Historians naturally suppose that during the Early Middle Ages the acquisition
or exchange of at least some of the goods and services that the vast majority
of people required occasionally in living their lives was taking place day-to-day
on an informal basis that, by its informal nature, leaves virtually no documentary traces
for us. It was only when such transactions began to be concentrated at places
such as wiks, markets, and fairs, that we start to see some evidence; and only
as the volume, scale, and geographic distance of these trading activities – along
with their increasingly conventionalized processes, protocols, and
infrastructure – grew to the point where authorities felt that their management,
through regulation, was necessary, desirable, or advantageous, that we obtain
a reasonably vivid picture of commerce, the primary driver of the medieval English economy.
The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a key period for the growth in number
and geographic distribution of facilities for trading, stimulated by rapid
population expansion and increase in agricultural productivity – the latter
being partly to feed the larger number of mouths, but also wealth generation
by Norman lords (who had links to continental sources of demand) seeking to exploit
more effectively the natural resources of their new English estates. This growth
was "part of a wider commercial transformation, which included: a denser,
organized market structure; an increase in the value and volume of coinage
in circulation; growing credit markets; urban expansion and new towns;
a proliferation of non-agricultural occupations; and a more market-oriented
peasant society." [James Davis,
Medieval Market Morality, p.10, summarizing the interpretation
of Richard Britnell.]
An equally important factor, both causal and by-product, of this transformation
was the emergence of a larger number of individuals within the population
who primarily made a living not from the production of raw materials or
manufactured goods but from their distribution; that is, by selling
to consumers goods purchased from producers, or from other intermediary distributors.
Many were small-scale operators active mainly within restricted locales,
while others dealt in bulk goods and ranged over larger geographical areas.
They mostly operated their own modest businesses, often with the aid of one
or more family members, servants, and/or apprentices. Some found it convenient,
or less risky, to partner with their fellows in overseas shipping ventures,
or to spread financial risks by allying with investors; while others, needing
to keep an eye on the local end of the business, found it necessary to work
through employee or contractual agents who either would travel on their behalf
or were based at key overseas destinations. Such agents or brokers might
simultaneously be trading on their own behalf. All of these circumstances – but
particularly long-distance trade – were fraught with problems and perils
related to matters such as:
- gathering reliable business information that enabled a trader to make
sound strategic decisions;
- navigating honestly through local regulations and protocols, which varied
from place to place;
- generating trust in a strange place and enforcing contracts once they had been made
(local by-laws, such as at Ipswich,
Lynn, Yarmouth, and
Norwich , are suggestive of how common bad faith deals
may have been) ;
- conflict of interest on the part of agents (who might simultaneously be trading
on their own account, sometimes making temporary use of their employer's resources
to generate profit for themselves), and the difficulties in holding agents to account,
while agents could also be used for evasion of tolls, as implied in by-laws at
Lynn and Maldon;
- and assurance of security for traders and their wares, particularly given
the shifting sands of foreign relations.
It was equally the case that commercial activity was fraught with temptations
to further one's one interests illicitly or immorally at the expense of others.
This was an epoch of self-help, counter-balanced only partially by a sense of
communal responsibility.
The commercialization of English society was not without its challengers.
The attitude of the Fathers of the Church was, at the risk of oversimplifying,
that commerce encouraged fraud, avarice and other sins, and was inherently evil.
This was the firm position of the Church until the twelfth century, when a distinction
was made between trade profits reasonable to provide a livelihood and those
that resulted from deceptive or usurious practices. Ccraftsmen who added value
to raw materials by converting them into new products were entitled to a modest profit;
but merchants – who were not perceived as adding any significant value to commodities,
but suspected of pursuing immoderate and unjust profit by manipulating supply or using
false weights and measures – were widely criticized. While some writers
and preachers stuck to their guns, others attempted to adapt Catholic philosophy
to changing economic conditions and the emergence of a commercialized society; there
was a gradual recognition that merchants' re-distributive role, labour and costs in regard
to travel, and risks incurred in the process, warranted some profit-taking from commerce,
an argument that had partly been made much earlier by Aelfric (see
below) but had then been a minority opinion.
Even then, opponents continued to struggle against commercial activities taking place
on holy days, and their influence was strong enough to obtain, from the devout Henry VI
in 1449, a statute prohibiting fairs or markets to be held on Sundays and festival days, when
"out of great covetousness for material benefits, the people more wilfully than
on regular working days submit themselves to the physical toil and tribulations,
as in pitching and erecting booths and stalls, and in lifting, carrying, conveying
(both to and from their homes), and deploying their wares for sale, as though they
had quite forgotten how horribly their souls are defiled by involvement in
buying and selling: its multifarious deceits, lies, false perjuries, the drunkenness
and argumentativeness, and above all the failure of themselves and their servants
to attend divine service."
