The Mercery of London: Trade, Goods, and People, 1130-1578 by Anne F. SuttonReview by: John OldlandThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Summer, 2007), pp. 471-472Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20478382 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 21:49

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

The Sixteenth Century Journal is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to TheSixteenth Century Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:49:16 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Book Reviews 471

The Mercery of London: Trade, Goods, and People, 1130-1578. Anne F. Sutton. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. xvii + 670 pp. $144.95. ISBN 0-7546-5331-5.

REVIEWED BY: John Oldland, Bishop's University, Lennoxville, Quebec

Although a late medieval historian, Anne Sutton has thankfully taken the Mercers' story to a logical stopping point, 1578, by which time mercers had ceased to be significant participants in the mercery trade. Sutton has already written extensively on the origins of the company, its linen trade, its success as the dominant force in the merchant adventurers' com pany, and the mercers' changing business interests in the fifteenth century. But not until now had she written on the sixteenth century. Her chapters on the company at the height of its powers, its extraordinary wealth and influence in the early Tudor period, how it handled the politics of the Reformation, and its decline after 1550 are among the best chapters in the book.

Some who are unfamiliar with Sutton's work but know that she spent most of her career as the Mercers' archivist, might be forgiven if they had expected this book to have been a narrow, traditional company history. But, as her title conveys, this is firstly a discussion of the mercers' business activities and how they evolved as well as the story of the company's growth and relationships. This is an ambitious undertaking, as anyone who has trudged through company records knows, since they only inadvertently yield information about how

members earned their living. To find out what was really going on in their business lives Sut ton had to ferret out information from an astonishing array of sources. That she found out so much about the mercers' and their wives' artisan activities is truly a feat of scholarship. But this book is more than an economic history, since it analyzes the life of individual mercers as they contributed to the social, religious, and political life of the city. Chapters on the refor

mation and the management of their charitable activities, for example, are important addi tions to our knowledge of the intellectual life of sixteenth-century London.

By 1485 the Mercers had become the most powerful, wealthy, and aristocratic London company through their dominance of the Merchant Adventurers and the rapidly growing cloth trade with Antwerp. Their fifteenth-century success led them to a fateful decision. They would remain a small, highly selective, exclusive company that concentrated on over seas trade, particularly the export of woollen cloth, and the wholesaling of imported mercery goods: linen, fustian, and silks. They turned their backs on mercery manufacturing, which the haberdashers largely took over, and began to look down upon the retail trade, especially

when it entailed hawking goods at the provincial fairs. The Mercers became the victims of their own success. So profitable was the cloth trade

that not only did the mercers forgo the mercery retail trade but they began to disregard the wholesale trade in linen and silks which was, in the early sixteenth-century, less profitable than overseas trade. Meanwhile, the lowering of the barriers of entry to the Merchant Adventurers company, as the cloth trade expanded, allowed more merchants from other companies to participate in overseas trade. By the 1560s many mercers were now thinking of themselves primarily as merchant adventurers and only secondly as mercers. The haber dashers had taken over the sale of small merceries in the fifteenth century and they, together with the merchant taylors, clothworkers, and many other up-and-coming entrepreneurs, were happy to take over the domestic distribution of linens, fustians, and silks.

The Mercers' difficulties increased after 1550 when the cloth trade stalled, and its prof itability was threatened. The most remunerative economic opportunities began to shift from overseas to domestic trade. The retail trade of luxury goods was growing rapidly as the pop ulation expanded, led by London's phenomenal growth both in numbers and as a center of

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:49:16 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

472 Sixteenth Century Journal XXXVIII/2 (2007)

conspicuous consumption. While on the surface the mercers were still an exceedingly rich company with large endowments, high rental incomes, some of the city's leading and richest citizens such as Sir Thomas Gresham, and all the panoply of success as reflected in their char itable activities and imposing hail and chapel, the company's economic base was crumbling. Entrepreneurial zeal was slipping from the mercers' hands.

As Sutton meticulously dissects the situation, the mercers find that their fortunes sud denly reverse. The cloth trade becomes concentrated among just a few of its richest mer chants, who have now invested in large properties outside the city where they reside. They become less involved in the company as it becomes more irrelevant to their lives, and they become reluctant to take up its obligations of leadership. The administration of the com pany's far-flung holdings weakens, and the company is forced to use some of its patrimony to pay current bills, because, unlike other companies, there is no quarterage levied to finance ongoing expenses. As there were no financial obligations it became difficult to force mem bers even to turn up to meetings. The lesser members were now forced out of linen and silk retailing because their richer brethren were no longer importing these goods. While other companies were rapidly expanding their memberships, the Mercers held on to the prestige of exclusivity although the depth of their members' wealth was no longer there to support their growing financial obligations.

This is a deeply researched business and guild history to which all students of sixteenth century English economic history must refer. Sutton has a broad understanding of how the early modern business system worked and has built a platform of knowledge upon which many others can build. She must have realized that her book would become a key reference work, as scholars will find it particularly easy to use by leafing through her seventy-six-page index.

Anthony Munday and the Catholics, 1560-1633. Donna B. Hamilton. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. xxvi + 268 pp. $94.95. ISBN 0-7546-0607-4.

REVIEWED BY: Robert E. Scully, SJ., Le Moyne College

Anthony Munday was an English writer of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth cen turies who, in spite of numerous works over a career of more than half a century, has gener ally been considered to be of secondary importance, especially in comparison to his many luminous contemporaries, from Sidney to Spenser to Shakespeare. He has also usually been seen as exhibiting pro-Protestant, if not profoundly anti-Catholic, sensibilities. Donna Hamilton has written an intriguing revisionist account of Munday, focusing not on bio graphical details but rather on his literary output, which was remarkably extensive and var ied. He wrote and translated works of poetry, drama, and history, as well as political and religious tracts. By the time of Munday's first publications in 1577, the Elizabethan religious settlement had been operative for almost two decades and English Catholicism was seem ingly in retreat. To counteract this, the mission of the seminary priests had commenced in 1574, and the Jesuits would soon back this up with their own mission in 1580. These attempts-combined with a series of events from the late 1560s onward, including the Northern Rebellion and the papal excommunication of Queen Elizabeth-intensified the political and religious tensions in England and elsewhere. There was an increase in anti Catholic rhetoric and action by the government and by many who were part of, or desired to be part of, the political, literary, and cultural establishment. This was the locus and moti vation for Munday, at least according to most observers, whether Protestant or Catholic.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.21 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:49:16 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions