trade & economy

• Trade

  Increased during the first half of the 16th century, with the encouragement of the Crown
• Merchant Adventurers

  English company that traded in finished cloth, sent to Antwerp for dyeing and finishing, and controlled trade with north west Germany
• Wine was increasingly imported from the continent, reflecting the changing tastes and wealth of the social elites
• Henry V made no attempt to build on the achievements of Cabot and the Bristol merchants at the end of the 15th century
• Robert Thorne, a Bristol trader, continued his involvement in the Newfoundland fishery but other merchants failed to procure royal support for exploration
• Tudor England

  • Relatively prosperous compared to earlier times
  • Woolles industry grew to keep pace with increasing trade and demand
  • Mining (tin, lead, coal) and iron production also prospered
  • Population growth provided labour for industry
• Debasement of the coinage


  Created a short term artificial boom in 1544-45 by putting more coinage into circulation
• Agricultural changes

  • Enclosure increased farm size
  • New agricultural techniques like crop rotation and breeding of superior cattle and sheep
  • Amalgamating farms benefited agriculture
• Bad harvests (1523-24 and 1527-28)


  Caused food prices to almost double across Henry V's reign
• Enclosure

  • increased farm size
  • new agricultural techniques
  • made peasants homeless
• Debasement of the coinage

  • Crown's attempt at meeting expenditure
  • 1544-46 Created short-term artificial boom
  • Brought inflation and a fall in real wages by the end of the reign as prices and rents rose
• The impact of population growth put strain on food supply, leading to rising demand, stagnating wages, and some peasants moving from rural to urban communities and suffering a precarious existence
• impact of population growth - distress

  • strain on food supply due to demand
  • wages stagnated - plentiful supply of labour
• impact of population growth - prosperity

  • increase in agriculture prices
  • increase in farming incomes
  • wealth for yeomen, husbandry, landowners
• Prosperity

  • wooden industry to keep pace with increasing trade and demand
  • tin, lead and coal mining
  • new blast furnaces increased amount of iron core
• Engrossing = merging farms

  • benefited agriculture
  • made peasants homeless
• Depression

  • bad harvests
  • debasement
  • homelessness