Susan Rose, The Wealth of England: The Medieval Wool Trade and its Political Importance 1100-1600.

摘要

A specialist in medieval history, Susan Rose is well known for writing comprehensive but accessible books on an array of topics. This volume on the wool trade follows in the same vein, examining the subject over five hundred years. Part 1 begins by taking the reader through the narrative of sheep farming in England. Chapter 1 is based largely on a range of contemporary writing, from agricultural treatises to fifteenth-century poetry, as well as a range of anecdotes from accounts and archaeological evidence. Chapter 2 transitions to a more thorough exploration of the accounts created by seigniorial landlords, a source that underpins much of medieval English economic history. It focuses on large, institutional ecclesiastical estates, which boast very good archives of surviving documents. Such estates were among the most prolific sheep farmers in the period, but an uninformed reader might believe the activity was restricted to such large-scale operations. In fact, sheep farming in medieval England was rather ubiquitous; an exploration of other sources, such as lay subsidy taxation records, would have revealed that sheep ownership extended well into the ranks of the peasantry.