‘merchants of mischief coming betwixt the bark, and the
tree’ and ‘idle vagabonds, living upon other men’s labours’. They merely
raised prices unnecessarily, created artificial dearths, and took advantage
of the needy, all to serve their own greed.176 In the late sixteenth century,
William Harrison complained that middlemen held back their corn from
the market and waited until the price had increased before gradually
releasing supplies. In other words, although the activities of middlemen
served to dampen the volatilities of the national market for grain, the
practice withheld grain from the market when the poor could afford it
most (just after the harvest) and also meant that a greater proportion of
the final price of grain lined the pockets of badgers and cornmongers.177
Harrison alleged that middlemen travelled secretly to various markets
buying up all the corn, thus preventing the poor from obtaining nec-
essary provisions at a reasonable price. ‘I wish that God would once
open their eyes that deal thus to see their own errors, for as yet some of
them little care how many poor men suffer extremity, so that they may
fill their purses and carry away the grain’.178 In a similar vein during
the mid-seventeenth century, Robert Powell argued that forestalling and
engrossing was ‘a privie stealer (though a publike enemy) of the birth
of the wombe’, and those who hoarded and forestalled prevented people
from performing their livelihoods for the good of the realm.179

174 Strype (ed.), Survey, ii, pp. 308–9 (1697).

175 Cowper (ed.), Select Works, ‘One and Thirty Epigrammes’, p. 33.
176 Williams (ed.), English Historical Documents, pp. 360–1.
177 Chartres, ‘Marketing’; Muldrew, Economy of Obligation, p. 50.
178 Edelen (ed.), Description, pp. 246–53 (1587).
179 Powell, Depopulation Arraigned, pp. 4–5.
 An evolving market morality? 439

Adherents to the ideals of the moral economy thus interpreted such

middlemen practices as unscrupulous and exploitative, as well as against
the traders’ social responsibility. An eighteenth-century essayist even
wrote a piece entitled An essay to prove that regraters, engrossers, forestallers,
hawkers and jobbers of corn, cattle, other marketable goods, provisions and
merchandizes, are destructive of trade, oppressors to the poor, and a common
nuisance to the kingdom in general (1718).180 Many clergymen reiterated
such anger towards merchants and cornmongers. Their sermons reached
out to a broad audience who were exhorted to help bring market sinners
to account and to reinforce the traditional order. As Brodie Waddell has
argued, ‘it is hardly surprising to find villagers quoting scripture in their
protests against perceived injustice’.181
Despite this litany of opprobrium heaped upon middlemen, they
remained important cogs in the commercial system. Many of them
became wealthy in the economic conditions and their utility was increas-
ingly appreciated. Indeed, during the eighteenth century, there were sig-
nificant advocates of the new political economics that sought to free up
trade and detach middlemen from paternal oversight. The belief that
the ‘market’ could act as a beneficent hand for the common good if it
was allowed to be self-regulated, and if all paternalist intervention was
expunged, was becoming an orthodoxy among powerful groups in the
eighteenth century. The Gentleman’s Magazine of 1757 argued that the
laws against forestalling, engrossing and regrating were ‘so antiquated
and the circumstances and manner of living of all ranks of people so
altered, that a rigorous execution of them would rather contribute to
famish than feed in many places great numbers of the poorer sort’.182
In a well-known passage from Wealth of Nations in 1776, Adam Smith
declared: ‘The popular fear of engrossing and forestalling may be com-
pared to the popular terrors and suspicions of witchcraft’.183 In this
sentence, Smith dismissed the utility of such traditional regulations while
also recognising their continuing popular appeal. Nevertheless, he wished
to see market trade liberalised and he provided a justification of the mid-
dleman in all his guises: ‘The interest of the inland dealer, and that of
the great body of the people, how opposite soever they may at first sight
appear, are, even in years of greatest scarcity, exactly the same’.184 In
Smithian economic theory, the middlemen rationed out supply so that
corn would be available at even the times of the greatest scarcity. The

180 Cf. Thompson, ‘Moral economy’, 95. 181 Waddell, ‘Economic immorality’, 177.
182 Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 27 (1757), p. 430, cf. Stevenson, ‘Moral economy’, p. 229.
183 Smith, An Inquiry, i, p. 534; Britnell, ‘La commercializzazione’, 652.
184 Smith, An Inquiry, bk iv, ch. v.
440 Medieval market morality

common man might not have viewed it this way, particularly since the
burden of harvest failures usually fell inordinately upon the poor.185 Nev-
ertheless, under pressure from powerful vested interests, Edward VI’s
statute against forestalling and regrating was finally repealed in 1772,
though they remained offences under common law.186 Indeed, fore-
stalling and regrating were still prosecuted in Oxford well into the 1780s,
while in 1800 the Birmingham Gazette stated that the ‘high price of pro-
visions having manifestly been occasioned by forestalling and regrating,
more than by any real scarcity’.187 It could be argued that the views of
the political and intellectual elite did not necessarily match those of the
majority, who still clung tenaciously to their traditional view of market
morality.

Thompson’s moral economy

E. P. Thompson argued that not all food riots during the dearths of
the late eighteenth century were compulsive, irate attacks lacking any
thought or direction, but were rather guided and moderated by cus-
tom, culture and reason.188 In particular, he suggested that the crowd
were informed by the belief that they were defending traditional rights
of justice in the grain trade, which were supported by the wider con-
sensus of the community.189 Riots were triggered by times of dearth
and hunger, but grievances were aimed at what were considered to be
illegitimate and dishonest practices in marketing, milling and baking,
which raised the price of grain and bread above the ‘just price’. This,
in turn, was grounded upon a consistent traditional view of the obli-
gations of traders within the concept of the commonweal, in particular
the maintenance of a supply of foodstuffs for all, the maintenance of an
open market for grain and the prevention of manipulative profiteering.
At times of dearth, in particular, prices should be regulated, corn ought
to be brought to the local pitching market, poorer consumers given the
first opportunity to buy grain and profiteers condemned. Transparency

185 Overton, Agricultural Revolution, pp. 143–5.

186 Statutes at Large, vii, p. 207, 12 Geo III c.71 (1772). Chartres, ‘Marketing’, p. 247;
Hay, ‘Moral economy’, pp. 96–8; Overton, Agricultural Revolution, pp. 143–5; Rose,
‘Eighteenth century price riots’, 290; Brown, ‘A just and profitable commerce’, 309,
313.
187 Thwaites, ‘Oxford food riots’, p. 150; Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 4 August 1800,
cf. Toulmin Smith (ed.), English Gilds, p. 369.
188 Rudé posited a similar theory about social purpose and customary rights as dimensions
shaping crowd activity. Rudé, The Crowd. See also Holton, ‘The crowd in history’, 223–
4, 228–9.
189 Thompson, ‘Moral economy’, 78; Charlesworth and Randall, ‘Morals’, 200.
 An evolving market morality? 441

in market transactions remained the lodestone of local commerce. Those

who engaged in suspicious market activities like forestalling, regrat-
ing, engrossing and selling by sample were to be restricted. Thompson
termed this traditional paternalistic model the ‘moral economy’ of the
poor.190
The poor would effectively take over a grain market and exercise
authority in a manner they perceived to be legal and just; selling grain at a
‘fair price’ and often even returning the profits to grain merchants. In the
mid-eighteenth century, John Wesley remarked on the actions of a mob
in James’ Town (Ireland): ‘their business was only with the forestallers of
the market, who had bought up all the corn far and near, to starve the
poor, and load a Dutch ship, which lay at the quay; but the mob brought
it all out into the market, and sold it for the owners at the common price.
And this they did with all the calmness and composure imaginable, and
without striking or hurting anyone.’191 Often people feared that exports
of grain would leave them to starve and consequently grain-ships and the
transportation of grain were targeted.192 At other times, crowds directed
their ire at middlemen, millers or farmers. However, despite occasional
thefts and violence, the general level of restraint was notable. Money was
returned to dealers after their produce had been sold at a ‘just price’ and
thieves within the rioters’ ranks had been decried.193 In general, there
was an apparent moral, just and self-disciplined dimension to the crowd’s
actions; a belief that they were enforcing laws which the authorities had
been neglecting. Accusations were levelled at officials that they were fail-
ing in upholding social justice and the law. Officials were expected to
restrain profiteers and prevent exploitation of the needy and the rioters
perceived their own actions as reinforcing established authority and law,
not subverting it.194

190 Thompson, ‘Moral economy’, 79, 83–4, 112. 191 Cf. Thompson, Making, p. 69.
192 Sharp, ‘Popular protest’, pp. 280–3; Sharp, In Contempt of All Authority, pp. 13, 19,
22; Walter and Wrightson, ‘Dearth’, 27; Wrightson, English Society, p. 176.
193 Stevenson, Popular Disturbances, pp. 105–6; Charlesworth and Randall, ‘Morals’, 209–
11; Rose, ‘Price riots’, 282, 286–7.
194 Sharp, ‘Popular protest’, pp. 271–2, 279, 288–9; Walter and Wrightson, ‘Dearth’,
32–4; Slack, ‘Books of Orders’, 17; Walter, ‘Grain riots’, pp. 51, 81. Late sixteenth-
century London rioters similarly appropriated market authority in response to crises,
demanding that foodstuffs be sold in the open market for a just price and that forestallers
and regraters should be strictly regulated. Archer, Pursuit of Stability, pp. 6, 200–2. See
also Clark, ‘Popular protest’; Walter and Wrightson, ‘Dearth’; Walter, ‘Grain riots’,
pp. 60, 64; Wrightson, English Society, pp. 174–5. Sharp points to the precedent of riots
in 1347 in Boston, Lynn and Bristol, where crowds boarded grain ships, as examples
of the continuity in behaviour, attitudes and expressed aims. Sharp, ‘Popular protest’,
pp. 280–1, 286; Sharp, ‘Food riots of 1347’.
442 Medieval market morality

