Henry VII - Economy

• What was the population of England at the beginning of the 15th century?

  2.2 million.
• Where were the majority of people living at this time?

  -in the countryside and relying on some form of farming for a living.

  -most of the 10% of the population who were actually urban dwellers lived in towns which were small by continental standards.
• What was London's population?

  exceeded 50,000.
• How many towns has as many as 3000 people?

  20 towns had as many as 3000 people.
• What was Norwich's population?

  -Norwich had a population exceeding 10,000.
• What were Bristol, York and Coventry's populations like?

  - Bristol, York and Coventry had populations in the range of 8000 to 10,000.
• What were the main industries in these urban areas?

  -wool and cloth were the main industries. Other industries included tin, lead and coal, metal working, leatherwork, shipbuilding and papermaking.
• How was income from the land affected by the Black Death?

  -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.
• Was there are move towards sheep farming?

  -there was much evidence of a greater move towards sheep farming in the 1480s and 1490s.
• What was the reason for the move towards sheep farming?

  -it 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.
• What were the agricultural divisions in England?

  • England could be divided into "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).
• What was the most common form of farming?

  • mixed farming was the most common form of farming found in lowland zone, though pastoral farming predominated in woodland areas and there were specialisms such as horse breeding in the Fenlands.
• Where was open-field husbandry found?

  • concentrated mainly in the grown-growing areas of the southeast and the east Midlands.
• What is mixed farming?

  • a system of farming which involves the growing crops as well as raising of animals as livestock.
• What is pastoral farming?

  -farming involving the rearing of animals- either for animal by products such as milk, eggs or wool, or for meat.
• What were common rights?

  -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.
• What was open-field husbandry?

  -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, the system came under increasing pressure by enclosure in some parts of the country as the 16th century unfolded.
• What were the wool and cloth traders doing?


  -making sheep farming more profitable.
• How did the improved production and profitability come at a cost for peasants?

  -they lost their access to land and common rights, and were often left destitute by the process.
• Did English agriculture undergo any significant change?

  -it underwent no significant change towards the end of the 15th century, and the beginning of the 16th century.
• How many harvests were deficient?

  1 in 4 harvests in a typical decade were deficient and these often led to famine and mass starvation.
• What percentage of the English exports was the cloth trade responsible for?

  90%.
• What was the percentage increase in the volume of cloth exports?

  60% increase in the volume of cloth exports in Henry VII's reign.
• How many people were involved in the cloth trade?

  30,000.
• What had the bulk of exports comprised of in the first part of the century?

  -comprised of raw wool, this was shipped mainly from east-coast ports such as Boston, Lynn and Yarmouth and exported through Calais by the Merchant of the Staple.
• What type of cloth dominated the trade?

  -finished cloth.
• What did finished cloth lead 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 employment.
• What cloth towns were prosperous?

  Lavenham in Suffolk and Lewes in Sussex.
• What historic cities suffered and why?

  Some historic cities such as Winchester and Lincoln had suffered significant decay as the cloth industry tended to move from older corporate boroughs to new manufacturing centres in smaller market towns and villages in East Anglia, the West Riding of Yorkshire and parts of the West Country.
• What reinforced London's commercial dominance within the country?

  - 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 in Antwerp.
• What was the Merchant of the Staple?

  -they controlled the export of wool, the staple was based at Calais from 1363, but the eventual decline in the wool trade reduced the company's importance.
• What was fulling?


  -a step in wollen cloth making involving the cleansing of cloth to eliminate oils, dirt and other impurities, making it thicker in the process.
• Who were the Merchant Adventurers?

  -the wealthiest and most influential company of the City of London, the Merchant Adventurers were a trading organisation which came increasingly to dominate London's cloth trade with Antwerp.
• What did the Merchant Adventurer's domination of the cloth trade match?

  -the Merchant Adventurer's domination of the cloth trade matched the dominance of the wool trade by the Merchants of the Calais Staple, whose economic position they increasingly supplanted.
• How did the King use the Merchant Adventurers?


  -the king increasingly used their expertise in the negotiating of trade treaties such as Intercursus Magnus and the Intercursus Malus.
• Why could the Merchant Adventures not achieve complete domination of trade?

  - because they proved unable to overcome the trading privileges enjoyed by the Hanseatic League which had been reasserted by the treaty in 1474 and again in 1504.
• Why did Henry VII 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.
• Which industry did England remain dependent upon?

  cloth industry.
• Why did England remain dependent on the cloth industry?

  -because other industries remained small and failed to compete effectively with their continental competitors.
• What were weaving and brewing like?

  -they were fairly small scale.

  -they required little capital investment. Most such operations supplied the basic necessities of life, food and shelter.