The Smugglers' City
Department of History, University of Bristol

Reading List

This is the basic unit bibliography. Additional reading material will be provided as the unit develops. Material is also available online on the Sources page.

Bristol History
Overseas Exploration and Expansion
Smuggling
Privateering & Naval Service
Overseas Trade
Shipping
Merchants
The Reformation
Primary Sources

Bristol History

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William Barrett, The History and Antiquities of the City of Bristol (Bristol, 1789)
[Not entirely reliable and not produced to the standards of modern scholarship but still useful since Barrett had access to some material not available today]

J.H. Bettey, Bristol Observed: Visitors' Impressions of the City from Domesday to the Blitz (Bristol, 1986), Ch. 1 & 2
[Useful for its summaries of comments by contemporary visitors]

E.M. Carus Wilson, 'The overseas trade of Bristol' in E. Power & M.M. Postan (eds.), Studies in English Trade in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1933)
[Classic article, essential reading for this unit]

E.M. Carus-Wilson, 'The Iceland trade' in E. Power & M.M. Postan (eds.), Studies in English Trade in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1933)
[Classic and much cited article on the development of this trade]

P. Fleming, 'The emergence of modern Bristol' in M. Dresser and P. Ollerenshaw (eds.), The Making of Modern Bristol (Bristol, 1996)

John Latimer, The Annals of Bristol in the Seventeenth Century (Bristol, William George's Sons, 1900)

John Latimer, Sixteenth-century Bristol (Arrowsmith, 1908)
[Lacks references but generally reliable scholarship]

James M. Lee, 'Political Communications in Early Tudor England: the Bristol Elite, the Urban Community and the Crown, c.1471-c.1553' (unpublished PhD, University of the West of England, 2006)
[contains much useful information about Bristol's politics at this time.]

Christian. D. Liddy, War, Politics and Finance in Late Medieval English Towns: Bristol, York and the Crown, 1350-1400 (Royal Historical Society, 2005)
[Scholarly background material for urban development of Bristol]

M.D. Lobel and E.M. Carus-Wilson, 'Bristol' in M.D. Lobel (ed.) The Atlas of Historic Towns, Vol 2 (London, 1975)
[V. useful introduction to the city for the novice - copies in resource room]

P.V. McGrath, The Merchant Venturers of Bristol (Bristol, 1975)
[Standard work on the subject]

C.M. MacInnes and W. F. Whittard (eds.), Bristol and Its Adjoining Counties (Bristol, 1965)
[Contains useful introductory articles on various subjects]

J.F. Nicholls and John Taylor, Bristol Past and Present. Vol. I, Civil History (Bristol, 1881), Ch. 8 & 9
[Not always well organized but contains some useful information]

George Pryce, A Popular History of Bristol, Antiquarian, Topographical and Descriptive (1861)

D.H. Sacks, Trade, Society and Politics in Bristol, 1500-1640. 2 vols (New York, 1985)
[Basically the doctoral thesis - contains much raw data analysis not included in his 1991 book]

D.H. Sacks, The Widening Gate: Bristol and the Atlantic Economy 1450-1700 (California, 1991)
[The best general work on the subject available. The details of his work have, however, received a fair amount of criticism from subject specialists.]

Samuel Seyer, Memoirs Historical and Topographical of Bristol and its Neighbourhood, from the Earliest Period Down to the Present Time (Bristol, 1821-23)
[Basically a synthesis of all the existing Bristol chronicles]

J.M. Vanes, The Port of Bristol in the Sixteenth Century (Bristol, 1977)
[A useful introductory pamphlet]

Overseas Exploration and Expansion

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K.R. Andrews, 'The English in the Caribbean, 1560-1620' in K.R. Andrews et al. (eds.), The Westward Enterprise: English Activities in Ireland, the Atlantic and America 1480-1650 (Liverpool, 1978)

K.R. Andrews, Trade, Plunder and Settlement 1480-1630 (CUP, 1984)
[Classic and excellent work]

David Armitage, 'The New World in British historical thought' in Karen Ordahl Kupperman (ed.), America in European Consciousness, 1493-1750 (Williamsburg, 1995)

