The fine mahogany secretaire with its secret drawers, the lacquered tea table, Chinese and Japanese porcelain tea ware. These fine luxury goods now seem to belong to the English country house or the exclusive antique shop. But what do they tell us about their eighteenth-century consumers? Who...

1: The statute staple and trade finance in later medieval England -- 2: Merchants and trade -- 3: Boom and bust: Patterns of borrowing in later medieval England -- 4: The geography of recession: provincial credit in later medieval England -- 5: London: the commercial powerhouse -- 6: Conclusion