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Some Social Consequences of the Hundred Years' War

Author(s): M. M. PostanSource: The Economic History Review, Vol. 12, No. 1/2 (1942), pp. 1-12Published by: Wileyon behalf of the Economic History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2590387.

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THiEECONOMIC HISTORYREVIEWVOL. XII I 942

SOME SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THEHUNDRED YEARS' WAR

By M. M. POSTAN

HE HundredYears' War shareswith heReformationnd theFrenchRevolution hereputationfbeing 'turningoint'or 'watershed'.lIt is commonly eferredo as theculminatingpisode fthe MiddleAges,marking hefinal ailure f hefeudal rmies. Having destroyedhefeudal rder,heWar alsoreared ts uccessor. t isnowgenerallyccepted,even by Bernard haw, thatout of the lash between he French nd theEnglishkings he national tateand the nationalistonception f nter-nationalpolicy merged riumphant.It is not our objecthereto quarrelwith hisgeneralization. s longasit s general nough nd confinedo notions s vague asthose f hefeudalorder nd thenational tate, t s bothdifficultnd unnecessaryo disprove.There sno denyinghat hehundred nd fifty earswhich eparated hebeginning f heWar from hefinal acificationfWesternuropeunderLouis XI weremarked ymany igns fpopularnationalism. uringthesameperiod n one countryt east, amely rance, ationalmonarchyndnational nityweregreatlytrengthened. n theother and, n countriesother hanFranceorBritain, ational entiment as nomore n evidencein the fourteenthnd fifteenthenturies han it had been in earliertimes.Where toperated,n theHussiteWar and at Tannenberg,t owedlittle rnothing o the ssueswhichroused imilar eelingst Crecy ndOrleans. As for henational tate,England ofthe twelfthnd thirteenthcenturiesadnothingo earnfrom nglandofthefifteenth.fanything,theclosing tages f thewar, coincidings theydidwith hecivilwarathome, timulatedentrifugalorces f very ype ndkind, nd threatenedto reestablishn Englanda feudalregime n the ruins f the Lancastermonarchy.The generalization,odifficultoprove r todisprove, adbetter eleftalone. Our objecthere s to probe ntotheeffectsfthe Warat a levelatWihich hey are, by definition,more concrete,and thereforemoreA

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2 THE ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEWamenable to proof. The War, like all historical events, must have hadimmediate and apparent effects n economic life and social relations.According to some sociologists, otably Sombart, t is in the nature ofwarto revolutionize economic processes. This view has been tacitlyendorsedbythehostofwriters, ublicists,historians nd sociologists,who have takenit forgranted that since the last great war the economic life of nationshasnever been the same, and that the present war is also bound to trans-form the entire economy of the world. Our object here is to find outwhetherthis view also holds good of the Hundred Years' War.

IIThe historian n search of tangible effects f the Hundred Years' War willprobably discover that the effects ecome less tangible as he penetratesthe foundations of society.They are easiest of all to discover n the fieldin which they are probably most superficial,namely in the economicrepercussions f the final territorial ettlements.In the second half of the fifteenth entury the French kings extendedtheirrule to all, or nearly all, the provinceswhich from hen onwards haveconstituted the national territory f France, as we now know it. Theeconomic and social consequences of this process have been much dis-cussed but frequentlymisunderstood. Contrary o the common view,theterritorialrearrangements n Western Europe were of more immediateeconomicconsequence to England than theywere to France. French terri-torial unitywas not followedby an immediate economic and social merger.The re-establishment f French rule over Picardy and Normandy did littleto establish closer economic and social links between those provincesandthe rest ofFrance than heretofore. he granaries of the lower Seine gaveParis and Ile de France added security gainst famine,but in any case Ilede France had not been greatly dependent on imported food, and thenatural outlet of the vast grain surplusesofAbbeville continued to be notFrance but the Netherlands. Brittany emained what it had always been:a maritimeprovince withan economic and social life ntensely ocal andall its own. The time when the Bretons were to lead in the expansion ofFrance overseas was at least a century off. Even Aquitaine, forall thespectacular part which, in subsequent French history, ell to the Gasconsand to the Gasconade, was as yet alien to the economy and societyofFrance as a whole. Generally speaking, France, for everal centuries ftertheHundred Years' War, continued to function s a loose confederation fprovinces, eparated by customsbarriers, ocal weights,measures and laws.It was not until the French Revolution that legal and administrativebarriersto national unitywere removed,and it was not until the comingofthe railwaythatthat unitywas in fact established.The effects n England, though less advertised, were much more im-mediate. For a time, England lost more than France gained. From anarrowly conomic point of view, theAngevinempire was much less arti-ficial than many empires before or since. Aquitaine and England werebound byeconomic linkswhich,on the eve of the loss, were bothold and


