When Medieval Merchants Failed: Richard Arnold, his Neighbours and the Social Networks of Trade in Late Fifteenth-Century London
Dr Justin Colson
Justin Colson is senior lecturer in Urban and Digital History at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. He works on many aspects of medieval and early modern social and economic history with a focus on everyday life in cities, especially London. He also specialises in historical mapping and spatial analysis, and currently manages the Layers of London project.
About the event
We are used to hearing about the medieval cloth industry and English cloth exports through the illustrious stories of successful men and families: the Mayors and Aldermen of the City of London; the Paycockes of Coggeshall; and the Springs of Lavenham. But these were just the most prominent players amongst a much broader field, and for every success story, there were inevitably many failures. An unusual early printed book gives a unique insight into the life and career of one late medieval merchant, Richard Arnold of London Bridge, who faced misfortune, and frequently disaster, in every aspect of his work. From pirates seizing his ship, to uncooperative landlords, pub brawls in Antwerp, and corrupt Archdeacons, his writings reveal that everything seemed to go wrong for him. As is often the way in history, it is precisely these failures which give us a much deeper insight into his life, and especially into the ways in which trade actually worked in the medieval world.