Richard Goddard | University of Nottingham (original) (raw)
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Papers by Richard Goddard
Enterprise & Society, 2021
Business confidence is a measure of optimism or pessimism that managers feel about the commercial... more Business confidence is a measure of optimism or pessimism that managers feel about the commercial prospects for their organizations. This paper uses later medieval high-value English credit data as a proxy gauge of merchants’ business confidence or uncertainty. It discusses whether mercantile restriction of credit during the fifteenth-century recession reflects uncertainty, whereby merchants became increasingly risk-averse and so reduced the amount of credit they extended to their customers. It discusses the chronological trends in English lending between 1353 and 1532. This paper examines medieval debt restructuring and argues that this might similarly reflect merchants’ commercial confidence or uncertainty. In contrasting two sample years (1375 and 1433), the paper seeks to identify the motivations and influences that lay behind medieval merchants’ business decisions more fully. It argues that merchants’ investment behavior was guided more by local commercial circumstances than it...
Journal of British Studies, 2019
This article examines English women who were engaged in wholesale long-distance or international ... more This article examines English women who were engaged in wholesale long-distance or international trade in the later Middle Ages. These women made up only a small proportion of English merchants, averaging about 3 to 4 percent of the mercantile population, often working in partnership with their husbands. The article systematically quantifies, for the first time, women's penetration into this male-dominated trade and adds new perspectives to our understanding of women and trade in the Middle Ages by using both debt and customs records. It poses important questions about women's economic roles, the nature or distinctiveness of their businesses, and the ways that their actions fitted within mercantile activity more broadly. It examines the extent to which wives acted as equal economic partners with their husbands and also assesses the extent to which women's economic potential or agency in wholesale trade was shaped, or indeed constrained, by economic and patriarchal forces...
Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial Europe, 2018
Credit and Trade in Later Medieval England, 1353-1532, 2016
Urban History, 2012
ABSTRACT:Historians have suggested that medieval urban guilds played a role in political and comm... more ABSTRACT:Historians have suggested that medieval urban guilds played a role in political and commercial networking. Guilds’ commercial protectionism was designed to benefit their membership and close ties have been discovered between merchant guilds and urban oligarchies. This article asks if all guilds should be viewed as commercial networking hubs. It uses evidence from a later fourteenth-century membership roll of St Mary's guild in Nottingham in conjunction with Nottingham's borough court rolls to analyse the commercial connections between members and non-members in that period. It concludes that the guild did not function as a networking hub.
Women and Credit in Pre-industrial Europe , 2018
Chaucer’s depiction of the merchant in the Prologue presents the modern reader with a curious dic... more Chaucer’s depiction of the merchant in the Prologue presents the modern reader with a curious dichotomy. Many of medieval literature’s iniquitous mercantile stereotypes, such as Langland’s Covetise or Haukyn, are described as deceitful and avaricious with little hope of salvation. Yet Chaucer’s estimable merchant is portrayed as a worthy man: well-dressed, expert in business and skilled in negotiation. Chaucer has been interpreted as speaking ironically of the entire merchant class of his day. However, Chaucer came from a mercantile family (his father was a vintner), he was controller of Customs at the port of London and he had commercial dealings with London merchants. So, for much of his career, he was surrounded by exactly the sort of merchants he describes in his Prologue. They may have also have made up some of his potential audience. Of equal importance is the changing attitude to trade which was founded upon merchants’ virtuous role in enriching the state and its rulers.
Dugdale Society Occasional Papers, 46, 2006
C. Dyer, P. Coss and C. Wickham (eds.), Rodney Hilton’s Middle Ages , 2007
Linda Monckton and Richard K. Morris (eds), Coventry: medieval art, architecture and archaeology in the city and its vicinity , 2011
Richard Goddard, John Langdon and Miriam Müller (eds), Survival and Discord in medieval Society: Essays in honour of Christopher Dyer , 2010
Books by Richard Goddard
Town courts and urban society in late medieval England, 1250-1500 , 2019
Credit and Trade in Later Medieval England , 2016
Enterprise & Society, 2021
Business confidence is a measure of optimism or pessimism that managers feel about the commercial... more Business confidence is a measure of optimism or pessimism that managers feel about the commercial prospects for their organizations. This paper uses later medieval high-value English credit data as a proxy gauge of merchants’ business confidence or uncertainty. It discusses whether mercantile restriction of credit during the fifteenth-century recession reflects uncertainty, whereby merchants became increasingly risk-averse and so reduced the amount of credit they extended to their customers. It discusses the chronological trends in English lending between 1353 and 1532. This paper examines medieval debt restructuring and argues that this might similarly reflect merchants’ commercial confidence or uncertainty. In contrasting two sample years (1375 and 1433), the paper seeks to identify the motivations and influences that lay behind medieval merchants’ business decisions more fully. It argues that merchants’ investment behavior was guided more by local commercial circumstances than it...
