Again Congratulations - I hope and expect you will both experience so much joy.
This is another excellent suite of arguments covering an area I am not familiar with giving much more "warp and weft" to the case for criticality of the wool industry to the english economy.
Di and I were discussing yesterday ( as couples do) what life was really like for ordinary folks in the late medieval period as the only accounts we have require ( by definition) writing skills. The case you make for Henry VIIs use of even more oppressive labour laws to ensure civil order is a convincing one and would have made life in the late C15 even less joyful.
Given your interest in people's ordinary lives, I think you'll enjoy it. The bits about hygiene were especially eye-opening and interesting - and all informed by experience, as Goodman is a seasoned historical re-enactor, trying out many of the techniques herself. Turns out that changing linens frequently is actually very effective at reducing body odour - more so than frequent washing!
That's a good idea. It deserves a more detailed treatment as it's a fun episode (though I think it unfairly gets blame for the 1620s economic crisis, which it really had nothing to do with). So far I've only mentioned it briefly here:
I read this so leisurely over a day and a half that I forgot when I got to the end about your demographic shift: yes, congratulations! Such a blessed event. The world thanks you.
Great post as always, congratulations on becoming a father. I was wondering if in your next post if you’re going to talk about Statute of Sewers and Thomas Cromwell’s use of its powers to remove obstructions from rivers, such as mills, weirs and fish traps. Hard to have an industrial policy when you tear up the source of power for your industry. Even when it came at the personal expense of Henry VIII. I have struggled to find out much about this period myself and it seam like an under examined piece of history.
Great suggestion. It’s not something I’d planned, but I ought to look into it at some stage. The only thing I’ve read on them is Eric Ash’s work on fen drainage.
I first noticed this when reading through Thomas Cromwell: A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch, in the chapter "Making a Difference 1532". Here are some choice quotes:
"What remains to demonstrate is that in these years from 1531 up to 1540 one can isolate policy initiatives which seem peculiarly his. In order of importance, from the apparently ridiculous to the sublime, we begin with sewers, pass through public relations and end with the Church."
The 'commissions of sewers' were given sweeping new statutory powers and structure by the 1532 session of Parliament. They were vital for the proper functioning of transport, inland fisheries, marsh drainage and flood defences. "In many ways, the work of these commissions over several centuries from 1532 created the modern geography of rural England: less spectacularly or rapidly than the Industrial Revolution, but cumulatively just as important in effect."
"Cromwell also began following Cardinal Wolsey in curbing sheep-farming enclosure. In 1534 he tried to interest the King as well, seeking his personal backing for legislation in Parliament that spring which would have limited any one person to running a flock of 2,000 sheep and no more."
Gloomily, Husee cited the words of the royal commission, which spelled out the social ills that it sought to combat: "All weirs noisome to the passage of ships or boats, to the hurt of passages or ways and causeways shall be pulled down; and those that be occasion of drowning of any lands of pastures... and also those that are the destruction of the increase of fish."1
The Lisles' other senior servant, Leonard Smyth, confirmed the apparent economic irrationality of what was happening: "no man within the realm loseth so much therein as doth the King and the Queen, for their weirs (which are in all countries most commonly best) are destroyed."2
Cromwell wanted to go further than this as well. It is astonishing to find among his remembrances preparing legislation for the Parliament of February 1536 (alongside the abolition of ecclesiastical sanctuary liberties and 'a reformation to diminish' monastic life): "An Act that never weir nor water-mill shall hereafter be erected or made within this realm."3
"Cromwell was still alert for rogue water-mills in 1539, and might, had he lived longer, have gone down in history as the Hammer of the Weirs."
Footnotes
John Husee to Lord Lisle, 19 November [1535], SP 3/5 f. 110, Lisle Letters 2 no. 483.
Leonard Smyth to Lord Lisle, 10 December 1535, SP 1/99 f. 114, Lisle Letters 2 no. 495.
SP 1/102 f. 5rv, LP 10 no. 254. There was a reaffirmation in that Parliament of previous related legislation against streaming for tin in Devon and Cornwall: Lehmberg, Reformation Parliament, 234.
