Examining archival documents and literary texts, this book focuses on the practices of buying and selling in medieval London by examining how commercial issues are reflected in Chaucer, Gower, and Hoccleve. Craig Bertolet reads specific Canterbury tales and pilgrims associated with trade alongside Gower's Mirour de L'Omme and Confessio Amantis, and works by Hoccleve, to demonstrate how destabilizing trade was to London and how this instability produced narratives about trade.

Introduction; Chapter 1 The Commercial Polity; Chapter 2 Buying and Markets; Chapter 3 Debts and Credit; Chapter 4 Shopkeeping; Chapter 5 Innkeepers and the Hospitality Trade; conclusion Conclusion;

Craig E. Bertolet is an Associate Professor of English at Auburn University, USA.