I was reading Progress and Problems in Medieval England, ed.
Britnell/Hatcher that
clarified a number of points in my my own history of medieval Carpenters.
Firstly
the London Carpenters of the early 1300s who owned shops in Cheapside were
actually
in the luxury trade. People with those shops sold to the aristocrats from
Westminster. Also
the pepperer/grocers of that time were in complete control of wool exports.
William and Roger carpenter were surely wool exporters and importers of
various goods
including luxery items.
A basic point is you must import something to pay for the something you
export.
Another point made is that the population of England by the mid 1300s was
about twice
what is was in the early 1500s. This is hard to believe, however the
Carpenter Data I presented
underlines this. Plague after plague dimininished the number of Carpenters
from
the 1300s to the 1500s. From 1250 to 1350 there are many references to
Carpenters
in English history, but fewer after 1350. The Town Clerk and the Bishop were
high profile
Carpenters, but the overall number of the family had halved. Only in the
early 1500s the Carpenters in Wilts
and Hereford/ Gloucester began to increase.
BC