Nightingale, Pamela, 'Capitalists, Crafts and Constitutional Change in Late Fourteenth-Century London', Past & Present 124 (1989), 3-35

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Quick Summary

Tensions between merchant factions in late-fourteenth-century London does not represent a class conflict between rich merchants and poor merchants

  • The election of John de Northampton as mayor of London in 1381 is not evidence of class conflict
  • The merchants of London were not attacked as a class during the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381
  • The location of the ‘staple’ was a primary source of conflict between merchants
Key Conclusion

Nightingale explores a series of political conflicts fought between merchant factions in London, and focuses on the career of John de Northampton who was elected mayor of London in 1381 and re-elected in 1382. Nightingale concludes that Northampton’s election should not be interpreted as evidence of class conflict between between the ‘oligarchy of merchants’ (essentially, the richest merchants) and the ‘commonalty of small retailers’ (lesser merchants). Rather, Nightingale argues that Northampton used opportunism and support from royal government to pursue the ‘narrow, sectional interests’ of the company of drapers of which he was a member (p. 33) and which suffered declining fortunes in the late-fourteenth century.

Content Overview

Nightingale challenges the thesis of Ruth Bird, who interpreted urban conflict in late-fourteenth century London as ‘one between classes rather than guilds’ (p. 4). Nightingale points out that there is no evidence that rebels during the Peasants’ Revolt ‘set out to attach the merchants as a class’. Rather, the actions of the Londoners demonstrate their hostility to external forces – John of Gaunt, the policies of royal government, and alien (foreign) merchants (p. 24). Nightingale also explores Northampton’s effort to unify merchant interests to re-establish the ‘franchise’ in London – a set of legal privileges which included a monopoly over the city’s retail trade and protected London retailers from competition by foreign merchants based in the city (p. 9).

Further Findings

Nightingale argues that the main source of conflict fought between the merchants of London related to the location of the ‘staple’ (p. 33). The staple was a port through which trade was channeled for the purposes of collecting taxation. When the staple was at Calais, it benefited the grocers of London who ‘could make double profits by exporting wool and importing in return the goods of their trade’. If the staple was at Antwerp the mercers and drapers profited more by gaining access to better markets for English cloth but ‘the grocers would be denied the two-way traffic from which they profited most’ (p. 12).

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