London Capitalists and the Decline of Southampton in the Early Tudor Period
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3390392 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Alwyn A Ruddock (corresponding author), Alwyn Ruddock, Alwn Ruddock (Birkbeck, University of London, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1949 |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 137 |
| Publication date | 1949-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Economic History Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2590103 |
| OpenAlex | W4244140540 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
A N outstanding feature of the economic changes of the sixteenth century is the rapid decay of some of the chief provincial towns in England. Southampton was one of the principal seaports affected in this way, declining in less than a hundred years from one of the most important centres of the country's medieval trade to the status of a decayed port in Elizabethan England. This decline has been attributed chiefly to the disappearance of the galleys and carracks from the Mediterranean which had made it their chief resort in England in the fifteenth century. Yet this simple and apparently obvious explanation is insufficient to account for such a fundamental change. The disappearance of these Italian vessels was undoubtedly a heavy blow to Southampton. The Florentine state galleys disappeared after I478, its Genoese carrack trade suffered a catastrophic decline in the reign of Edward IV, and finally wars in Italy brought a sudden cessation of the annual visits of the Venetian fleet in I509. Yet in spite of this loss there were many indications in the early Tudor period that Southampton would still remain a thriving provincial port. Its magnificent harbour was not threatened by silting-the cause of the decline of Sandwich and other ports about this time. Moreover, various other branches of the town's overseas trade seemed about to embark on a great expansion at the end of the fifteenth century. The wine trade with Gascony, badly interrupted by the loss of Bordeaux, revived again in the reign of Edward IV. Trade with Spain received a great boost by the Treaty of Medina del Campo, and the union of Spain and the Low Countries brought increasing numbers of Spanish ships to Southampton on their way up the Channel to Antwerp. The town's tin trade increased enormously after the erection of a staple of metals at Southampton in I492.1 Moreover, new lines of trade began to develop in the port in the early Tudor period. English shipping made regular voyages to Italy and the Levant, and shared the sweet wine trade with Venetian and Ragusan wine ships still coming to Southampton. The Channel Islands trade was attracted from Poole by generous trading concessions in I 5 I 5.2 The Breton mercantile marine reached its zenith in the 2o's and 30's of the sixteenth century, and a flourishing trade developed between Southampton and the Breton ports. A group of enterprising local merchants even maintained voyages to
Aesthetics · Art · Economic history · Economics · Keynesian economics · Period (music) · Political science · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Scottish History and National Identity
Alwyn Ruddock
Italian presence in tin glazed ceramics of Spanish America
The French-Speaking Reformed Community and Their Church in Southampton, 1567-c. 1620
Household size and structure in early‐Stuart Cambridge
The Incorporation of Boroughs, 1540–1558
Southampton’s sixteenth-century illicit trade
Money and Credit in the Fifteenth Century
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,2 |
| Citation span | 1976 - 2015 (40) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |