INTRODUCTORY NOTES
The Tourney
This is here shown to be a sport, a trial of skill in which groups of knights encounter. The more serious ordeal by battle or tournament is a duel often to the death and so the rules for it are more strict and heavily guarded.
A good lesson on the courtesy of the late chivalric age may be drawn from this and further illustrated from Froissart. Here as there, and in Joinville, the care for horses may be seen.
Wages and Coinage
These are chiefly useful for comparison with other periods, especially those imposed in the Statute of Labourers. The powers of the J.P. may be noted, also the status of the shepherd due to the importance of wool for the new cloth manufacture.
Safeguard of the Sea
This and the following extract are important as illustrating the beginnings of a royal naval policy, the navy to be drawn from merchant shipping and placed under military commanders. It is in accord with the policy advocated in 1436 in the Libel of English Policy (see Lipson, Economic History of England). They shew further the rise of the direct influence of the wealthy wool and cloth merchants in government.
The fleet captured by Wynynton is that of the Hansa League or Easterling Merchants; the work of Henry IV and Henry V, in copying Genoese models, enabled English ships for the first time to carry more than one mast, and so increase both speed and capacity for artillery. Henry VII and Henry VIII continued this policy but Elizabeth economized, relying on their provision and on individual patriotic effort.
Paston Letters
The real meaning of the Wars of the Roses for the society of the time, emerges from such pictures as those of the need for self protection.
Petition of the Commons
This demand of privilege shows how much the Parliament had gained in power from the insecure position of Henry IV and Henry V’s need for war supplies, while the merchants’ wealth grew. It suggests reasons for Henry VII’s determination to drain their resources.
Alnwick’s Visitations
It must be remembered that an enquiry such as this leads to the airing of grievances, and so to a one-sided view of the monastic life; also that by this time the original high standards of most orders were beginning to droop. Care should be taken to avoid giving children a biassed view on this subject.
Enclosures
Under the common field system there had always existed closes, or small fenced pieces of land attached to the owner’s dwelling-house or farm. It was also a lawful practice in the thirteenth century for lords or wealthy men to “approve,” i.e., enclose and cultivate portions of the land hitherto lying waste.
The enclosures of the sixteenth century differ from these. The growth before 1400 of the wool industry for export, and after that period for the English manufacture into cloth, raised the value of sheep-farming, and combined with the shortage of labour to bring about great sheep farms and a capitalistic system. Wealth was concentrated in the hands of big merchants, nobles or corporations. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century new methods of farming; rotation of crops, including roots; dairying; great drainage schemes led to the desire to escape from the unprogressive open field system; by enclosing, dairy farms became possible, and the famous brands of English cattle, sheep and horses could be developed.
The effect of these changes is noted by A. Young in his tours (see p. 229, etc.).
Holinshed gives a short, clear account of the risings which were brought about by rich or progressive owners enclosing their share of the common fields, and often more than their share. The illustrations from Cambridge documents give some of those details which alone enable children to grasp these social changes.