Boom and Bust: Patterns of Borrowing in Later Medieval England

The virtually complete record of the certificates of defaulting debtors sent to Chancery and the resulting extents of debt allow an unusually full assessment to be made of changes in the English economy over the 179 years in which the Statute Staple debt registration system was in use, particularly with respect to periods of economic growth and recession. This chapter assesses the patterns of certificate generation resulting from defaulted debt transactions from 14 English Staple and Merchant courts between 1353 and 1532. These Staple defaults act here as a barometer, or guide, to the volume of credit being extended within the English economy. The analysis of these patterns is predicated upon the self-evident maxim that changes in the availability of credit—of which the Staple credit was an integral part—within the economy is a viable measure of the robustness of that economy. The chapter sub-divides the period into four sections divided into (roughly) 50-year terms in order to more closely examine the processes of, and context for, shifts in the availability of credit. It then goes on to consider ways in which theoretical approaches might help to establish wider frames of reference for these chronological movements in terms of a cyclical approach to economic change and the ‘shocks’ that are often considered the mainspring for change.