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THE HUNDRED rEARS' WAR 3strong.The two economies were mutuallysupplementary. Gascony pro-duced littlegrain, had next to no wool or cloth, and specialized in theproductionof wine, certaintechnical crops (mostlydye-stuffs) nd iron.On the otherhand England was an unquenchable consumer of wines, agood customer for Gascon woad and Bayonne iron, and above all theprincipal supplier ofcloth and food. England continuedto exportgrainto Bordeaux long after he ceased to export t to othercountries, nd onseveral occasions in the late fourteenth nd the fifteenthenturies,whenshe had no grain ofher own tosend, shere-exported erealsofBaltic origin.Next to Germany, Aquitaine was England's principalmarketforfinishedclothand, to some extent,forother ndustrialproducts.This symbiosiswas, for a time, severed by the loss of Aquitaine.England's loss ofclaret was neither ragic norpermanent. Thirstwill finda way', and new ways, thoughexpensive and restricted nes, were soonfound, and by I480 English merchants were again active in Bordeaux.But relatively briefas it was-a matterof some twenty-five ears-theinterruptionwas acutely felt and left an indelible mark. The marketsof Gascony were lost at the time when other markets were alsodisappearing, and when outlets for the English cloth production werebeing steadily contracted. Students of English economic history willrecall that by the middle of the fifteenthenturythe English cloth mer-chants had been excluded from all their more distant outposts. TheScandinavian markethad been lost at the turnofthe century. Connexionswith Prussia, and, through that country,with the whole of central andeasternEurope were finally opped offby the successiveAnglo-Hanseaticconflicts n thethirties nd fifties.he concentration fEnglishtrade n theNetherlands, hespecializationofEnglish ndustry n unfinished loth,therise of the company and ofthemonopoly of the MerchantAdventurers-all thesefamiliarfeatures fEnglish trade at the close ofthe Middle Agescould be traced to the break-upofEngland's medieval empireat the endofthe Hundred Years' War.'The territorial onstriction fEngland's foreign rade had some obvioussocial repercussions.The expansive and speculative spirit which haddominated the activitiesofEngland's mercantile classes in the fourteenthcenturywas bound to be damped bytheloss ofmarkets nd opportunities,to say nothing of the loss of goods and cargoes in foreign ands. By themiddle ofthefollowing entury henarrowinghorizonsbrought o thesur-face a new type of merchantand a new typeof mercantileorganization:sober, modest and disinclined to act alone. One of the paradoxes ofEnglish commercialhistory s that the merchantsceased to adventureatthe very moment at which they arrogated to themselvesthe title ofadventurer. Corporate monopoly, rigid definitionof terms of trade,restriction f the volume of trade,were designed both to keep out theoutsiders nd to preventa disproportionate ggrandisement f individual

1 Cf.E. M. Carus-Wilson, he Overseasrade fBristol,tc. Power Postan,English rade n the ifteenthentury,933) M. Postan, conomicelationsetweenEngland nd theHanse ibid.).


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4 THE ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW'insiders'. Its effectwas to securethe positionof menofmediocre substancetrading n a 'middle way'.The effects f the changes in foreigntrade were greatlyenhanced bytheirdomesticsetting.They coincided and combined with similarchangesin the structure f English industry nd commerce at home, which had,strictlypeaking, ittleto do eitherwith theHundred Years' War or withforeign rade. It is now well understoodthatin thelate fourteenthnd inthe fifteenthenturies he expansionof England's urban civilizationwas atan end. Not only were most of her ancient ports and corporate townsdwindling n size and population, but her town economyas a whole wascongealed by theregimeofcorporatemonopolies. Much ofwhat has-cometobe regarded as evidence ofthe regulatedand corporate pirit f medievaleconomy belongs not so much to the Middle Ages as to that phase oflosthorizonswhichmarkstheEnglishcommerceofthe ate fourteenthndfifteenth enturies.The monopolies, the regulations,the rigid controlofindividual enterprise nd the barriersto the entryof outsiders, nd mostof the other measuresof restriction, ere produced, rather suddenly,andratherrecently, n responseto the decliningtrade and fallingprosperity.1The changes n urban lifewere merelypart of thegeneraltransformationofEnglish society, nd werein theirturn due to thedeclineof populationand to the contemporary eorganization f agriculture. he break nEnglishcommercial expansion abroad and the fall of England's medieval empiremerelycontributed heirquota to thegeneral movementofretrenchment.Butfor hat generalmovement, hecontributionftheWarwould probablyhave been less effective,ven though t might thenhave stood out clearerin our documentsand books.