According to Thompson, the legitimacy of the crowd’s actions was

based on a ‘selective reconstruction’ of traditional, paternalistic regula-
tions which favoured the poor.195 He stated: ‘the paternalist model had
an ideal existence, and also a fragmentary real existence. In years of
good harvest and moderate prices, the authorities lapsed into forgetful-
ness. But if prices rose and the poor became turbulent, it was revived,
as least for symbolic effect.’196 The scale of these actions prompted
Thompson to argue that they ‘indicate an extraordinarily deep-rooted
pattern of behaviour and belief’, underwritten by old market customs
and culture.197 As already seen, an acceptance of such traditional market
morality was noticeable throughout English society. In another example,
in 1758, the old Book of Orders was reprinted and presented to William
Pitt, Secretary of State, and Henry Legge, Chancellor, as a potential
remedy against the recent dearth, though it was not adopted.198 Nev-
ertheless, Thompson recognised that angst about middlemen ‘endured
with undiminished vigour, both in popular tradition and in the minds of
some Tory paternalists, including no less a person than the Lord Chief
Justice (Kenyon), who made it known his view, in 1795, that forestalling
and engrossing remained offences at common law’.199 The view that
middlemen activities were incompatible with commercial justice thus
remained prominent in the eighteenth century. Condemnation of profi-
teering, adulteration and deception, plus the need for regulation at times
of crisis and dearth, were embedded in the views of not only common
market users but also the authorities, clergy and press.200
However, Thompson also suggested that the ‘paternalist model was
breaking down’ when confronted with commercial reality and the devel-
opment of classical economics during the eighteenth century.201 The
assize of bread could not control the price of corn, middlemen were
needed to supply the urban markets, and many deals were made at the
farmgate and not in the marketplace. In addition, attempts to free up
mercantile trade and reduce restrictions threatened local customary sys-
tems of bargaining and protecting vulnerable customers. The crowd were

195 Thompson, ‘Moral economy’, 98. 196 Ibid., 88.

197 Thompson, Making, p. 71; Randall and Charlesworth (eds.), Markets, p. 24.
198 Gras, Evolution, p. 207.
199 Thompson, Making, p. 72; Thompson, ‘Moral economy’, 88; Brown, ‘A just and
profitable commerce’, 310; Wells, Wretched Faces, pp. 86–7; Hay, ‘Moral economy’,
pp. 98–112.
200 Randall and Charlesworth (eds.), Markets, pp. 12–15; Sharp, ‘Popular protest’, p. 272;
Walter, ‘Grain riots’, pp. 50–1; Slack, ‘Books of Orders’, 16; Wells, Wretched Faces,
pp. 82–3.
201 Thompson, ‘Moral economy’, 87.
 An evolving market morality? 443

reacting against these economic developments and changes in market-

ing practice. However, in contrast, Williams, Stevenson and Bohstedt
have argued that most of the eighteenth-century rioters were willing par-
ticipants in a modernising market economy. Williams noted how many
of the rioters, rather than being poor and rural, were urban retailers
and manufacturers who were therefore ‘informed by the imperatives of
the marketplace’ rather than a moral economy.202 Similarly, Stevenson
has pointed to how many rioters were prepared to accept fluctuating
prices based on market forces, rather than preconsidered ‘just prices’
from a supposed golden age. Stevenson and John Bohstedt have even
questioned whether the moral economy was a truly held value system of
the crowd rather than merely a tactical, pragmatic device employed in
circumstances of dearth.203 Bohstedt has argued that eighteenth-century
rioters acted in terms of a ‘pragmatic economy’ rather than due to ‘hoary
traditions’. He dismissed rioters’ occasional references to forestallers and
engrossers as mere generic condemnations stretching from biblical times,
thus implying that longevity reduces the power of such tropes rather than
reinforcing moral assumptions.204 Bohstedt suggested that rioters were
merely looking for food and the punishment of hoarders came a distant
second, largely because people accepted market forces and knew they
could not buck the imperatives of supply and demand.205
However, this all perhaps creates too stark a division between a ‘moral
economy’ and a ‘market economy’, even suggesting that they were dia-
metrically opposed.206 Indeed, when reconsidered, much of Bohstedt’s
evidence actually supports the specification of customary targets, against
middlemen, engrossers, millers and exports, rather than random attacks
on all holders of grain and food. Hunger was undoubtedly a primary
force and some riots did escalate, but it is interesting that many rioters
preferred to scatter corn in the streets as a protest rather than collect it.
The authorities similarly fell back on traditional regulations and values in
restoring social order. Admittedly, food riots were not about defending
traditional moral values per se and were very much a reaction to need,
dearth and hunger. However, such primal motivations could co-exist
with and were legitimised by traditional moral values and ideas concern-
ing legitimate market practices. Elsewhere, Bohstedt has stated: ‘The
moral economy was not a wholesale condemnation of capitalist trade
and profit. What rioters seemed to object to were cheating, false weights

202 Williams, ‘Morals’, 58–9, 70, 73.

203 Bohstedt, ‘Moral economy’; Stevenson, ‘Moral economy’.
204 Bohstedt, ‘Pragmatic economy’, p. 55. 205 Ibid., pp. 75–8.
206 Thompson, ‘Moral economy reviewed’, pp. 266–7.
444 Medieval market morality

and measures, extortionate prices, not just high prices.’207 Indeed, as we

have seen, the moral economy was not incompatible with an acceptance
of market forces in setting prices; the rioters would have argued that it
was not them but greedy middlemen who were trying to buck artificially
the natural forces of supply and demand.
There is a tendency to misunderstand how medieval markets worked
and for how long the market had been part of people’s lives. Market prac-
tices were certainly expected to accord with moral principles, but these
were forged in a long and complex cultural process that did partly take
into account the needs of commerce, while many regulations were set
in place to facilitate market activity. Thompson rightly warned against
‘equating regulated markets with a moral economy’.208 Equally, a practi-
cal, moral basis is important for any economic system. As Susan Brown
stated, ‘religious reinforcement should be distinguished from an evangeli-
cal crusade against commercial transgressions’.209 Medieval market users
and moralists accepted that prices were formed by supply and demand,
but wanted an open, competitive marketplace; they were more market
savvy than has sometimes been assumed. It was a pragmatic moral econ-
omy and this remained the crux of the food riots in the late eighteenth
century.
It was in times of dearth that conflict arose because ordinary consumers
realised that nothing substantial had replaced the paternalist legislation
that was being eroded in the name of free markets. Parliament repealed
old statutes concerning forestalling in 1772 and failed to lift the export
bounty on grain in 1766, even though stocks were low.210 This meant
that merchants were effectively encouraged by the government to max-
imise their profits from the export of grain even while there was dearth at
home. The realities of the early modern corn trade and the inelasticity of
demand meant that the idealism of classical economics was not conducive
to the welfare of the commonalty. This was not the open, competitive
market of Smithian economics, but a seller’s market ripe for specula-
tion. Many contemporaries argued that the abstract theories espoused
by Adam Smith, and leading men like Pitt, were detached from the real-
ities of the marketplace where individual speculators could artificially
distort supplies and raise prices and where there were extensive uncer-
tainties and asymmetries in information.211 Paradoxically, the protesters

207 Bohstedt, ‘Moral economy’, 267.

208 Thompson, ‘Moral economy reviewed’, p. 288.
209 Brown, ‘A just and profitable commerce’, 325.
210 Statutes at Large, xi, p. 630, 12 Geo III c.71 (1772); Williams, ‘Morals’, 64; Rose,
‘Price riots’, 289–90.
211 Brown, ‘A just and profitable commerce’, 319–21.
 An evolving market morality? 445

argued that they were looking to protect the forces of supply and demand
by preventing monopolies and encouraging competition.
The ‘crowd’ did not view the moral economy as diametrically opposed
to the free market, but they were anxious about the implications of
Smith’s laissez-faire theories in an actual market system that was not
fully integrated or matured, despite improvements in communications
and regional linkages. The reality could not match the ideals of Smith’s
philosophy.212 In the eyes of poorer consumers, who had a substantive
knowledge about how markets worked day-to-day, there was now little to
protect them from the embedded fear of manipulative, exploitative mid-
dlemen. Indeed, they probably viewed legislative changes as the product
of pressure by powerful, vested trade interests, which took their local grain
away to distant towns and ports for individual benefit. The old certainties
of the pragmatic moral economy were being replaced with little substan-
tive to assuage the anxieties of the crowd. Popular complaints were not
about opposing the development of the market and drowning it under
moral imperatives. It was rather a debate about how social justice could
be served in the new economic environment and a fear that laissez-faire
policies led to the neglect of ethical principles and the commonweal.
How far rioters’ fears were based on reality is not something that can
be discussed at length within the bounds of this chapter. Alfred Coats
contended that the scope for manipulation of the market was limited,
while Brian Outhwaite suggested it was severe grain dearth that fed crit-
icisms of badgers and cornmongers through the early modern period.213
Similarly, Norman Gras and John Chartres argued that people through-
out the pre-industrial age failed to recognise the value of cornmongers
in making the supply of bulk goods more regular and predictable, but
rather turned on them at times of scarcity, perhaps damaging the devel-
opment of the economy.214 However, Thwaites and Roger Wells have
posited that dealers were well capable of market manipulation, and were
prepared to withhold stocks from markets and forestall grain supplies
in times of scarcity.215 Indeed, Thwaites argued that those with capital
had the economic power and few qualms in holding the consumer to
ransom. It is possible that traders were detaching themselves from the
moral economy and adhering more to notions of the political economy
regardless of the consequences for the needy. Grain traders and bakers

212 Thompson, ‘Moral economy reviewed’, pp. 272, 275.

213 Coats, ‘Contrary moralities’, 130–3; Outhwaite, ‘Dearth’, 396; Chartres, ‘Marketing’,
pp. 225–9.
214 Gras, Evolution, p. 206; Chartres, ‘Marketing’, pp. 247–52; Chartres, Internal Trade,
p. 63.
215 Thwaites, ‘Dearth’; Wells, Wretched Faces, pp. 84–7.
446 Medieval market morality

may well have believed that the economy had moved on and that free
markets were ultimately beneficial for all. However, equally, the growth
in entrepreneurial and capital-laden traders made manipulation of the
market easier than it had been in previous generations.
Long-term economic trends had made many more vulnerable to the
pressures of the market.216 It was perhaps the action of the crowd and
the fears of the authorities that provided the main check to market
manipulation. Thwaites has noted how the extraordinary persistence of
carefully regulated marketing practices in Oxford through to the early
nineteenth century, such as the assize of bread, owed everything to
interests of the town’s elite and a concern to maintain steady supplies and
domestic tranquillity – in opposition to government pressure and mar-
ket imperatives.217 Government paternalist regulations were also rein-
troduced in response to dearth and riots in the late eighteenth century,
probably in an attempt to placate the rioters and keep social order. Local
authorities had to be seen taking action in the face of the worst effects
of harvest failures and trading abuses, even if that action was either old-
fashioned or relatively ineffectual.218 Despite the rhetoric of the authori-
ties, in referring to the protests as ‘tumults’ and ‘mutinies’, it was notable
how often they tried to satisfy the rioters’ demands rather than punish
them. Some uprisings were deemed serious enough to require severe
reprisals, but others led officials to establish relief measures or prosecute
forestallers and engrossers. There was seemingly a common consensus
regarding notions of the moral economy and social justice, particularly
at times of scarcity.219
In general, market rules drew substantially upon traditional religious
teaching and highlighted the vices of avarice, fraud, injustice and selfish-
ness, as against the virtues of generosity, honesty, justice, moderation and
providence. For all the historical arguments that a new market morality
was being gradually created in England in parallel with economic devel-
opment – a type of inevitable evolution from a paternalist moral economy
to an acquisitive political economy – the reality was that traditional con-
cerns of social justice and morality were belligerent. They were not easily
usurped by a new market ethos of self-interested ‘homo economicus’.
Adam Smith may have argued that a true market economy could be both
selfish and self-regulating, achieving benevolence through the ‘invisible

