Description
As the premier livery company, the Mercers Company in medieval England enjoyed a prominent role in London''s governance and exercised much influence over England''s overseas trade and political interests. This substantial two-volume set provides a comprehensive edition of the surviving Mercers'' accounts from 1347 to 1464, and opens a unique window into the day-to-day workings of one of England''s most powerful institutions at the height of its influence. The accounts list income, derived from fees for apprentices and entry fees, from fines (whose cause is usually given, sometimes with many details), from gifts and bequests, from property rents, and from other sources, and then list expenditures: on salaries to priests and chaplains, to the beadle, the rent-collector, and to scribes and scriveners; on alms payments; on quit-rents due on their properties; on repairs to properties; and on a whole host of other costs, differing from year to year, and including court cases, special furn
