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Money Lending on the Periphery of London, 1300–1600*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Marjorie K. McIntosh
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Money lending was an essential part of the local and regional economies of England during the later medieval and Tudor periods. Cash was required for purchases of goods, animals, or land, payment of rents and taxes, and the wages of hired workers. People who lacked money to cover these expenses between 1300 and 1600 commonly resorted to borrowing. Borrowing thus might be undertaken for purposes of either consumption or investment. Further, during much of the later medieval period and occasionally during the Tudor years specie was in short supply. Even a man of some wealth might find himself without sufficient currency on hand to cover his immediate needs. In nearly all cases late medieval and Tudor loans were for short terms, for periods ranging from a few weeks to six months. Interest was normally charged on local loans, although the amount was concealed due to the Church's prohibition of usury.

Money lending was particularly important within commercialized areas—the major cities and their economic hinterlands. The region lying within a radius of about twenty miles from London formed one of the most thoroughly commercialized parts of the country. By the fourteenth century people living on the periphery of the capital were deeply involved in furnishing consumer goods to London. Agriculture among middling and larger tenants focused upon market sale; craftsmen sometimes sold to citizens as well as to their own neighbors. Late medieval London was surrounded by a ring of at least thirty-two market towns located within twenty miles of the capital. These markets served to channel grain, animals, fuel, and craft items into the city while also functioning as centers of trade for their own areas. In the market communities around London the extent of trade was unusually large and the economic sophistication of local people unusually high. Cash was the medium of accounting for all transactions and the medium of exchange for the great majority of them. It is not surprising that money lending played an especially significant role in this area.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , Winter 1988 , pp. 557 - 571
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1988

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Footnotes

*

This paper was originally prepared for the October 1986 joint meeting of the Western and North American Conferences on British Studies in Denver. It has profited from the suggestions of Elaine Clark, Norman Jones, and Richard Wunderli.

References

1 Active markets have been recorded in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the following places: in Essex, Aveley, Barking, Brentwood, Epping, Romford, and Waltham Abbey (Waltham Holy Cross); in Middlesex, Brentford, Edgware, Enfield, Staines, Uxbridge, and Westminster; in Hertfordshire, (High) Barnett, Hatfield, Hoddesden, Rickmansworth, St. Albans, and Watford; in Surrey, Chertsey, Croydon, Kingston, Reigate, and Southwark; in Kent, Bromley, Dartford, Northfleet, Orpington, St. Mary Cray, Sevenoaks, Westerham, and Woolwich; and in Buckinghamshire, Coinbrook. Other villages may have had smaller, less formal markets. (Information on markets was derived from the Victoria County History volumes and other county and local studies.)

2 Gilchrist, John T., The Church and Economic Activity in the Middle Ages (London, 1969)Google Scholar, Helmholz, R. H., “Usury and the Medieval English Church Courts,” Speculum 61 (1986): 364–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Pugh, Ralph B., “Some Mediaeval Money Lenders,” Speculum 43 (1986): 274–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Postan, M. M., “Credit in Medieval Trade,” in Essays in Economic History, ed. Carus-Wilson, E. M., 2 vols. (London, 1954), 1:234–61Google Scholar; see also Postan, M. M., “Private Financial Instruments in Medieval England,” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial– und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 23 (1930): 26–75Google Scholar.

3 Clark, Elaine, “Debt Litigation in a Late Medieval English Vill,” in Pathways to Medieval Peasants, ed. Raftis, J. A. (Toronto, 1981), pp. 247–79Google Scholar.

