Plague and the fall in population was no doubt a major factor leading to the sharp decline in customs revenues noticeable in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Great Customs on wool, fells and hides were introduced in Scotland at some time after their introduction in England in 1275, although the earliest surviving Scottish customs accounts date from 1327 to 1333. An almost unbroken series of accounts runs from 1361. Once again the Exchequer Roll data are most conveniently accessed via Stevenson’s analysis of the customs accounts in the Atlas.40 As in
England, for about twenty years after the first outbreak of plague the economy boomed, perhaps assisted by the dramatically increased amounts of coin per head of the surviving population. Prices were buoyant, and total crown income from the customs peaked in the 1370s with the introduction of sharply increased rates of duty. Although justified as a contribution to the ransom of David II, this increase parallels the similar increases imposed by Edward III south of the border to finance the wars in France. As a consequence of these sharply increased duties on wool in both England and Scotland the volume of wool exports fell, but cloth production in both countries was stimulated, and cloth exports grew. Overall, however, the shift from wool to cloth in Scotland did not adequately compensate for the reduction in the size of the international post-plague market. In the fifteenth century, total Scottish customs receipts fell to about half their fourteenth-century peak, despite the introduction of new duties on cloth, fish, salt and skins. In the sixteenth century the trend was reversed, total customs income rising almost back to fourteenth-century levels by the 1590s. However, this achievement appears much less impressive when inflation and debasement are taken into account.
The Scottish coinage was equal in weight and fineness to the English sterling until 1367, but from this date the Scottish coinage was repeatedly reduced in metal content so that by the reign of James V the English pound had a value 4.5 to 5 times that of the Scots. This debasement naturally caused serious inflation, so the value of the Scottish sixteenth-century customs was also inflated. However, Scottish later medieval debasement may not always have been economically disadvantageous. Measured reductions in the intrinsic content of the currency may have been an appropriate response to the shortage of coinage metals in later medieval Europe in general, and to the specific shortages of bullion in Scotland in particular.41 In so far as shortage of money depressed prices and inhibited economic activity, debasement could increase the money supply and generate economic growth, albeit at the cost of some inflation. Moreover, the debasement of the Scottish currency was usually fairly moderate and broadly in step with similar measures in Flanders and France. Of course debasement was not always measured. In France the pressure on wartime finances often resulted in periods of very severe and highly damaging debasement. Scotland experienced similar difficulties, most noticeably as a result of the issue of black (i. e., base) money in the 1480s, which severely damaged confidence in the currency and in the crown. But just as money could be too weak, England’s money was usually too strong and too heavily dependent on gold, and this may have contributed significantly to the flat prices characteristic of England’s later medieval recession. Scottish debasement, on the other hand, may have operated like a modern devaluation to promote exports and inhibit imports. (Blanchard has certainly argued that similar debasement in the Baltic benefited the cloth industry of that region, and the same may well have been true for Scotland.42)
However, even if this is true, the effects of debasement certainly distort long-term comparison of the Scottish customs income totals, suggesting that the fifteenth-century decline was more severe than appears at first, and that the sixteenth-century recovery was much less impressive. These monetary effects can be excluded if the volume of exported goods is studied rather than the value of customs paid.43 Since fourteenth-century figures are only available for wool, woolfells and hides, the only items then customed, these are the only commodities that provide a run of comparable figures from the 1320s to the sixteenth century. Customed wool exports fall progressively over the whole period, reflecting a reduction in the size of the late medieval market and the impact of the very heavy customs levies on wool. Some wool was of course diverted to the domestic cloth industry, but the customed cloth exports for which we have figures from the mid-fifteenth century indicate that even the combined cloth and wool exports failed to match the fourteenth-century levels of wool exports alone.44 It is, however, possible that Scottish-made cloth claimed a growing share of the domestic market, for it enjoyed a marked price advantage, and some Scots cloth is known to have been exported without paying custom.45 Nevertheless, it seems clear that the overall size of the Scottish wool and cloth trades certainly fell from the late fourteenth century, reflecting the shrinking of the European market.
Interestingly, however, the export of hides held up much better. It may be that in a shrinking market only the best Scots wool found buyers abroad, but that Scottish hides matched the competition more successfully. For salmon too the Scottish product was of unrivalled quality, but custom returns only survive from the 1420s, and Aberdeen burgesses were exempt from the custom on salmon until the late 1530s, so these records give no real idea of the size of this trade. The Aberdeen records, however, leave no doubt about its importance. From the fifteenth century salmon were usually sold salted and cleaned, and packed in barrels. This process prolonged the ‘shelf-life’ of the fish, permitting Scottish salmon to be shipped to France, the Low Countries, Germany and the Baltic. Merchants were so confident of a ready sale for salmon that this fish became an important part of the credit system in Scot-land.46 However, despite such buoyant demand for salmon, and the steady performance of hides over the whole period, there can be little doubt that exports generally contracted from the last quarter of the fourteenth century in step with what appears to have been a European recession.
