一七世紀中期 (一六四〇〜一六八〇) ロンドン商人の群像 : ウッド家文書の分析
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概要
- 論文の詳細を見る
The thesis is an attempt to extract aspects of mercantile activities in seventeenth century England, through an archive of Wood Family Papers deposited at the Middlesex County Record Office.The records consist mainly of various bundles of letters exchanged between Edward Wood at Littleton, Middlesex, and his servant, John Pack, in London,concentrated in the period between 1663 and 1665. The correspondences were continued, although what is left is smaller in volume, between Edward Wood's son, Thomas Wood, and the same John Pack until 1965, when the latter passed away. The archive also contains two small leather bound account books; one which John Pack kept for his masters as well as for himself, and the other which he kept for Thomas's mother-in-law, Lady Dorothy Dicer, between 1671 and 1680, until her death.After John Pack's death, Thomas Birchall, a scrivener related to the East India Company, kept another account book in the period between 1695 and 1698 for Thomas Wood. An estate account left by a Singer between 1667 and 1717 also falls within the scope of the present thesis.Apart from the earliest records, only very small number of documents give direct evidence of Edward Wood's activities as a merchant until his retirement to his residence in Littleton, and thus the related evidence was sought outside the Middldsex County Record Office, in the Guildhall Library and the India Office.The available documents seem to illustrate two main trends, namely the activities of the retired merchant and his son, and the activity of John Pack who obviously carried other businesses besides serving the Woods, as the records shall reveal. The thesis is an attempt, in more general terms, as a case study of accumulation of wealth in the mercantile community in the period under discussion.Although the suggested scope available from the documents may be limited,they may throw light or a contemporary context on the lamentation of Sir Josiah Child as to the merchants' tendency to retire early. as well as the activities of agents such as Pack in the seventeenth century.
- 社会経済史学会の論文
- 1986-08-25