One of the 'Great Twelve' livery companies of the City of London, the Merchant Taylors' Company has been in existence for some seven hundred years. This new history will chart the remarkable story of the Company and its members from its origins until the 1950s, encompassing the lives and achievements of men such as Sir Thomas White (founder of St John's College, Oxford) and the celebrated chronicler, John Stow, as well as the roles played by the Company in the City and beyond in different periods. As well as looking in detail at the internal life of the Company, the book will also focus on a number of important themes in the wider history of London. These include trade and industry, apprenticeship, the impact of religious change, the foundation of schools and other charities, and the government and politics of the City. In doing so, the book will contribute to an understanding of the aims and activities of the livery companies over the centuries, their ability to adapt to changing circumstances and their relevance in a modern world far removed from that in which they were first established. The History of the Merchant Taylors' Company will appeal to a wide range of people interested in the history of London. It is fully illustrated with more than seventy-five black and white and thirty colour illustrations.

Traditionally the Reformation has been viewed as responsible for the rupture of the medieval order and the foundation of modern society. Recently historians have challenged the stereotypical model of cataclysm, and demonstrated that the religion of Tudor England was full of both continuities and adaptations of traditional liturgy, ritual and devoti

As the premier livery company, the Mercers Company in medieval England enjoyed a prominent role in London's governance and exercised much influence over England's overseas trade and political interests. This substantial two-volume set provides a comprehensive edition of the surviving Mercers' accounts from 1347 to 1464, and opens a unique window into the day-to-day workings of one of England's most powerful institutions at the height of its influence. The accounts list income, derived from fees for apprentices and entry fees, from fines (whose cause is usually given, sometimes with many details), from gifts and bequests, from property rents, and from other sources, and then list expenditures: on salaries to priests and chaplains, to the beadle, the rent-collector, and to scribes and scriveners; on alms payments; on quit-rents due on their properties; on repairs to properties; and on a whole host of other costs, differing from year to year, and including court cases, special furnishings for the chapel or Hall, negotiations over trade with Burgundy, transport costs, funeral costs or those for attendance at state occasions, etc. Included also in some years are ordinances, deeds and other material of which they wanted to ensure a record was kept. Beginning with an early account for 1347-48, and the company's ordinances of that year, the accounts preserved form an entire block from 1390 until 1464. The material is arranged in facing-page format, with an accurate edition of the original text mirrored by a translation into modern English. A substantial introduction describes the manuscripts in full detail and explains the accounting system used by the Mercers and the financial vocabulary associated with it. Exhaustive name and subject indexes ensure that the material is easily accessible and this edition will become an essential tool for all studying the social, cultural or economic developments of late-medieval England.

War should be recognised as one of the defining features of life in the England of Henry VIII. Henry fought many wars throughout his reign, and this book explores how this came to dominate English culture and shape attitudes to the king and to national history, with people talking and reading about war, and spending money on weaponry and defence.

Full biographical accounts of the members of St John's College Oxford give much new evidence for academic life of the period. This volume comprises a register of all who were academically of St John's College, Oxford, from its foundation in 1555 until 1660, as well as of a number of men otherwise associated with it. It includes many figures of nationalimportance, among them William Laud, William Juxon, Edmund Campion, and Bulstrode Whitelocke, scholarly translators of the Bible, five future earls, and many Members of Parliament. The biographies, based on a very wide rangeof sources, amplify and correct existing work and identify many previously unknown St John's men. The introduction draws on this new research to provide a richer and more nuanced portrayal of an early-modern Oxford college than any so far attempted - and, since the College was both a Catholic Marian foundation and the institution in which Laud spend much of his life, makes a significant contribution to an understanding of the ramifications of early modernEnglish religious loyalties. The College's involvement in early academic drama in Oxford also receives special attention, as do its many Shakespearean connections (both family and Warwickshire affinity). An extensive Glossary provides essential supplementary guidance to the workings of the early-modern academic world. Andrew Hegarty gained his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford; his research is on the history of European universities in theearly modern period.

Focusing on the economic culture of colonial New England, Heavenly Merchandize views commerce through the eyes of four generations of Boston merchants, drawing upon their personal letters, diaries, business records, and sermon notes to reveal how merchants built a modern form of exchange out of profound transitions in the puritan understanding of discipline, providence, and the meaning of New England. --From publisher's description.