Susan Rose, The Wealth of England: The Medieval Wool Trade and its Political Importance 1100–1600

chances of survival). The fourth chapter discusses the strong regulatory context in which clothiers operated. Much legislation concerned production quality, but from time to time it also sought to provide stimulus and protection for the industry, control workers’ riots and even control clothiers’ activities (as with the prohibition of payment in kind instead of coin which was clearly aimed against the entrepreneur). The last two chapters look at the social milieu of the clothiers. The first considers practical matters of workspace, domestic buildings, investments in land, memorials and bequests. Given that clothiers ranged from small producers to entrepreneurs, this is necessarily a broad social survey. The textile industry and trade, however, promoted social mobility and made some clothiers immensely rich, so the final chapter illustrates this by bringing together available material on four well-known families: Paycockes of Coggeshall, Springs of Lavenham, Winchcombes of Newbury and Stumpes of Malmesbury, who employed many workers, amassed great wealth, built opulent houses and made generous donations to their local churches. There could be quibbles about the wording of a few generalisations (always a problem in the difficult task of summarising a massive amount of research), and there is the occasional typo: those seeking the Marie of Hull will find it on membranes 11 and 12d rather than 17d and 18 of the record (p. 161 n. 15). But these are negligible faults. This is an excellent book, not only for those interested in clothiers, but also for anyone interested in the broad development of English textile history. It is clearly written, readable, free of jargon, solidly evidence-based and well illustrated with maps, tables and graphs. It has a very useful gazetteer of relevant surviving buildings (churches, cottages, houses, inns), a glossary, an upto-date bibliography and a good index. WENDY R. CHILDS University of Leeds