Medieval Londoners’ cheaply imported mass-produced Christmas gifts look surprisingly familiar |
We often imagine medieval life as dull, dirty and short, with little in the way of material comfort or decoration. However, medieval Londoners were importing toys, treats and trinkets by the boatload centuries before the modern festive rush.
Searching in the records of imports contained within London’s extensive late medieval customs accounts, we found that medieval Londoners, much like their modern-day counterparts, were hooked on mass-produced, cheaply imported items.
Everyday goods from tennis balls to children’s dolls and board games were imported by the thousands, with prices that show they were not elite luxuries. This reveals that medieval people had plenty of “stuff” and suggest an attitude to consumerism that’s not so very different from our own.
Our new project has digitised records of more than 200,000 consignments of imports and exports which passed through the Port of London between 1380 and 1560.
Historians have looked at these sources for generations, particularly to analyse exports of English wool and cloth.........