Local Markets and Regional Trade in Medieval Exeter by Maryanne Kowaleski

Abstract

510 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE together toward our understanding of the European scientific cul­ ture. Anthony S. Travis Dr. Travis is deputy director of the Sidney M. Edelstein Center for the History and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His publications include The Rainbow Makers: The Origins of the Synthetic Dyestuffs Industry in Western Europe (Bethlehem, Pa.: Lehigh University Press, 1993). With Ernst Homburg and Harm G. Schroter, he is coeditor of the proceedings of the ESF workshop on the history of chemical technology, 1856-1914, Chemical Tech­ nology and the Second Industrial Revolution: Economic Growth, Environmental Pollution and the Rise of the Industrial Chemist (forthcoming). Local Markets and Regional Trade in Medieval Exeter. By Maryanne Kowaleski . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. xvi+442; maps, figures, tables, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $69.95 (hardcover). There are many ways to write a history of trade in the medieval world, and many have been attempted; this is one of the very best. Local Markets and Regional Trade in MedievalExeterutilizes “collective biographies” and quantitative analysis to call attention to the mer­ chants, clothiers, leather workers, furriers, smiths, victuallers, hostel­ ers, and shopkeepers who variously contributed to the growing com­ mercialization of the medieval English economy. The story of these hardworking, purposeful people is in large measure the story of the ebb and flow of urban life during a particularly difficult period in the later Middle Ages, when many towns suffered stagnation and loss. The fact that Exeter overcame obstacles and ultimately pros­ pered makes its history a remarkable testament to the adaptability of English artisans and retailers, to their endurance, creativity, and willingness to accommodate change. By taking a close, understand­ ing look at these small-town traders, Maryanne Kowaleski tells us not only about the changing fortunes of Exeter but about the complex and shifting circumstances that moved English society towards a cap­ italist economy by the end of the Middle Ages. Readers familiar with Dr. Kowaleski’s earlier work will not be sur­ prised that her story of Exeter is told with a gifted historian’s confi­ dence and grace. She clearly knows what is distinctive and valuable in the life of a provincial town; and like Derek Keene and R. H. Britnell she sees the later 1300s as marking a notable stage in En­ gland’s urban history. Drawing on an impressive range of evidence, she compiles a variety of indices to measure wealth, economic privi­ lege, and the commercial involvement of townsfolk in domestic and TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 511 regional markets. Her analysis of 525 householders in late-14th-century Exeter attends closely to occupational structure and trade with­ out losing sight ofthe broad configurations ofpower that influenced urban governance. The result is an engaging case study that leans neither to narrow interpretation nor unconvincing generality but more usefully explores the extent to which the habits of trade and economic calculation promoted growth. Local Markets and Regional Trade makes us think about economic growth and the nature of change against the backdrop of agriculture and industry in medieval Devon. Exeter was the county’s administra­ tive, ecclesiastical, and economic center as well as its largest commu­ nity, with a population of thirty-one hundred in 1377. What visitors remembered of the town, and what chroniclers chose to record, re­ flected a shared belief that Exeter, as early as the 11th and 12th centuries, had been a “magnificent” and “wealthy” port and mar­ keting depot, “abounding in every kind of merchandize” (p. 82). Although the town’s cloth industry as well as its exports of tin de­ clined in the 1200s, the population continued to grow, and Exeter as a regional capital attracted migrants from throughout the county. Migration remained steady until the mid-14th century, when plague and epidemic disease occasioned loss and disrupted the rhythms of the workplace. In the aftermath of the Black Death (1348-49), labor shortages threatened productivity, and officials anxiously noted the growing number of vacant tenements in the town and its suburbs. If, as it seems, roughly one-third of the population succumbed to plague, there were signs of a return to better...