H.P. Biggar (ed.), The Precursors of Jacques Cartier, 1497-1534: a collection of documents relating to the early history of the dominion of Canada (Ottawa, 1911)
[While superceded by Williamson 1962, it contains many of the documents in their original languages]

D. Birmingham, Trade and Empire in the Atlantic 1400-1600 (Routledge, 2000)

R. Brenner, Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London's Overseas Traders, 1550-1653 (Cambridge, 1993)

R. Broome, Amerike: The Briton who gave America its Name (Stroud, 2002)
[This is a popular history book, based largely on Wilson, which was based largely on Quinn. On the reading list as a good recent example of how popular history writers deal with the Bristol discovery voyages]

N. Canny (ed.), Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol. I (OUP, 1998)
[Contains a number of useful introductory chapters]

E.M. Carus-Wilson (ed.), The Overseas Trade of Bristol in the Later Middle Ages (Bristol Record Society Publications, Vol. VII, Bristol, 1937)
[While not primarily about exploration, it contains a number of useful document transcriptions]

G.T. Cell, English Enterprise in Newfoundland 1577-1660 (Toronto, 1969)

G.T. Cell, Newfoundland Discovered: English Attempts at Colonisation, 1610-1630 (Hakluyt Society, Second Series, No. 160, London, 1982)

W.R. Childs, '1492-1494: Columbus and the discovery of America', Economic History Review, XLVIII (1995)

C. R. Crone, The Discovery of America ( London , 1969)

W.K.R. Davies,  Writing Geographical Exploration: James and the Northwest Passage, 1631-33 (Calgary, 2003)

'Richard Ameryk and the name America', in H.P.R. Finberg (ed.), Gloucestershire Studies (Leicester, 1957)

Edoardo Giuffrida, 'Ricerche cabotiane, nuove prospettive storiografiche' and 'New documents on Giovanni Caboto' in R. Mamoli Zorzi (ed.), Attraversare gli Oceani: Da Giovanni Caboto al Canada Multiculturale ( Venice , 1999), 47-71.

Henry Harrisse, John Cabot, the Discoverer of North-America and Sebastian, his Son: A Chapter of the Maritime History of England under the Tudors, 1496-1557 (London, 1896)
[Old, sometimes vitriolic and not always accurate - a nevertheless influential work]

Alfred Hudd, 'Richard Ameryk and the name America' Clifton Antiquarian Club, VII, (1910), 1-9.

H.A. Innis, The Cod Fisheries. The History of an International Economy (Toronto, 1940)
[Excellent description of the evolution of the early N. Atlantic fisheries]

Stuart Jenks, ROBERT STURMY'S COMMERCIAL EXPEDITION TO THE MEDITERRANEAN (1457/8) With Editions of the Trial of the Genoese before King and Council and of other sources (Bristol Record Society Publications, Vol. 58, 2006) . An electronic pre-print of the 'Preface' by E.T. Jones, is available on ROSE.

E.T. Jones, 'Bristol and Newfoundland 1490-1570' in I. Bulgin (ed.), Cabot and His World (1997)
[Gives a rather rough case for England's lack of involvement in the Newfoundland fisheries until the later 16th century]

E.T. Jones, ' The Matthew of Bristol and the financiers of John Cabot's 1497 voyage to North America', English Historical Review (2006). An Abstract, HTML version and PDF copy are all freely available from the journal.

Evan T. Jones, 'Alwyn Ruddock: 'John Cabot and the Discovery of America ', Historical Research (2007).

P.V. McGrath, 'Bristol since 1497' in C. M. MacInnes and W. F. Whittard (eds.), Bristol and Its Adjoining Counties (Bristol, 1965)

P.V. McGrath, 'Bristol and America, 1480-1631', in K.R. Andrews et al. (eds.), The Westward Enterprise: English Activities in Ireland, the Atlantic and America 1480-1650 (Liverpool, 1978)
[A sensible summary of the evidence for Bristol's putative discovery of America before 1497]

S.E. Morison, The European Discovery of America the Northern voyages A.D.500-1600 (Oxford, 1971)

Peter Pope, The Many Landfalls of John Cabot (Toronto, 1997)
[Sensible summary of the historical evidence surrounding the voyages but more valuable for its analysis of how the voyages have been interpreted and viewed from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries]

D.B. Quinn, 'Edward IV and exploration', Mariner's Mirror, 21 (1935)

D. B. Quinn, Sebastian Cabot and Bristol Exploration ( Local history pamphlets, Bristol Branch of the Historical Association 1968).       