216 Everitt, ‘Marketing’, p. 578. 217 Thwaites, ‘Oxford food riots’.

218 Everitt, ‘Marketing’, pp. 585–6. Everitt argued that the intervention of the state in basic
factor markets may have mitigated the worst effects of harvest failures in the short term,
but in the long term it was myopic, disruptive to the vital activities of middlemen, and
detrimental to the welfare of consumers.
219 Wrightson, English Society, pp. 177–80; Walter, ‘Grain riots’, pp. 74, 81.
 An evolving market morality? 447

hand’, but this was as ideal and unrealistic a model as a truly autarkic
medieval economy. Smith’s model assumed perfect knowledge of supply
and demand within a homogeneous system of economically rational indi-
viduals intent on maximising their material self-interest, but the reality
was much more blurred and imperfect. Irrationality, imperfect compe-
tition and social conditioning were major obstacles, but so too was the
issue of long-held morals and rights. Ultimately, the market required a
balance between acquisitiveness and probity for its success and stability.
This had existed in the food markets since the thirteenth century and the
views established then changed only in emphasis rather than substance
by the late eighteenth century.
Trying to track the influence of a medieval ideology across 500 years
is, of course, exceptionally problematic. I do not wish to suggest that
the views held in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were entirely
consistent with those of the medieval period, but there are striking sim-
ilarities that should lead us to question how ordinary people viewed the
concepts of just price, fair profits, the utility of middlemen and social
responsibility, which lay at the heart of Thompson’s ‘moral economy’.
If eighteenth-century attitudes of the ‘crowd’ were embedded in long-
held notions of market behaviour, as many historians suggest, it is worth
reconsidering what these long-held notions might have been and why
they might have survived for so long in the face of economic change.
Understanding both the perception and pragmatic use of medieval mar-
ket morality can perhaps help us to understand more clearly why the
rioters of the late eighteenth century found solace in the precepts of the
traditional and pragmatic moral economy.

Conclusion
It appears, in this brief survey, that many medieval ideas continued to
permeate the market culture of early modern England. Although there
were changes in emphasis, the basic principles remained remarkably con-
sistent. Thus, the moral economy of E. P. Thompson was embedded in
a system of mutual social responsibility, where everyone performed their
own vocation for the good of all. Middlemen were distrusted and price-
raising tactics deplored. This was not, however, a frontal attack upon
the market system or even a call for customary fixed prices of grain, but
rather a suspicion that traders were inclined to manipulate the market
and create ‘artificial price rises’ for their own gain. Gain at the expense of
the poor remained a crime in the eyes of the moral economy – marketing
as an economic mechanism was not.
448 Medieval market morality

Ironically, the moral economy may have actually gained in strength

among consumers in the face of growing capitalist instincts. Relatively
stable harvests in the late seventeenth century may have delayed a revision
of attitudes, but when dearth returned middlemen were subject to even
more opprobrium and their social responsibility emphasised. Traditional
customs held a strong hold over the people of England. Their moral
rights, however, were not expressed in anti-market terms. The precepts
of the moral economy accepted that just prices were those determined
by supply and demand and middlemen and bakers had a right to profit.
What they did not have a right to do was undertake practices that caused
harm to their fellows in the search for the best profits. This was the
traditional, consistent moral economy that Thompson referred to in his
discussion of rioters in late eighteenth-century England. It was not an
ideology that was in conflict with the market, but it was a belligerent
popular ethic that could not adapt to the new laissez-faire policies of the
late eighteenth century that sought to erode traditional paternal notions.
There are many other aspects of early modern market culture that are
worthy of discussion, such as changes in public attitudes towards usury
and, in turn, the influence of Protestantism upon economic ideology and
the mercantile ethic. One could also consider contemporary concerns
about national wealth, credit and debt, enclosure, attitudes to work and
poverty and consumerism. This chapter has only touched the surface of a
complex and important subject. Nevertheless, by examining the concepts
of the medieval moral economy, a picture seems to have emerged that
suggests early modern market users were entrenched in many of their
views. The similarity in constructs of the moral economy between the
thirteenth and eighteenth centuries may have been because few alterna-
tives were presented. There was perhaps an inadequacy of cultural and
social tools to cope with the complexity of a transitional and expand-
ing economy. Whereas the medieval Church and ideology had adapted
and even compromised by drawing market development within its moral
framework, the moral economy of the early modern period was stagnant
and conservative and increasingly detached from economic change and
new mercantile ethics. There was a general belief that the marketplace
remained a forum for unprincipled greed and fraud, from which the
commonwealth needed constant protection. Indeed, as the market grew
and economic tensions heightened, with increasing anxieties about social
order, vagrancy and food supplies, a reversion to traditional moral ethics,
embedded within the legal system, perhaps became ever more important.
Admittedly, there are often lags between practical developments and
revised ideological statements, especially during periods of rapid change.
Hence the difficulties faced by theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu when
 An evolving market morality? 449

trying to explain how new realities are introduced into a set of inherited
values.220 The similarities between the medieval and eighteenth-century
moral economy are suggestive of a broader ideology that had become
entrenched and almost mythic in its appeal. Market attitudes were slow
to change and were long embedded with social assumptions, traditional
values and moral norms. However, the secular virtues and needs of com-
merce were sometimes appropriated in the creation of a hybrid and prag-
matic market morality. By the end of the eighteenth century, we still do
not see the victorious emergence of selfish, competitive individualism, as
eulogised by classical economists, but rather the persistence and subtle
assimilation of traditional notions of social and communal justice in the
face of economic upheaval.

220 Bourdieu, Outline.

 Conclusion

It has been a recurrent theme of the historiography of the Middle Ages

to encapsulate the conduct of market trade within the terms ‘paternal’
and ‘moral economy’. Some historians following this approach have con-
tended that there existed an antipathy between prevailing Christian ide-
ology that denigrated commercial activity and the actual needs of the
marketplace. Medieval market prosperity was thus subordinated to
upholding the welfare of the poor, the privileges of the elite and issues
of salvation. In the resulting clash between various interest groups, eco-
nomic efficiency suffered and growth was inhibited. However, the reality
of medieval trade and its control was far more complex. Market morals,
law and practice were not necessarily incompatible and, indeed, could
be mutually supportive.
Amongst the myriad of market regulations and institutions can be dis-
cerned a set of shared values that informed medieval people about the
boundaries for acceptable behaviour. Anxieties were rehearsed in clerical
exhortations and literature, which also acted as warnings for participants
in the marketplace. A common theme of preachers was a sense of obli-
gation to the poor and neighbours, linked to an acceptance of mutual
responsibilities. Traders were recognised as important for the sustenance
of society, but there was a continuing suspicion about their motives
and the potential for abuses and damage to the community. Medieval
literature presented an image of persistent fraud, trickery and greed.
There were fears that ill-regulated petty retailers left the poor unserved,
led to moral decay and caused social disorder, while the traders’ own
souls would rot in hell. However, even as they clung tenaciously to con-
ventional convictions and tropes, many late medieval writers were well
aware of the complex social and economic realities of their time. They
discussed the just price in terms of the market price, recognised the util-
ity of middlemen, and chronicled the growing pervasiveness of market
activity.
A close examination of court records suggests that the disreputable
figures of moral writings were not so common in the actual marketplace,
450
 Conclusion 451

but such images were perhaps influential in the way the medieval market
was perceived and run. Legislators were often as idealistic as moralists
in their portrayal of economic practices and acquiesced with the rhetoric
of communal equity. Indeed, both law and literature recognised that
markets could foment self-interest, profit-making, greed, aggression and
mistrust, and there were real anxieties about the insecurities and tempta-
tions. Law reflected moral anxieties and also laid down ethical boundaries
for market users. However, this did not preclude a practicality as to how
law was employed and interpreted in everyday affairs.1 Christopher Dyer
goes further and suggests that ‘the general lesson that can be learned is
not that regulation was harmful and stunted economic growth, but that it
did not make a great deal of difference. The flow of commerce was more
powerful than the efforts of government to control behaviour.’2 In other
words, medieval officials did not always have the apparatus or resources
to ensure strict adherence to regulations in the face of potent commer-
cial forces. Effective policing in medieval England was difficult and costly,
with few authorities powerful enough to ensure social behaviour matched
the ideals of either law or church. In practical terms, the medieval market
suffered from problems of information transmission, a lack of integration
and the high costs of policing and enforcement. However, we should not
underestimate the importance of commercial laws, even if not strictly
enforced, in generating confidence in the marketplace and acting as a
bulwark against flagrant abuse.
Strict ideas and rules of right behaviour were not the same as exerting
a rigid, anti-commercial, moral high ground. Indeed, it could be argued
that a veneer of paternal concern, fed by a diet of sermons, confessionals,
murals and legal diatribes, was necessary to the way a market operated.
Given the problems faced by medieval officials, formal regulations could
only be effective within the context of a broadly accepted, embedded
market morality.3 Market users had an incentive to abide by laws when
there was a consensus as to their moral worth and utility. Many medieval
market functions were self-regulating, reliant on consumer denuncia-
tions or delineated by informal constraints. Everyday commercial and
legal experience may have inured people to the ways of the world, and
people did often trade in a rational, economic and acquisitive manner, but
their decisions and actions cannot be disappropriated from their social,
cultural and moral environment.4 As Richard Wilk has suggested, ‘moral
issues are never far from economic life’.5

1 Britnell, Britain and Ireland, p. 34.

2 Dyer, Making, p. 320. 3 See also Welch, Shopping, pp. 93–4.
4 Britnell, Britain and Ireland, pp. 32–4. 5 Wilk, Economies and Cultures, p. 106.
452 Medieval market morality