IIIThe difficultyfdefining he effects f the War growsas we recede'fromthepoliticaland territorialonsequencesofEnglishdefeat ntotheeconomicand social processes ftheWar itself. mportant ocial changeswere boundto followfrom war effort xtendingover a century nd a half. But theveryfact that a chronic state of war continuedforso long makes it very'difficult o distinguish heactionofwar from heaction ofmere' ime. Forit is only too easy to ascribe to the War what is, in fact, due to -thehundredyears.A field in which the facts are easiest to distinguish s that in whichnational economy touched closest on the conduct of the War, i.e. warfinance. Here certaincauses and effectsre so obvious as to require littleproof. There has, undoubtedly, been much direct wastage of nationalwealth.Withthe outbreakof the War, Edward III's budgetsprobablyrosethreeorfourfold,.e. from omewherebetween 40,000 and ?70,000 in thefirst en yearsofthe fourteenth entury o the average ofabout ?200,000in the twenties nd the thirties. Much, thoughby no means most,ofthewealth'thusraised was sent abroad and wasted thereto pay for alliancesand to maintain garrisons nd armies. As we shall see further, uringthesame- eriod,national productionand national income werenotrising, utM. Postan, The Fifteenthentury', con.Hist.Rev. 939.


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THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR 5if anythingfalling,and thismeant that the destruction f wealth by theWar remaineduncompensatedand that England was gettingpoorer.Some of the-impoverishment,nd even some of the decline in nationalproduction,could be traced directlyto war finance. Edward's taxationand, evenmore,his evies n kind ed to a drasticdeclineofwool production.Ifwe are to udge from he floodofcomplaints gainstpurveyors,t appearsthat therequisition f foodstuffsn the countryside xtendedthedepressingeffects f war economyto agriculturalproductionas a whole. It is alsopossible,though t still remainsto be proved,that royal taxation,and stillmore royal seizuresand confiscations, ad something o do with the un-mistakable decline of investment n agricultural mprovementsn dykes,drainage, and deforestation.

The main effects f war taxation,however, ike the main effects f alltaxation,would be foundnot n wealth destroyed ut in wealthtransferred.The signsof the transference ere many and various, and at thevery be-ginning f the War it looked as ifthe War would succeed in so redistributingthe wealth of the countryas to produce a major economic and socialrevolution.The readersof Miss Power's book on thewool tradewill recallthattheopening phases of theHundred Years' War saw the suddenemerg-ence in English ifeof a small group of financial nd commercialmagnates.They were called into being by theKing's need of oans and of assistancein handling the new taxation on wool and the great imposts in kind.Through their hands passed mostofthemoney which Edward raised be-tween 322 and I350: a sum not essthan twomillionpounds and probablymore. Edward's bankruptcy,whichnearly ruined the Italian bankers, eftthe Englishfinanciers or a short time in sole possessionof the field. Butsooner or later their turn to be ruined came, and they disappeared fromthe English scene even quicker than theyrose. Their functionwas takenoverby thecorporatebody of the Staplerswho sharedout among a largerbody ofsubstantialmen themonopolyof the Englishwool trade and thefunction f statebanking.1The establishment f the Staple helped to consolidatethemiddle-middleclass, but it also nipped in the bud the first eedlingsofEngland's 'high,capitalism'. For a short time it had looked as iftheWar mightraise inEngland the same class of financial capitalistswhich played so importanta part in the genesis of early capitalism in the more advanced parts ofEurope: the greatcommercialmagnatesofthe Italian, South German andProvencal cities, hefinanciers fArras n the thirteenthentury, heBardiand Peruzzi of the fourteenth,he Medici of thefifteenth,heFuggersandWelsersof theseventeenth, heEnglishnabobs and citybankersofthelateseventeenth nd eighteenth. National wealth was set moving out of thehands of the landed interests nto thoseofmen who mightemploy it intrade or commercialfinance, or even in large-scale industry. In short, tseemed as if he social and financialprerequisites fan economicrevolution,such as thosewhich, n thiscountry, ppeared in thelate seventeenth ndin the eighteenth enturies,were being created in the fourteenth.These hopes and.dangersfailed to come true. Not onlywere the great1Eileen Power,TheWool radenEnglish edieval istoryOxford,94 ), passim.