[Owen Ruffhead, ed. The Statutes at Large, London, 1758, vol.1, p.619, my translation]
But even this measure exempted victuals from the ban and was to last only until
further consideration at the next parliamentary session, as the king feared
that the people would not stand for a permanent ban unless more convincing arguments
could be provided than were in the preachy commons petition (conspicuously drafted
by ecclesiastics) that won the statute. There is no sign of renewal of the petition,
and the statute was allowed to expire.
The moral position of the Church – which, it must be remembered, relied on commerce
to provide it with much of its trappings and luxuries, and generated much of its
own wealth from the marketing of agricultural surpluses and the rents of tenants
engaged in the same activity – had an influence on commercial activity,
and not solely a negative one, but it was accommodated pragmatically by both
urban authorities and urban traders; it may have slowed, but it did not prevent innovation.
Some members of the Church acknowledged that commerce, although morally risky,
produced results that were not all bad, for it provided individuals and communities
with the necessities for mortal life, and some of the wealth generated was put
to the construction, maintenance, and beautification of ecclesiastical structures,
while some was directed towards charitable donation. Someone had to shoulder
the costs and risks involved in long-distance efforts needed to supply the various classes
with the necessaries or luxuries commensurate with their social position, and generate
a wealth surplus that could be put to charitable ends, and this kind of public service
(if not sacred duty) was the role of the merchant. The influential
De Regimine Principum of Giles of Rome represented ethical behaviours
as specific to social context,
so that (for example) for certain members of society, such as merchants or labourers
pursuing the necessities of life, commerce in goods or money-changing,
including a moderate amount of profit they might generate for one party or another,
were natural and legitimate, whereas for other members, such as nobles aspiring
to a higher level of virtue, they ought be avoided; similarly, Giles saw nothing wrong
in the acquisition of wealth, so long as it was not driven by avarice and
the wealth accumulated was put to good purposes. In his Aristotelian world-view
(filtered through Christian scholasticism), cities
were created partly for the purpose of facilitating commercial transactions
that enabled people to acquire what they needed to support an existence in which
they might aspire to some degree of virtue. A similar view of merchants, as integral
to society but susceptible to certain sins, can be seen in Jacopo da Cessole's
allegorical treatise on chess.
Secular authorities at all levels were even more inclined to look favourably
on commerce as the source of comforts of life for the well-to-do, revenues that
helped finance administration, and financial loans for special projects or in
times of crisis. The legends that grew up around some of the wealthier and
more public-spirited merchants, such as Richard Whittington, reflect both
a certain popular admiration combined with aspiration. Popular images of
petty traders tended to be less complimentary, if not scurrilous or caricaturish;
the proliferation of such images during the Late Middle Ages and into
the Early Modern period is itself a reflection of how integral commercial activity
had become to society.
Notwithstanding their critics, merchants – be they wholesalers or retailers – were
an important and valued element of English society, just as the English shopkeeper has
been lauded in more recent times as the backbone of that society. The common image
of the medieval merchant is of a wealthy and peripatetic trader, assisted by
a small cadre of apprentices and/or employees, possibly too a ship-owner,
active in long-distance, if not international, trade in bulk raw products
or luxury items, and sometimes investing his profits into rural land purchases
or money-lending to his social superiors, often with the hope of rising in social status
himself, or at least improving the marriage prospects of his children.
Kermode [Medieval Merchants, p.159], for example,
states that "What distinguished merchants from others was their engagement in wholesale
and long-distance trade." Yet, while this is a useful distinction for historians to make,
it is advisable to keep in mind that for much of the Middle Ages the term was
often used more generically to also include middlemen-retailers, producer-retailers,
and sometimes itinerant chapmen; even today the term 'merchant' is still colloquially
applied to shopkeepers. Only by doing so can we properly understand the nature of
those medieval phenomena known as the 'gild merchant'
and 'law merchant'. The author of a legal treatise
of the fourteenth century was quite content with this
broad definition.
In the second half of the twelfth and first half of the thirteenth centuries
the number of townsmen making a living primarily from trade was still sufficiently
small that we can find terms such as mercator and merciarius
being used apparently as by-names for townsmen, and even for peasants.