The workings of the medieval market can be compared to the mod-

els of economists, particularly those relating to institutions. Douglass
North stated that ‘institutions are the rules of the game in a soci-
ety or, more formally, are the humanly devised constraints that shape
human interaction’.6 Institutions thus influence individual decision-
making. Such institutions include the formal apparatus of laws, regu-
lations and contracts, which require both structured measurement and
enforcement. Other institutions are informal and embrace accepted social
norms, customs and inward moral values. They are more difficult to dis-
cern and describe, but are informed by both outward, observable con-
siderations of credit, reputation, repeated interactions and acceptable
behaviour, and by more internally enforced religious beliefs and moral
values.7 Together, this complex, elaborate amalgam of formal and infor-
mal constraints, varying in particular situations and times, shapes choices
within the market and determines the costs of transacting in individual
bargains.8
It should not be assumed that everyone acts in a classical economic
mode of self-interest, utility and maximisation of profit, though this moti-
vation is certainly important and many moral concerns might have a
wealth-maximising outcome. However, market behaviour is a lot more
complex than a simple classical economic model might imply, and other
cultural imperatives also shape individual market choices. Informal con-
straints or ‘self-imposed codes of behaviour’, which are specific to the
prevailing ideological and cultural context, might reduce the enforce-
ment costs implicit in formal constraints, by encouraging cooperation,
engendering confidence in transactions and introducing extra religious
sanctions. To paraphrase Avner Grief, cultural beliefs inform how indi-
viduals expect each other to act in various circumstances.9 We inter-
nalise morals and social ideology, which helps regulate our behaviour
and encourages social cooperation.
However, in reality, society does not always work so harmoniously and
requires regulation and other means of control. Formal institutions are
needed in order to provide information as to when potential punishment
by a third-party is required against a free rider or flagrant offender,
and also to enact that punishment. Formal rules might also gradually
replace, modify or reinforce numerous informal constraints. Indeed, the
law itself, or at least its enforcement, often reflects shared moral values

6 North, Institutions, pp. 3–4.

7 Ibid., p. 61; Aoki, Toward a Comparative Institutional Analysis, pp. 1–10; Ogilvie,
‘“Whatever is, is right”?’.
8 North, Institutions, pp. 66–8. 9 Grief, ‘Cultural beliefs’, 943.
 Conclusion 453

and behaviour, and we should not draw too harsh a divide between
formal and informal constraints. This complicated mix of the formal and
informal can potentially provide a pragmatic balance between a stable,
secure structure for exchange and the need to keep enforcement costs
low. North thus argued that the ‘institutional framework plays a major
role in the performance of an economy’.10
However, it is not axiomatic that all institutional constraints raise or
maximise economic efficiency. The costs of exchange are necessarily
above the ideal neoclassical level, and creating conditions for effective
enforcement and relevant moral constraints is a slow and arduous pro-
cess. In addition, economic developments, such as a notable increase in
impersonal dealings, or even changes in the political, social, cultural or
natural conditions, might mean that existing institutional constraints are
no longer the best means to facilitate the majority of market transac-
tions. At this point the institutions can adapt or be replaced. In England
throughout most of the medieval and early modern period, the main
model appears to be an incremental adaptation in the formal rules and
informal constraints rather than a wholesale revision of the institutional
structures. However, a crisis point came in the mid to late eighteenth
century. At this time, the existing commercial institutions came to be
regarded as overly inhibiting for some individuals, while many others con-
tinued to regard them as efficacious for their needs and even survival.11
The tension that ensued came to a head when those in power were able
to alter the formal rules and began to institute a major change in the
formal institutional framework. However, the process was fraught and
inconsistent, and accepted moral values and concerns were much slower
to change. Even though men like Adam Smith saw old market institu-
tions as a hindrance to economic growth, the ‘traditional’ moral economy
could not be easily discarded and, indeed, continued to be adapted well
into the nineteenth century.12 As North suggested: ‘informal constraints
that are culturally derived will not change immediately in reaction to
changes in the formal rules. As a result the tension between altered for-
mal rules and the persisting informal constraints produces outcomes that
have important implications for the way economies change.’13
This book has sought to demonstrate how daily market behaviour and
choices in medieval England were shaped by numerous institutions and
constraints, both formal and informal. Without a proper understanding
of the morality and social conventions of the marketplace, the historian

10 North, Institutions, p. 69, also pp. 43, 55–8.

11 Ogilvie, ‘“Whatever is, is right”?’, 656.
12 Searle, Morality. 13 North, Institutions, p. 45.
454 Medieval market morality

cannot understand the influence of formal institutions. We see in late

medieval England, from the twelfth century onwards, a growth in for-
mal rules and institutions for governing market behaviour. Old customs
regarding the open market, just exchange, warranty and the social order
are all developed in a more sophisticated, but gradual, manner to suit the
growing market economy. However, even as formal rules are elaborated,
informal constraints remained pervasive. A commercial ethic or ‘market
morality’ was formed and moulded between 1200 and 1500 that reflected
a variety of economic, social and cultural changes: commercialisation,
urbanisation, borough autonomy, expanding royal government, chang-
ing standards of living and social upheaval. The church and government
solidified informal social norms through their own formal proclamations.
Transaction costs were not only lowered by regulation, law and order, but
also by a conducive moral environment that facilitated security and trust
and encouraged an equilibrium that was seen as beneficial to the major-
ity and the common good.14 The morality of the pulpit was therefore
not necessarily antithetical to the efficient running of markets. Indeed,
morals might act as a lubricant, since all were expected to conform and
thus benefit from reduced costs. Morality and law could be thus mutually
reinforcing and self-enforcing. This does not mean that all conformed,
and medieval people recognised that this would never happen, but at a
time of relatively low-level official policing and asymmetrical informa-
tion, shared moral expectations were beneficial in facilitating exchanges.
The growth of medieval marketing was thus aided by a variety of infor-
mal institutions, including the publicising of accepted trade behaviour
and disreputable practices.
The very morality that some historians have identified as a rigid con-
straint on commercial development and market liberalisation thus helped
medieval marketplaces to function effectively. Behavioural norms aided
in modifying the degree to which participants engaged in unfair exchange
and thus lowered the risks involved. Collective moral assumptions were
transmitted in law, pulpit, peer groups and community ‘performance’ or
punishment, and this reinforced the stability of marketing institutions.
Together, these formal and informal institutional arrangements informed
individual market decisions and acted as a guard against cheating, oppor-
tunism and the free rider.
In medieval England, it is possible that the market system was workable
for the aggregate outcomes demanded and facilitated local commerce,
even if it did not necessarily engender maximum economic growth and
commercial efficiency. However, judging the effect of laws and morality

14 Hatcher and Bailey, Modelling, pp. 131, 138.

 Conclusion 455

on market efficiency is a problematic task. In a sense, they were workable

within the conditions of the time and not as ineffectual or obstructive as
has been suggested, but whether they were the most efficient means to
ensure market prosperity, rather than simply maintaining the status quo,
is another question. The institutions of the pragmatic moral economy
were seemingly flexible, accepting market forces to a certain extent, but
they also served vested interests as much as consumer needs. The rhetoric
of morality and the ‘common good’ did often conceal the private ambi-
tions of the wealthier, ruling classes. There were contradictions between
assumed moral values and enacted laws, particularly when it came to
protecting burgess privileges, state authority and the social order. Simi-
larly, institutional rules were interpreted at a local level in a sometimes
contradictory fashion, which suggests that other rules might have been
more efficient even though they did not meet social ideals. This was not a
simple, efficient alignment of institutions and cultural beliefs, but rather a
heady and complex mixture of vested interests, pragmatism and idealism
that varied according to the prevailing circumstances.
Medieval market authorities faced a precarious balancing act to main-
tain confidence, flexibility and regulation, attempting to combine effec-
tively the existing formal institutions and vested interests with more
informal constraints and a moral framework that provided a conducive
environment for buyers and sellers. People might have internalised norms
of behaviour and had a disposition to obey such norms, but no society
could rely exclusively on such a disposition. There remained an important
role for enforcement and punishment, particularly in markets where there
were more impersonal dealings. Officials were often anxious about out-
siders, whose reputation could not be so easily tarnished and upon whom
informal constraints might not be so effective as formal constraints. Simi-
larly, marginal participants within the market, such as hucksters, tapsters
and humble pedlars, male or female, were also seen as potentially beyond
moral constraints and disruptive to the social order. Market users needed
reassurance that everybody was following the rules and that there were
effective sanctions against free riders who transgressed the margins of
acceptable behaviour. Ultimately, God oversaw the marketplace. The
perils of damnation were an extra incentive for market users. However,
in addition, people themselves could denounce their fellows, sometimes
for a reward or by paying to bring them to court in a private plea. In addi-
tion, an effective market required respect towards officials and authority.
People needed to be convinced about the validity and justice of the law in
order to facilitate enforcement. Thus, the rhetoric of the communal good
remained prevalent in law, including moral indignation at belligerent
offenders, who would be stigmatised through public punishment. This
456 Medieval market morality

was applied sparingly, for excess deployment of corporal punishment or

performative humiliation might have lost its social impact. Reputation
and trust played an important part in medieval society, particularly for
groups of people who engaged in regular reciprocal exchanges.
Market morality was complex and disputable and not compelling in
itself, despite providing another layer that encouraged cooperation. Court
rolls are evidence that many were prepared to work beyond both moral
norms, as regards the strict ideas of the church and even the more prag-
matic social norms of their community, if they thought they could see
advantages. Many individuals only obeyed norms because of a fear of
sanction, physical or spiritual, and they judged the cost-benefit of con-
tinuing to do so. Medieval people, like today, found ways to reconcile
their own moral values with everyday reality and to interpret the limits of
law with the same approach. The basic ethics extolled by law and morality
could reinforce behavioural norms, but they needed reinforcement from
local enforcement. Through these frameworks and practical functions,
a consensus developed regarding what was perceived as lawful, ethical
action by market users themselves. This, in turn, enabled the pursuit of
common interests. This might differ, from powerful lords who were con-
cerned about control, provision or revenue and were able to impose their
views upon their tenants, to burgesses seeking to protect their hard-won
privileges against outsiders. In small market towns like Newmarket and
Clare, it led to the development of fairly functional, secure markets and
credit structures for the prevailing economic conditions.
The evidence from Newmarket and Clare suggests that traders needed
more room for manoeuvre in an increasingly competitive environment,
and many offences merely became revenue raisers for authorities often
prepared to overlook minor trading infringements. To an extent, small
town authorities colluded in allowing retailers a certain scope of flexibil-
ity, such as shaping the assizes into an effective licensing system. Traders
were regularly presented and paid amercements to assuage their con-
science and line the lord’s purse. Consumers were content that the spirit
of the law was upheld, competition was alive and bargains could still
be found. However, those that abused this system and acted beyond
accepted moral margins faced stricter punishments from the court and
the censure of the community. This was a practical amalgam of close
supervision, which bred trust and lowered transaction costs, together
with an understanding of the vagaries inherent in medieval markets,
particularly fluctuating harvests and political interests. Rivalry, conflict,
ambition, profiteering and overbearing lordship were all grit in the sys-
tem, but might also demonstrate a lack of trust in the respective market
and have an adverse effect on its success. Similarly, intrusive laws, applied
 Conclusion 457