Congratulations on the baby! Hope you get to savor the moment, which slips away fast.
Lots of nuggets here that seem to support the North, Wallis, and Weingast thesis. Henry VII is dragging England away from the "doorstep conditions" by undermining the rule of law for elites, independent merchant bodies like the Company of Merchant Adventurers, and much of that motivated by his own insecurity about control of violence (fear of Warbeck).
Sadly, the whole story feels all too familiar at the moment.
In 2470 my 16th great grandfather was a tenant of the Pylkington's, in Halifax Parish, West Yorkshire, He was a dyer of wool. The Pylkington's hosted Richard duke of Gloucester, while they plotted to free Edward IV from imprisonment at Middleham Castle, North Yorkhire, then Warwick releasted Edward and banished him to France.
while Richard was a guest of the Pylkington's he made pregnant the young daughter of Edmund Pylkington. Now encumbered by carrying the bastard child of the King's brother, there was no noble that would marry her, So they cast around and settled on a poor tenant, an archer in the Pylkington's levy, and a wool dyer.
This young man, was obviously loyal, hardworking and intelligent, so Edmund bribed him with land, located at the mouth of Cragg Brook as it emptied into the Calder River, to marry the pregnant lass. Then they afterwards gifted him more land, three times in all, and mentored him as he acquired sheep and earned enough income to properly care for and educate the royal bastard. Most likely John of Gloucester executed by Henry VII maybe Katherine Plantagent.
John of Gloucester died sans heirs,
This wool dyer turned entrepreneur made his living selling raw wool, and raw wool was sold to the Lowland countries to be processed into textile.
Then Henry VII, after defeating Edward IV, ascending to the throne, discovered that England was the poor man, the armpit,of Europe,so he instituted export tariffs on raw wool, and import tariffs on manufactures.
And it worked, the sons of the wool dyer, became textile manufacturers, they built textile mills along rivers and streams, and it cost a grandson his life, as he damned a stream to built a textile mill, which caused grief to a man down stream, who sued him in Star Chamber, lost, then murdered him.
Never the less the family prospered, thanks to Henry VII, bought land throughout the country,, made money of rents, even leased land to an Abraham Shaw for his coal mining business. And bought an estate and mill in Herfordshire.
A 2nd great grandfather, was by then a wealthy merchant of London, a woolier, who gave his son a purse of silver, enough to buy shares inthe Virginia Company of London, and sail to Virginia in 1618, founding a dynasty and a lineage that includes the likes of Bill Hader, and Neil Patrick Harris
The Tudor tariffs did in fact yank England out of its doldrums.
However tariffs are situational, because they worked for England then, doesn't mean that they will work for anyone now.
England did not have any home grown industry, it basically depended on exports of raw wool,and timber, everything, from textiles, to silverware, to paintings were imported. Henry had to hire artists from abroad. England had no silversmiths, until the Huguenots were pursued by Richeliu and fled to London.
Tariff's were appropriate then, but not now. Even Alexander Hamilton in his Report on Manufactures argued for tariffs to kick start American economic independence.
Fascinating William, but I don’t see how you can argue that Henry VII’s ban on cloth exports was helpful to the cloth trade as opposed to the lack of interruption in the decades after them when exports did dramatically increase - I’ve provided a lot of evidence there for why it cannot have helped!
On the idea of Henry VII bringing over artisans, I’ve yet to see any evidence of this earlier than Francis Bacon asserting it over a hundred years after the fact (while also, like Defoe, seeking to justify tariffs in his own time). So I suspect it’s a myth. There was already a strong clothmaking sector, but hampered frequently by interruptions to trade.
I am not trying to argue anything, Just stating some facts. On one point, my Masters is in Finance, and I have done considerable research and writing.
On the other I am by hobby a genetic genealogist, and have also done a lot of research not on just names, dates and places, but on the social, political and cultural environment of various times.
Mind you my intent was not to justify tariffs's and I believe that I stated that plainly.
Different times, different eras, different situations, different remedies,
Up to the revolution, blood letting and leeches were a cure, and in some cases they actually worked, especially were the wound was septic.