D.B. Quinn, England and the Discovery of America, 1481-1620 (London, 1974)
[Presents the most serious academic case for a pre-1497 discovery]

D.B. Quinn, New American World: a Documentary History of North America to 1612 (1979)

D.B. Quinn, England's Sea Empire, 1550-1642 (London, 1983)

D.B. Quinn, 'Columbus and the North: England, Iceland and Ireland', William and Mary Quarterly , 3rd ser., 49 (1992)

G.D. Ramsay, English Overseas Trade During the Centuries of Emergence (London, 1957)

T.F. Reddaway & A.A. Ruddock (eds.), 'The accounts of John Balsall, purser of the Trinity of Bristol, 1480-1' Camden Miscellany XXIII (London, 1969)

A.A. Ruddock, 'John Day of Bristol and the English voyages across the Atlantic before 1497', Geographical Journal, 132 (1966)
[Excellent short article which confirmed the validity of the 'John Day' letter by identifying its decidedly dodgy author]

A.A. Ruddock, 'Columbus and Iceland: new light on an old problem', Geographical Journal, 136 (1970)
[An excellent article which attacks the commonly held belief that Columbus visited Iceland]

A.A. Ruddock, 'The reputation of Sebastian Cabot', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 47 (1974) PHOTOCOPY IN RESOURCE ROOM
[Scholarly short article which helped to restore Sebastian's reputation to some extent]

A.N. Ryan, 'Bristol , the Atlantic and North America, 1480-1509' in John Hattendorf (ed.), Maritime History, Vol. I: The Age of Discovery (Malabar, 1996)

G.V. Scammell, 'The English in the Atlantic Islands 1450-1650', Mariners Mirror, LXXII (1986)

G.V. Scammell, The First Imperial Age: European Overseas Expansion c.1400-1715 (Unwin Hyman , 1989)

C Shammas, 'English commercial development and American colonization' in K.R. Andrews et al. (eds.), The Westward Enterprise: English Activities in Ireland, the Atlantic and America 1480-1650 (Liverpool, 1978)

Harvey L. Sharrer, 'The passing of King Arthur to the Island of Brasil in a fifteenth-century Spanish version of the post-vulgate Roman du Graal ', Romania , 92 (1971), 65-74

G.E. Weare, Cabot's Discovery of North America, (London, John Macqueen, Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott Company, 1897)
[Most famous for its use of the 'Fust MS.' and the subsequent dispute between Weare and Harrisse]

J.A. Williamson, Maritime Enterprise, 1485-1558 (Oxford, 1913)
[Dated, but useful summary for those unfamiliar with the subject]

J.A. Williamson, The Cabot Voyages and Bristol Discovery Under Henry VII (Hakluyt Society, Second Series, No. 120, CUP, 1962)
[The best work on the subject, it contains copies / translations of most of the relevant sources and a valuable introduction to them. Buy it on the internet if you can.]

I. Wilson, The Columbus Myth: Did Men of Bristol Reach America Before Columbus? (London, 1991)
[A popular history book, largely based on Quinn's research]

Smuggling

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I.R. Abbott & R.E. Latham, 'Caterpillars of the commonwealth', Speculum , 30 (1955), 229-32

R.L. Baker, 'The English Customs Service 1307-1343: a study of medieval administration', Transactions of the American Philosophical Association , LI (1961)

M.W. Beresford, 'The common informer, the penal statutes and economic regulation', Economic History Review, 10 (1957-8)

E. M. Carus-Wilson & O. Coleman , England 's Export Trade, 1275-1547 ( Oxford , 1963)
[has useful sections on the reliability of the customs accounts]

P. Croft, 'Free trade and the House of Commons 1605-1606', Economic History Review, XXVIII (1975)

P. Croft, 'Trading with the enemy, 1585-1604', Historical Journal, 32 (1989)
[Very useful article on smuggling between England and Spain during the war]