4 Tawney, R. H., introduction to Wilson, Thomas, A Discourse upon Usury (London, 1925)Google Scholar.

5 Ibid., p. 21.

6 Ibid., p. 22.

7 Aston, Robert, “Usury and High Finance in the Age of Shakespeare and Jonson,” Renaissance and Modern Studies 4 (1960): 14–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Shipley, N. R., “Thomas Sutton: Tudor-Stuart Moneylender,” Business History Review 50 (1976): 456–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Miskimin, H. A., “The Impact of Credit on Sixteenth-Century English Industry,” in The Dawn of Modern Banking (New Haven, 1979), pp. 275–89Google Scholar, and Holderness, B. A., “The Clergy as Money-Lenders in England, 1550–1700,” in Princes and Paupers in the English Church, 1500–1800, eds. O'Day, Rosemary and Heal, Felicity (Leicester, 1981), pp. 195–209Google Scholar. Holderness's, B. A. paper, “Widows in Pre-lndustrial Society: An Essay upon Their Economic Functions,” in Land, Kinship and Life-Cycle, ed. Smith, R. M. (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 423–42Google Scholar, contains a little material on the sixteenth century. Norman Jones of Utah State University is currently preparing a detailed study of the theory and prosecution of usury during the Tudor period, to be published by the Oxford University Press.

8 For Havering's medieval economic history, see McIntosh, Marjorie K., Autonomy and Community: The Royal Manor of Havering, 1200–1500 (Cambridge, 1986), esp. chs. 3, 4, and 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Tudor period will be considered in my forthcoming study, The Liberty of Havering-atte-Bower, 1500–1620, ch. 3.

9 See note 67 below.

10 For a fuller discussion, see McIntosh, Autonomy and Community, chs. 3–4.

11 The same pattern was found in the small market town of Writtle, Essex, which lay 16 miles northeast of Romford just off the London-Chelmsford road. Only 8.8% of all debts recorded in the Writtle manor court rolls between 1382 and 1490 derived from loans of cash. The rest came from payments due for purchase of goods (46.4%), labor and services (23.7%), leases (12.1%), and other miscellaneous obligations (8.9%). See Clark, “Debt Litigation,” Table 8.5.

12 Because Havering was part of the ancient demesne, its court was not subject to the normal limitation that manor courts could not hear suits involving sums of more than 40s.

13 The Havering manor court rolls survive in interrupted series from 1382 into the early seventeenth century, divided between the Essex Record Office in Chelmsford (ERO D/DU 102) and the Public Record Office in London (PRO SC 2/172–3). for a listing of the rolls by date, see McIntosh, Autonomy and Community, App. III, and Liberty of Havering-atte-Bower. The Havering court heard between 20 and 100 pleas of debt in most years between the 1380s and the early 1460s and 2 to 8 pleas of covenant (McIntosh, Autonomy and Community, Table 10). Because detailed information about the issues in a suit is provided in the rolls only if the case reached the pleading state (many were settled or withdrawn before this point), a quantitative analysis of their contents cannot be attempted.

14 ERO D/DU 102/4, mm. 11 and 5, D/DU 102/45, m. 1, and D/DU 102/47, m. 2d. More specific information is available for Writtle. There 57% of all actions for debt between 1382 and 1490 which stemmed from loans concerned sums of no more than 5s. Another 21% of the loans were for 6–10s., 18% were for 11–40s., and four percent were for 41s.-£4 (Clark, “Debt Litigation,” Table 8.7).

15 PRO SC 2/172/32, m. 15.

16 ERO D/DSgM31 and D/DHt M190.

17 ERO D/DU 102/4, passim.

18 Maddicott, J. R., “The English Peasantry and the Demands of the Crown, 1294–1341,” Past and Present Supplement #1 (Cambridge, 1975)Google Scholar.

19 ERO D/DU 102/2, m. 2, and PRO SC 2/172/28, m. 4.

20 ERO D/DU 102/6, m. 13d.

21 PRO SC 2/172/27, m. 14d, ERO D/DU 102/7, m. 3, D/DU 102/10, m. 3d, and PRO SC 2/172/28, mm. 12 and 23. Cf., for the Tudor period, Holderness, “The Clergy as Money-Lenders.”

