Convention—Agriculture in middle Ages. 207 
to 1320, wheat ranged from 4^ to IG shillings a quarter (of eight 
bushels). 
Manufactures, as a distinct branch of industr^q hardly existed at 
this time, except in some parts of the Continent. And for the pur¬ 
pose of home manufacture, the products required were few and 
simple. I have said that the estates were large, containing in gen¬ 
eral a whole township; but this estate, or manor, contained a mul¬ 
titude of agricultural tenants of various grades, and a village, with 
its laborers and artisans, sufficient for all the simple requirements 
of village life. The carpenter and wheelwright were supplied with 
timber from the woods of the manor; the herds of cattle furnished 
leather, the flocks of sheep furnished wool; iron alone had to be 
purchased from outside. And there was scarcely any other material 
for manufacture needed; wool was the almost exclusive wearing 
material, although for other purposes, coarse cloths were made of 
hemp, and linen was always more or less in use, although not very 
generally until the fourteenth century. There was likewise some 
production of dye-stuffs. 
Neither did commerce make any large demands upon medieval 
agriculture. There was but one commodity of English production 
which was exported to any extent, and that was wool. England 
was at this period the great wool-producing country of northern 
Europe, its moist and equable climate peculiarly adapting It to 
grazing. This was exported chiefly to Flanders, which was the 
principal seat of manufacturing industry; but in the course of 
the fourteenth century, numbers of Flemings — driven away by 
the disorders and misgovernment of their native land, and perhaps 
partly by the inundations upon their coast, and attracted by the 
prosperity and freedom of England — settled in the eastern coun¬ 
ties, and established woolen manufactories there — the commence¬ 
ment of the manufacturing industry which has raised England to 
its present wealth and power. 
AYool, therefore, was the one great staple of England, whether 
for manufacture or for export; for home-consumption toe, so far as 
clothing is concerned. The raising of sheep, wffiich had always 
been an important branch of industry, assumed large dimensions to¬ 
ward the close of the Middle Ages, and even encroached greatly up¬ 
on operations which were more strictly agricultural in their nature. 
Neat cattle were also produced, and, for purposes of food, large 
