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Medieval business networks: St Mary's guild and the borough court in later medieval Nottingham

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2012

RICHARD GODDARD
RICHARD GODDARD*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
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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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 3 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

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36 NA CA 1294, fol. 10, CA 1296, fol. 17.

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40 NA CA 1296, fol. 22, CA 1297, fol. 21d.

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43 NA CA 1279, fol. 3d.

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45 Calendar of Close Rolls (CCR), 1385–89, 400.

46 CCR, 1392–96, 33–40.

47 NA CA 1274–9. The research was aided by Trevor Fould's unpublished, and somewhat informal, calendar of the Nottingham court rolls (www.nottingham.ac.uk/ucn/onlinesources/index.aspx).

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53 NA CA 1276A, fol. 12.

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66 NA CA 1276A, fol. 6d.

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1 Iste Rotulus continet in se nomina confratrum de Gyld’ Beate Marie in ecclesia eiusdem videlicet in festo Sancti Michaelis Anno Domini Millesimo CCCmo septuagesimo primo.

2 Forum Sabat’, the town's principal market.

3 Later corrupted to ‘Gridlesmithgate’ and then changed to ‘Pelham Street’.

4 Henry Mon is listed in the ‘Names of the Dead’ below.

5 These names are repeated under ‘Pavyment’ below.

6 Via Carnific’, later corrupted to ‘Fleshhewergate’ and then ‘Fletcher Gate’.

7 Ad Finem Pontem, the road leading from the Leen Bridge in Narrow Marsh.

8 In Marisc’, probably both Broad and Narrow Marsh.

9 anocharta.

10 Pavyment’, presumably including, High, Low and Middle Pavements.

11 Paroch’ Beati Pedri et Beati Nich’.

12 Lorimere.

13 Forinsc’, meaning those not holding land in the town.

14 The first two entries under ‘Forinsc’ are added in a later hand.

15 Novo Loco.

16 Adlevand de isto rotulo’ xxvi s. xi d., written in a different hand.

17 Pyxidis, a ‘little box or casket’, possibly to keep the money in.

18 Nomina Mortuorum.

19 The final two names are added in a later hand.