Industrial Districts in Medieval England: Examining the Significance of the ‘Elementary Localisation of Industry’

In Principles of Economics and Industry and Trade Marshall considered how the localisation of industry in medieval England, c.1100 to 1560, could inform on subsequent agglomerations, but since then scholarship has focused mainly on Marshall’s findings on nineteenth–century manufacturing districts. This article seeks to redress the balance. It makes three contributions to the existing literature. Firstly, it extends the range of districts by focusing on the extractive industries of iron and salt; secondly, it relates evidence on medieval districts to Marshall’s earlier analysis; and thirdly it identifies the specific strengths and weaknesses of medieval districts relative to more modern ones. It identifies the main factors that boosted performance in medieval extractive districts: access to complementary resources, such as fuel, proximity to customers and royal patronage. The major weaknesses of medieval extractive industries were their ‘boom and bust’ lifecycle and the absence of a pool of hereditary knowledge.