F.C. Dietz, English Government Finance, 1485-1558 (University of Illinois, 1921, 1964 ed.)
[Essential read for anyone wanting to understand the development of the customs system]

F.C. Dietz, English Public Finance, 1558-1641 (New York, 1932, 1964 ed.)
[Essential read for anyone wanting to understand the development of the customs system]

Spencer Dimmock, 'The Custom Book of Chepstow, 1535-6', Studia Celtica, XXXVIII (2004), 131-159
[used to explore the extent of smuggling in the Bristol Channel]

G.R. Elton, 'Informing for profit: a sidelight on Tudor methods of law-enforcement', Cambridge Historical Journal, XI (1953-5), 149-67

A. Everitt , 'The Marketing of Agricultural Produce' in J Thirsk (ed.), The Agrarian History of England and Wales Vol. IV 1500-1640 (Cambridge, 1967)
[Useful for what it reveals about the incentive to become involved in export foodstuff smuggling]

N.S.B. Gras, The Early English Customs System (Harvard, 1918)
[Essential read for anyone wanting to understand the development of the customs system]

N. S. B. Gras, The Evolution of the English Corn Market from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (Cambridge 1915)
[Throws much light on why people smuggled grain]

Hall, G. D. G. 'Impositions and the courts, 1554-1606.' Law Quarterly Review , 69 (1953), 200-18
[Legal article that deals with the challenges to royal impositions on overseas trade]

E.T. Jones, 'Illicit business: accounting for smuggling in mid-sixteenth century Bristol', Economic History Review, 54 (2001)
[Photocopy in resource room] ONLINE

H. A. Lloyd, ' Camden Carmarden and the Customs'. English Historical Review , 85 (1970), 776-87

A.J. Loomie, 'Sir William Semple and Bristol's Andalucian trade, 1597-8'. Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society , 82 (1963), 177-87

P. Muskett, 'Smuggling in the Cinque Ports in the 16th century', Cantium, 2 (1970)

John U. Nef, 'Richard Camarden's "A Caveat for the Quene" (1570), Journal of Political Economy , 41 (1933), 33-41

A.P. Newton, 'The establishment of the Great Farm of the English customs' , Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1918)

V. Ponko Jr. 'N.S.B. Gras and the Elizabethan corn policy; A re-examination of the problem', Economic History Review, 17 (1964)

G. D. Ramsay, 'The Smugglers' Trade: A Neglected Aspect of English Commercial Development', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, II (1952)
[Much cited discussion on smuggling]

G. D. Ramsay, English Overseas Trade During the Centuries of Emergence (London, 1957)

P. Ramsey, 'Overseas trade in the reign of Henry VII: the evidence of the customs accounts', Economic History Review , VI (1953)

Conyers Read, Mr Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth, Vol. III (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1925), pp. 381-91 [Deals with the frauds Walsingham committed while he was farming the customs of the outports]

W. R. B. Robinson, 'The establishment of Royal Customs in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire under Elizabeth I', Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, XXIII, Part IV (1970), 347-96.
[Useful article about the resistance offered to attempts to establish royal customs in South Wales in the period 1558-71]

W. R. B. Robinson, 'Dr. Thomas Phaer's report on the harbours and customs administration of Wales under Edward VI'. Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies , 24:4 (1972), 485-503.
[Document transcription and notes of a report on the poor state of customs collection in Wales in 1562]

G. Smith, Smuggling in the Bristol Channel, 1700-1850 (Bristol, 1989)
[Though later than our period, it provides useful contrasts and is valuable for what it reveals about why smuggling was prevalent in the Channel]

J. M. Vanes , 'The Overseas trade of Bristol in the Sixteenth Century', PhD Thesis, (Univ. of London, 1975)
[includes an extensive section on smuggling in Bristol]

T. S. Willan (ed.), A Tudor Book of Rates (Manchester, 1962)
[Introduction provides useful information about the incentive to smuggle]

N.J. Williams, 'Francis Shaxton and the Elizabethan port books', English Historical Review , LXVI (1951)
[Analysis of the operations of this East Anglian merchant-smuggler. Strong parallels to Bristol]

