ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to illustrate the relations existing, at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries, between the shopkeepers of London in a variety of trades and their creditors. Matthew of Colombiers, who continued to be King’s Chamberlain of London for twenty one years, was at the same period a vintner of the official type. He sold the King’s wines. William acted as the London agent for a Gascon firm, and collected the instalments of their debts. The two most significant records of the dealings of London tradesmen with foreign merchants and with each other are those of the cordwainers and the potters. The potters of fourteenth-century London were not makers of earthenware, but workers in copper and brass, and bell-founders. The Durhams were one of the ruling families of London during the thirteenth century.