As that number grew, such terms lost their value as personal differentiators
and became more restricted to use as an occupational category, although encompassing
a wide range of traders; in the subsequent age of hereditary surnames, Merchant
and Mercator were and are uncommon, although Mercer and even Chapman have been
more in evidence. It was not until the Late Middle Ages that there was
some differentiation of wholesalers, retailers, and artisans, with
the descriptor 'merchant' becoming restrictively applied to the first,
and that we see the coalescence of a merchant elite able to exert a degree
of influence, and indeed control, over the local economy and political administration
disproportionate to their numbers, though not to their relative wealth.
In larger cities, where occupational groups tended to come together
in formal associations – gilds or companies – for mutual support,
self-regulation, and protectionism, occupations such as grocers, mercers,
drapers, fishmongers, and vintners tended to be viewed as mercantile,
although their membership could range from wealthy wholesalers to retailers
whose trading was on a smaller scale and who were of lesser means.
Yet the differentiation is somewhat artificial, as wholesalers might also
dispose of some of their imported goods by retail, while retailers might
from time to time import or even export modest cargoes. At the opposite
end of the spectrum from the wholesalers or dealers in luxury goods were
the pedlars, the sellers of small items (such as fripperers), and those
who rehabilitated old and secondhand clothing and other goods, some of whom
in time became dignified under the occupational title of upholders (now
upholsterers). In smaller towns having a lesser share of long-distance trade
the differentiation between merchants tended to be less pronounced,
except for the odd townsman who, through a combination of capability,
determination, and good fortune, rose head and shoulders above his peers.
Yet in all towns, large or small, 'merchant' was not as specialized an occupation
as we might imagine. For most burgesses economic and occupational diversification
was a common strategy, and merchants could rarely afford to deal exclusively
in one particular type of merchandize, or focus their efforts on one market
(domestic or foreign), nor to forsake the opportunities and the income – smaller
but steadier – that retailing or service-based commerce offered.
An entrepreneurial mentality is evident among medieval tradesmen before the term
was coined centuries later. Yet though prepared to capitalize on whatever
business opportunity seemed likely to yield a profit, most merchants appear
in practice to have focused most of their efforts on a limited number of commodities,
perhaps based on familiarity with supply and demand, or well-established contacts
with particular producers, geographical sources, or consumer groups.
The more successful merchants were those adept, vigorous, and courageous
at pursuing commodities wherever they could be acquired at a low enough price
to provide scope for profit when sold elsewhere. Involvement with
high-value commodities – such as wine, cloth, and spices – was
particularly desirable, especially when they could be transported and stored
cost-effectively. But there was more than one route to mercantile success.
Even at an early period that more restricted definition of merchant is not entirely
lacking. Our knowledge of Anglo-Saxon commerce may be much sketchier than that of
later medieval England, being largely based on archaeological evidence. Nonetheless,
there are some documentary indications that English commerce was not without its
adventurers. In the late tenth century the Benedictine scholar Aelfric, who would
become abbot of Eynsham in 1005,
wrote a text-book to teach Latin through a series of conversations
and included one with a merchant who justified his utility to society and
right to profit from commerce on the grounds he dared the High Seas to bring back
luxury goods desired in England – such as gems, metalwares, silks, dyes, wine,
ivory, and glass – simply so he might earn enough to feed himself and his family.
Aelfric evidently saw the merchant as praiseworthy, even heroic. At the same period,
English law saw the need to clarify the place within the social hierarchy for merchants,
and allowed any who had made three or more overseas voyages to trade with their own money
to claim the status of thegn; this is unlikely to have been done unless there were numbers
of Englishmen involved in overseas trade. Other evidence shows English merchants active
as far away as the Mediterranean in the tenth and early eleventh centuries. By the late
twelfth century there was a sufficient number of Englishmen operating out of
Genoa to warrant characterizing them as a very modest 'colony'.
[R.L. Reynolds. "Some English Settlers in Genoa in the Late Twelfth Century,"
Economic History Review, vol.7 (1933), 317-323.]
If anything, the short-term effects of the Norman Conquest were to stifle
this blossoming English commerce, by disrupting industry and agriculture as town
and countryside were subdued, redistributing the wealth of the land to reward Norman supporters,
and establishing French settlements in several towns, particularly in eastern England;
the result was some reorientation of commerce, especially in regard to wool and cloth,
to northern France and the Low Countries. The Flemings began to take over the cloth trade,
and the Italians began to dominate the Mediterranean trade – instead of
seeing English merchants frequenting Italy over the next couple of centuries,
we find merchants from northern Italy's city-states – notably Genoese and Florentines,
and later Venetians – establishing bases and even settling in England during
the thirteenth century. In the following century they would displace the Flemings
as the main consumers of English wool, and their use of Southampton as the point of import
for luxury goods would become an important component of that port's economy, and
a source of anti-Italian feeling among Londoners.
