HOW SIGNIFICANT WAS THE POSITION OF AGRICULTURE IN THE ENGLISH ECONOMY IN THE YEARS 1485-1509?

Question 1

Introduction

Answer 1

• Agriculture / agrarian / pastoral = animals / cereal farming = growing cereals
• Was significant = made basis of the English economy at the time
• Some development of non-agricultural aspects of the English economy especially cloth
• Cloth was in particular seeing a particularly growing in importance but still not on par with agriculture
• Did not constitute the majority of economy at the time
• Henry interested in building personal wealth but had no specific economic policy

Question 2

Significant

Answer 2

Agriculture

Question 3

Insignificant

Answer 3

Importance of Cloth trade
Importance of small scale industries

Question 4

Significant: Agriculture

Answer 4

• Very dependent on agriculture - 90% of people lived in countryside = most significant
• Mixed farming: most common type of farming in lowland
  Through pastoral farming - predominated in woodlands
• Open field husbandry: conc. mainly in grain growing areas: S.E and E midlands

Question 5

Importance of cloth

Answer 5

• 1500: cloth = major / employed 1.3% of the 2.2million population
• Urban areas: wool + cloth = main industries
• Wool demand increased - increased population + developments in overseas trade
• Wool + cloth trade: made sheep farming relatively more profitable
• Improved production and profitability / came at a price for peasants
  Loss access to their land / common rights / = left destitute - widespread by C16th
• Jack Landers: ‘an increase in over 60% in the volume of cloth exports during Henry VII’s reign’
• Some cloth towns: v. prosperous = Lavenham + Lewes
• Historic cities Winchester + Lincoln = decay - move from old corp. to new manufacturing
• Incr. proportion of finished cloth exported through London via Merchant Adventure
• Reinforced commercial dominance + established commercial axis with Antwerp - linked w f.p establishing

Question 6

Insignificant: Importance of small-scale industries

Answer 6

Small scale craft operations: weaving + brewing - little capital investment
- Mining: required more capital / remained fairly small-scale
- Tin: mined in Cornwall / Lead: mined + smelted in Weald of Sussex and Kent
- Coal: shipped to Newcastle to meet fuel demands / small export trade to Germany + Netherlands
- Growing demand for domestic + industrial fuel in London
- 1496: invention of blast furnace
- Development pumping technology which was first recorded at Finchale, Country Durham
- Industries offered opportunity for rural employment to supplement agrarian income
- Despite these other industries = small + failing to compete with their continental competitors
Germany + Bohemia = metal lurgy // Spanish + Portuguese + Dutch = shipbuilding.

Question 7

Conclusion

Answer 7

• Clear that English economy was ultimately an agricultural economy
• Dominated people’s lives and accounted for the Lion’s share of economic activity
• Growth in wool trade ultimately reliant on the produce of the agricultural products of sheep rearing.
• Growing role of cloth however cannot be dismissed which later grew in the tudor reign