Cogs, Cargoes and Commerce

Using a wide range of new or previously ignored sources, the authors of this volume challenge a number of long-established patterns of thought in medieval historiography. Focussing attention firmly on the basic commodities of everyday life, rather than on objects of more or less conspicuous consumption, the articles shed light on new and important aspects of the expansion of trade in northern Europe during the two and a half centuries between 1150 and 1400. Eight of them deal with trade, transport and volumes of one or more of the most important bulk commodities of the period, and the ninth is dedicated to the development of the most important means of transport, the cargo ship.