While the volume of trade was declining, our knowledge of it improves at this time as a result of the survival of more Scottish sources from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The most important unpublished Scottish medieval source is surely the Aberdeen Council Registers 1398-1414 and 1434-1541, which, together with the Aberdeen Dean of Guild Accounts, cry out for a full electronically searchable edition. Dickinson’s sample publication of a few of the earliest years amply demonstrates the richness of this source, which has been fully exploited for the medieval price data it contains, but otherwise still lies fallow. Elizabeth Gemmill has provided a taste of this material, and shown how vividly it can illustrate the world of the international merchant in late medieval Scotland. Consider for example the extract from the Aberdeen Council Register vol. 16, pp. 64-5, referring to the case brought by William Baudy to the bailies’ court on 18 November 1538 against John Reaucht, burgess.47 Baudy claimed that Reaucht sold him ‘twa barrellis of salmond full reid and sweit sufficient merchand gude of the rychtous bynd of Abirdene’ in January which his wife Elspet Malisone went to inspect. Reaucht opened one barrel for her inspection which was fine, and guaranteed the other was as good. However when Alexander Murray, Baudy’s factor in France, came to sell the salmon, one barrel was found to contain grilse and lax (younger salmon), rather than fully grown fish, making it worth some four francs less. Baudy also claimed that Reaucht owed him a further 40s. Scots for woad sold to him in 1537.
Cases of this sort are full of interest for they illustrate a number of features characteristic of Scottish trade at the time. The role of Baudy’s wife in the business is relevant to the history of women, as is her use of her maiden name, which was normal practice in medieval Scotland.48 The sale of barrelled Aberdeen salmon in France illustrates themes already discussed above, and reference to the standard required size of barrel illustrates the careful regulation of the trade. The outstanding debt on a sale made fifteen months earlier was typical of many medieval credit sales. It seems likely the debt would have run on even longer but for the dispute over salmon.
The Aberdeen records are full of much vivid material of this sort, but the published sources also supply similar insights into the life of the medieval merchant. For example, consider a case brought before the Lords in Council. In 1476, Lowick Lars Porter of Bruges sued James of Duchir for wrongfully withholding ?5 12s. grete (as the usual money of Flanders was customarily described). James appeared before the Lords in Council himself, but Lowick was represented by his procurator, who produced in evidence a written obligation for this sum, signed by James and sealed with his signet. James was ordered to pay and the usual order was sent to distrain his goods, but James had further alienated the court by denying ‘fraudfully and in the presence of the Lords’ his own hand and signet, despite witnesses who testified against him. It was this lie which infuriated the Lords, who ordered the aldermen and bailies of Dundee to take James to the market cross on the next market day at the busiest time, and have an officer strike him through the hand that had written the obligation as an example to others.
This is an interesting tale, since it combines much that is typical and illustrative of the business of international trade in fifteenth-century Scotland with an additional element that raises it out of the ordinary. Flemish and Scottish merchants were regularly involved together in trade, and credit was extended from one party to another almost as a matter of course. The written obligation, which was signed and sealed, testifies to the literacy of the parties; the sum involved was not a large one, and the use of written documents for such modest sums suggests their use was commonplace and widespread. International merchants were completely familiar with the business of foreign exchange, one pound sterling or Flemish being equivalent to about three pounds Scots at this time. It is significant that Lowick felt confident enough to sue in a Scottish court, and through a proxy. But it is the sense of indignation and moral outrage which the court felt that lifts this case out of the ordinary, while the public administration of corporal punishment in the Dundee market square not only humiliated the merchant and set an example to others, but puts us in touch with a rather more robust and violent age.
Yet perhaps the most famous body of evidence for the international trade of Scottish merchants is supplied by Andrew Halyburton’s ledger.49 Halyburton worked as a merchant and factor in the Scottish staple at Middleburg in the 1490s. The ledger supplies a wealth of detail about his activities, including lists of individual transactions with other named merchants, written obligations recording outstanding debts which Halyburton collected on behalf of his principals, and detailed accounts of cash in hand in silver and gold including ducats, French crowns, Rhine guilders, Andrews, Utrechts, Hungarian florins, louis, rose nobles, Harry nobles, Flemish nobles, angels, riders and saluts. Moreover, the ledger also provides early evidence of the use of double-entry book-keeping and Indo-Arabic numerals, which both testify that the Scots were fully up to date with mainstream developments in European merchant practice.
Nevertheless, although the medieval Scots were thoroughly integrated into the mainstream of European commerce, historians of medieval Scotland have difficulty joining the major historical debates of the day because of lack of data. Where the primary evidence is so tenuous, it seems unwise to build prescriptive theories, so Scotland has largely escaped exclusively monetarist or demographic explanations of its economic history.
