The Charters Ordinances And Bye Laws Of The Mercers Company

A holistic approach to interpreting early modern London society.

As the premier livery company, the Mercers Company in medieval England enjoyed a prominent role in London's governance and exercised much influence over England's overseas trade and political interests. This substantial two-volume set provides a comprehensive edition of the surviving Mercers' accounts from 1347 to 1464, and opens a unique window into the day-to-day workings of one of England's most powerful institutions at the height of its influence. The accounts list income, derived from fees for apprentices and entry fees, from fines (whose cause is usually given, sometimes with many details), from gifts and bequests, from property rents, and from other sources, and then list expenditures: on salaries to priests and chaplains, to the beadle, the rent-collector, and to scribes and scriveners; on alms payments; on quit-rents due on their properties; on repairs to properties; and on a whole host of other costs, differing from year to year, and including court cases, special furnishings for the chapel or Hall, negotiations over trade with Burgundy, transport costs, funeral costs or those for attendance at state occasions, etc. Included also in some years are ordinances, deeds and other material of which they wanted to ensure a record was kept. Beginning with an early account for 1347-48, and the company's ordinances of that year, the accounts preserved form an entire block from 1390 until 1464. The material is arranged in facing-page format, with an accurate edition of the original text mirrored by a translation into modern English. A substantial introduction describes the manuscripts in full detail and explains the accounting system used by the Mercers and the financial vocabulary associated with it. Exhaustive name and subject indexes ensure that the material is easily accessible and this edition will become an essential tool for all studying the social, cultural or economic developments of late-medieval England.

A social history of the merchant class of 14th- and 15th-century London

The Whitbread Award–winning author of Queen of Scots presents a “brilliantly observed” dual biography of Sir Thomas More and his daughter (The New York Times). Sir Thomas More’s life is well known: his opposition to Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, his arrest for treason, his execution and martyrdom. Yet a major figure in his life—his beloved daughter Margaret—has been largely airbrushed out of the story. Margaret was her father’s closest confidant and played a critical role in safeguarding his intellectual legacy. In A Daughter’s Love, John Guy restores her to her rightful place in Tudor history. Always her father’s favorite child, Margaret was such an accomplished scholar by age eighteen that her work earned praise from Erasmus of Rotterdam. She remained devoted to her father after her marriage—and paid the price in estrangement from her husband. When More was thrown into the Tower of London, Margaret collaborated with him on his most famous letters from prison, smuggled them out at great personal risk, and even rescued his head after his execution. Drawing on original sources that have been ignored by generations of historians, Guy creates a dramatic new portrait of both Thomas More and the daughter whose devotion secured his place in history.