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The Project Literature: An Elizabethan Example

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Lynn Muchmore
Lynn Muchmore
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics, Cornell University
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Abstract

Professor Muchmore analyzes and edits an interesting Elizabethan document typical of a large body of economic literature in Tudor-Stuart England.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , Winter 1971 , pp. 474 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1971

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References

1 Stone, Lawrence, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641, abridged ed. (London, 1967), 23–24Google Scholar.

2 Nef, J. U., “The Progress of Technology and the Growth of Large-scale Industry in Great Britain, 1540–1640,” Economic History Review, V (1934), 3–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Nef compares the period with the later “industrial revolution.” For a more moderate view, but one which recognizes major new commercial problems, see Fisher's, F. J. classic “Commercial Trends and Policy in the Sixteenth Century,” Economic History Review, X (1940), 95–117Google Scholar.

3 This enigma was not resolved by the Elizabethan government, and it accounts for the somewhat ambivalent attitude toward textiles and trade exhibited by Lord Burghley, See Read, Conyers, Mr. Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth (New York, 1955), 295–300Google Scholar. An excellent account of the impact of foreign trade on the stability of the English economy is Supple, B. E., Commercial Crisis and Change in England, 1600–1642 (Cambridge, 1964)Google Scholar.

4 Riemersma, Jelle, “Monetary Confusion as a Factor in the Expansion of Europe (1550–1650),” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, V (1952), 61–74Google Scholar. See also de Roover, Raymond, Gresham on Foreign Exchange (Cambridge, 1949)Google Scholar.

5 Brown, E. H. Phelps and Hopkins, Sheila V., “Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consumables, Compared with Builders' Wage Rates,” Economica, New Ser., XXIII (1956), 296–314CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Coman, K., “Wages and Prices in England, 1261–1701,” Journal of Political Economy, II (1893), 92–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 One manifestation was the proliferation of patents under Elizabeth. See Price, William H., The English Patents of Monopoly (London, 1906), 5–15Google Scholar.

7 These are discussed in de Roover, Gresham, 184 ff.

8 Some of the more important items are found in Tawney, R. H. and Power, Eileen, eds., Tudor Economic Documents, 3 Vols. (London, 1924)Google Scholar. These are only a fraction of the materials which rest in the archives. One such memorandum is the basis for de Roover's Gresham on Foreign Exchange.

9 See Dietz, Frederick, English Public Finance, 1558–1641 (New York, 1932), 144–181Google Scholar. One Privy Councillor jotted an informal list of 105 projects being considered by the Council in 1609. British Museum, Add. MS 10038, fols. 14–15.

10 Anonymous, Hogs Caracter of a Projector (London, 1642), 2Google Scholar.

11 This recognition is evident in the contemporary development of the poor laws. See Sir Nicholls, George, A History of the English Poor Law (London, 1898), 187–193Google Scholar. A series of excerpts from the Elizabethan statutes is given by Ribton-Turner, C. J., A History of Vagrants and Vagrancy (London, 1887), 100–133Google Scholar.

12 Fisher, F. J., “Some Experiments in Company Organization in the Early Seventeenth Century,” Economic History Review, IV (1933), 187Google Scholar.

13 Friis, Astrid, Alderman Cockayne's Project and the Cloth Trade (Copenhagen, 1927)Google Scholar, and Fisher, “Some Experiments,” 188–89.

14 The ability of the Crown to administer effectively much of the sweeping Tudor legislation is not a settled issue. A useful summary is Ramsey, Peter, Tudor Economic Problems (London, 1966), 165–179Google Scholar.

15 I owe a debt of gratitude to Donovan Dawes, Principal Keeper at the London Guildhall, who obligingly searched the Corporation records for me.

16 Calendar of State Papers Domestic 1547–1580, 178.

17 Ibid., 180.

18 Stone, Lawrence, “Elizabethan Overseas Trade,” Economic History Review, 2nd Ser., II (1949), 39–41Google Scholar; Heckscher, Eli, Mercantilism (London, 1935), I, 418Google Scholar ff.

19 Cunningham, William, Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times: The Mercantile System (Cambridge, 1912), 82Google Scholar. Rogers, Alan, The Making of Stamford (Leicester, 1965), 64Google Scholar.

20 O'Donoghue, Edward G., Bridewell Hospital (London, 1923), 151Google Scholar.

21 Braudel, F. P. and Spooner, F., “Prices in Europe from 1450 to 1750,” in Rich, E. E. and Wilson, C. H., The Cambridge Economic History of Europe (Cambridge, 1967), IV, 481Google Scholar.

22 Statutes of the Realm, IV, 425.

23 Ibid., 855.

24 I owe this reference to Miss Katharine Pantzer of Houghton Library, Harvard University. Her expertise in early English bibliography is well known, and she has contributed generously to this discussion.

25 CanonMaddison, A. R., Lincolnshire Pedigrees (London, 1904), III, 1013Google Scholar.

26 Boyd, P., Roll of the Drapers Company of London (Croyden, 1934), 186Google Scholar. This reference was brought to my attention by Malcolm Kitch, University of Sussex.

27 Johnson, A. H., History of the Worshipful Company of the Drapers, (Clarendan, 1915), II, 115–116Google Scholar. An ex-Master of the Drapers was the president of Bridewell during the periods 1556–1560 and 1568–1570.

28 A second Thomas Trollop, mentioned in a Lincolnshire will of 1581, was a saddler, and therefore not likely to be as familiar with the problems of linen manufacture as the author of the pamphlet obviously was. Maddison, Lincolnshire Pedigrees, 1013.

29 The text is reprinted here without alteration. The Kress Library of Business and Economics at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration possesses the only known copy.

30 That is, “toil.”

31 Lamentations about the deteriorating quality of younger merchants are place in mercantile literature, but to my knowledge no rationale for the theme has been offered.

32 That is, four or five hundred thousand pounds sterling.

33 Trollop presumably means that the workers themselves would find it impossible to generate the necessary capital by their individual saving.

34 The “rele” was a measurement device, “sealed” so that the spinner could not cheat by shortening it.

35 The public relations awareness shown in this paragraph is unusual, but not unique. A later projector found it necessary to distribute such a “little book.” See Sir Arthur Gorges, A True Transcript and Publication of His Majesties Letters Pattent for an Office to be Erected (1611).

36 That is, “buying.”

37 This passage is undoubtedly deference to Lord Burghley, who was antagonistic to any measure which might aggravate the “decay of tillage.” His son, Robert Cecil, remarked in the 1601 debates over the Tillage Statutes, “I think that whoever doth not maintain the plough destroys this kingdom.” Lipson, E., The Economic History of England (London, 1956), II, 402Google Scholar.