Chapter 5

Question 1

How agrarian was England?

Answer 1

England was still overwhelmingly an agrarian [i.e. farming] country for nine tenths of the people lived more or less directly from the land.

Question 2

How many people worked in the cloth trade?

Answer 2

By 1500 the cloth industry, England’s major industry, possibly employed 30,000 people, or about 1.3 per cent of the population, full-time.

Question 3

How significant was cloth compared to agriculture?

Answer 3

Although the cloth industry provided part-time work for a great many more people to support peasant agriculture, it was still insignificant as compared with the contribution of agriculture to the national economy.

Question 4

Population size and where did they live?

Answer 4

The population of England at the beginning of the fifteenth century was around 2.2 million. The majority of people at this time were living in the countryside and relying on some form of farming for a living. Most of the 10 per cent of the population who were actually urban dwellers lived in towns which were small by continental standards. London was the obvious exception, with a population which probably exceeded 50,000, but probably no more than 20 towns had as many as 3000 people. Amongst provincial towns only Norwich had a population exceeding 10,000, with Bristol, York and Coventry having populations in the range of 8000 to 10,000.

Question 5

Main industries in urban areas?

Answer 5

In these urban areas wool and cloth were the main industries. Other industries included mining tin, lead and coal; metal working; leatherwork; shipbuilding; and papermaking.

Question 6

What was Henry’s general economic policy?

Answer 6

Although Henry VII was interested in building up his personal wealth, he had no specific economic policy as a modern leader would. The Acts of Parliament that dealt with economic matters were mainly the result of the private lobbying of merchants, who had a vested interest.

Question 7

How did population affect income from the land?

Answer 7

Income from land had declined in the aftermath of the Black Death of the 1300s and early 1400s, though it has been suggested that there was something of a recovery in the 1480s and 1490s, as the population began to increase again.

Question 8

How did types of farming practised change?

Answer 8

There was much evidence of a greater move towards sheep farming in the 1480s and 1490s. This was a reflection not only of the depressed profitability of arable (crop) farming, but also the improved profitability of sheep farming brought about by the increasing demand for wool, as the population grew and trade overseas developed.

Question 9

How did agriculture differ regionally?

Answer 9

As a largely agricultural society, England could be divided into a lowland zone to the south and east (a line drawn from the Tees estuary to Weymouth) and a highland zone (roughly north and west of that line).
Mixed farming was the most common form of farming found in the lowland zone, though pastoral farming predominated in woodland areas and there were specialisms such as horse breeding in the Fenlands. The traditional manorial system of open-field husbandry could be found in such areas and was concentrated mainly in the grain-growing areas of the southeast and the east Midlands.

However, some parts of this region were increasingly experiencing change, with the wool and cloth trades making sheep farming relatively more profitable. The efficiency gains in terms of improved production and profitability came at a price for peasants who lost their access to land and common rights, and were often left destitute by the process. In the late fifteenth century this was not a frequent occurrence. It became more widespread in the first half of the sixteenth century, when it created both a moral outcry and political pressures which proved difficult to contain. On the whole, however, it would be fair to say that English agriculture underwent no significant changes towards the end of the fifteenth, and beginning of the sixteenth, century.

Question 10

What was Open-field husbandry?

Answer 10

The ‘manorial system of open-field husbandry’ (or open-field system) was the form of landholding which predominated in most of lowland’ England. The manor was a specific landed estate whose tenants farmed strips of land found in open fields and who enjoyed common rights, particularly for keeping animals. This system came under increasing pressure by enclosure in some parts of the country as the sixteenth century unfolded.

Question 11

What is pastoral farming?

Answer 11

farming involving the rearing of animals - either for animal by-products such as milk, eggs or wool, or for meat

Question 12

What is mixed farming?

Answer 12

a system of farming which involves the growing of crops as well as the raising of animals as livestock

Question 13

What were common rights?

Answer 13

denotes the legal right of tenants to use common land, for example for keeping animals; the exact nature of these rights varied from place to place

Question 14

Who were the Merchants of the Staple?

Answer 14

incorporated by royal charter in 1319, they controlled the export of wool; the staple was based at Calais (an English possession] from 1363, but the eventual decline in the wool trade reduced the company’s importance

Question 15

What was fulling?

Answer 15

a step in woollen cloth making which involves the cleansing of cloth (particularly wool] to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, making it thicker in the process

Question 16

How important was cloth regarding exports?

Answer 16

The cloth trade was responsible for about 90 per cent of the value of English exports.

Question 17

How did the importance of cloth increase?

Answer 17

The trade certainly flourished in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. Jack Lander has estimated that there was an increase of over 60 per cent in the volume of cloth exports during Henry VIIs reign.
In the earlier part of the century, the bulk of exports had comprised raw wool; this was shipped mainly from east-coast ports such as Boston, Lynn and Yarmouth and exported through Calais by the Merchants of the Staple. Increasingly, however, it was finished cloth which dominated the trade. This led to the development of weaving, usually done as a domestic process, and fulling and dyeing, which were
commercial enterprises. As a result, the industry offered opportunities for rural employment to supplement agrarian incomes.