to the letter, were constraining and untenable. Instead, sellers and buyers
were aided by a certain level of flexibility that gave a market every chance
to work effectively. But this flexibility was still informed and limited by a
consensual, mutual market ethic that built up trust and confidence in the
market transactions. For petty traders, laws, morals and market forces
were all constraining factors that constantly framed their business and
behaviour.
By comparison, many larger borough corporations and craft guilds
seemingly protected their own interests and the measures they took were
stringent in the face of expanding competition. The vested interests of
the wholesaling mercantile elite took precedence over those of retail-
ers. However, the actual enforcement of retail market laws in medieval
Ipswich bore many comparisons with that undertaken in smaller markets,
even though the amounts involved were greater. The assizes were largely
enforced as an effective licensing system, with fines allied to levels of pro-
duction, and there were only occasional cases, such as forestalling and
corrupt foodstuffs, where traders were deemed to have stepped beyond
the bounds of acceptable practice.
Developments in the post-medieval world suggest the persistence of a
similar pragmatic compromise between the forces of economics, laws and
morals – what might be termed a ‘pragmatic moral economy’. The Eliz-
abethan era saw a small shift in attitudes which resurrected the ‘virtues’
of accumulation, which had previously been denigrated by the medieval
Church. However, many sixteenth-century commercial attitudes had a
long provenance.15 Indeed, by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
there continued to be worries about the spiritual implications of trade
and the possible exploitation of the poor. Adam Smith’s laissez-faire the-
ory suggested that, in the long term, the free, unrestrained operation
of market forces would achieve a natural harmony. He saw no limit to
acquisitivism, but expected the participants would put wealth towards
the general good of the community as part of a self-interest rationale.
However, Smith’s theory was not generally accepted by his contempo-
raries and even nineteenth-century ‘utilitarians’ feared the consequences
of unrestrained capitalist forces upon ethics and morality. They instead
sought spiritual and legislative incentives or deterrents to create a bal-
ance of forces that would control trading behaviour and prevent a decline
into immorality.16 The problem of allying moral concerns to economic
pragmatism was not one that disappeared after the Middle Ages.

15 Stevenson, Praise and Paradox.

16 Searle, Morality; Thomas, ‘Cases of conscience’, pp. 30–1.
458 Medieval market morality

The question of how forces of supply and demand can be reconciled

with the needs of economic prosperity and contemporary ‘moral ethics’
has thus remained a consistent theme of commercial history. The accu-
mulative trader and the vulnerable consumer are both stock figures that
are evident even in the twentieth century. The pragmatic moral economy
lingers on in new guises. We have entered an era of moral and commercial
debates that presents us with similar paradoxes. Multinationals, banks,
globalisation, genetically modified crops and even the familiar supermar-
kets, arouse indignation, moral rhetoric, laws and everyday complaints.
Christian business associations in the US encourage their members to
follow biblical morality in their affairs.17 There is a growing demand for
ethically responsible and environmentally friendly products. Despite sug-
gestions that modern market ethics lack scruples and morality, it is clear
that such issues cause hand-wringing and consternation. Trade, law and
ideology still remain inseparable and yet contradictory bedfellows. There
continue to be ethical debates about the boundaries between selfish,
profit-making individualism and the equitable rights of the community.
The influences of the pragmatic moral economy endure.

17 Wilk, Economies and Cultures, p. 106.

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c a m b r i d g e , g o nv i l l e a n d c a i u s c o l l e g e
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cambridge, pembroke college

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c a m b r i d g e u n i ve r s i t y l i b r a r y
MS Additional 3584
MS ii.vi.17

city of bristol record office

No. 01250(1)

c i t y o f l o n d o n , l o n d o n m e t r o p o l i t a n a r c h i ve s
MS Custumal 4 Liber de Assisa Panis (Image ref. col/cs/01/004)

459
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c60/9 Fine Rolls
c131/208/3, 14 Chancery: Extents for Debts
c133/33/16 Inquisitions Post-Mortem
dl29/992/15 Ministers’ Accounts
dl29/993/7 Ministers’ Accounts
dl29/994/1–13 Ministers’ Accounts
dl29/1006/9–28 Ministers’ Accounts
e101/256 Clerk of the Market Accounts
e101/257 Clerk of the Market Accounts
e101/258 Clerk of the Market Accounts
sc2/203/23–34 Chilton Court Rolls
sc2/203/38–72 Clare ‘Burgess’ Court Rolls
sc2/203/112–15 Sudbury Court Rolls
sc2/204/1–20 Sudbury Court Rolls

n o t t i n g h a m u n i ve r s i t y l i b r a r y
MS 50 (previously a.6.2, Lincoln Cathedral Chapter Library)

ox f o r d , b o d l e i a n l i b r a r y
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MS Douce 5, 104
MS Laudian Misc. 77, 511

s a n m a r i n o, c a l i f o r n i a , h u n t i n g t o n l i b r a r y
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Acc. 1476/12 Account Rolls, Manor of Newmarket
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s u f f o l k r e c o r d o f f i c e ( i p sw i c h )
c/2/8/1/1–12 Ipswich Leet Rolls
c/2/10/1/2–6 Ipswich Composite Enrolments
ha6:51/4/4.7 Manor of Old Hall (East Bergholt) Court
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ha68: 484/135 Manor of Aldham Court Rolls
ha91/1 Manor of Bradfield Court Rolls
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ha119:50/3/142 Manor of Bacton Court Rolls
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hb8/1/778–89 Manor of Tattingstone Court Rolls
hb9:50/13/2.1–2.11 Manor of Hacheston Court Rolls
hd68: 314 and 484/76 Manor of Horham Court Rolls
s1/10/9.1–9.11 Manor of Holbrook Court Rolls
v5/18/1.2–1.4 Manor of Earl Soham Court Rolls

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 Index

Aberdeen, 229 of bread, 146, 149, 233–41, 252, 263,

Acle (Norf.), 151 297–303, 312, 391–2, 424–6, 442
advertising, 73, 74, 186, 246, 250 of cloth, 218
Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham, 91, 96 of measures, 190
Aers, David, 38, 135 of wine, 248, 253
Aethelstan, King of England, 178, attachments, 208, 209, 360–1, 365
197 Augustine of Hippo, 57
affeerers, 263, 293, 296, 311, 388, 401, auncel, 79, 195–6, 334, 390
405 avarice, 2, 23, 28, 49–55, 75, 83, 92, 119,
afterlife, 40, 105, 107, 127, see also Last 127, 415, 437, 438
Judgement Ayenbite of Inwyt, 42, 344
Alain de Lille, 63
Albertus Magnus, 57 Babir, John, 308, 371
ale, 8, 15, 71, 105, 115, 168, 231, 241–8, Bacon, Francis, 414
295, 303–5, 323, 324, 334, 345, 346, badgers, 417, 429, 431, 434, 435, 438,
395, 406, 422, 423, see also alewives, 445, see also cornmongers
ale-sellers, assize of ale, brewers Bailey, Mark, 275, 292, 293, 311, 336,
alehouses, 7, 15, 16, 18, 69, 112–13, 247, 340, 375, 381
323, 324, 325, 335, 337, 396, 401, bailiffs, 159, 162, 166, 186, 202, 211, 269,
402, 422, 431–3, 435 292, 293, 294, 297, 323, 358, 362,
ale-sellers, 185, 244, 263, 268, 396, see 370, 386, 388, 401, 426
also alewives, tapsters Baker Litil, John, 312, 334
aletasters, 167, 244–6, 251, 295, 297, 321 Baker, William, 312, 314, 318
alewives, 16, 38, 43, 106–12, 114, 125, bakers, 1, 7, 51, 80, 96, 103, 104, 105,
130, 243, 247, 422 109, 113, 117, 125, 130, 148, 149,
Alexander of Hales, 59, 60 157, 179, 206, 221, 233–41, 251, 252,
Alfred, King of Wessex, 196 255, 257, 265, 267, 268, 282, 300,
alien traders, 142, 395 301, 303, 305, 311–14, 374, 391–2,
Alley, Hugh, 420 397, 421–2, 423, 428, 429, 437
Alverthorpe (Yorks.), 205 Bakewell (Derb.), 161
Anglo-Saxon laws, 177–8 Ballone, John, 291, 371
Aquinas, Thomas, 57, 58–9, 64, 78, 81, Barbor, John, 291, 311, 335
418 bargaining, 61, 69–72, 156, 178, 198–202,
Argentein, William, 279, 292 205, 230, 346, 390, 418, 419, see also
Aristotle, 57, 92 lyther bargaining, lot and scot
assaults, 150, 166, 186, 329, 370, 371, Baxter, Richard, 414, 419
395 beer, 15, 264, 394–5, 422, 423, 433
assize, 231–3, 251–3, 297, 321–2, 345, Bennett, Judith, 4, 15, 38, 113, 298, 311,
374, 394, 397, 423, 432, 456 317
of ale, 107, 146, 241–8, 263, 297–303, Berwick, 156, 157, 203, 204, 227, 243,
321, 337, 392–4, 398, 426 257

