CHAPTER III 



THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.— DECLINE OF AGRI- 

 CULTURE.— THE BLACK DEATH. — STATUTE OF 

 LABOURERS 



After the death of Edward I in 1307 the progress of 

 English agriculture came to a standstill, and little advance 

 was made till after the battle of Bosworth in 1485. The weak 

 government of Edward II, the long French War commenced 

 by Edward III and lasting over a hundred years, and the Wars 

 of the Roses, all combined to impoverish the country. England, 

 too, was repeatedly afflicted during the fourteenth and fifteenth 

 centuries by pestilences, sometimes caused by famines, some- 

 times coming with no apparent cause ; all probably aggravated, 

 if not caused, by the insanitary habits of the people. The 

 mention of plagues, indeed, at this time is so frequent that we 

 may call them chronic. 



At this period corn and wool were the two main products 

 of the farmer ; corn to feed his household and labourers, and 

 wool to put money in his pocket, a somewhat rare thing. 



English wool, which came to be called 'the flower and 

 strength and revenue and blood of England ', was famous in 

 very early times, and was exported long before the Conquest. 

 In Edgar's reign the price was fixed by law, to prevent it 

 getting into the hands of the foreigner too cheaply ; a wey, or 

 weigh, was to be sold for 120^.^ Patriotic Englishmen asserted 

 it was the best in the world, and Henry II, Edward III, and 

 Edward IV are said to have improved the Spanish breed by 

 presents of English sheep. Spanish wool, however, was con- 

 sidered the best from the earliest times until the Peninsular 



' Cunningham, Grotvth of English Industry and Commerce, i. 130. 

 A weigh in the Middle Ages was 182 lbs., or half a sack. 



