Henry VII Economy

Question 1

Agriculture

Answer 1

• Move towards sheep farming
• Increased demand for wool as trade developed
• Most acute in South
• Led to loss of common land and strip farming (enclosure and no open field husbandry) but not until first half of 1500s
• changed little during H reign

Question 2

Trade and industry

Answer 2

• Cloth 90% exports
• farms raised income by spinning, weaving, fulling and dyeing wool
• Lavenham flourished from cloth trade
• Finished cloth exported to london to Antwerp where it was sent all over europe
• new industries: tin, lead, coal, iron, metal working, leatherwork, shipbuilding, papermaking and brewing

Question 3

How was trade developed?

Answer 3

• Navigation acts 1485 and 1489; only english ships could carry products to and from english ports - boosted shipbuilding and challenged Hanseatic league
• support for merchant adventurers who controlled cloth trade
• intercursus magnus 1496 ended Netherlands trade embargo
• no breakthrough in mediterranean trade; hanseatic league limited english influence

Question 4

Exploration

Answer 4

• slower than spain and portugal
• 1497 Cabot found Newfoundland
• 1499/1500 Weston led expedition to New World
• Cabot’s son led unsuccessful expedition to north west passage to Asia in 1508

Question 5

Prosperity and depression

Answer 5

• relatively stable economically
• population growing and trade expanding
• cloth trade stimulated economy
• bad harvests and trade embargos damaged prosperity
• 1493 and 1496 cloth industry depressions