14 The Progress of British Agriculture 



The wealth of England was in the agricultural 

 districts, and the greatest population was in the south 

 and east. If a line is drawn from Norfolk through 

 Reading to Dorsetshire, we shall find the densest 

 population and the greatest agricultural wealth on the 

 eastern side in the Middle Ages. Norfolk was then the 

 richest county, owing not only to the agriculture, but 



Lavenham Church, Suffolk 



(I.avenham was formerly a centre of the cloth- weaving industry. 

 Its church is one of the finest parish churches in England) 



largely to its being a great centre of the woollen trade. 

 Its towns and villages were the homes of Flemish 

 weavers and other foreign workmen, and the fine 

 churches of Norfolk and Suffolk remind us of the wealth 

 and piety of its people at this particular period. Among 

 the other rich agricultural counties were Middlesex, 

 Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, Kent, and Berkshire, while 



