Love Medieval Merchants? Readers share 100 books like Medieval Merchants...

This is a masterful work covering the period from the Norman conquest to the Black Death. Sarah Rees Jones is one of my go-to scholars for medieval York, as well as an engaging writer. I particularly appreciate her looking beyond the importance of the royal government in the city’s development to include the strong influence of the Minster and other ecclesiastical institutions in the city as well as the significance of the people of York—merchants and craftspeople.

Check here first if you want a feel for how the city grew, who were the makers and shakers, how the neighborhoods developed, where the influential people lived. Every time I dip into this book I learn something new. With 18 useful maps and an extensive bibliography.

If you want even earlier information than 1068, Palliser begins with Roman York, Eboracum, moves through Scandinavian York, Jorvik, and then joins up with the city as it grows in the middle ages. The introduction discusses why a city grew in this particular spot, the strategic, geologic, and geographic advantage of the Vale of York.

This is the perfect complement to Rees Jones’s book, with more emphasis on the political and military history than hers and extending past the Black Death into the large degree of independent rule gained in two charters granted by King Richard II, then on to the gradual decline of the city in the 16th century.

A classic cited in every title on my list, Goldberg’s book provides a glimpse into the lives of women in the area, both rural and urban. The book grew out of the question, How far was marriage a necessity for medieval women? His focus is on women in the north, with its unique labor issues. To answer the question he examines the economy and how women participated in it, with an emphasis on the changes brought on by the decline in population after the Black Death in the later 14th century.

He covers tradeswomen, servants, prostitutes, farm laborers, with glimpses into the lives they led and how the different groups made choices about marriage. Women in York and Yorkshire chose to enter the workforce, often delaying marriage until it offered a clear advantage, and their economic independence offered them an advantage in making decisions about their future. Gives a… show more.

Why would this 50 year period be so interesting in these two cities? In these years Bristol and York were second only to London in influence and growth within the realm, and as the rising merchant class accrued wealth they used it to make agreements with the crown—to their advantage, of course. With King Edward III it was all about his war with France; with his grandson and successor King Richard II it was about gaining charters that made them more independent of royal interference as well as negotiating their way between the political factions within the nobility.

Richard’s reign was a dangerous time, especially at the end when York merchants chose to loan money to Henry Bolingbroke’s uprising against his cousin the king.  The stakes were high and the personalities larger than life.

Every second book I read must be a history book. As history is not only my vocation it is also my passion. As a historian I always enjoy reading and rereading Cantor’s works on the Middle Ages. This particular book is one of my favorites; it is a really engrossing history and his knowledge is presented in such a clear, informative, and interesting style that makes it very readable for the general public. This book has been extensively revised and gone through numerous editions.  

I love this classic study in which Huizinga vividly portrays the colorful era in which my heroin, Christine de Pizan, lived. Huizinga shows that late medieval society was full of striking contradictions, among them chivalry vs cruelty, courtly love vs vengeance, blissful visions of heaven vs horrific visions of Hell. 

This book appeared just as I was on the point of completing my doctoral thesis. It helped me to understand the importance of examining a queen and/or elite premodern woman’s networks—familial, political, diplomatic, friendship and how these networks underpinned her use of both soft and indeed hard power. When the document trail goes cold in the archives, looking more closely at female networks and how they played out is a great way of overcoming gaps and erasures—both deliberate and accidental. It remains a durable and very influential study and a bonus for non-Ibericists as it is in English.

Though sometimes described as a “textbook,” this authoritative, lucidly written, and altogether reliable synthesis—covering much of Europe—is actually a fine way to learn about the guild masters who dominated pre-industrial labor. Their paradoxical condition comes through clearly: employers and employees, they were at once seamlessly integrated into the social hierarchy and ruthlessly exclusionary toward outsiders. They touted a timeless, divinely sanctioned order, while also being true wheelers and dealers for their own honor and interests, leading to levels of entrepreneurship and inequality amongst their own ranks that would surprise many.

This is a time travel masterpiece that captivated me from start to finish (as did the sequel). I absolutely loved how she weaves historical detail with a gripping, emotional narrative. The way Willis paints 14th-century England during the Black Death felt incredibly real, and I was drawn into the protagonist’s journey as she struggled with the dangers of time travel and the weight of history.

What really hooked me was the balance between the personal stakes of the modern characters vs the villagers and the larger-than-life historical events. I found myself thinking about the book long after finishing it, which, to me, is the mark of a great read. And there were tears! Although in a book about the Black Plague, I should have expected that…

This brilliant piece of scholarship examines thousands of early medieval saints to paint a picture of a particular form of life for medieval women that allowed them in some ways to transcend their gender – to “forget their sex”. Early medieval women could be recognized for their sanctity and social contributions through their commitment to virginity, but also as mothers, nuns, siblings, and friends. Schulenberg is particularly attentive to how gender operated in the saints’ lives and tells marvelous stories about real human beings.