What was the importance of luxury goods in the medieval economy? It has often been assumed or implied that trade in high-value commodities and the manufacture of luxuries lay at the heart of medieval towns and their commercial life. Richard Britnell has done more than anyone to advance an alternative view, but no one has faced the subject head on, as this essay attempts to do.

Luxury is one of those difficult terms which cannot be strictly and easily defined. The word is constantly used by historians, who refer to ‘luxury goods’ and people involved in the ‘luxury trades’. We think that we know a luxury when we see one, or read about it in a document: a piece of jewellery skilfully made from precious metals, like the fifteenth-century swan livery badge of enamelled gold found at Dunstable, or the ‘silver pitcher for wine’ weighing more than three pounds listed in the wardrobe inventory of Walter de Merton (along with many other items of silver plate) in 1277. Dishes for a meal prepared elaborately by professional cooks and incorporating expensive ingredients such as spices would be easily categorised as luxurious, as would clothing tailored from imported textiles such as silks or fine woollens, and lined with furs from the Baltic. Leisure activities or pastimes which involved a lavish use of resources, such as court entertainments or hunting, could be included among luxuries.