In the absence of private business records, for the most part, commercial activity
in medieval England tends to be evidenced primarily through public documents such
as customs lists, laws regulating commerce,
and legal disputes relating to business agreements or transactions. Though
this documentation shows only part of the spectrum of commerce, it does help emphasize
a growing belief among authorities at all levels of society that economic problems
could best be resolved for the public good through government regulation, rather
than the earlier mechanism of cooperative associations or through
a laissez-faire approach relying on market forces. In fact there was
increasing nervousness about informal interest groups or associations with
activist purposes and distrust of unsupervised trading.
One source of problems was traders on the peripheries of the business world,
particularly those who were itinerant and thereby difficult to bring to account.
Attempts were made to rein in or
suppress brokers, for example;
opposition to them arose, probably around the time of Henry III's reign,
on the grounds that they ran counter to the principle of direct trade between
sellers and consumers; but the underlying concerns were that their interposition
in that process introduced an additional profit margin that pushed up prices
and that they were prone to intercept goods en route to the marketplace (forestalling),
in order to manipulate prices and, in some cases, deprive the town of its rightful tolls.
Various deceits might be used to raise prices artificially, such as conspirators buying
their own goods from one another. Regrators
were another form of middleman or middlewoman, who bought for the purpose of re-selling,
although generally dealing in smaller quantities of goods (usually victuals) than
forestallers. Their activities became illegal when they: took place in locations
other than markets; took place before official market trading hours had begun, or in
some cases before a specified later hour which allowed consumers to have first call on
buying in the marketplace; sought a profit margin either by charging higher than
market prices, or by obtaining cheap and substandard goods to sell at market prices.
Unlike forestallers, however, they were not dealing in such large volumes of
goods as to present a risk of monopolizing the market. Yet while
forestalling had moved from the sphere
of local to statutory suppression by the close of the reign of Edward I, middlemen
were an integral component of the commercial network and could not realistically
be done away with.
A more regular concern for local authorities was the small traders, sometimes producers
but more often re-sellers, who tended to operate outside of marketplaces and
market controls. Again such middlemen, drawn from and catering to the poorer classes
of urban society, were a natural and necessary part of the commercial system,
and the best that could be done was to tax and limit, rather than eliminate,
their activity. To prevent them from operating would only have increased
the number of beggars in the streets. Much of their forestalling may have been
too small-scale to make it practical to suppress the practice or prosecute
individual occurrences, and it was easier sometimes just to identify
repeat offenders ('common forestallers') or bring a group accusation against
a mass of members of some trading group, such as poulterers or fishmongers,
and see which charges would be upheld by jury verdict. Employees and apprentices
were often used to forestall, and occasionally it seems to have been a family activity,
as at London in 1305 when one large group accused of forestalling poulty
included Robert Dosing, his wife, and two daughters. Although regrating was
not necessarily confined to the lower echelons of borough society,
regraters – or regrators, also found occasionally as regratresses – tended
to be perceived as poorer members of the community and were often women involved
in small-scale trading or in supplying their baking or brewing enterprises
with cheap ingredients.
Female small traders known as hucksters, sometimes accommodated in designated parts
of marketplaces, but more often selling from suburban houses or in the streets,
outside regular official oversight, in particular occupied one of the lower rungs
of the socio-economic ladder. Since road travel exposed women to banditry or worse,
few of them were itinerant pedlars; they mostly operated in their home towns,
some venturing to neighbouring markets. Their profit-margin must have been small;
yet, because they met a need, they were managing to support themselves and,
if sometimes a nuisance to authorities, were at least not a burden to urban society
in terms of the call upon local alms. The authorities, however, looked upon them
as not honestly employed, but rather living off the practices of regrating
and forestalling; a London prosecution for forestalling grain in 1338 convicted
Anabilia le Hokester, among others, but acquitted Agnes Sigily huckster.
Hucksters might obtain their wares either by forestalling from rural producers
or by buying in village markets or even the local town market, then re-selling
elsewhere; sometimes they misrepresented the wares as being their own produce.
Margaret la Buttermongere was one of a group of London men and women who in 1306
complained to the mayor, unsuccessfully, that the sheriff had confiscated
a large quantity of poultry, eggs, and cheese from them, which the sheriff
justified on the grounds they were common forestallers. Beatrice le Hukestere
of Lynn occupied a modest house (whether owned or rented we do not know),
divided up into at least two rooms, and she also employed a servant; the house
was lost to fire in 1303.
