Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This dataset is derived from a research project entitled 'The Economic, Political, and Social Influences on Levels of Credit in Late Medieval England'. The project's primary aim was to create a database which would enable the statistical analyses of medieval credit, and thereby show the principles on which credit worked, and to what degree it was subject to economic, political and social influences; such as high mortality, warfare, taxation and shortages of coin. As a secondary goal, the project sought to explore what records of credit reveal about the changing distribution of wealth and economic activity in England between c. 1280 and 1530.

Main Topics:

The Class C.131 Extents on Debt consist of writs sent by the chancery to sheriffs to enforce two separate types of recorded debt; namely, from c. 1310 (with two surviving records from 1284- 1309), those recorded on the dorse of the Close Rolls and, from 1353, those recorded under the Statute of the Staple. The writs include the names of debtors and creditors, usually their place of residence, and the date when the debt was registered, the date when payment was due and the date of enforcement. The sheriffs record their execution of the writs (or the reasons for their failure to do so) on the dorse, and those successfully executed have attached Extents of the debtor's property. These provide information about the social status and economic interests of the defaulting debtors, and the degree to which their debts were secured, or not, by real and personal property. They include detailed valuations of urban and rural lands and buildings, furnishings, personal possessions and commercial stock.