Department of History

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Richard Goddard

Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts

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Expertise Summary

I am interested in supervising any aspect of English social and economic history, especially of the period, c. 1250-1540. My particular research interests centre upon later medieval business and domestic and international commerce, particularly the use of credit to finance later medieval trade. I have also written on economic recession in fifteenth-century England. I also have research interests in medieval urban society, with particular reference to medieval urban courts, I have also written on and supervise PhDs on women and work in the later middle ages. I also research crafts and industry, particularly coal mining, in the Sherwood region, in the medieval period.

Teaching Summary

All of my teaching reflects my research interests and has grown directly out of my research and publications. I contribute lectures and seminars to the first-year medieval module, Making the Middle… read more

Research Summary

My research focuses on the English society and its economy in the later Middle Ages. Much of my work so far has concentrated upon medieval towns and their economies. My second monograph, entitled… read more

Recent Publications

  • RICHARD GODDARD and GEORGE SMALLEY, 2024. Economics and the cult of death in late medieval England: The guild of St. George in Nottingham, 1459-1546 Midland History. (In Press.)
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2022. Was Commerce in Late Medieval Coventry Restricted by Regulation?. In: C. DYER, ed., Changing Approaches to Local History:: Warwickshire History and its Historians Dugdale Society.
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2019. Trust: Business networks and the borough court. In: RICHARD GODDARD and TERESA PHIPPS, eds., Town courts and urban society in late medieval England, 1250-1500 Boydell and Brewer. 176-99
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2019. Female merchants? Women, debt and trade in later medieval England, 1266-1532 Journal of British Studies. 58(3), 495-518

All of my teaching reflects my research interests and has grown directly out of my research and publications. I contribute lectures and seminars to the first-year medieval module, Making the Middle Ages. In the second year I teach Sex, lies and gossip: women in later medieval England. This examines women's lives in the middle ages and the gendered medieval understanding of power and authority. It seeks to consider the extent to which the foundations of modern gender inequalities were established in the middle ages. My third year Special subject, The Black Death allows students to examine a wide range of fascinating sources available for the study of English society, and the impact of plague upon that society, between 1348 and 1520. I also teach on the MA in History. I teach on the core medieval module, Power and Authority in the Medieval World module.

Current Research

My research focuses on the English society and its economy in the later Middle Ages. Much of my work so far has concentrated upon medieval towns and their economies. My second monograph, entitled Credit and trade in later medieval England that examines the the use of credit to finance later medieval domestic trade. Recent articles and chapters have included studies of small towns and their role as constituent elements within the seigneurial manorial economy, English borough courts and commercial contraction and the impact of cycles of economic growth and decline upon the built environment of medieval towns, the Nottinghamshire coal industry in between c.1200-1540, medieval urban guilds and business networks and a chapter on Chaucer's Merchant in the Canterbury Tales.

Supervision

I welcome enquires from anyone wishing to undertake research on any aspect on English social or economic history of the later middle ages, with particular reference to medieval towns, medieval trade, credit and debt or women and their role in the medieval economy. I have supervised the following PhDs:

i) Judith Mills, Community and change: the town, people and administration of Nottingham between c.1400-1600 (graduated 2010)

ii) Janice Musson, The Assize of Novel Disseisin, 1156-1223 (joint supervision with Gwilym Dodd) (graduated 2016)

iii) Mike Jefferson, Templar lands in Lincolnshire in the early fourteenth century (joint supervision with Gwilym Dodd) (graduated 2016)

iv) Alan Kissane, Lay Urban Identities in Late Medieval Lincoln 12881400 (joint supervision with Rob Lutton) (graduated 2013)

v) Teresa Phipps, Women in later medieval Nottingham (joint supervision with Ross Balzaretti) (graduated 2014)

vi) Hannah Ingram, Archetypes and Individuals: Reconstructing the Users of the Westminster Statute Staple, 1485-1532 (joint supervision with Rob Lutton) (graduated 2019)

vii) Mariele Valci, The 'denari provisini' and the economy of the Roman commune, 1143-1389 (joint supervision with Neil Christie, University of Leicester) (graduated 2019)

viii) Chiara Ravera, Women and business in the Genoese colony of Chios, 1346-1566 (joint supervision with Ross Balzaretti) (graduated 2019)

ix) Esther Lewis, Orthodoxy and heterodoxy in later medieval Bristol (joint supervision with Rob Lutton)

x) Grace Owen, Manorial officers on the Glastonbury manors after the Black Death (joint supervision with Miriam Muller, University of Birmingham)

xi) Joe Peake, 'Waste' in later medieval England (joint supervision with Rob Lutton and Wendy Scase, University of Birmingham)

xii) Pam Powell, Commerce and politics in Chester, 1377-1413 (joint supervision with Gwilym Dodd)

xiii) Scott Lomax, Land use and industry in later medieval Nottingham (joint supervision with Chris King, Department of Classics and Archaeology)

Past Research

My first monograph, Lordship and Medieval Urbanisation studied the role of lordship in the urbanisation of Coventry in the High Middle Ages. My previous research has examined the market for land in medieval towns with articles on Coventry's thirteenth-century property market and on the Church investment in urban property in the later Middle Ages and studies of urban and economic decline in the fifteenth century. I have published an article on female apprenticeship.

