Bloodsuckers of the Commonwealth : Monopolies, Petitioning, and the Public Sphere in Early Modern England (Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain)

Paterson, Ellen

Manchester University Press（2025/09発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 272 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781526189080

Full Description

This book offers the first in-depth analysis of anti-monopoly petitioning in late-Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Drawing on a range of manuscript petitions, it reveals the centrality of the issues of monopoly and corporatism for the politicisation of a range of subjects between 1590-1625. Both Elizabeth I and James I liberally granted monopolies and charters as a fiscal device. Petitioning emerged as the main way through which subjects protested these intrusions on their trades and livelihoods. Whilst this activity occurred throughout the realm, it was especially pronounced in the city of London. Members of London's livery companies, bodies which held exclusive rights to trade, petitioned for and against monopolies and charters. Bloodsuckers of the Commonwealth offers a fresh perspective on political culture in this well-studied period by arguing that economic policies generated conflicts, contests, and participation in a nascent public sphere.

Contents

Introduction: 'The courtiers craved all, the Queen granted all'
1 The politics of trade: corporatism, monopolies, and protest
2 Petitioning the City and the Crown: the 1590s
3 Petitioning the new King: contesting corporations
4 Petitioning Parliament
5 Petitioning commissions: economic crisis and the making of trade policy

Conclusion: economics, politicisation, and the public sphere