Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 December 2011
This article explores some of the methods used to raise credit in an important trading region of late medieval England during a decline in overseas trade and an international bullion famine. It argues that, because provincial credit arrangements depended on local as well as national factors, a combination of demographic and regional circumstances contributed to the commercial weakness of Yorkshire merchants as they faced growing competition from Londoners with access to more sophisticated financial networks.
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17 York City Record Office [hereafter, York CRO], E39, 110; York Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, Probate Register [hereafter Inst. Prob. Reg.], I, 20 (will of Ann Durem); Postan, “Private Financial Instruments,” 34.
18 Spufford, Handbook, xxviii–xxix; Spufford, Money and Its Use, 256–58, 394–95. See Clark, E., “Debt Litigation in a Late Medieval Vill,” in Pathways to Medieval Peasants, ed. Raftis, J. A. (Toronto, Ont., 1981), 247–79Google Scholar, for a discussion of rural local transactions.
19 Spufford, Money and Its Use, 376, for examples.
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22 Bennett, E. Z., “Debt and Credit in the Urban Economy: London 1380–1460” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1989), 153Google Scholar. There were 378 actions in 1461–70, 447 in 1471–80, 106 in 1481–90 (5 years missing), 347 in 1491–1500 (Public Record Office [hereafter, PRO] C241/246–73); Day, Medieval Market Economy, 64. See also Britnell, R. H., Growth and Decline in Colchester, 1300–1525 (Cambridge, England, 1984), 100–101Google Scholar. Statute Staple Certificates were writs issued by the chancellor on behalf of creditors trying to recover a debt registered under Statute Staple. See text at note 50.
23 Holdsworth, W. S., A History of English Law, 4th ed. (London, 1935), 3: 586–87Google Scholar. Such was the strength of the custom, that it prevailed over compassion in the London City court in 1396, when the payment of a debt took precedence over provision for two minors, even though complex legal formalities for their care had been completed. Cal. Plea & Mem. Rolls City of London, 1381–1412, 239.
24 York Borthwick Inst. Prob Reg. V, 501 (Grenely), VI, 70 (Collinson); York CRO E39, 187.
25 For example, Calendar of Patent Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office [hereafter, CPR], 1388–92, 259; 1476–85, 293; Sellars, M., ed., York Memorandum Book, I, Surtees Society 120 (1911): 33Google Scholar; Brown, W., ed., Yorkshire Deeds, II, Yorkshire Archaeological Society 50 (1914): 218Google Scholar; PRO Cl/59/112, 64/1137; York CRO E39, 266–67, 281.
26 Robert Northwold, mercer of London, died about 1374, leaving debts to be retrieved from Beverley, York, Ludlow, Oxford, Gloucester, Winchester, and from a Lombard. Cal. Plea & Mem. Rolls City of London, 1364–81, 168–69. A debt did not have to be large to be exploited. In 1369 a debt of £6 13s.4d. was assigned to “divers persons"; ibid., 111–12.
27 York Borthwick Inst. Prob. Reg. III, 403 (Alcock); York Minster Library, Dean & Chapter Wills II, 43 (Elwald); Raine, J., ed., Testamenta Eboracensia, III, Surtees Society 45 (1865): 49-50, 104, 141Google Scholar.
28 York Borthwick Inst. Prob. Reg. III, 255–255v. (Holme), 265–265v. (Louth). This was not an uncommon practice. Bennett, “Debt and Credit in the Urban Economy,” 200.
29 In about 1415 it cost John Talkan of York's executors £8 6s.8d. to collect his debts and settle his estate, which had a total value of about £104. In 1451 Thomas Vicars's executors spent only 20s. on tracing and collecting his debts, plus a further 20s. riding around to settle everything. Testamenta Eboracensia, III, 87–89, 120–22. Cf. Bristol merchant Philip Vale, whose executors' expenses for settling debts and selling property in 1393 came to £7. Cal. Plea & Mem. Rolls City of London, 1381–1412, 208–15.