But the story I related was my 15th great grandfather, his name was Henry Ferror, the story is documented.
FRom a dyer of wool, he became the patriarch of dynasty of woolers, from raw wool to textiles, his 2nd great grandson was among those who founded this nation, before it was even a colony. He has his own wikipedia page, I was named after him, as was my father, grandfather, 2nd, 6yh,7th and 8th grandfathers.
The rise was made possible because of Henry VII's tariff on raw wool exports. That forced the family and rest of England to become textile manufacturers, land by the time his son ascened to the throne, England was flush, roads had improved, England was no longer the armpit of Europe. Henry had so much wealth he could build the biggest war ship, the Mary Rose, and outfit it with over 100 bronze cannons, then build a castle, Nonesuch, for Katherine Howard, and finally have parliament pass, a sumptuary law, that forbid the commoner, the merchant, the newly created middle class, exemplified by Thomas Cromwell. from wearing clothing of silk, fine linen, furs and emulating the nobility.
What sense being a man of privilege if everybody dresses and lives like you.
Again what worked then, doesn't work now. society, culture, technology, beliefs have moved on.
But just because it is bad in the current environment, doesn't mean that it was counter productive, 500 years ago.
Oh, BTW, my family did so well, that we invested in the Virginia Company, and my10th GGF gave my 9th, a purse of silver, and sent him on his way, alas poor William was the third son, and not the beneficiary of primogeniture, however by the timehis father John died, John had made a will and among other things left. a mill and estate in Herfordshire to him, which he sailed back to London and sold to his older brother.
Rags to riches because of an export tariff.
The import tariffs on silverware, and fine goods, didn't get off the starting block, because there were no homegrown artisans, until Richelieu began persecutionof the Huguenots.
As an aside, Paul Revere was a Huguenot, his father was born Apollonius Revoire, and he Anglacized his name to Paul Revere.
Yes, I didn’t say anything about whether tariffs work today, but I’m saying they didn’t have any such effect under Henry VII. There was a sumptuary law passed by Edward IV in 1464, which was supposed to restrict the wearing of foreign cloth, but it’s unclear if it had any effect (it was subsequently added to by later kings).
Henry VII did not introduce any additional import or export tariffs to those that had existed since Edward III’s time. The main tax advantage that cloth possessed was that its export was taxed much less than raw wool exports, per weight of cloth, since the 1360s. But this was a very long-standing difference by the 1490s. Henry VII’s main change to trade policy, as I said in my article, was to ban the export of cloth while allowing the export of wool - so the exact opposite of what would promote the cloth industry!
After that, however, the big positive change is that after 1496 (except briefly 1504-1506 and in 1528) there were no more major interruptions due to trade wars like there had been on and off throughout the 15thC. On this point I highly recommend the work of the late John H Munro, for example, who studied the medieval cloth industries of England and the Low Countries extensively. I believe many of his papers can be read online for free.
I very much agree with you that a lot of English industry was still very backward - or indeed lacking! - until well into the 16thC.
Yet the heavy tax on raw wool exports, motivated the English to develop their own full blown industry,and after that England prospered, Compare the portrait of Henry VII to his son. Compare the wealth of England as Henry found it to the wealth of his son. There was a rise in standard of living and the sons of shop keepers and skinners could become wealthy and influential like Thomas Cromwell.
Well, since 1360 it did, such that cloth exports rose to about 50,000 per year. But there was a brake on this growth while trade kept being interrupted by embargoes in the 1460s, 70s, and 90s. Then, after 1500, when the interruptions cease, you see dramatic and rapid expansion up to 120,000 in the 1540s. So yes, it’s in the context of an old taxation difference between wool and cloth - mostly unintentional, funnily enough. But the key shift in the early 16thC is that trade is allowed to expand, allowing much greater cloth expansion.
Congratulations on becoming a father! All the best to the new family configuration!
Thank you!
Mazel tov yes!
Congrats on fatherhood. 20 + years hard labour!
Thank you! So far so enjoyable. But ask me again when he's a toddler.
Congratulations on the demographic change!
Thanks! Perhaps a little too proud of that segue...
