medieval-atlas/economic-development/244

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Restructuring urban economies in the later Middle Ages The long slump in Scottish overseas trade throughout the late medieval period, together with the increasing concentration in Edinburgh of sectors of that trade, forced a certain restructuring of the export geared area of the economy of many towns. The following series of maps, drawn from customs data, compares the receipts for exported commodities as percentages of total receipts over six sample periods between the 1320s and 1590s. The overall profile of Scottish overseas trade is also given as a comparative benchmark. Some caution needs to be exercised in using the results over-literally, as custom was applied at different rates on different commodities and these also changed over time -custom for most of the period was at its highest on wool whose importance will thus tend to be over-emphasized in the profile of Aberdeen individual towns and at its lowest on fish (except for salmon), salt and coal. Aberdeen, the one major burgh to hold on to a significant share r of the wool trade throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was nevertheless increasingly dependent on the salmon trade from the l470s, and to a greater extent than the graph suggests because Aberdeen burgesses escaped paying duty on salmon until the late fifteenth century. The sixteenth century saw a sharp increase in its export of woollen cloth and, to a lesser extent, of fells. The complete collapse of Inverness's wool trade by the 1420s had, by contrast, left it reliant on hides but a sharp decline by the 1470s in that sector had encouraged a large dependence on the salmon trade. In Banff the pattern was apparently simpler, the decline in wool bringing about a growing dependence in the fifteenth century on salmon. Inverness Banff Englishmen's imports E_nglish wool Wool Woolfells Hides Cloth Skins Salmon Herring Cod Salt Coal Customs on exports by commodity 1327 -1590 ML,ASt 244

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