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- Title
Fuelling the city: Production and distribution of firewood and fuel in London's region, 1290-1400.
- Authors
Galloway, James A.; Keene, Derek; Murphy, Margaret
- Abstract
The article focuses on the transport-cost model in relation to the supply of firewood to London, England in the fourteenth century. Fuel supply played a critical role in the growth of pre-industrial cities. Domestic heating and cooking, commercial food preparation, and industries all contributed to a concentrated demand for fuel in towns. The cities of northern Europe, faced with colder winters and home to fuel-hungry brewing industries, almost certainly required more per caput than their counterparts in the warmer, wine-drinking south. The basic needs of the 80,000 or so inhabitants of London are thus likely to have generated one of Europe's largest aggregate demands for fuel in the decades around 1300. Although the later fourteenth-century capital had a much reduced population, the general rise in living standards almost certainly brought with it an increase in the consumption of fuel per head. London was also the focus of a large industrial demand for fuel, from the metal-working and textile-finishing crafts within its boundaries, and from the pottery, metal-working, glass-making, and baking industries which were a notable feature of its hinterland.
- Subjects
LONDON (England); ENGLAND; FUEL; SUPPLY &; demand; INDUSTRIALIZATION; CITIES &; towns
- Publication
Economic History Review, 1996, Vol 49, Issue 3, p447
- ISSN
0013-0117
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2597759