506
 Index 507

Beverley (Yorks.), 159, 160, 173, 180, 181, Cambridge, 263, 284, 350, 384
187, 220, 221, 234, 243, 255, 256, Canterbury (Kent), 182
262, 336, 429 Canterbury Tales, The, 45, 93, 100
Black Death, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 143, 276, General Prologue, 84–8
277, 278, 279, 304, 322, 328 Merchant’s Tale, 89
Blackburn (Lancs.), 417 Parson’s Tale, 91
Blomfeld, Robert, 397, 398 Shipman’s Tale, 51, 88–90, 92
Book of Orders, 434, 435, 442 capital pledges, 147, 286, 291, 292,
Book of Vices and Virtues, 42, 50, 112, 122 388
Boorde, Andrew, 421, 422 capitalism, 19–22, 23, 24, 26, 414
borough privileges, 17, 152–4, 156, 161 Cardemaker, John, 295, 345
Bory, John, 340, 341, 369 Castle of Perseverance, The, 43, 51
Boston (Lincs.), 13 Castle Rising (Norf.), 433
Brandon (Suff.), 311, 336 Caxton, William, 69, 81, 84, 95, 104, 117,
bread, 8, 130, 179, 187, 231, 233–41, 252, 121, 122, 131, see also Game and Playe
253, 267, 323, 324, 337, 395, 396, see of the Chesse
also bakers, assize of bread chandlers, 7, 172
brewers, 1, 4, 7, 15–16, 105, 121, 125, Chapman, Nicholas, 311, 370
128, 130, 133, 148, 241–8, 251, 267, chapmen, 6, 18, 100, 262, 430, 431
268, 300, 301, 303, 306–11, 374, charity, 95, 379, 415, 419, 437
392–4, 407, 421, 422–3, 428, 431 Charles II, King of England, 427
Bridgwater (Som.), 179 charters
Brinton, Thomas, 47, 54, 133 borough charter, 17, 142, 152, 158,
Bristol (Glos.), 11, 154, 159, 160, 172, 160, 193, 210, 386, 387
179, 180, 183, 188, 193, 194, 201, market charter, 4, 144, 146
216, 217, 219, 227, 228, 239, 243, royal charter, 265
246, 251, 255, 258, 261, 265, 267, Chaucer, Geoffrey, 39, 45, 47, 85, 116, see
268, 269, 270, 430 also The Canterbury Tales
Britnell, Richard, 4, 10, 11, 18, 29, 119, Chaundeler, John, 281, 323, 362
134, 137, 139, 162, 176, 228, 253, Chester, 174, 232
259, 274, 277, 293, 321, 336, 372, Chester Mystery Play, 43, 106, 111, 115,
402, 406 125, 126
brokers, 142, 160, 180 Chesterfield (Derbs.), 161, 183
Brokhole, Cristina, 310, 370 Cheyne, Robert, 311, 350
Bromyard, John, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 103, Chicheley, Henry, Archbishop of
116 Canterbury, 196
brothels, 71, 247, 336, 402 Chobham, Thomas de, 41, 66, 91
Broun, Johanna, 323 Choun, John, 311
Broun, John, 294, 308, 323 Choun, Mariot, 311
Buntingford (Herts.), 293, 375 Church, 24, 28, 30–1, 39, 40–3, 45, 68,
burgage tenure, 17, 146, 153, 280, 286 126, 195–6, 214, 381, 411
burgesses, 17, 139, 152, 155, 160, 161, Clare (Suff.), 242, 284–9, 291, 292,
162, 165, 182, 210, 211, 286, 293, 293–381, 456–7
363, 372, 376, 385, 386, 387, 407, clerk, 148, 281, 289, 305, 347, 378,
456 389
Burgh, Elizabeth de, 241, 285, 293 Clerk of the Market, 145, 192, 193, 269,
Burnham Deepdale (Norf.), 417 427, 437, 438
Bury St Edmunds (Suff.), 147, 184, 247, cloth, 1, 5, 8, 11, 13–14, 15, 69, 77, 85,
275, 277, 282, 284, 327, 363, 383, 158, 160, 161, 179, 215, 216, 276,
384 284, 287, 384, 420
butchers, 1, 7, 15, 77, 103, 116, 121, 123, Cockermouth (Cumb.), 184
148, 150, 157, 166, 168, 178–9, 181, coinage, 10, 12, 196–8
185, 186, 187, 188–9, 207, 221, 231, Colchester (Essex), 13, 163, 168, 181,
258, 267, 268, 282, 297, 340, 350, 194, 205, 208, 222, 229, 245, 247,
402–4, 407, 421, 423, 427, 428 262, 336, 406
by-laws, 149–50, 155, 247, 286, 334, 369 Colk, Walter, 397, 408
508 Index

collusion, 59, 157, 160, 254, 257, 366, dairy products, 8, 11, 15, 148, 222
426, 427 damages, 67, 213, 344, 366–7
Colyrob, Peter, 295, 325, 329 Danoun, Thomas, 310
commercialisation, 10–12, 17, 19, 20, 24, Darnel, William, 327, 328
39, 198, 375 dearth, 412, 413, 416, 419, 425, 433, 437,
common good, 34, 66, 94, 120, 164, 165, 438, 440, 442, 444, 448, see also
172–3, 251, 259, 271, 415, 416, 417, scarcity, Great Famine
421, 428, 439, 440, 454, 455 debt. See credit
compurgation, 178, 208, 209, 356, 357 Defence of Conny-Catching, The. See Robert
Confessio Amantis, 44 Greene
conflict, 150, 155, 164, 165, 175, 186, Deke, Mariot, 313, 314, 340
240, see also social order Dekker, Thomas, 414, 420, 423
constables, 167, 186, 292, 297, 323, 370 demand, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 19
contracts, 81, 199, 201, 202–3, 208 Denys, John, 397, 402
Cook, John, 312, 328, 416 Depyng, John, 398, 405
Cook, Thomas, 309, 311, 318, 327, 328, Dialogue on Miracles, The, 73
335, 338, 372 Dispute between a Good Man and the Devil,
cooks, 1, 7, 96, 107, 116, 149, 183, 184, 63
185, 187, 221, 227, 261, 267, 268, distraint, 166, 208, 209, 210, 318, 356,
337, 340, 404, 421 361
cordwainers, 104, 122, 219 Dives and Pauper, 42, 64, 67, 76, 112, 119,
cornmongers, 6, 19, 117–19, 417, 419, 122, 185
434, 438, 439, 441, 445 Domesday Book, 232, 285, 383
coroners, 166, 386, 401 Doushole, Robert, 295, 324, 373
Corpus Christi, 48, 106, 173, 387 Downham (Cambs.), 228
Coupere, John, 350, 368 drapers, 1, 49, 77, 95, 104, 419
courts, 148, 387–8 Dunster (Som.), 145
borough court, 291 Dunwich (Suff.), 142, 163, 229
church court, 214 Durham, 147, 170
court rolls, 4, 289 Dyer, Christopher, 4, 29, 174, 282, 345,
fair court, 290, 368 347, 451
general court, 290 dyers, 149, 161, 171, 217
leet court, 147, 148, 150, 289, 290, 291,
369, 388, 391, 392 Earl Soham (Suff.), 299, 313
manor court, 147, 150, 214, 289 earnest money. See God’s penny
market court, 281, 290, 348 Easton Bavents (Suff.), 278
piepowder court, 208, 353, 358 Edgar, King of England, 190
royal court, 214 Edward I, King of England, 144, 166, 198,
Coventry (Warws.), 11, 13, 49, 109, 157, 213, 233, 248
160, 171, 186, 187, 216, 226, 239, Edward II, King of England, 225
240, 247, 250, 252, 258, 347, 429, Edward III, King of England, 192, 268
432 Edward the Elder, King of England, 177
covetousness. See avarice Edward VI, King of England, 430, 440
credit, 10, 21, 25, 26, 66, 82, 87, 88, 120, Egremont (Cumb.), 158, 232
149, 205–7, 208–11, 212, 213, 214, Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 426, 427
264, 348–68, 379, 414, 477, 493, 496 Ely (Camb.), 284
Crowley, Robert, 438 encroachment, 180, 402
cucking stool. See punishment engrossing, 62, 257–8, 431, 435, 437, 439,
Cumbwell, Sara, 323 442, 443
Cumbwell, Thomas, 294, 323, 371 entrepreneurship, 18, 22, 218, 260, 372–4,
Cupper, William, 430 382
customers, 80–3, 139, 175, 182, 202–4, Evesham (Worcs.), 432
215, 230, 246, 248, 344, 345, 347, excessive price, 107, 167, 224, 226, 268,
420, 423, 430, 440, 456 328, 397, 401, 403, 420, 421, 427,
custumals, 143, 151, 154, 214, 389 434
 Index 509

Exeter (Devon), 13, 160, 162, 163, 165, 130, 187, 346, see also Mirour de
204, 363, 396, 398, 401 l’Omme, Confessio Amantis
Exning (Suff.), 294, 340, 369 grain, 7, 10, 15, 119, 158, 195, 215, 228,
229, 233, 243, 251, 258, 259, 334,
Fadinor, Joan, 406 360, 406, 416, 419, 424, 428, 429,
Fadinor, Robert, 406 433, 434, 435, 436, 439, 440, 441,
fairs, 3, 73, 144, 161, 276, 287, 290, 334, 444
376 Great Famine, 118, 225
Farewell, John, 295, 349 Great Yarmouth (Norf.), 13, 230, 256,
Farewell, Richard, 368, 371, 373 327, 384
Fasciculus Morum, 2, 55, 65, 67, 82, 92 Greene, Robert, 420, 421, 422, 423, 430
Fedelere, Peter, 294, 311, 321, 335, 362 Greyne, John, 324, 327, 335, 340
femme sole, 211–13, 393 Grimsby (Lincs.), 97, 183, 200, 204
fish, 7, 8, 83, 96, 97, 148, 149, 159, 160, grocers, 257
161, 180, 181, 183, 228, 230, 256, guilds, 49, 162, 272, 457
261, 327, 328, 395, 404–5, 406, 407, craft guilds, 154, 169–75, 216–17
424 merchant guilds, 138, 152, 153–4, 161,
fishmongers, 7, 49, 103, 121, 148, 150, 170, 171, 386
157, 168, 181, 186, 187, 222, 230, religious and social guilds, 151, 380
252, 286, 404–5, 406, 424, 429
Fitzstephen, William, 96 Hadleigh (Suff.), 276, 376
flattery, 71, 74, 112, 114 Halesowen (Worcs.), 4, 300
Fleta, 199, 201, 269 handclasp, 199, 200, 205
Flixton (Suff.), 278 Handlyng Synne, 42, 50, 75, 117
Fordwich (Kent), 212 Harrison, William, 426, 438
foreign traders, 142, 153, 155, 158, Harwich (Suff.), 384
159–62, 169, 174, 180, 182, 210, Hastings (Kent), 370
211, 229, 262, 272, 284, 287, 308, Haukyn, 98–9, 132
312, 313, 363, 389, 429, 436, 455 Haverhill (Suff.), 282, 284, 289
forestalling, 8, 61, 148, 231, 254–6, 259, Havering (Essex), 293, 372
264, 267, 268–9, 327–31, 389, 395, hawkers. See pedlars, hucksters
396, 405–7, 429, 431, 436, 438, 439, Hell. See afterlife, Last Judgement
440, 442, 443 Hemley (Suff.), 313
Framlingham (Suff.), 313, 341 Henley-on-Thames (Oxon.), 6, 151
franchises, 144, 145, 146, 147, 156, 193, Henry II, King of England, 232, 248
194, 233, 248, 269, 270, 388 Henry IV, King of England, 219
fraud, 29, 52, 59, 64, 77, 79–80, 83, 96, Henry VI, King of England, 184
127, 138, 172, 177, 202, 219, 269, Hereford, 207, 267
344, 346, 419, 420, 450 Heywood, John, 75
fuel, 227, 235, 257, 303, 305 Hilton, Rodney, 4, 10, 16, 19, 20, 38, 138,
fullers, 149, 160, 216, 217 277, 300
Fyschere, William, 311, 321, 335 hinterland, 14, 162, 281, 282, 284, 287,
296, 383, 384
Game and Playe of the Chesse, 84, 131 Hintlesham (Suff.), 286
Gascoigne, George, 415, 419 hoarders, 61, 94, 117, 118, 257, 436, 437,
Gateward, Robert, 280, 324, 368, 443
373 hoarding. See engrossing
Geertz, Clifford, 345, 346, 347 Holkham Bible Picture Book, 109, 114, 123
Glanvill, 178, 201 horsebread, 240, 323, 397
glovers, 179, 220 horses, 73, 76, 81, 129, 158, 203, 337,
God’s penny, 199 344, 360, 370, 408, 421, 423
Godard, William, 294, 362 hosting, 159–60, 389
Godric of Finchale, 97 hucksters, 4, 7–8, 16, 18, 148, 230, 239,
Gower, John, 5, 44, 48, 50, 54, 71, 74, 77, 246, 263, 324, 374, 429, 430, 455, see
95, 96, 98, 105, 114, 117, 119, 124, also hawkers, regrating
510 Index

