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Book Review: Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict and London's Overseas Traders, 1550–1653

Seaver assigns considerable importance to the role of family linkages in maintaining Greenland's connection with Europe; for this reason, family histories are explained in considerable detail. Finally, those of us who are more "linguistically challenged" owe Seaver a debt for the considerable use she makes of scholarly findings published in the Scandinavian languages. The book should therefore not be dismissed out of hand. Nevertheless, readers are advised to use The Frozen Echo with great caution. The way in which she constructs her arguments on a mountain of fragmentary evidence, even speculation, has already been mentioned. There are also many indications suggesting that Seaver's grasp of the historical context of medieval North Atlantic commerce is weak. For instance, she assumes that "the growing English market for cod" caused English traders to establish commercial links with Greenland. Yet no evidence of such growth in English consumption is provided, nor can it be, for the English demand for cod was fairly limited, and much of the cod caught by English fishermen, even before 1500, was destined for foreign markets. In fact, a careful distinction must be made between the English cod fishery, which tended to be centred on Hull and other North Sea ports, and English merchants engaged in the cod trade, often tending to be Bristol-based. It is a common misconception that Bristol was heavily engaged in both the trade and the fishery, and in fairness to Seaver, she recognizes that a distinction exists. (p. 226) Yet elsewhere she persists in arguing that Bristol was as interested in fishing as it was in the fish trade. (pp. 264, 269) In the end neither logic, nor conviction, nor a determined effort to explain the evidence in terms of a provocative argument are enough to convince the reader. The Frozen Echo may force us to become more open to new kinds of evidence as we research the history of the medieval North Atlantic, but it is unlikely to change established conclusions.