Question 18

In which regions was cloth important and successful?

Answer 18

Some cloth towns, such as Lavenham in Suffolk and Lewes in Sussex, were extremely prosperous. However, some historic cities such as Winchester and Lincoln had suffered significant decay as the cloth industry tended to move from older corporate boroughs to newer manufacturing centres in smaller market towns and villages in East Anglia, the West Riding of Yorkshire and parts of the West Country.

Question 19

To where and from where was cloth exported?

Answer 19

An increasing proportion of the finished cloth was exported from London through the Merchant Adventurers. This reinforced London’s commercial dominance within the country and established a commercial axis with Antwerp which, during this period, according to the economic historian Donald Coleman, was the commercial metropolis of Europe and its main money market. From Antwerp, English cloth was transported all over
Europe.

Question 20

Who were The Merchant Adventurers?

Answer 20

Founded in 1407 and dominated by members of the Mercers Company, the wealthiest and most influential company of the City of London, the Merchant Adventurers were a trading organisation which came the Mersey to dominate London’s cloth trade with Antwerp. The Merchan Adventurers’ domination of the cloth trade matched the dominance of he wool trade by the Merchants of the (Calais) Staple, whose economic position they increasingly supplanted. Their positive relationship with Pas Crown was immensely important. On the one hand, they could act as the voice of the industry when its commercial needs were subordinated to national policy; on the other hand, the king increasingly used their expertise in the negotiating of trade treaties such as the Intercursus Magnus and the Intercursus Malus. They had become the most powerfu English business organisation of the age.

Question 21

What was the Hanseatic League?

Answer 21

a group of free cities originating in the thirteenth century, which came together to form a commercial union with the intention of controlling trade in the Baltic Sea; the league dominated commercial activity in northern Europe from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century

Question 22

What was metallurgy?

Answer 22

the scientific study of the extraction, refining, alloying and fabrication of metals, and of their structure and properties

Question 23

Weakness of The Merchant Adventurers and why?

Answer 23

The Merchant Adventurers could not achieve complete domination of trad because they proved unable to overcome the trading privileges enjoyed by the Hanseatic League which had been reasserted by treaty in 1474 and again in
1504. Henry VII may have agreed to reassert this treaty because he needed to ensure that the Hanseatic League would offer no support to the Yorkist claimant to the throne, the Earl of Suffolk. However, this sacrifice of English commercial interests was, Jack Lander has asserted, out of all proportion to the feeble threat posed by the de la Poles.

Question 24

Other industries besides cloth and where?

Answer 24

England remained dependent, in trading terms, on the cloth industry, especially as other industries remained small and failed to compete effectively with their continental competitors. Most industrial activities, for example weaving or brewing were small-scale craft operations which required little capital investment. Most such operations supplied the basic necessities of life, food and shelter. Mining required rather more capital investment, but remained fairly small scale. Tin was rained in Cornwall, lead was mined in upland areas such as the high Pennines and the Mendips, and coal was mined in Durham and Northumberland. Iron are was mined and smelted in the Weald of Sussex and Kent, where there was a blast furnace as early as 1496. Much of the coal from the northeast was shipped from Newcastle to meet the growing demand for domestic and industrial fuel in London, but there was also a small export trade to Germany and the Netherlands. The development of basic pumping technology, first recorded at Finchale in County Durham in 1486, enabled greater production.

Question 25

Henry’s general approach to trade?

Answer 25

The Crowns approach to trade during Henry VIP’s reign had little consistency.
Henry was clearly interested in maximising customs revenue. However, it was equally clear that he was quite prepared to sacrifice revenue and trade in the interests of securing the dynasty, and he was also happy for Parliament to legislate in favour of sectional interests.

Question 26

What was the biggest issue concerning trade in Henry’s reign and what happened?

Answer 26

The biggest issue concerning trade in Henry’s reign stemmed from his embargo (i.e. ban) on trade with the Netherlands. He imposed this in 1493 as a result of the fear and insecurity brought about by Margaret of Burgundy’s support for Perkin Warbeck. Instead of trading directly with the Netherlands, merchants were required to direct their trade through Calais. This simply invited retaliation from the Netherlands. The embargo ended with the treaty known as the Intercursus Magnus, though the terms of the treaty were still being debated two years later. Henry appeared to panic once again in 1503 when the claim of the Earl of Suffolk was once again being taken seriously around Burgundy. Henry attempted to reimpose the embargo. In this instance he was fortunate that Circumstances in 1506 allowed him to negotiate the Intercursus Malus, even if its full terms were never imposed.

