Lisa Jefferson – författare

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.

The two earliest Goldsmiths' record books reveal details of working practices, financial accounts, apprentices, civic events such as pageants, misdeeds broght before the wardens, and much else besides.The goldsmiths of London had formed an organised guild, or mistery (in the medieval sense of "craft" or "profession") by the twelfth century. Granted their first royal charter in 1327 by Edward III, they are one of the twelve great livery companies, and still oversee the work of goldsmiths, silversmiths and jewellers. Published here for the first time are their two earliest record books, presented in the original languages, French (Anglo-Norman), Englishand Latin, with a facing-page translation into modern English. From these full records valuable and lively detail emerges: the working practices of gold and silversmiths, the financial accounts of the wardens, apprentices admitted, participation in civic events such as pageants, and records of offences (both professional and personal) brought before the disciplinary court. The edition is accompanied by a full introduction, a bibliography, a subject index and a complete name index. LISA JEFFERSON, MA, D Phil, FSA, is a medievalist who works both in Oxford and in France.

This three-volume edition provides translations of the Goldsmiths' Company Register of Deeds with full explicatory annotation, and with a clear introduction to both the manuscript and the legal texts contained in it.The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, commonly known as the Goldsmiths' Company, is one of the twelve Great Livery Companies of the City of London. This three-volume edition provides translations of the company's Register of Deeds with full explicatory annotation and with a clear introduction to both the manuscript and the legal texts contained within. Additionally, the volumes contain detailed name and subject indexes.The company's Register of Deeds has never been fully utilised by historians, but it contains a record copy made from the fifteenth century onwards of the original deeds of the company's acquisitions of property from the reign of King Richard I to the seventeenth century. These deeds reveal much about the precise location of properties and their inhabitants. Wills, often appearing in the Register, help to piece together a social history of the time. Charitable purposes were often the reason for monies or property bequeathed to the Goldsmiths, sometimes of an educational nature, or of almsgiving to the poor, or for the training and support of young goldsmiths and silversmiths. Many documents also concern women, either acting solely in their own name or jointly with a husband, sometimes also appearing as daughters or sisters, providing evidence regarding their legal position during the medieval and early modern period.The editing and translation of these documents (from Latin and French into modern-day English) will be of great use to historians interested in the buildings of medieval and Tudor London and their use as personal or business premises. But beyond these obvious confines, these so far hidden sources will help to rewrite a social, legal, and economic history of medieval and Tudor London.SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY PRICE: £395/$575. Rises to full price £450/$650 on 1st January 2023.