Download or read book Legal Plunder written by Daniel Lord Smail and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-06 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a Europe grew rich in the Middle Ages, the well-made clothes, linens, and wares of households often substituted for hard currency. Pawnbrokers kept goods in circulation, and sergeants of the law marched into debtors’ homes to seize belongings equal in value to debts owed. David Smail describes a material world on the cusp of modern capitalism.