Commercial Activity, Markets and Entrepreneurs in the Middle Ages

Christopher Dyer is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Leicester. He has written, edited, co-authored and co-edited many books, including William Dugdale, Historian, 1605-1686: His Life, his Writings and His County (Boydell, 2009). James Davis is a reader in medieval history at Queen's University Belfast. He has published widely on the economic and social history of late medieval England, with a focus on markets, trade and small towns. MARK BAILEY was recently High Master of St Paul's School, London, and a visiting fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He was previously a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and is now the Professor of Later Medieval History at the University of East Anglia. His numerous publications include Medieval Suffolk. An economic and social history 1200-1500 (2007) and After the Black Death. Economy, society and the law in fourteenth-century England (2021).

A real strength of this festschrift is its masterful editing, and those keen enough to read it from cover to cover will benefit from the clear thematic threads linking all the chapters.

• Richard Britnell: An AppreciationUnreal Wages: Long-run Living Standards and the 'Golden Age' of the Fifteenth Century - John HatcherMinimum Wages and Unemployment Rates in Medieval England: The Case of Old Woodstock, Oxfordshire, 1256-1357 - John LangdonCrisis Management in London's Food Supply, 1250-1500 - Derek J KeeneGrain Shortages in Late Medieval Towns - John S. LeeMarket Regulation in Fifteenth-Century England - James DavisSelf-Government in the Small Towns of Late Medieval England - Mark BaileyMarketing and Trading Networks in Medieval Durham - C. M. NewmanPeasant Opportunities in Rural Durham: Land, Vills and Mills 1400-1500 - Peter L. LarsonThe Shipmaster as Entrepreneur in Medieval England - Maryanne KowaleskiCheating the Boss: Robert Carpenter's Embezzlement Instructions [1261 x 1268], and the Employee Fraud in Medieval England - Martha CarlinThe Public Life of the Private Charter in Thirteenth-Century England - James MasschaeleLuxury Goods in Medieval England - Christopher DyerBibliography of the Writings of Richard BritnellTabula Gratulatoria