Journal of British Studies, 2019
This article examines English women who were engaged in wholesale long-distance or international ... more This article examines English women who were engaged in wholesale long-distance or international trade in the later Middle Ages. These women made up only a small proportion of English merchants, averaging about 3 to 4 percent of the mercantile population, often working in partnership with their husbands. The article systematically quantifies, for the first time, women's penetration into this male-dominated trade and adds new perspectives to our understanding of women and trade in the Middle Ages by using both debt and customs records. It poses important questions about women's economic roles, the nature or distinctiveness of their businesses, and the ways that their actions fitted within mercantile activity more broadly. It examines the extent to which wives acted as equal economic partners with their husbands and also assesses the extent to which women's economic potential or agency in wholesale trade was shaped, or indeed constrained, by economic and patriarchal forces...
Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial Europe, 2018
Credit and Trade in Later Medieval England, 1353-1532, 2016
Urban History, 2012
ABSTRACT:Historians have suggested that medieval urban guilds played a role in political and comm... more ABSTRACT:Historians have suggested that medieval urban guilds played a role in political and commercial networking. Guilds’ commercial protectionism was designed to benefit their membership and close ties have been discovered between merchant guilds and urban oligarchies. This article asks if all guilds should be viewed as commercial networking hubs. It uses evidence from a later fourteenth-century membership roll of St Mary's guild in Nottingham in conjunction with Nottingham's borough court rolls to analyse the commercial connections between members and non-members in that period. It concludes that the guild did not function as a networking hub.
Women and Credit in Pre-industrial Europe , 2018
Chaucer’s depiction of the merchant in the Prologue presents the modern reader with a curious dic... more Chaucer’s depiction of the merchant in the Prologue presents the modern reader with a curious dichotomy. Many of medieval literature’s iniquitous mercantile stereotypes, such as Langland’s Covetise or Haukyn, are described as deceitful and avaricious with little hope of salvation. Yet Chaucer’s estimable merchant is portrayed as a worthy man: well-dressed, expert in business and skilled in negotiation. Chaucer has been interpreted as speaking ironically of the entire merchant class of his day. However, Chaucer came from a mercantile family (his father was a vintner), he was controller of Customs at the port of London and he had commercial dealings with London merchants. So, for much of his career, he was surrounded by exactly the sort of merchants he describes in his Prologue. They may have also have made up some of his potential audience. Of equal importance is the changing attitude to trade which was founded upon merchants’ virtuous role in enriching the state and its rulers.
Dugdale Society Occasional Papers, 46, 2006
C. Dyer, P. Coss and C. Wickham (eds.), Rodney Hilton’s Middle Ages , 2007
Linda Monckton and Richard K. Morris (eds), Coventry: medieval art, architecture and archaeology in the city and its vicinity , 2011
Richard Goddard, John Langdon and Miriam Müller (eds), Survival and Discord in medieval Society: Essays in honour of Christopher Dyer , 2010
Town courts and urban society in late medieval England, 1250-1500 , 2019
Credit and Trade in Later Medieval England , 2016
Table of Contents: Chapter 1 - The Statute Staple and trade finance in later medieval England o ... more Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 - The Statute Staple and trade finance in later medieval England
o Introduction
o The Statute Staple
o Stage one: the recognisance
o Stage two: the certificate
o Stage three: the extent
o The Statute Staple and the financing of English trade
o The repayment of Staple debts
o The charging of interest in Staple debts
o Beyond the Staple: alternative sources of trade finance
Chapter 2 - Merchants and trade
o Introduction
o Staple credit and domestic trade: Wool
o Thomas Cressy and the domestic wool trade
o Staple credit and domestic trade: Cloth
o Cloth manufacture and Staple credit
o The distribution of finished cloth and Staple credit
o John Beauchamp and the domestic cloth trade
o Staple credit and the trade in imports
o The trade in imports at provincial towns: Lincoln and Boston, Chichester and Southampton
o Provincial merchants and the trade in imports: Boket and Fetplace
o The trade in imports: John Norwich and the turtledoves
Chapter 3 - boom and bust: patterns of borrowing in later medieval England
o Introduction
o The later fourteenth century: boom
o The early fifteenth century: bust
o The late fifteenth century: a faltering revival
o The early sixteenth century: recovery
o Theoretical approaches: long waves, shocks and asset bubbles
Chapter 4 – The geography of recession: provincial credit in later medieval England
o Introduction
o Regional economic disparity
o The Central region
o The Eastern region
o The South West region and the geography of recession
o The South East region and the “irresistible” pull of London
Chapter 5 – London: the commercial powerhouse
o A city of superlatives
o The Westminster Staple
o Size matters
o Theoretical approaches
Chapter 6 – Conclusion