Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on weights, measures and monetary units
- Glossary of wool terms
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Advance contracts for the sale of wool
- 3 Case study – Pipewell Abbey, Northamptonshire
- 4 Modern finance in the Middle Ages
- 5 Conclusions
- Appendix 1 Sample contract
- Appendix 2 Summary facts and figures of contracts
- Appendix 3 List of contracts
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Case study – Pipewell Abbey, Northamptonshire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on weights, measures and monetary units
- Glossary of wool terms
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Advance contracts for the sale of wool
- 3 Case study – Pipewell Abbey, Northamptonshire
- 4 Modern finance in the Middle Ages
- 5 Conclusions
- Appendix 1 Sample contract
- Appendix 2 Summary facts and figures of contracts
- Appendix 3 List of contracts
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter will focus upon one particular abbey, the Cistercian monastery of Pipewell in Northamptonshire. The period under discussion, the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, appears to be one when monasteries had to deal with systemic indebtedness and murrain which affected the productivity of their flocks. How does the series of forward contracts negotiated and renegotiated between Pipewell and Cahorsin merchants help us understand this troubled period in monastic history? In order to appreciate the importance of the contracts to monastic finance and wider credit relationships, we now focus on an individual, if perhaps extreme, case study.
CRISES OF MONASTIC FINANCE?
‘Remember dearest brethren and reverend fathers that by the said recognisances and due to seven years of dearth and common murrain of beasts, the goods of the house of Pipewell had been so exhausted that nothing remained for the meagre sustenance of the monks; sometimes they sat in the refectory for three or four days with only black bread and potage, at other times they wandered from market to market to buy bread, and this they patiently endured. I, the wretch and sinner who have occupied the place of abbot, therefore counsel, ask, implore, and warn in as much as I am able, lest another abbot fall so deeply into the hands of Lombards, that they heed the French maxim ‘leger est aprendre mes fort est a rendre’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The English Wool Market, c.1230–1327 , pp. 68 - 112Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007