30 Cal. Plea & Mem. Rolls City of London, 1413–37, 10; Memorandum Book, II, 160. While most Londoners’ actions against debtors defaulting under staple law commenced within one year, 39 percent of Colchester creditors waited for three years or longer. Bennett, “Debt and Credit in the Urban Economy,” 153–56; Britnell, Growth and Decline in Colchester, 251.
31 In the seven years before his death in 1397, Maghfeld's assets shrank by about 80 percent. James, “A London Merchant,” 369, 373–74.
32 For example, York Borthwick Inst. Prob. Reg. II, 21 (Stockton), 119v (Shackles); III, 415v–416 (Blackburn), 540 (Hill); V, 29v (Croule), 99 (Johnson), 167 (Ryddesdale).
33 Testamenta Eboracensia, III, 49–50.
34 See also Brompton, 1444, about £600, debts £200: Barley, 1468, £74, debts £53: Fisher, 1476, £13, debts £10. York Borthwick Inst. Prob. Reg. II, 86–90v (Brompton); II, 225 (Preston); IV, 60 (Barley); V, 8v (Fisher); Archival Register 18, 384v–385 (Frost). Cf. William Lynn, a London stapler, who left an estate worth £4,842 7s. 2d., of which £3,072 was in debts owed to him, while he owed £1,737 1s. 4d.: Postan, “Credit in Medieval Trade,” 255–56; and Richard Toky, 40 percent of whose estate comprised unrecoverable debts: Thrupp, Sylvia, The Merchant Class of Medieval London (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1962), 105Google Scholar.
35 We will never know how many agreements were concluded with a simple handshake like that “on the sands at Scarborough” in 1402 and another “in the churchyard” of St. Margaret's, Walmegate, York, in 1410. Verbal contracts were probably used for small local debts. York Borthwick Inst. Cause Papers, f. 23, 58. I am grateful to Jeremy Goldberg for these references.
36 Hull City Record Office [hereafter Hull CRO], Bench Books BRG; BRE1, 2; BRB1; York CRO E25, 39; Sellars, ed., York Memorandum Book, I and II, Surtees Society, 120, 125 (1911, 1914); J. W. Percy, ed., III, Surtees Society 186 (1973); Yorkshire Deeds and Feet of Fines for Yorkshire, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series.
37 Unwin, G., “London Tradesmen and Their Creditors,” in Finance and Trade under Edward III, ed. Unwin, George (Manchester, England, 1918), 19Google Scholar; Kowaleski, M., “The Commercial Dominance of a Medieval Provincial Oligarchy: Exeter in the Late Fourteenth Century,” Medieval Studies 46 (1984): 369.Google Scholar
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41 In general the debt or loan was divided into equal portions and repaid at annual or six-month intervals. For example, Memorandum Book, II, 274; York CRO E39, 106, 108, 267.
42 Memorandum Book, II, 160. It may be that she was meeting obligations from her father's estate. For other examples see ibid., 96, 114; York CRO E39, 267 and cf. Cal. Plea & Mem. Rolls City of London, 1382–1412, 239.
43 Postan, “Private Financial Instruments,” 38.
44 York Borthwick Inst. Prob. Reg. IV, 116 (Wartre); VI, 185 (Stockdale); Memorandum Book, II, 13.
45 PRO C1/289/10.
46 Memorandum Book, I, 12–13.
47 For example, CPR 1429–35, 354; 1446–52, 198; 1452–61, 384, 456; 1467–77, 9, 431.
48 PRO C1/17/96, 64/439.
49 Cal. Plea & Mem. Rolls City of London, 1381–1412, xxxii–iii; Postan, “Private Financial Instruments, “ 40–49.
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51 CCR 1279–88, 244; Cal. Plea & Mem. Rolls City of London, 1381–1412, xxxv.
