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The Development of Retail Trade in Provincial England, ca. 1550–1700

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Ronald M. Berger
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Abstract

This study analyzes the content and distribution of shops in provincial England between 1550 and 1700. Its major finding is that although retail trade was declining at markets and fairs, most tradesmen did not develop product specialization until the mid-seventeenth century.

Type
Papers Presented at the Thirty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , March 1980 , pp. 123 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1980

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References

1 Defoe, Daniel, A Plan of the English Commerce (New York, 1967), p. 1Google Scholar.

2 Chartres, J. A., Internal Trade in England, 1500–1700 (London, 1977), pp. 10–11Google Scholar.

3 Davis, Dorothy, Fairs, Shops and Supermarkets (Toronto, 1966), p. 34Google Scholar.

4 Alexander, David, Retailing in England During the Industrial Revolution (London, 1970), p. 110Google Scholar.

5 Ibid., pp. 29–30; Westerfield, R. B., Middlemen in English Business, Particularly Between 1660 and 1760 (New York, 1968), pp. 314, 333–34, 339–40, 344Google Scholar.

6 Davis, Fairs, pp. 39–43, 45–48, 128–43; Willan, T. S., The Inland Trade (Manchester, 1976), pp. 52–53, 70Google Scholar; Hodgen, M. G., “Fairs of Elizabethan England,” Economic Geography, 18 (1942), 398–99Google Scholar.

7 Everitt, Alan, “The Marketing of Agricultural Produce,” in Thirsk, Joan, ed., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Vol. IV, 1500–1640 (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 534–37, 543Google Scholar; Richardson, H., “The Medieval Fairs and Markets of York,” Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, 20 (1961), 17–18Google Scholar.

8 Chartres, Internal Trade, pp. 48–50; Davis, Fairs, p. 135; Willan, Internal Trade, pp. 76–77; Everitt, “Marketing,” pp. 533, 535–37, 543.

9 Chartres, Internal Trade, pp. 50–52.

10 Westerfield, Middlemen, p. 341.

11 Willan, Inland Trade, pp. 60, 83–89.

12 Davis, Fairs, p. 145; B., L. and Barley, M. W., “Lincolnshire Shopkeepers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Lincolnshire Historian, 2, no. 9 (1962), 7Google Scholar.

13 Worcestershire Record Office (hereafter WRO), Probate Inventories, 1583/74a, 104a.

14 Lichfield Joint Record Office (hereafter LJRO), B/C/11, Fynis, Billingsley, Foxley.

15 WRO, Pl, 1583/104a; Lincolnshire Record Office, Inventories, 139/400, 186/259; Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), Probate 4. 5374, 3693, 4125.

16 PRO, PROB. 4. 5374; LJRO, B/C/11, Richard Kilbee; Kent Archives Office (hereafter KAO), Drb/Pi3/9, Pi10/21, PRC 27/25/72; Cambridge University Library (hereafter CUL), Vice-Chancellor's Court, Inventories, Ralph Hide.

17 Norfolk Record Office (hereafter NRO), Norwich Consistory Court Inventories, 12/87, 46/112.

18 KAO, PRC 21/3, fol. 244, 27/25/6; NRO, NCCI, 12/87, 14/7, 46/112, 47/A6, 55/A51, 52/B89, 17/39, 32/41, 47/B92, 54/67; PRO, Prob. 4. 679, 702.

19 KAO, PRC 28/2, fols. 36–38, 144–46, 27/3/108, 21/2/14, 27/4/82, 27/10/126.

20 NRO, NCCI, 47/A6, 23/124, 52/B89, 9/329c. 43/209, 54/67, 5/196, 53/A37, 45/117, 52/A38, 54/16; CUL, VCCI, John Bell; KAO, PRC 21/2, fol. 225, 27/27/242.

21 LJRO, B/C/11, Samuel Pitts; PRO, PROB. 4. 9501, 4125.

22 Barley, “Lincolnshire Shopkeepers,” pp. 20–21.

23 Alexander, Retailing, pp. 6, 127–28; Westerfield, Middlemen, pp. 338–39; Everitt, “Marketing,” pp. 534–37, 543; Chartres, Internal Trade, pp. 48–50.