By the end of the 1200s, the King's wardrobe, where confidential matters such as military affairs were discussed in his bedroom, became a department of state with the King's privy seal. The keeper of the privy seal was established as a new office by Edward I in 1318. The wardrobe paid and provisioned the knights, squires, and sergeants of the king and was composed mostly of civil servants. It traveled with the King. The Crown's treasure, plate, tents, hangings, beds, cooking-utensils, wine, and legal and financial rolls were carried on pack horses or in two-wheeled carts drawn by oxen, donkeys, or dogs. The people in the entourage rode horses or walked. The other two specialized administrative bodies were the Exchequer, which received most of the royal revenue and kept accounts at Westminster, and the Chancery, which wrote royal writs, charters, and letters, and kept records.
The chief functions of administration in the 1300s were performed by the council, chancery, wardrobe, chamber [room off wardrobe for dressing and for storage], and exchequer. Many of the chancellors had come from the wardrobe and chamber. In time, the chancellor ceased to be a part of the king's personal retinue and to follow the court. The chancery became primarily a department of central administration rather than a secretarieat and record-keeping part of the royal household. The king used a privy seal to issue directives to the chancery. Edward III made some merchants earls and appointed them to be his ministers. He did not summon anyone to his council who did not have the confidence of the magnates [barons, earls, bishops, and abbots].
There was a recoinage due to debasement of the old coinage. This increased the number of coins in circulation. The price of wheat went from about 7s. in 1270 to about 5s. per quarter in 1280. Also the price of an ox went from 14s. to 10s. Then there were broad movements of prices, within which there were wide fluctuations, largely due to the state of the harvest. From 1280 to 1290, there was runaway inflation. In some places, both grain and livestock prices almost doubled between 1305 and 1310. Wheat prices peaked at 15s.5d. a quarter in the famine year of 1316. In 1338, prices dropped and remained low for twenty years. The poor were hurt by high prices and the lords of the manors were hurt by low prices.
As before, inadequate care and ignorance of nutrition caused many infant deaths. Accidents and disease were so prevalent that death was always near and life insecure. Many women died in childbirth.
In the 1300s, there were extremes of fashion in men's and women's clothing including tight garments, pendant sleeves down to the ground, coats so short they didn't reach the hips or so long they reached the heels, hoods so small they couldn't cover the head, and shoes with long curved peaks like claws at the toes. Both men and women wore belts low on the hips. The skirt of a lady's tunic was fuller and the bodice more closely fitted than before. Her hair was usually elaborately done up, e.g. with long curls or curled braids on either side of the face. A jeweled circlet was often worn around her head. Ladies wore on their arms or belts, cloth handbags, which usually contained toiletries, such as combs made of ivory, horn, bone, or wood, and perhaps a little book of devotions. A man wore a knife and a bag on his belt. Some women painted their faces and/or colored their hair. There were hand- held glass mirrors. Some people kept dogs purely as pets.
There was a great development of heraldic splendor with for instance, crests, coat-armor, badges, pennons [long, triangular flag], and helmets. They descended through families. Not only was it a mark of service to wear the badge of a lord, but lords wore each other's badges by way of compliment.
Edward I always sought the agreement of Parliament before assembling an army or taking actions of war, and Parliamentary consent came to be expected for such. He completed the conquest and annexation of Wales in 1284. The feudal army was summoned for the last time in the 100 year war with France, which began in 1337. In it the English longbow was used to pierce French knights' armor. There had been much competition between the strength of arrows to pierce and the heaviness of armor to resist. Guns and cannon with gunpowder were introduced in 1338. A system to raise an army by contract was developed. Contracts were made with nobles, knights, or esquires who undertook to enlist an agreed number of armored men-at-arms and archers, who were paid wages. The King provided transport for each contractor and his retinue, baggage, and horses. The title of "knight" now resumed its military character as well as being a social rank.
After Edward I died in 1307, there was a period of general lawlessness and contests for power between earls and barons and the irresponsible King Edward II, who was not a warrior king. He eventually was assassinated. Also in 1307, Parliament required the king to obtain its consent for any exchange or alteration of the currency.
By 1319, the guilds of London had become so powerful that they extracted a charter from the king that to be a citizen of London one had to be a member of a guild.
By 1326, scholars, the nobility, and the clergy had reading eyeglasses, which had been invented in Italy, probably by the glass blowers. Italy was famous for its glasswork. The first eyeglasses were fabricated by pouring molten glass into curved molds. The actual shape was difficult to control because thermal expansion and contraction resulted in bubbles and other optical imperfections.