Again Congratulations - I hope and expect you will both experience so much joy.
This is another excellent suite of arguments covering an area I am not familiar with giving much more "warp and weft" to the case for criticality of the wool industry to the english economy.
Di and I were discussing yesterday ( as couples do) what life was really like for ordinary folks in the late medieval period as the only accounts we have require ( by definition) writing skills. The case you make for Henry VIIs use of even more oppressive labour laws to ensure civil order is a convincing one and would have made life in the late C15 even less joyful.
Keep up the excellent work
Steve
Cheers Steve! Have you read Ruth Goodman's "How to be a Tudor"? It's absolutely fantastic.
No - another one for my reading list
Given your interest in people's ordinary lives, I think you'll enjoy it. The bits about hygiene were especially eye-opening and interesting - and all informed by experience, as Goodman is a seasoned historical re-enactor, trying out many of the techniques herself. Turns out that changing linens frequently is actually very effective at reducing body odour - more so than frequent washing!
Great piece, Anton. Thank you!
Thanks very much!
Nice. Are you going to do a post on Alderman Cokayne's Project, to close the wool circle, as it were?
That's a good idea. It deserves a more detailed treatment as it's a fun episode (though I think it unfairly gets blame for the 1620s economic crisis, which it really had nothing to do with). So far I've only mentioned it briefly here:
https://www.ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-invention-live-and-let-dye
I read this so leisurely over a day and a half that I forgot when I got to the end about your demographic shift: yes, congratulations! Such a blessed event. The world thanks you.
Great post as always, congratulations on becoming a father. I was wondering if in your next post if you’re going to talk about Statute of Sewers and Thomas Cromwell’s use of its powers to remove obstructions from rivers, such as mills, weirs and fish traps. Hard to have an industrial policy when you tear up the source of power for your industry. Even when it came at the personal expense of Henry VIII. I have struggled to find out much about this period myself and it seam like an under examined piece of history.
Great suggestion. It’s not something I’d planned, but I ought to look into it at some stage. The only thing I’ve read on them is Eric Ash’s work on fen drainage.
I first noticed this when reading through Thomas Cromwell: A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch, in the chapter "Making a Difference 1532". Here are some choice quotes:
"What remains to demonstrate is that in these years from 1531 up to 1540 one can isolate policy initiatives which seem peculiarly his. In order of importance, from the apparently ridiculous to the sublime, we begin with sewers, pass through public relations and end with the Church."
The 'commissions of sewers' were given sweeping new statutory powers and structure by the 1532 session of Parliament. They were vital for the proper functioning of transport, inland fisheries, marsh drainage and flood defences. "In many ways, the work of these commissions over several centuries from 1532 created the modern geography of rural England: less spectacularly or rapidly than the Industrial Revolution, but cumulatively just as important in effect."
"Cromwell also began following Cardinal Wolsey in curbing sheep-farming enclosure. In 1534 he tried to interest the King as well, seeking his personal backing for legislation in Parliament that spring which would have limited any one person to running a flock of 2,000 sheep and no more."
Gloomily, Husee cited the words of the royal commission, which spelled out the social ills that it sought to combat: "All weirs noisome to the passage of ships or boats, to the hurt of passages or ways and causeways shall be pulled down; and those that be occasion of drowning of any lands of pastures... and also those that are the destruction of the increase of fish."1
The Lisles' other senior servant, Leonard Smyth, confirmed the apparent economic irrationality of what was happening: "no man within the realm loseth so much therein as doth the King and the Queen, for their weirs (which are in all countries most commonly best) are destroyed."2
Cromwell wanted to go further than this as well. It is astonishing to find among his remembrances preparing legislation for the Parliament of February 1536 (alongside the abolition of ecclesiastical sanctuary liberties and 'a reformation to diminish' monastic life): "An Act that never weir nor water-mill shall hereafter be erected or made within this realm."3
"Cromwell was still alert for rogue water-mills in 1539, and might, had he lived longer, have gone down in history as the Hammer of the Weirs."
Footnotes
John Husee to Lord Lisle, 19 November [1535], SP 3/5 f. 110, Lisle Letters 2 no. 483.