Hundon (Suff.), 286 Kyrkeby, John, 372, 373

hurdle. See punishment Kyrkehous, Robert, 405, 406
hygiene, 116, 187–9, 369, 403, 404, 407,
408, 428 Lady Mede, 53, 56, 132
Lakenheath (Suff.), 311
Idley, Peter, 47, 74 Langenstein, Henry de, 59
individualism, 22, 23, 24–5, 410, 414 Langland, William, 1, 5, 38, 43, 52, 56,
Ine, King of Wessex, 203 68, 83, 103, 118, 121, 124, 130, 132,
informal trade, 3, 18–19, 162, 176–7, 279, 135, see also Piers Plowman
382, 402, 436 Last Judgement, 40, 78, 109, 125
Ingoldmells (Lincs.), 194 Lavenham (Suff.), 276, 285, 287, 371,
innkeepers, 7, 70–1, 75, 107, 114, 131, 376, 377, 378, 379
143, 149, 186, 194, 212, 224, 227, Lay of Havelok the Dane, 96
240, 297, 335–40, 379, 397–402, leather, 15, 122, 149, 158, 219, 220, 295,
403, 407, 423 344, 360, 395, 429, see also tanners
inns, 7, 18, 160, 168, 176, 180, 311, Leicester, 153, 161, 162, 166, 186, 211,
335–40, 373, 377, 393, 394, 397, 216, 230, 236, 238, 239, 241, 243,
398, 402, 432, 436 257, 261, 426, 435
institutions, 3, 9, 10, 26–8, 452, 453, 454, Lever, Thomas, 416, 438
455 Libelle of Englyshe Polycye, The, 91
free rider, 28, 138, 255, 272, 452 licence of concord, 210, 356, 359, 365,
informal constraints, 173, 452, 454 367
moral norms, 27–8, 29, 30 Lichfield, William, 75
transaction costs, 3, 15, 27, 83, 145, Lincoln, 13, 97, 270, 299
346, 371, 381, 454, 456 livestock, 15, 150, 158, 189, 224, 228,
interest, 67, 213, 214, 365 369, 370
international trade, 5, 15, 85, 90–1, 384, living standards, 9, 425
398 Locke, John, 418
Ipswich (Suff.), 13, 154, 155, 157, 159, London, 1, 6, 11, 13, 18, 80, 96, 140, 154,
166, 167, 168, 170, 193, 202, 204, 160, 167, 170, 179, 180, 185, 186,
205, 206, 208, 210, 237, 243, 256, 187, 189, 194, 206, 207, 213, 219,
313, 383–409, 419, 457 222, 226, 229, 230, 232, 234, 237,
249, 252, 253, 256, 264, 265, 266,
Jacob’s Well, 72, 78, 80, 117, 120, 125, 268, 413, 425, 427, 428, 429, 438
128 London Lickpenny, 1
Jacques the Grete, 76, 79, 118 Long Melford (Suff.), 276, 285, 289
James I, King of England, 435 lordship, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 21, 145, 146,
Jews, 98, 124, 162, 213 248, 275, 277, 293, 298, 368, 374,
John, King of England, 144, 191, 232 376, 456
Joye, John, 397, 401 lot and scot, 155–8, 161, 229, 293, 386,
jurors, 147, 148, 150, 237, 243, 255, 260, 389
291, 292, 293, 296, 320, 358, 363, Lupton, Donald, 422
435 Lutel Soth Sermun, 105, 125
just price, 24, 55–64, 72, 127, 223, 418, Lutterworth (Leics.), 435
427, 440, 441, 448 Luttrell Psalter, 102
justice, 55, 58, 68, 81, 95, 120, 133, 164, Lydgate, John, 1, 82, 111, 113, 114, 123,
234, 253, 271, 380, 415, 417, 440, 130
441 Lynn (Norf.), 128, 162, 185, 222, 262,
commutative justice, 58, 419 282, 336
distributive justice, 58, 61 lyther bargaining, 61, 81, 418, 419, 420
Justices of the Peace, 192, 225, 417, 432,
435 Magna Carta, 141, 191, 192
Maldon (Essex), 153, 166, 185, 188, 384
Kempe, Margery, 128–9 Malthus, Thomas, 9, 20
kingship, 141, 190, 214, 233, 270 Map, Walter, 97
 Index 511

market cross, 3, 4, 8, 176, 180, 186, 251, 291, 292, 293–7, 327, 346, 371, 374,
384 388, 433, 437, 451
marketplace, 2, 3, 6, 8, 17, 54, 176, 180, Oresme, Nicholas, 53
181, 186, 187, 199, 251, 280, 285, Orgon, William, 351
286, 368, 384, 407, 428 outsiders, 138, 153, 156, 157, see also
Marlborough (Wilts.), 417 strangers, foreign traders
Marx, Karl, 20, 21 Over (Camb.), 417
Marxism, 10, 20, 21–2 Oxford, 161, 181, 193, 228, 229, 250,
mayors, 132, 153, 155, 165, 166, 230, 262, 267, 270, 392, 423, 424, 426,
231, 240, 251, 252, 253, 426, 431, 440, 446
432
meat, 11, 15, 96, 116, 148, 149, 150, 161, Pape, Geoffrey, 394, 395
221, 224, 226, 227, 261, 267, 268, pardons, 94, 128, 322–3
328, 340, 341, 403, 420, 421, 427, Parlement of the Thre Ages, The, 93
428, see also butchers paternalism, 29, 425, 433
Memoriale Credencium, 64, 118 Peckham, John, Archbishop of Canterbury,
Memoriale Presbiterorum, 66 40
Merchant Law, 201, 207–11, 351 Pecock, Reginald, 73
merchants, 5–6, 37–8, 83–95, 126, 163, pedlars, 6, 18, 75–6, 100–2, 218, 262,
170, 210, 262, 383, 384, 390, 414 429–31, 455
Michel, Dan, 114, see also Ayenbite of Inwyt Pepyr, John, 321, 327
middlemen, 7, 60, 117–20, 253–63, 331, Pere, Thomas, 362, 372
395, 396, 404, 413, 416, 418, Perkins, William, 416
433–40, 441, 442, 444, 445, 447, Petworth (Suss.), 150
448, see also chapmen, cornmongers, Piers Plowman, 1, 38, 43, 51, 53, 56, 68,
forestallers, pedlars, regraters 73, 94, 95, 98, 112, 127, 132
Middlewich (Ches.), 437 pigs, 158, 187–8, 312, 370, 408
millers, 113, 289, 421, 441 pillory. See punishment
Mirk, John, 42, 74 Pizan, Christine de, 95, 121
Mirour de l’Omme, 44, 87, 114 Play of the Sacrament, The, 124
misericords, 101, 107, 108 Play of the Wether, The, 91
money, 9, 21, 51, 52–3, 65, 84, 88, 127, pledges, 159, 178, 209, 338, 356, 357,
see also coinage 361–2, 363
monopoly, 172, 217, 257, 260, 328, 445 pollution, 149, 370
moral economy, 25, 410, 411–12, 424, poor, 12, 56, 61, 63, 64, 65, 118–19, 126,
436, 439, 440–7, 448, 453, 458 128, 164, 166, 218, 234, 236, 260,
267, 271, 289, 322, 378, 415, 418,
Newark (Notts.), 158 419, 428, 433, 435, 437, 438, 440,
Newmarket (Suff.), 279–84, 290, 291–2, 441, 442, 447, 450
293–381, 456–7 Postan, Munia, 9, 12, 14, 21, 24, 138,
Norfolk, William, 294, 327 223
North, Douglass, 26, 27, 452, 453 poulterers, 7, 123, 148, 404
Northampton, 180, 196, 206, 221, 231, poultry, 8, 71, 96, 180, 225, 395, 431
240, 252, 261, 267, 428 Powell, John, 421
Norwich (Norf.), 11, 13, 109, 172, 186, Powell, Robert, 438
207, 212, 216, 235, 252, 258, 259, presentment, 147, 247, 297, 300, 306,
264, 269, 378, 384, 420 317, 322, 341, 344, 347, 393, 398
Nottingham, 148, 183, 203, 219, 222, 247 Preston (Lancs.), 200
Noumbre of Weyghtes, The, 79, 82 prices, 11, 14, 24, 83, 159, 172, 173, 217,
218, 222–31, 233, 234, 241, 242,
oaths, 72–3, 94, 111, 240 249, 253, 261, 297, 326, 406, 424,
Odye, John, 324, 371, 373 427, 428, 437, 438, 440, 442, 443,
Offa, King of Mercia, 196 444, 447
officials, 131, 147, 150, 151, 163, 166, Priour, John, 312, 321
167, 172, 181, 231, 263, 272, 274, private marketing. See informal trade
512 Index

