IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ehsrev/v73y2020i4p885-913.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mites and merchants: the crisis of English wool and textile trade revisited, c. 1275–1330

Author

Listed:
  • Philip Slavin

Abstract

On the basis of 7,871 manorial accounts from 601 sheep‐rearing demesnes and 187 tithe receipts from 15 parishes, this article addresses the origins, scale, and impact of the wool and textile production crisis in England, c. 1275–1350. The article argues that recurrent outbreaks of scab disease depressed sheep population and wool production levels until the early 1330s. The disease, coupled with warfare and taxation, also had a decisive role in depressing the volumes of wool exports. Despite this fact, wool merchants were still conducting business with major wool producers, who desperately needed access to the capital to replenish their flocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Philip Slavin, 2020. "Mites and merchants: the crisis of English wool and textile trade revisited, c. 1275–1330," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(4), pages 885-913, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:73:y:2020:i:4:p:885-913
    DOI: 10.1111/ehr.12969
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ehr.12969
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ehr.12969?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Broadberry,Stephen & Campbell,Bruce M. S. & Klein,Alexander & Overton,Mark & van Leeuwen,Bas, 2015. "British Economic Growth, 1270–1870," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107070783.
    2. Alexandra Sapoznik, 2013. "The productivity of peasant agriculture: Oakington, Cambridgeshire, 1360–99," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 66(2), pages 518-544, May.
    3. Power, Eileen, 1941. "The Wool Trade in English Medieval History," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number power1941.
    4. Philip Slavin, 2012. "The Great Bovine Pestilence and its economic and environmental consequences in England and Wales, 1318–50," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 65(4), pages 1239-1266, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matt Raven, 2022. "Wool smuggling from England's eastern seaboard, c. 1337–45: An illicit economy in the late middle ages," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1182-1213, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Federico, Giovanni & Schulze, Max-Stephan & Volckart, Oliver, 2021. "European Goods Market Integration in the Very Long Run: From the Black Death to the First World War," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 276-308, March.
    2. Jaume Ventura & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2015. "Debt into growth: How sovereign debt accelerated the first Industrial Revolution," Economics Working Papers 1483, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    3. James Foreman-Peck & Peng Zhou, 2021. "Fertility versus productivity: a model of growth with evolutionary equilibria," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 1073-1104, July.
    4. Leonor Freire Costa & António Henriques & Nuno Palma, 2022. "Anatomy of a Premodern State," Economics Discussion Paper Series 2208, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    5. Roger Koppl & Abigail Devereaux & Jim Herriot & Stuart Kauffman, 2018. "A Simple Combinatorial Model of World Economic History," Papers 1811.04502, arXiv.org.
    6. Clark, Gregory, 2013. "1381 and the Malthus delusion," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 4-15.
    7. Sara Horrell & Jane Humphries, 2018. "Children’s work and Wages, 1270-1860," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _163, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    8. Palma, Nuno, 2018. "Money and modernization in early modern England," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(3), pages 231-261, December.
    9. Alexandra de Pleijt & Jan Luiten van Zanden, 2021. "Two worlds of female labour: gender wage inequality in western Europe, 1300–1800," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(3), pages 611-638, August.
    10. Cormac Ó Gráda, 2018. "The Next World and the New World: Relief, Migration, and the Great Irish Famine," Working Papers 201821, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    11. Bassino, Jean-Pascal & Broadberry, Stephen & Fukao, Kyoji & Gupta, Bishnupriya & Takashima, Masanori, 2019. "Japan and the great divergence, 730–1874," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-22.
    12. Vincent Geloso & Peter Lindert, 2020. "Relative costs of living, for richer and poorer, 1688–1914," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(3), pages 417-442, September.
    13. Matt Raven, 2022. "Wool smuggling from England's eastern seaboard, c. 1337–45: An illicit economy in the late middle ages," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1182-1213, November.
    14. Broadberry, Stephen & Custodis, Johann & Gupta, Bishnupriya, 2015. "India and the great divergence: An Anglo-Indian comparison of GDP per capita, 1600–1871," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 58-75.
    15. Broadberry, Stephen & Ghosal, Sayantan & Proto, Eugenio, 2017. "Anonymity, efficiency wages and technological progress," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 379-394.
    16. Milanovic, Branko, 2023. "How Rich Were the Rich? An Empirically-Based Taxonomy of Pre-Industrial Bases of Wealth," SocArXiv dvu74, Center for Open Science.
    17. Arnaud Deseau, 2023. "Speed of Convergence in a Malthusian World: Weak or Strong Homeostasis?," AMSE Working Papers 2326, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    18. Ronicle, David, 2022. "Turning in the widening gyre: monetary and fiscal policy in interwar Britain," Bank of England working papers 968, Bank of England.
    19. Patrick K O'Brien & Nuno Palma, 2020. "Danger to the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street? The Bank Restriction Act and the regime shift to paper money, 1797–1821," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 24(2), pages 390-426.
    20. van Bavel, Bas, 2016. "The Invisible Hand?: How Market Economies have Emerged and Declined Since AD 500," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199608133.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:73:y:2020:i:4:p:885-913. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehsukea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.