The Pattern of Consumption of Winchester College, c.1390-1560

This thesis has been completed as a requirement for a higher degree of the University of Southampton. It examines the consumption and trading practices of Winchester College in the later Middle Ages, through an analysis of a remarkable and virtually unbroken series of household accounts. This work joins similar studies which have used domestic accounts to explore local and regional economies. However, whereas other research projects have generally taken wealthy, noble and religious households as their subjects, this thesis has investigated a medieval school, where the majority of household members were adolescent boys, and where, by comparison, the standard of living was more modest.

This study contributes to an understanding of Winchester College as an institution. It establishes the size and composition of the household and discusses the range of visitors who dined in hall. It identifies the College estates, and, by monitoring their growth and recording their receipts, it reveals that in the mid-fifteenth century, when conditions were generally unfavourable to landlords, the College was able to benefit from growing revenues. It was exceptionally well endowed and (unlike most monasteries) kept normal expenditure well below its income. The estate receipts are compared with the cost of feeding the household and with prevailing prices, in a period which saw the start of Tudor inflation.

An analysis of food and drink, plus detailed studies of five commodities (cloth, horseshoes, nails, pewter and wax), explains the wholesale and retail practices of the household, and identifies some of the suppliers with whom the College dealt. It establishes the household’s marketing network, showing that four main places (Winchester, London, Salisbury and Southampton) supplied the College, supported by College estates, fairs, markets, nearby villages and specialist centres.

This research confirms the importance of the College to Winchester (particularly after the city’s three important Benedictine houses were dissolved), the increasing dominance of London, and the changing fortune of Southampton, throws light on the local and regional trade of central southern England, and contributes generally to the historical understanding of England’s inland trade.