profit, 28, 52, 55–64, 65, 67, 120, 148, Roger of Hoveden, 184, 190, 216
214, 230–1, 235, 242, 253, 254, 312, Rokelond, Matilda, 324, 338, 353
323, 327, 374, 414–15, 418, 422, Roman law, 57, 62, 64, 66
424, 425, 427, 441, 444 Romance of the Rose, The, 50
prostitution, 49, 114, 263, 336, 402, 407, Romford (Essex), 281, 372
see also brothels Romney (Kent), 210
Protestantism, 23, 414, 417 Rose the Regrator, 38, 98, 106, 318
public market, 60, 83, 142, 176–84, 255, royal commissions, 142, 224
262, 390, 402, 429, 435, 436, 440, Rypon, Robert, 117
454
punishment, 129–32, 213, 248, 250, sacrilege, 49, 123–4
263–70, 294, 321, 393, 398, 401, Salisbury (Wilts.), 179
404, 405, 406, 435, 437, 455 salvation, 23, 25, 28, 40, 98, 120, 122–33,
compensation, 192, 220, 256, 268 135, 380, 417
cucking stool, 129, 130, 232 samples, 78, 204, 215, 234
expulsion, 262, 267, 268, 269, 391, 404 Sandwich (Kent), 156
forfeiture, 157, 178, 183, 191, 192, 195, Saxted (Suff.), 313
209, 217, 241, 256, 257, 267, 268, Scarborough (Yorks.), 231
269, 334, 368, 389, 395, 404, 437 scarcity, 29, 63, 117, 253, 257, 258, 261,
hurdle, 265, 266, 268 328, 346, 416, 428, 436, 439, 445, see
imprisonment, 145, 191, 192, 194, 195, also dearth
202, 209, 229, 241, 250, 262, 268, Schoppe, Agnes, 308, 314
269, 395, 427, 430, 437 searchers, 167, 170, 220
pillory, 113, 129, 130, 146, 216, 250, second-hand trade, 7
256, 263, 264, 266, 267, 268, 269, Seneschaucy, 298
270, 294, 391, 392, 395, 403, 421, sermons, 41–2, 50, 52, 54, 72, 82, 94,
427, 437 121, 125, 129, 133, 416, 439
tumbrel, 109, 146, 263, 264, 267, 268, servants, 54, 129, 183, 185, 187, 235, 266,
269 289, 357, 369, 371, 372
Seven Deadly Sins, 41, 42, 98
quality, 172, 203, 204, 215–22, 237, 344, Sevenhampton (Wilts.), 298
345, 374 sheriffs, 143, 147, 190, 192, 224
Quo Warranto, 144, 233 Ship of Fools, The, 79, 116
shops, 6, 7, 18, 176, 182, 280, 336, 368,
Ray, John, 321, 340, 377 379, 394, 396, 429, 431
Reach (Camb.), 284 Shrewsbury (Salop.), 232
reciprocity, 26, 205, 346, 355, 362 Simonie, The, 43, 48, 55, 119, 129
recognisances, 200, 209 Skelton, John, 109, 111, 114. See also The
Redere, John, 306, 309, 311, 328, 335, Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng
338, 370 skinners, 219
regrating, 7, 8, 61, 183, 184, 206, 231, Smith, Adam, 20, 25, 26, 410, 411, 439,
239–40, 246, 255, 261–2, 263, 267, 444, 446, 453, 457
306, 307, 323–7, 341, 374, 395–7, Smyth, John, 291, 311, 335, 372
404, 414, 429, 430, 431, 435, 438, social models, 37, 44, 46–9, 253, 416
439, 440 three estates, 46
reputation, 16, 26, 173, 194, 205–6, 219, social order, 29, 164, 240, 252, 262, 271,
222, 264, 267, 272, 295, 328, 329, 402, 413, 432, 433
345, 390, 403, 417, 456 Sotherton (Suff.), 278
restitution, 82, 87, 92, 125, 127, 379 Southampton (Hants.), 13, 154, 157, 161,
Reynes, Robert, 151, 238, 244 188, 392, 428
Ricardo, David, 9, 20 Southchurch (Essex), 437
Ricart, Robert, 251, 252 Southwark, 336
Richard II, King of England, 44, 142, 214 specialisation, 7, 12, 15, 19, 175, 221,
riots, 440, 441, 443, 446 413
risk, 38, 67, 90, 91, 97, 259, 262, 346, 374 spicers, 79, 149, 219
 Index 513

St Albans (Herts.), 147 tapsters, 16, 103, 106, 107, 246–7, 336,
stallage, 368, 386, 429 422, 455, see also ale-sellers
stalls, 6, 7, 180, 262, 280, 282, 286, taverners, 1, 7, 74, 114, 130, 148, 168,
368 185, 248, 249, 250
standards of living, 10, 11, 14–15, 16, 18, taverns, 7, 161, 168, 335, 398, 432
165 Taylor, John, 422, 423
Standon (Herts.), 293 Ten Commandments, 41, 64, 77
statutes, 141, 143, 167, 220 Tendring (Essex), 231
Assisa Panis et Cervisie, 232, 235, 237, Tewkesbury (Glos.), 232
241, 297 theft, 49, 66, 121, 182, 403, 423, 432
Judicium Pillorie, 130, 191, 221, 234, Thompson, E.P., 410, 412, 424, 425, 440,
242, 244, 248, 254, 269, 438 441, 442, 444, 447, 448
Ordinance of Labourers (1349), 143, Thoresby, John, Archbishop of York, 41
167, 225, 228 Thornbury (Glos.), 4, 16
Statute concerning Diet and Apparel Times’ Whistle, 420
(1363), 46, 220, 225, 257 tinkers, 102, 103, 430
Statute of Acton Burnell (1283), 200, tithing group, 147, 286, 291
208 tolls, 8, 17, 18, 145, 146, 150, 155, 157,
Statute of Labourers (1351), 46, 143, 158, 161, 162, 180, 254, 286, 339,
225 368, 369, 383, 384, 386
Statute of Victuallers ( 1389-90), 220, Torksey (Lincs.), 212, 247
225, 240, 270 Tornor, Richard, 294, 327
Statute of Westminster (1275), 197 Tottenham (Mdlx.), 18, 316
Statutum de Pistoribus, 191, 194, 221, town government, 163–9, 386–9
237, 244, 434, 438 councils, 163, 169
Steele Glas, The. See George Gascoigne oaths of officials, 164, 165–6, 167, 231,
steward, 148, 255, 285, 292, 293, 376 263
Stoke by Nayland (Suff.), 378 oligarchy, 163, 164, 175, 386
Stoke-by-Clare (Suff.), 286 transaction costs. See institutions
stolen goods, 1, 177, 178, see also theft transport, 7, 53, 158, 227, 228, 242, 249,
Stonham, Johanna, 324 254, 256, 278, 313, 327, 394, 413,
Stonham, John, 324 441
Stonhard, Johanna, 310, 323 Trevisa, John, 50, 65
storage, 7, 119, 258, 429 Trimley (Suff.), 299
strangers, 178, 200, 263, see also foreign trust, 26, 29, 122, 173, 205, 346, 355,
traders, outsiders 456, 457
Stratford-upon-Avon (Warws.), 151 tumbrel. See punishment
Sudbury (Suff.), 285, 287, 289, 303, 311, Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng, The, 109
329, 377, 378, 379, 383
sumptuary laws. See statutes Unum Necessarium. See John Cook
Sunday trading, 94, 121, 122–3, 184–6, urbanisation, 10–11, 17, 152, 413
368, 420, 432 urban decline, 13–14
supply, 7, 29, 62, 119, 157, 166, 174, 223, usury, 24, 49, 65–8, 88, 92, 118, 127,
241, 253, 259, 297, 418, 433, 435, 213–15, 365
436, 439, 443, 444, 445
Swanson, Heather, 4, 5, 139, 165, 169, view of frankpledge, 146, 147, 148, 214,
174, 216 243, 290, see also tithing group
vintners, 7, 398, 421, 423
tailors, 1, 104, 122, 224 Vitry, Jacques de, 73, 76, 116
Tale of Beryn, The, 111
tally, 82, 89, 200–1 waging law. See compurgation
Tamworth (Staffs.), 236 Wakefield (Yorks.), 174, 213
tanners, 149, 161, 178, 187, 220, 258, Waleys, John, 291, 309, 311, 318, 335,
344, 350, 407 372
Tapstere, Johanna, 308, 314, 324, 338 Wallington, Nehemiah, 415
514 Index

wall-paintings, 40, 42–3, 51, 80, Winchester (Hants.), 182, 217, 238, 239,
109 336, 428, 431
Walsham le Willows (Suff.), 11, 299 wine, 6, 116, 130, 158, 168, 248–50, 253,
Walsoken (Norf.), 150 336, 398–401, 423, see also assize of
Walter of Henley, 79 wine, taverners, taverns, vintners
Walton (Suff.), 299, 313 withernam, 210–11
Warminster (Wilts.), 436 witnesses, 79, 177, 178, 200, 201, 207
warranty, 178, 202–3, 239, 344 Wode, John, 337, 392, 393, 397, 398, 401
waste, 187, 189, 369, 370, 404, 407, 408 women, 4, 7, 16, 114, 211–13, 243, 247,
water, 188–9, 222, 241, 303, 305, 369, 263, 264, 289, 291, 305, 306, 308,
395, 407, 421 314, 323, 324, 338, 353–5, 393, 396,
weavers, 1, 149, 160, 170, 216 398, 405, 423
Weber, Max, 23 Woodbridge (Suff.), 146, 313, 384
weights and measures, 77–9, 84, 106, 107, wool, 5, 7, 11, 15, 78, 85, 141, 158, 160,
143, 189–96, 232, 233, 246, 249, 192, 215, 257, 287, 344, 349, 354,
295, 310, 324, 331–5, 390, 393, 396, 384, 390
406, 421, 422, 423, 426–7 Worcester, 205, 235, 244
West Halton (Lincs.), 346 work ethic, 23, 414
Whethereld, William, 401 Wyclif, John, 52, 54, 60, 72, 78, 100, 125,
wholesale trade, 6, 18, 60, 96, 142, 156, 127
157, 161, 182, 201, 204, 215, 228, Wynchester, John, 294, 323
229, 242, 277, 385, see also Wynnere and Wastoure, 43, 94, 117, 118
middlemen
William I, King of England, 190 York, 11, 13, 174, 179, 180, 181, 182,
William of Pagula, 41, 63 183, 184, 185, 187, 189, 197, 220,
wills, 15, 284, 377–80 222, 223, 228, 249, 257, 261, 267,
Wimbledon, Thomas, 48 268, 270, 336, 437