Chapter Les monnaies alternatives à Paris au XVe siècle, d’après les transactions d’un atelier de couture

Overview & Synopsis

Focusing on the workshop of an economic agent, a parisian tailor between 1420 and 1455, this article proposes an analysis of the payments in kind made in his shop in order to test the hypotheses of interpretation that historians usually formulate to understand the use of non-monetary payments. The source for this study of the methods of payment in use in 15th-century Paris is the tailor's shop book, which document the payments he received in grain, foodstuffs, objects and school services provided to his son and financed by his work. They shed light on the motives and circumstances that might explain the use of barter in a highly monetarised and commercialised urban economy.