Economic Development

• Agriculture:

  The majority of people during Henrys reign(90%) worked in agriculture. This was subsistence farming, enough to feed yourself. The strength of the industry depended on harvests. In the 1480's and 90's there was a greater move towards sheep farming as it was much more profitable. There was then also a shift to enclosure farming when open feilds were fenced of to allow livestock to graze on the land. This impacted peasents as they lived on and survived of their land which was reclaimed by landowners.
• Imports and Exports:

  • The cloth trade was responsible for 90% of English exports
  • finished cloth came to dominate the trade as it gave greater opportunities for employment and was much more profitable
  • Henrys attitude to trade was mixed. He wanted to maximise custom revenues but was prepared to sacrifice it in interests of his dynasty(trade embargo)
  • Navigations act 1485 forbid merchants from loading their goods onto foreign ships
• Exploration:

  • The 15th century was a great era of Europian Exploration
  • Henry provided funding for John and Sebasitan Cabot to find a western passage to asia however they sailed to newfoundland 1497 and reported existance of fishing grounds. they were both later lost at sea
  • It wasn't until Elizabeth that England started to explore oceans again
• Real wages were increasing as harvests remained mostly good and population continued to recover from the Black death