Leonard Smyth to Lord Lisle, 10 December 1535, SP 1/99 f. 114, Lisle Letters 2 no. 495.
SP 1/102 f. 5rv, LP 10 no. 254. There was a reaffirmation in that Parliament of previous related legislation against streaming for tin in Devon and Cornwall: Lehmberg, Reformation Parliament, 234.
Congratulations on the baby! Hope you get to savor the moment, which slips away fast.
Lots of nuggets here that seem to support the North, Wallis, and Weingast thesis. Henry VII is dragging England away from the "doorstep conditions" by undermining the rule of law for elites, independent merchant bodies like the Company of Merchant Adventurers, and much of that motivated by his own insecurity about control of violence (fear of Warbeck).
Sadly, the whole story feels all too familiar at the moment.
In 2470 my 16th great grandfather was a tenant of the Pylkington's, in Halifax Parish, West Yorkshire, He was a dyer of wool. The Pylkington's hosted Richard duke of Gloucester, while they plotted to free Edward IV from imprisonment at Middleham Castle, North Yorkhire, then Warwick releasted Edward and banished him to France.
while Richard was a guest of the Pylkington's he made pregnant the young daughter of Edmund Pylkington. Now encumbered by carrying the bastard child of the King's brother, there was no noble that would marry her, So they cast around and settled on a poor tenant, an archer in the Pylkington's levy, and a wool dyer.
This young man, was obviously loyal, hardworking and intelligent, so Edmund bribed him with land, located at the mouth of Cragg Brook as it emptied into the Calder River, to marry the pregnant lass. Then they afterwards gifted him more land, three times in all, and mentored him as he acquired sheep and earned enough income to properly care for and educate the royal bastard. Most likely John of Gloucester executed by Henry VII maybe Katherine Plantagent.
John of Gloucester died sans heirs,
This wool dyer turned entrepreneur made his living selling raw wool, and raw wool was sold to the Lowland countries to be processed into textile.
Then Henry VII, after defeating Edward IV, ascending to the throne, discovered that England was the poor man, the armpit,of Europe,so he instituted export tariffs on raw wool, and import tariffs on manufactures.
And it worked, the sons of the wool dyer, became textile manufacturers, they built textile mills along rivers and streams, and it cost a grandson his life, as he damned a stream to built a textile mill, which caused grief to a man down stream, who sued him in Star Chamber, lost, then murdered him.
Never the less the family prospered, thanks to Henry VII, bought land throughout the country,, made money of rents, even leased land to an Abraham Shaw for his coal mining business. And bought an estate and mill in Herfordshire.
A 2nd great grandfather, was by then a wealthy merchant of London, a woolier, who gave his son a purse of silver, enough to buy shares inthe Virginia Company of London, and sail to Virginia in 1618, founding a dynasty and a lineage that includes the likes of Bill Hader, and Neil Patrick Harris
The Tudor tariffs did in fact yank England out of its doldrums.
However tariffs are situational, because they worked for England then, doesn't mean that they will work for anyone now.
England did not have any home grown industry, it basically depended on exports of raw wool,and timber, everything, from textiles, to silverware, to paintings were imported. Henry had to hire artists from abroad. England had no silversmiths, until the Huguenots were pursued by Richeliu and fled to London.
Tariff's were appropriate then, but not now. Even Alexander Hamilton in his Report on Manufactures argued for tariffs to kick start American economic independence.
Fascinating William, but I don’t see how you can argue that Henry VII’s ban on cloth exports was helpful to the cloth trade as opposed to the lack of interruption in the decades after them when exports did dramatically increase - I’ve provided a lot of evidence there for why it cannot have helped!
On the idea of Henry VII bringing over artisans, I’ve yet to see any evidence of this earlier than Francis Bacon asserting it over a hundred years after the fact (while also, like Defoe, seeking to justify tariffs in his own time). So I suspect it’s a myth. There was already a strong clothmaking sector, but hampered frequently by interruptions to trade.
I am not trying to argue anything, Just stating some facts. On one point, my Masters is in Finance, and I have done considerable research and writing.