Similarly, whilst the question of urban decline has generated much controversy for England, it has not been much discussed in Scotland for want of adequate quantitative data. However, the Atlas does essay an outline of provincial decline on the basis of the customs returns, which suggests that Edinburgh emerged as pre-eminent in the later middle ages, possibly at the expense of other burghs, just as London became dominant at the same time in the English economy. In Scotland this process was intensified by the loss of Berwick, which had been Scotland’s pre-eminent trading burgh, and was also Robert I’s preferred capital. However, the places where royal charters were issued show that Edinburgh was well established as an administrative capital throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, so it was well placed to take advantage of the opportunities created by the loss of Berwick.50 From the later fourteenth century Perth and Stirling enjoyed spells of royal favour, but Edinburgh was firmly established as the administrative capital and continued to grow as a trading centre. In the harsher economic climate ushered in from the end of the fourteenth century, when money and markets became increasingly difficult to find, the remoter and smaller centres seem to have suffered more, while the capital benefited from its concentration of wealth, credit and political influence. Edinburgh may even have begun to erode Aberdeen’s dominance of the salmon trade, because her pre-eminence in the control of cloth, dye-stuffs, credit and the carrying-trade created a critical mass of business which overshadowed her competitors.51 In contrast Perth’s trading position was eroded by the growth of Dundee. Aberdeen remained important as a centre of international and local trade throughout the later middle ages, but could not match the evidence of growth in the fifteenth century.
Nevertheless, much attention has focused on other aspects of Scottish towns. Early work on this topic concentrated on the apparent clash between the rival interests of merchants on the one hand and craftsmen on the other. It even appeared as if the relative strengths of these conflicting groups might have varied from town to town. More recently, however, it has been convincingly suggested that the apparent prominence of one group or another may have reflected the accidental and partial survival of the sources. Craft and merchant influence varied from time to time and place to place, and local legislation that was put in place to deal with a particular problem cannot be read as a general and universally applicable law. In any case, the distinction between craftsman and merchant may often have been a difficult one to make in practice; dyers, for example, required extensive trading contacts and capital.52
Sources relating to Scottish towns have also in recent years begun to yield a body of previously neglected evidence for the role of women. Although some have followed the trail of the better-documented lives of individual aristocrats,53 among ordinary Scots women it is above all the traders who figure in the documents.54 Whether as the trading wives of merchant husbands (see above), as much poorer cake-bakers, or above all as brewsters, women have emerged from the history of the medieval Scottish town as soon as scholars began to look for them.
The growing interest in women’s history also helps to draw attention to the importance of domestic consumption. Scottish economic historians have shown a tendency to concentrate on exports, customs and tax returns, but it needs to be recognized that it was domestic consumption that dominated any medieval GDP. Even when Britain played its nineteenth-century role as the workshop of the world, its exports still only accounted for about 20 per cent of GDP, and in the middle ages it was likely to have been much less. By far the larger part of Scotland’s economic life in the middle ages was concerned with the mundane but crucial business of feeding its population, and here the role of women was central. It has, for example, been calculated that the humble business of brewing, which women dominated, may have generated some 8,000 gallons of ale a week in Aberdeen around 1500, worth about ?300 Scots. The Edinburgh trade may have been three times as large.55 The manufacture of bread in urban Scotland seems to have been controlled by men, but the more lowly role of oatcake-making was a female pursuit, and women were sometimes granted a significant part in the administration of the fair price in the market for victuals, which probably recognizes their importance as purchasers there.56
The importance of small-scale production is closely related to the role of women in the household, but also to a renewed awareness of the peasant contribution to the medieval Scottish economy. Here again, the development is paralleled by similar shifts of opinion among English scholars. Current work in England increasingly suggests that peasant levels of productivity matched and often exceeded those achieved by demesne production, and it seems very likely that the same was true in Scotland. Bridbury has reminded us of Eileen Power’s observation that the known volume of English wool exports, compared with the likely level of total demesne wool production, implied a very large amount of peasant wool production for export.57 Stevenson and Lynch, writing in the came to the same conclusion by comparing the
Known production of the monastic flock at Melrose - the largest in the country - with customed exports, suggesting that ‘the vast bulk of Scottish wool exports came from the flocks of peasant farmers’.58 Grant has also pointed out that marked fluctuations in the levels of fourteenth-century Scottish wool exports imply a very significant amount of domestic clothweaving when the wool was not sold abroad.59 Once again it is evident that the silence of the sources does not indicate an absence of activity. In the fifteenth century it is clear that Scottish cloth was very significantly cheaper than the better-quality output of England and Flanders, allowing it not only to assume a larger share of the Scots market, but even to begin to export significantly especially through Edinburgh, Dundee and Kirkcudbright. Largely domestic production is also apparent in Aberdeen.60 The cumulative output of thousands of unknown men and women contributed far more to the Scottish economy than the surviving documents reveal.
World History
