ABSTRACT
Everitt has shown that this type of trading grew rapidly in the sixteenth century, particularly after about 1570. He has made a study of it through the records of disputes between traders in the Courts of Chancery and Requests, which provide a detailed picture of John Shakespeare’s economic and cultural world. The majority of transactions took place privately in inns and farmhouses (to escape the trade restrictions such as those imposed by on corn buyers by Stratford Corporation), and were on a sufficiently large scale, to require goods to be delivered at a later date, frequently in several instalments. All were conducted on a credit basis, for which legal bonds were drawn up by a lawyer or scrivener. Many of the traders worked with partners, although these partnerships were very frequently only ephemeral arrangements. According to Everitt, because of the absence of banks, traders necessarily had to rely on their credit in the local community, and this often “operated through a network of neighbours, friends, and relatives. Sons, fathers, brothers, cousins, wives, uncles, mothers, brothersin-law: all were drawn into the circle.”9
