Selected treasurers' and chamberlains' accounts detailing the income and
expenditure of a wealthy provincial town and port, and revealing urban
life from travelling players to punishing criminals.
The treasurers' and chamberlains' accounts of Elizabethan Ipswich are a
detailed record of the annual income and expenditure of the town's
ruling body during one of the most fascinating periods of its history. A
major source for any detailed study of the Suffolk borough at a time
when it was among the country's ten richest provincial towns, the
entries selected from the accounts not only shed light on
sixteenth-century urban administration but also providevivid insights
into the social and economic life of the period: the equipping of
soldiers, ducking of scolds, and performances of town minstrels and
itinerant players.JOHN WEBB was formerly Principal Lecturer in History
at Portsmouth Polytechnic.