52 There were about 6,000 cases brought under Statute Staple from 1390 to 1450; Bennett, “Debt and Credit in the Urban Economy,” 153. But the local courts in Exeter handled over 4,500 between 1378 and 1388, and those at Colchester between 200 and 300 a year in the fifteenth century. Kowaleski, “Fourteenth-Century Exeter,” 369; Britnell, Growth and Decline in Colchester, 281.
53 Hubert Hall thought that the volume of cases concerning enrolled obligations that were recorded in the Close and Patent Rolls, in the Miscellaneous Book of the Exchequer and in Kings and Commons Bench Plea Rolls suggested that statutory recognizances did not supersede traditional enrollments for the repayment of trade debts and loans. Hall, Select Cases, III, xiii.
54 CPR 1381–5, 87; Memorandum Book, II, 30; Hull CRO, D248.
55 Postan, “Credit in Medieval Trade,” 248–49.
56 A rare survival, a Bristol merchant's inventory, reveals that Philip Vale's real estate was sold for £322 8s. 4d. in 1393; his total estate, including debts, was approximately £757. Cal. Plea & Mem. Rolls City of London, 1381–1412, 213–15; Hilton, R. H., “Rent and Capital Formation in Feudal Society,” in Second International Conference of Economic History, Aix-en-Provence, 1962 (Paris, 1965), 66–67.Google Scholar
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59 Thrupp, London Merchant Class, 122–23.
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61 Investment in rent-charges or annuities was more common on the Continent. Hilton, “Problems of Urban Real Property,” 336–37; Baum, H-P., “Annuities in Late Medieval Hanse Towns,” Business History Review 59 (1985): 24–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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64 PRO C1/44/89; Yorkshire Fines, 1347–77, 64, 72. Statute Merchant bonds were also used in property transactions to ensure that seisin of a property was achieved, the bond becoming enforceable if the contract was not fulfilled, like the penalty clause in a modern conveyance. Thus when Hugh Swynflete conveyed a property in Hull to William Ryplingham, they entered a Statute Merchant bond, which was to lapse once “delivery of possession of the property” had been completed. Hull CRO, D301 and also D107; Memorandum Book, II, 45.
65 Thrupp, London Merchant Class, 122–23, estimated that when conditions were favorable in the fourteenth century, a return of 6–8 percent might be expected, falling to 5 percent in the fifteenth century.
66 London mercer William Causton built up a sizable rural estate by lending on the security of land and gaining from defaulters. Thrupp, London Merchant Class, 121.
67 Postan, “Private Financial Instruments,” 31; Hall, Select Cases, III, xxix.
68 PRO C1/289/10; York CRO E39, 128, 172, 187, 205–7.
69 Loan arrangements reflected political networks within regions. For the southwest, see Kowaleski, “Fourteenth-Century Exeter,” 366; for Yorkshire, see Kermode, “York, Beverley and Hull,” 235–36.
70 PRO C1/16/163, 164.
71 For example, Memorandum Book, I, 187, 204, 215, 236, 245; II, 34, 39, 112, 218; III, 6, 7, 38, 53, 102.
72 Ibid., III, 53; York Borthwick Inst. Prob. Reg. II, 612; (Auncell); CCR 1447–54, 465; Wedgwood, J. C., Biographies of the Members of the Commons House, 1430–1509 (London, 1936), 12Google Scholar.
73 (Bilton) Hull CRO BRE 1 263; Memorandum Book, III, 102, 105.
74 Statutes of the Realm, II, 513. Quoted in Cal. Plea & Mem. Rolls City of London, 1413–37, xx.
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78 In 1465, the Dominican Friars in York were in danger of forfeiting jewels, books, and other “precious gifts” that they had used as security to raise loans. Memorandum Book, II, lxxi–iii.
79 This is an argument advanced by Baum, “Hanse Annuities,” 48.
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82 CPR 1405–9, 226; 1413–29, 82; 1436–41, 322; CCR 1447–61, 132; 1461–7, 502; 1494–1509, 3.
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87 York CRO E39, 278, 284–85, 288, 295.
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