ENGLISH TRADE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY By Eileen Power and
M. M. Pesten The interest and importance of economic history, based not on mere theories but on a thorough investigation of the abundant materials at the Record Office and elsewhere, are well illustiated in the Studies in English Trade in the Fifteenth
Century, edited - by- Professor Eileen Power and Mr. M. M. Postan of the London School of Economics (Routledge, 21s.). The editors and their students have actually been able to compile returns of the trade of the chief ports for almost a century up to 1442, and Professor Gray, of Bryn Mawr, has used the material to show how English trade expanded and declined before 1446 and 1482, according as peace or war prevailed. But the really fascinating sections of the book are the full account of the wool trade • the early history of the London grocers—who were primarily wholesalers, dealers en gros, and dealt in many things besides groceries ; the study of Bristol's oversee trade and of the trade with Iceland which familiarized Bristol sailors with the North Atlantic and made it natural for Bristol merchants to finance Cabot and other early voyagers to Labrador and Newfoundland. Professor
Power, writing on the wool trade, explains its elaborate organization and its international character far better than
anyone else has ever done. To fifteenth-century England wool was the staple of trade and a main pillar of the national finances. In the Cotswolds, whose sheep yielded so fine a wool that " Cotes " was a standard of quality, the foundations of England's commercial greatness were well and truly laid.
Previous page