Question 27

What were the two Intercursus treaties?

Answer 27

Intercursus Magnus (‘Great Intercourse) and Intercursus Malus (Evil
Intercourse) were terms which were used in Francis Bacon’s History of the Reign of King Henry VII, written in 1621. Intercursus Magnus set down that English merchants could export to any part of the Duke of Burgundy’s lands apart from Flanders, that merchants would be granted swift and fair justice and that effective arrangements would be put in place for the resolution of disputes. Philip of Burgundy confirmed Intercursus Magnus in 1499 and it was to prove a solid basis for trading relationships from that point on. Intercursus Malus was in practice extorted from Philip as a result of his weakness in 1506. The treaty never became fully operative and by the following year trading relationships had been restored on the basis of Intercursus Magnus.

Question 28

Other minor trade treaties?

Answer 28

Several trade treaties were concluded, though these were of minor importance and showed that Henry rated foreign policy and dynastic interests as greater priorities than the interests of English merchants. Trading restrictions, which had existed since Edward Is reign, were removed in 1486. They were reimposed in the following year as a result of Henry’s support for Brittany, but largely removed again by the Treaty of Etaples of 1492. This treaty, while not primarily a trade treaty, did try to encourage Anglo-French commercial relations. Most of the remaining trading restrictions were removed in 1497. Henry also passed the Navigation Acts of 1485 and 1489. The objective of these was to encourage English shipping by trying to ensure that only English ships should carry certain products to and from English ports. Such legislation had only limited usefulness, as foreign vessels continued to transport a substantial proportion of English exports.

Question 29

How successful was English trading in the Baltic?

Answer 29

Weaknesses in trading policy were shown when the attempt to make a significant breakthrough in Mediteranean trade proved a dismal failure, and the Hanseatic League was largely successful in limiting the development of English trading interests in the Baltic

Question 30

English vs European exploration?

Answer 30

The fifteenth century had proved to be a great era of European exploration.
Spanish and Portuguese explorers had opened up much of the world, and the Portuguese had particularly benefited from their domination of the spice trade, English sailors were much slower to engage in such activities.

Question 31

English exploration attempts and activities?

Answer 31

Bristol merchants and seamen were interested in the possibilities of transatlantic discovery; indeed, it was rumoured that such a discovery had been made some time before 1465 and there is evidence that Atlantic exploration was taking place from 1480, albeit on a small scale and unsuccessfully.
John Cabot appears to have arrived in Bristol in 1494 or 1495. This was a time when Bristol fish merchants were looking for alternative fishing grounds to exploit, having been excluded from Icelandic waters by the Hanseatic League.
Cabot received authorisation from Henry VII to ‘search out any isles, countries, regions or provinces of heathens and infidels whomsoever set in any part of the world soever, which have been before these times unknown to all Christians.
He sailed in 1497, located what became known as Newfoundland and reported the existence of extensive fishing grounds. He set off on a second voyage in the following year, from which he never returned. He was presumed lost at sea.
Cabot, however unrealistic his overall objectives, did establish, in the words of David Quinn, that a substantial land mass did exist within reasonable sailing from Europe and laid the way for the Bristol fishery. Despite some claims to the contrary, it is almost certain that Cabot never set foot on the American mainland. However, it has recently been discovered that a Bristol merchant named William Weston might have done so in 1499 or 1500. Even if he did not do so he was certainly the first Englishman to lead an expedition to the New World.
Although John Cabot’s son, Sebastian, received sponsorship from Henry VII and led an unsuccessful attempt to find the ‘north-west passage to Asia in 1508, English exploration of the north Atlantic tailed off with the accession of Henry VIlI, who had little appetite for supporting such enterprises.
The newly discovered fishing grounds became for a long time afterwards the preserve of seamen from Portugal and the Basque region of northern Spain.

Question 32

Prosperity and depression under Henry?

Answer 32

Apart from a temporary rise in the 1480s, prices seem to have remained steady. The available evidence suggests that much the same happened to wages. On the other hand, there does appear to have been a decline in the export price of wool and in the price of grain and animal products in the 1490s. This might imply a reduction in farming profitability at this time but also rising real incomes for domestic consumers. Both building workers and agricultural labourers were, on the whole, better off during the 1490s than they would be at any other time during the Tudor period.

Question 33

Overall economic evaluation of reign

Answer 33

In comparison with what was to occur later in the Tudor period, the rein of Henry VIl was a period of relative economic stability, apart from the senporary disruptions to Anglo- Netherlands trade win the Hanseatic leg.
There was little to differentiate the reign economically from what had gone betore, under Edwvard IV. The economy remained firmly based on agriculture. with a leavening of small-scale industrial enterprises. The king was associated with some attempts to encourage English trade, though how much influence these had is debatable. Dynastic interests always prevailed over commercial interests when the two appeared to clash.