Future Research

I am planning to undertake research into the link between climate change and commerce during the opening phases of the 'Little Ice Age' in late thirteenth and early fourteenth-century London.

  • RICHARD GODDARD and GEORGE SMALLEY, 2024. Economics and the cult of death in late medieval England: The guild of St. George in Nottingham, 1459-1546 Midland History. (In Press.)
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2022. Was Commerce in Late Medieval Coventry Restricted by Regulation?. In: C. DYER, ed., Changing Approaches to Local History:: Warwickshire History and its Historians Dugdale Society.
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2019. Trust: Business networks and the borough court. In: RICHARD GODDARD and TERESA PHIPPS, eds., Town courts and urban society in late medieval England, 1250-1500 Boydell and Brewer. 176-99
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2019. Female merchants? Women, debt and trade in later medieval England, 1266-1532 Journal of British Studies. 58(3), 495-518
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2018. High Finance: Women and staple debt in England, 1353-1532. In: ELISE DERMINEUR, ed., Women and Credit in Preindustrial Europe Brepols. 19-43
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2016. Credit and trade in later medieval England, 1353-1532 Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2014. The Merchant. In: STEVEN RIGBY and ALISTAIR MINNIS, eds., Historians on Chaucer: the ‘General Prologue’ to the Canterbury Tales Oxford University Press. 170-86
  • RICHARD GODDARD and JANICE MUSSON, 2013. A rich vein? Novel disseisin and the Trowell coalmine case of 1258 English Historical Review. 128(530), 1-24
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2012. Coal mining in medieval Nottinghamshire: consumers and producers in a nascent industry Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire. 116, 95-115
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2011. Small boroughs and the manorial economy: enterprise zones or urban failures? Past and Present: a Journal of Historical Studies. 210(1), 3-31
  • GODDARD, R.M., 2011. The built environment and the later medieval economy: Coventry, 1200-1540. In: MONCKTON, L. and MORRIS, R.K., eds., Coventry: medieval art, architecture and archaeology in the city and its vicinity Maney Publising. 33-47
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2010. Nottingham’s borough court rolls: a user’s guide Centre for Urban Culture, University of Nottingham. Available at: <http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ucn/onlinesources/index.aspx>
  • GODDARD, R.M., LANGDON, J. and MULLER, M., eds., 2010. Survival and discord in medieval society: essays in honour of Christopher Dyer Brepols.
  • GODDARD, R.M., 2010. Surviving recession: English borough courts and commercial contraction, 1350-1500. In: GODDARD, R. M., LANGDON, J. and MÜLLER, M., eds., Survival and discord in medieval society: essays in honour of Christopher Dyer Brepols. 69-87
  • GODDARD, R. M., LANGDON, J. and MULLER, M., 2010. Introduction. In: GODDARD, R. M., LANGDON, J. and MULLER, M., eds., Survival and Discord in medieval society: Essays in honour of Christopher Dyer Turnhout: Brepols. 1-9
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2007. Church lords and English urban investment in the later middle ages. In: DYER, C., COSS, P. and WICKHAM, C., eds., Rodney Hilton's Middle Ages: an exploration of historical themes (Past & Present, special supplementary volume, 2) Oxford: Oxford University Press. 148-165
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2006. Commercial contraction and urban decline in fifteenth-century Coventry Dugdale Society.
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2004. Lordship and medieval urbanisation: Coventry, 1043-1355 Woodbridge: Boydell Press.
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 2002. Female apprenticeship in the West Midlands in the later Middle Ages Midland History. 27, 165-181
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 1998. Bullish Markets: The Property Market in Thirteenth-Century Coventry (The Midland History Prize Essay) Midland History. 23, 21-39
  • RICHARD GODDARD, 1996. Forgery and Urban Conflict: the Role of Forged Charters in Coventry between 1267 and 1355. In: A. CURRY and A. R. BELL, eds., Thirty Years of Medieval Studies at the University of Reading 1965-1995 53-61

Department of History

University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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