Local Markets and Regional Trade in Medieval Exeter

Abstract

This book examines the vital role of market towns in the medieval economy. It focuses on Exeter, and on how it served as an important link in a marketing chain that connected local, regional, and overseas trade. Although small by most standards (the population stood at around 3,100 in 1377), Exeter was the largest town in south-western England and had long played a central role in the marketing hierarchy of the region. Its functions can be illustrated through prosopographical analysis, a methodology which creates 'collective biographies' of specific groups of traders, thereby revealing the identity - status, occupation, residence - of buyers and sellers, the goods they exchanged, where they traded, and how they marketed their goods. Such an approach also helps to characterise the town's regional networks of trade and hinterland.