 N.J. Williams, Contraband Cargoes: Seven Centuries of Smuggling (London, 1959)
[Best general work on development of smuggling]

N.J. Williams,The Maritime Trade of the East Anglian Ports, 1550-1590 (Oxford, 1988)
[Contains a chapter which is basically an update of his 1951 article]

D. Woodward, Trade of Elizabethan Chester (Hull, 1970)
[Introduction provides useful information about smuggling]

Privateering & Naval Service

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K.R. Andrews, English Privateering Voyages to the West Indies (Hakluyt Society, Second Series, no. 111, CUP, 1959)

K.R. Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering (CUP, 1964)
[Best work on how privateering operated in this period]

C.S.L. Davies, . 'The alleged "sack of Bristol" : international ramifications of Breton privateering, 1484-1485'. Historical Research , 67 (1994), 230-39

William Jessop, 'Privateering in Elizabethan Bristol, A Case Study on John Hopkins' (MA Dissertation, Bristol, 2004)
[Contains useful information about this Bristol privateer]

D. Loades, The Tudor Navy: An Administrative, Political and Military History (Cambridge, 1992)

J. McGurk, The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland: The 1590s Crisis (Manchester, 1997) - esp. Ch. 7. 'Bristol, Barnstaple and other western ports in the service of the Irish war'

J.W.D. Powell, Bristol Privateers and Ships of War (Bristol, 1930)

N.A.M. Rodger, 'The development of broadside gunnery, 1450-1650' Mariner's Mirror, 82 (1996)

G.V. Scammell 'The sinews of war: manning and provisioning English fighting ships c.1550-1650' Mariner's Mirror 73 (1987)

J. Vanes, Bristol at the Time of the Spanish Armada (1988)
[Useful pamphlet]

Overseas Trade

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W.R. Childs, Anglo-Castilian Trade in the Later Middle Ages (Manchester, 1978)
[Essential for what it reveals about how and why Bristol's trade with Iberia grew after 1453]

W.R. Childs, 'Ireland's trade with England in the Later Middle Ages', Irish Economic & Social History, IX (1982) PHOTOCOPY IN RESOURCE ROOM

W.R. Childs, 'England's Icelandic trade in the fifteenth century: The role of the port of Hull' Northern Seas (1995)

A. Crawford, Bristol and the Wine Trade (1984)

P. Croft, 'English mariners trading to Spain and Portugal, 1558-1625' Mariner's Mirror, LXIX (1983)

G.K. Connell-Smith, Forerunners of Drake: A Study of English Trade with Spain in the Early Tudor period (London, 1954)

R. Davis, English Overseas Trade, 1500-1700 (London, 1973)

R. Davis, The Rise of the Atlantic Economies (New York, 1973)
[Classic work}

Spencer Dimmock, 'Urban and Commercial networks in the later middle ages: Chepstow, Severnside and the ports of southern Wales ', Archaeologia Cambrensis, 152 (2003)

F.J. Fisher, 'Commercial trends and policy in sixteenth-century England', Economic History Review, Vol. 10 (1940)

Susan Flavin, 'The Development of Anglo-Irish trade in the sixteenth century' (MA Dissertation, Bristol, 2004)

E. Kerridge, Trade and Banking in Early Modern England (Manchester, 1988)

A.K. Longfield, Anglo-Irish Trade in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1929)

J.J. McCusker & K. Morgan (eds.), The Early Modern Atlantic Economy (CUP, 2001)

M.M. Postan, Medieval Trade and Finance (Cambridge, 1973)

D. J. Starkey et al. (eds.), England's Sea Fisheries: The Commercial Sea Fisheries of England and Wales since 1300 (Chatham Press, 2000)

T.S. Willan, The English Coasting Trade, 1500-1750 (Manchester, 1938)

T.S. Willan, Studies in Elizabethan Foreign Trade (Manchester, 1959)

Shipping

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V. Barbour, 'Marine Risks and Insurance in the seventeenth century' Journal of Economic and Business History, 1 (1929)

D. Burwash, English Merchant Shipping, 1460-1540 (Toronto, 1947)

W.R. Childs, 'The commercial shipping of south-western England in the later fifteenth-century, Mariner's Mirror, LXXXIII (1997)