On the other I am by hobby a genetic genealogist, and have also done a lot of research not on just names, dates and places, but on the social, political and cultural environment of various times.
Mind you my intent was not to justify tariffs's and I believe that I stated that plainly.
Different times, different eras, different situations, different remedies,
Up to the revolution, blood letting and leeches were a cure, and in some cases they actually worked, especially were the wound was septic.
But the story I related was my 15th great grandfather, his name was Henry Ferror, the story is documented.
FRom a dyer of wool, he became the patriarch of dynasty of woolers, from raw wool to textiles, his 2nd great grandson was among those who founded this nation, before it was even a colony. He has his own wikipedia page, I was named after him, as was my father, grandfather, 2nd, 6yh,7th and 8th grandfathers.
The rise was made possible because of Henry VII's tariff on raw wool exports. That forced the family and rest of England to become textile manufacturers, land by the time his son ascened to the throne, England was flush, roads had improved, England was no longer the armpit of Europe. Henry had so much wealth he could build the biggest war ship, the Mary Rose, and outfit it with over 100 bronze cannons, then build a castle, Nonesuch, for Katherine Howard, and finally have parliament pass, a sumptuary law, that forbid the commoner, the merchant, the newly created middle class, exemplified by Thomas Cromwell. from wearing clothing of silk, fine linen, furs and emulating the nobility.
What sense being a man of privilege if everybody dresses and lives like you.
Again what worked then, doesn't work now. society, culture, technology, beliefs have moved on.
But just because it is bad in the current environment, doesn't mean that it was counter productive, 500 years ago.
Oh, BTW, my family did so well, that we invested in the Virginia Company, and my10th GGF gave my 9th, a purse of silver, and sent him on his way, alas poor William was the third son, and not the beneficiary of primogeniture, however by the timehis father John died, John had made a will and among other things left. a mill and estate in Herfordshire to him, which he sailed back to London and sold to his older brother.
Rags to riches because of an export tariff.
The import tariffs on silverware, and fine goods, didn't get off the starting block, because there were no homegrown artisans, until Richelieu began persecutionof the Huguenots.
As an aside, Paul Revere was a Huguenot, his father was born Apollonius Revoire, and he Anglacized his name to Paul Revere.
Yes, I didn’t say anything about whether tariffs work today, but I’m saying they didn’t have any such effect under Henry VII. There was a sumptuary law passed by Edward IV in 1464, which was supposed to restrict the wearing of foreign cloth, but it’s unclear if it had any effect (it was subsequently added to by later kings).
Henry VII did not introduce any additional import or export tariffs to those that had existed since Edward III’s time. The main tax advantage that cloth possessed was that its export was taxed much less than raw wool exports, per weight of cloth, since the 1360s. But this was a very long-standing difference by the 1490s. Henry VII’s main change to trade policy, as I said in my article, was to ban the export of cloth while allowing the export of wool - so the exact opposite of what would promote the cloth industry!
After that, however, the big positive change is that after 1496 (except briefly 1504-1506 and in 1528) there were no more major interruptions due to trade wars like there had been on and off throughout the 15thC. On this point I highly recommend the work of the late John H Munro, for example, who studied the medieval cloth industries of England and the Low Countries extensively. I believe many of his papers can be read online for free.
I very much agree with you that a lot of English industry was still very backward - or indeed lacking! - until well into the 16thC.
Yet the heavy tax on raw wool exports, motivated the English to develop their own full blown industry,and after that England prospered, Compare the portrait of Henry VII to his son. Compare the wealth of England as Henry found it to the wealth of his son. There was a rise in standard of living and the sons of shop keepers and skinners could become wealthy and influential like Thomas Cromwell.
Well, since 1360 it did, such that cloth exports rose to about 50,000 per year. But there was a brake on this growth while trade kept being interrupted by embargoes in the 1460s, 70s, and 90s. Then, after 1500, when the interruptions cease, you see dramatic and rapid expansion up to 120,000 in the 1540s. So yes, it’s in the context of an old taxation difference between wool and cloth - mostly unintentional, funnily enough. But the key shift in the early 16thC is that trade is allowed to expand, allowing much greater cloth expansion.