22 See, for Havering, McIntosh, Marjorie K., “The Cooke Family of Gidea Hall, Essex, 1460–1661” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1967), p, 228Google Scholar; the 1571 act is 13 Eliz., c. 8.

23 E. g., 6s. 8d. in 1426 (ERO D/DU 102/15), 3s. 3d. in 1448 (D/DU 102/37, m. 4d), and 33s. 4d. in 1454 (D/DU 102/45, m. 1).

24 R. H. Helmholz has calculated the annual rate of interest charged on 28 loans brought before the church courts as usurious between 1373 and 1515 (“Usury and the Church Courts,” pp. 373–74). The mean rate of interest when converted to a 12 month period was 16 ⅔%; 16 out of 22 loans for which rates are provided fell between 10% and 35%. The term of these loans is not given, but their small size (amounts between 10s. and 20s. were the most common in his study) suggests that the church courts were dealing with the same kind of loans described in this article. If Helmholz's loans were for terms of no more than six months, his range of interest rates would be consistent with the idea of approximately 10% regardless of length of the precise term.

25 ERO D/DU 102/6, m. 11, and D/DU 102/30, m. 3.

26 PRO SC 2/172/28, m. 10.

27 Simpson, A. W. B., A History of the Common Law of Contract (Oxford, 1975), pp. 88–117Google Scholar.

28 ERO D/DU 102/4, m. 5, and D/DU 102/9, m. 4.

29 Calendar of the Close Rolls, 1307–13, p. 246, 1313–18, p. 447, 1318–23, p. 329, 1323–27, p. 325, 1327–30, p. 539 (bis), 1330–33, p. 343, 1337–39, p. 382, 1339–41, pp. 240, 267, and 477, 1343–46, p. 635, 1346–49, p. 280, and 1354–60, pp. 319, 320, and 627.

30 For consolidation of landholding in this period, see McIntosh, Marjorie K., “Land, Tenure, and Population in the Royal Manor of Havering, Essex, 1251–1352/3,” Economic History Review. 2nd ser., 33 (1980): 17–31Google Scholar.

31 Robert William and John Annore: McIntosh, Autonomy and Community, ch. 2.

32 Beveridge, W., “Westminster Wages in the Manorial Era,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 3 (1955): 18–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Brown, E. H. Phelps and Hopkins, S. V., “Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consumables, Compared with Builders' Wage-Rates,” Economica, n.s. 23 (1956): 296–314CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Prestwich, Michael, “Currency and the Economy of Early fourteenth Century England,” in Edwardian Monetary Affairs (1279–1344), ed. Maynew, N. J. (British Archaeological Reports, vol. 36, Oxford, 1977). pp. 45–58Google Scholar.

33 For Havering, see McIntosh, Autonomy and Community, ch. 6, and Liberty of Havering-atte-Bower, ch. 3; for a discussion of this period on the national level, see, idem. “Local Change and Community Control in England, 1465–1500,” Huntington Library Quarterly 49 (1986): 219–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 For the wider context, see Clark, Peter, The English Alehouse (London, 1983)Google Scholar.

35 Demographic change is considered in McIntosh, “Local Change and Community Control.”

36 ERO D/DU 102/56, m. 1d, and PRO SC 2/172/36, m. 1.

37 PRO SC 2/172/33, m. 6, SC 2/173/1, m. 2–2d, and ERO D/AER 7, 39.

38 ERO D/DU 102/57, m. 10, and, for some slightly earlier examples, D/DU 102/44–5, passim. This practice was found in Writtle, too (Clark, “Debt Litigation”).

39 Norman Jones made this suggestion (personal communication).

40 Although pawnbroking is not mentioned in Havering records before 1460, Elaine Clark has found references to it in private suits in manorial courts in Norfolk as early as the 1290s (personal communication).

41 PRO SC 2/172/37, mm. 2 and 16.

42 PRO C 1/543/3, C 1/600/21, C 244/166/35, and ERO D/AER 5, 212. At one point Osborne was accused of slander for charging another man with theft and was imprisoned in Romford jail (see the first two references above).