R. Davis, The Rise of the Shipping Industry in the 17th & 18th Centuries (1962)
[Classic and important work. Introduction deals with 16th century]

B. Dietz, 'The royal bounty and English merchant shipping in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries' Mariner's Mirror, LXXVII (1991)

E.T. Jones, 'Merchant shipping in peace and war: The Bristol marine of the 1540s', Northern Seas (1996)

Evan Jones, 'The Bristol Shipping Industry in 16th Century' (unpublished PhD, Edinburgh 1998)

P.V. McGrath, 'Merchant shipping in the seventeenth century: The evidence of the Bristol deposition books, Part I', Mariner's Mirror, XL (1954)

P.V. McGrath, 'Merchant shipping in the seventeenth century: The evidence of the Bristol deposition books, Part II', Mariner's Mirror, XLI (1955)

G.V. Scammell, 'English merchant shipping at the end of the middle ages; some east coast evidence' Economic History Review, XIII (1961)

G.V. Scamell, 'Shipowning in England c.1450-1550', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, XII (1962)

G.V. Scammell, 'Manning the English merchant service in the sixteenth century' Mariner's Mirror, LVI (1970)

G.V. Scammell, 'Shipowning in the economy and politics of early modern England, Historical Journal, XV (1972)

J.W. Sherborne, The Port of Bristol in the Middle Ages (1965)

J. Vanes, The Port of Bristol in the Sixteenth Century (1977)

D. Woodward, 'Ships, masters and shipowners of the Wirral 1550-1650' Mariner's Mirror, LXIII (1977)

D. Woodward, 'Sixteenth-century shipping: the charter party of the Grace of Neston, 1572', Irish Economic & Social History, V (1978)

Merchants

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J.H. Bettey, The Rise of a Gentry Family: The Smyths of Ashton Court c.1500-1642 (Bristol, 1978)

E.M. Carus-Wilson, Medieval Merchant Venturers (London, 1954)
[Quite a lot to do with Bristol]

A. Hanham, The Celys and their World: An English Merchant Family of the Fifteenth Century (Cambridge, 1985)

E.S. Hunt & J.Murray, A History of Business in Medieval Europe, 1200-1550 (CUP, 1999)

J. Kermode, Medieval Merchants (CUP, 1998)

J. Latimer, The History of the Society of Merchant Venturers of the City of Bristol (Bristol, 1903)

P.V. McGrath, 'Merchant venturers and Bristol shipping in the early seventeenth century,' Mariner's Mirror, XXXVI (1950)

P. McGrath, John Whitson and the Merchant Community of Bristol (1970)

T.F. Reddaway & A.A. Ruddock (eds.), 'The accounts of John Balsall, purser of the Trinity of Bristol, 1480-1' Camden Miscellany XXIII (London, 1969)

J. Sherborne, William Canynges (1402-1474), Mayor of Bristol and Dean of Westbury College (1974)

E.W. Veale, 'Credit and the Bristol merchant in the later middle ages' in C.M. MacInnes & W.F. Whittard (eds.), Bristol and Its Adjoining Counties (Bristol, 1965

The Reformation

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J. H. Bettey, Bristol Parish Churches during the Reformation, c1530-1560 (Bristol Branch of the Historical Association pamphlet, No. 45, 1979)

J. H. Bettey, Church and Community in Bristol during the Sixteenth Century (Bristol Record Society, Occasional Paper, 1983)

J. H. Bettey, The Suppression of the Religious Houses in Bristol (Bristol Branch of the Historical Association pamphlet, No. 74, 1990), 1-30

J. H. Bettey, 'The dissolution of St Augustine's Abbey and the creation of the Diocese of Bristol', in Fleming, Peter; Gross, Anthony; Lander, Jack Robert (eds.), Regionalism and Revision: the Crown and its Provinces in England 1200-1650 (London, 1998), 107-2

P. Fleming, 'Conflict and urban government in later medieval England: St Augustine's Abbey and Bristol' Urban History, 27 (2000), pp. 325-343

P. Fleming, 'Sanctuary and authority in pre-Reformation Bristol', in J. Bettey (ed.), Historic Churches and Church Life in Bristol (Bristol, 2001), 73-84

