Selected treasurers' and chamberlains' accounts detailing the income and expenditure of a wealthy provincial town and port, and revealing urban life from travelling players to punishing criminals.

The treasurers' and chamberlains' accounts of Elizabethan Ipswich are a detailed record of the annual income and expenditure of the town's ruling body during one of the most fascinating periods of its history. A major source for any detailed study of the Suffolk borough at a time when it was among the country's ten richest provincial towns, the entries selected from the accounts not only shed light on sixteenth-century urban administration but also providevivid insights into the social and economic life of the period: the equipping of soldiers, ducking of scolds, and performances of town minstrels and itinerant players.JOHN WEBB was formerly Principal Lecturer in History at Portsmouth Polytechnic.