43 PRO C 1/811/17.

44 Fbr scrivners, see, Tawney's introduction to Wilson's, Discourse on Usury, pp. 96–101Google Scholar. For Richard Mondes (a. k. a. Monnes or Mundes), see London Guildhall Library MS 9171/13, fols. 2v–3v, Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient Deeds in the Public Record Office, 6 vols. (London, 1890–1915), 6:468Google Scholar, PRO C 1/1146/43–9, PRO C 2/Elizabeth F6/28, PRO C 2/Elizabeth F9/62, and PRO SC 2/173/3, m. 12d.

45 ERO D/AEW 1, 212.

46 3 Hen. VII, c. 5, 11 Hen. VII, c. 8, and 37 Hen. VIII, c. 9. These measures are discussed by Tawney in his introduction to Wilson's, Discourse upon Usury, pp. 130–31Google Scholar. For below, see 5 and 6 Edward VI, c. 20, 13 Eliz., c. 8, and Tawney's introduction, pp. 132–34 and 155–69.

47 Nor was it apparently receptive to charges of usury. No suits heard by the Havering court between 1383 and 1600 mention a usurious loan. Outside legal bodies, including the church courts, were rarely active within Havering; the manor court heard certain cases which would normally have been viewed as within the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts (McIntosh, , Autonomy and Community, pp. 66–72 and 258–59Google Scholar). In view of the amount of lending at interest within Havering, it seems likely that at least a few desperate borrowers would have charged their creditors with usury if the court had been responsive to this allegation.

48 PRO C 1/64/948. This case may be an exception to the general pattern prior to 1485 whereby the royal courts declined to exercise any jurisdiction over usury cases involving living lenders (Helmholz, “Usury and the Medieval English Church Courts”).

49 Helmholz, “Usury and the Medieval Church Courts.”

50 McIntosh, Liberty of Havering-atte-Bower, ch. 3.

51 McIntosh, , “Cooke Family of Gidea Hall,” pp. 201–18Google Scholar.

52 PRO C 54/882 dorse, C 54/893 dorse, and C 54/914 dorse, all Christmas-Cooke. For below, see ERO D/DSa 68.

53 ERO D/AER 17, 254.

54 ERO D/AEA 5, fol. 63v.

55 ERO D/AEW 15, 279.

56 ERO D/AEA 4, fols. 16r and 27r–v.

57 PRO REQ 2/285/35.

58 In 1574 the Havering court reported that a London yeoman sold six Flemish angels in Romford market for 10s. apiece, whereas in fact they were then worth only 7s. 6d. each; a Havering gentleman left £10 to his cousin in his 1612 will, to be paid to her in gold “after the rate and price it went for before the late proclamation made for … the price of gold” (ERO D/DU 102/74, m. 5, and PRO PROB 11/119, 55).

59 ERO D/DM T46.

60 ERO D/AER 14, 171, and ERO D/DU 102/75, Nicholas Cotton and John Legat, both Romford yeomen, from Francis Rame.

61 ERO D/AER 5, 185, and D/AER 19, 40.

62 ERO Q/SR 114/65.

63 McIntosh, Marjorie K., “The Fall of a Tudor Gentle Family: The Cookes of Gidea Hall, Essex, 1579–1629,” Huntington Library Quarterly 41 (1978): 279–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 Detailed information and references are provided in ibid.

65 In some settings, however, churchmen continued to lend in the Tudor period. See Holderness, “The Clergy as Money-Lenders.”

66 In his introduction to Wilson's A Discourse upon Usury.

67 Articles in the original debate initiated by Brenner's, paper, “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe,” appeared in vols. 70, 78–80, 85, and 97 of Past and PresentGoogle Scholar. The most important of these have been republished in The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe, ed. Aston, T. H. and Philpin, C. H. E. (Cambridge, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.