M.C. Skeeters, 'The creation of the Diocese of Bristol', Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society Transactions, 103 (1985), pp. 175-8

M.C. Skeeters, Community and Clergy: Bristol and the Reformation c.1530-c.1570 ( OUP, 1993), Ch. 5, pp. 67-92 [photocopy in resource room]

Robert Tittler, The Reformation and the Towns in England: Politics and Political Culture, c. 1540-1640 (Oxford, 1998) [Not specifically about Bristol but has quite a lot on it]

Primary Sources

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J.H. Bettey, Calendar of the Correspondence of the Smyth Family of Ashton Court, 1548-1642 (B.R.S. publications, Vol. XXXV, Gloucester, 1982)

I[hohn] [B]rown, THE MARCHANTS AVIZO very necessary for their sonnes and seruants, when they first send them beyond the seas, as to Spaine and Portingale or other countreyes [London, 1589], ed. P.V. McGrath (Harvard, 1957)
[Useful for what it reveals about the apprenticeship of a merchant, the skills they needed and what was expected of their code of conduct. Also contains a useful introduction by McGrath]

E.M. Carus-Wilson (ed.), The Overseas Trade of Bristol in the Later Middle Ages (Bristol Record Society Publications, Vol. VII, Bristol, 1937)
[Essential collection of primary sources for the fifteenth century]

J. R. Dasent (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1542-1631 ( 1890-1964)

W.L. Goodman, 'Bristol apprentice register 1532-1658 a selection of enrolments of mariners', Mariner's Mirror, LX (1974)

R. Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (London, 1589)

Denys Hay (ed.) , The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil, A.D. 1485-1537 (Camden Society, Third Series, Volume LXXIV, 1950).

P.L Hughes. & J.F. Larkin (eds.),Tudor Royal Proclamations (Yale, 1964)

Stuart Jenks, Robert Sturmy's Commercial Expedition to the Mediterranean, 1457/8 (Bristol Record Society Publications, Vol. 58, 2006)

J.F. Larkin & P.L. Hughes (eds.), Stuart Royal Proclamations (Oxford, 1973).

R.C. Latham (ed.), Bristol Charters, 1509-1899 (Bristol Record Society Publications, Vol. XII, Bristol, 1947)

I.S. Leadam (ed.), 'Radclyffe, Bristowe, Parishoners of, and others vs. The Mayor of Bristowe', Select Cases before the King's Council in the Star Chamber, Vol II A.D. 1509-1544 (Selden Society, Vol. 25, London, 1911)

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII (London, 1862-1910)
[On the 1st floor, these provide essential and fairly accessible summaries of official letters and state papers. Very useful for those conducting research orientated essays]

P. McGrath, Records Relating to the Society of Merchant Venturers of the City of Bristol in the Seventeenth Century (Bristol Record Society Publications, XVII, Bristol, 1952)

Mark C. Pilkinton (ed.), Records of Early English Drama: Bristol (Toronto : University of Toronto Press, 1997)
[Contains records that could be useful for projects]

Statutes of the Realm (London, 1817)
[In the law library (Wills) - provides copies of the laws of parliament for the period]

L. Toumlin Smith (ed.), The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar by Robert Ricart (Camden Society, V, 1872)
[A printed version of the most famous of Bristol's chronicles]

J. Vanes, (ed.), The Ledger of John Smythe 1538-1550, (London, 1974)

J. Vanes, (ed.), Documents Illustrating the Overseas Trade of Bristol in the Sixteenth Century, (Bristol Record Society Publications, Vol. XXXI, Kendal, 1979)
[An essential collection of documents for this unit]

T.P. Wadley (ed.), Notes or abstracts of the wills contained in the volume entitled the Great Orphan Book and Book of wills in the Council House at Bristol (Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 1886)
[Contains abstracts of the wills of many Bristol benefactors of the 15th and 16th centuries]]

G. Warner (ed.), 'The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye' - A Poem on the Use of Sea-Power, 1436 (Oxford, 1926)

T.S. Willan (ed.), A Tudor Book of Rates (1582), (Manchester edition, 1962)
[Contains a useful introduction for those interested in why people smuggled]