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6 THE ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEWfinanciers n the end replaced by men ofmore modest substance,but whatis more, neitherthe magnates nor their middling' successorswere as-yetready to finance n economic revolution. In fact, he so-calledtransferenceof wealth was more apparent than real, formost of the wealth thustrans-ferred id not stay n its new surroundings or ong. As we have alreadyseen,some of t was destroyed nd wasted abroad. But even that part whichwasnot pumped acrossthe Channel failed to creategreat pools of urbanwealthor to irrigate hefieldsof English industry nd trade. Most of t,as a rule,went back to the land.The repatriation frural wealth proceeded by two channels. One ofthechannels had littleor nothing to do with the War, but was an ancientcurrent of English history. No student of English medieval societywillfail to observe what modern sociologistswould probably describe as its'social mobility'. Not only were divisionsbetween classes-between mer-chant and knight, erf nd freeholder, reeholder nd knight,knightandnoble-so vague as to be indiscernible, ut theywere also crossedand re-crossed,both up and down. It is now generallyknown thatthe upperranksofthe merchant lasseswerefrequently ecruited rom and-owning amilies.It is also known that successful merchantscould, in their own urbansocieties, acquire the status of 'miles' or 'armiger'. But the process ofsocial rise was not confined o elevation withinurban society, or t usuallyended in migrationfrom he towns to the country.The Middle Ageswerewell familiarwith theprocess so characteristic f the last two centuries, ywhichwealth amassed in industry nd tradewas, in the end, devotedto theacquisition of tatelyhomes and of heir ocial appurtenances.The ambitionofthe wealthyLondonerhas always been tobecome a gentleman. It is veryinstructive o watch the stages by which the interests f the Cely familyshifted romMark Lane to theirplace in Essex. It is therethat, n the end,we findthe youngerbranches of the family ll but merged nto the countysociety, nd all but absorbed in the pleasuresof the hunt. It may be truethat some cityfamiliestook no more than three generations o pass fromshirt leeves to shirt leeves, but it is equally true that some tookno longertopassfrom ountryhouse to countryhouse. The true exception to therulewas not thefamilywhich succeeded in maintaining tself n wealth formorethan seventy-five ears,but'the familywhich,having kept its wealth,wascontent to enjoy it in Town.'The attractions f the countryside nd ofthe social prizesofruralsocietywill account formany otherwise nexplicable gaps in the familyhistoriesof the fifteenth-centuryowns. Many, if not most, of the names of thegreat merchants who are known to have been enriched by the warexpenditureof the twenties nd thirties, ooneror later disappeared fromtherecords ofEnglishtowns,and even from hose of English trade. Someof theirbearers died out, others, we know, were irreparably ruined bysubsequent royal depredations. But someof the best knownwar financiers,

The histories f the principal London families n' the fourteenthndfifteenthenturies ave been nvestigatednmuchdetailby MissSylviaThrupp,someofwhose,yetunpublished, onclusions ave been available to thewriter.


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THE HUNDRED rEARS' WAR 7men like the De la Poles, the Poultneys, he Pickards, not only left n off-spring, but also salvaged substantial portions of their war fortunes, ndsooner or later establishedthemselves n the country and founded theregentle and even noble families.'This migrationhad an obvious effect n the economic processes oftheHundred Years' War. Such success as royal taxation may have achievedin squeezing the anded interests nd in enriching he financierswas largelynullifiedby the latter's nvestment n land. The fact that somemerchantsgot rich quicker than theymight have done in peace time meant merelythat they themselvesor theiroffspring ere enabled to leave the townssooner. As a result of the War, the interval between the De la Poles who-financedthe War and the De la Poles who dominated rural society nthe easterncounties was cut down to one generation, nstead of the con-ventional three. Social mobilitymay therebyhave been quickened, butthewheels ofcommerce showed no signs of revolvingfaster.Another and even more important channel of repatriation was pro-vided by the gentlemen of the sword and of the cloth. These men wereprobably the chiefbeneficiaries f the War, but conspicuous as they are incontemporary ocuments, heyhave been curiouslyneglectedbyhistorians.In spite of the central positionwhich the army occupied in medieval lifeand of the voluminous records which its activities eft n various royaloffices,ts administration nd its social composition have, until recently,been little tudied. Until moreis known about the men who made up andran the British xpeditions broad, all discussionof the subject is bound tobe highly speculative and hypothetical.2 But of all the hypotheseswhichthe sources suggest,none is more fruitful nd, therefore,worthexploringthan thatwhichstresses he riseand the mportanceofthe soldieroffortune.'The soldier of handsomefortune' would be a better and a moreexactappellation of the type. It is now generally ssumed thattheorganizationand thecomposition f the armyunderwent n important hange after heopening campaignsofthe War. The national and feudalarmies,whichwereraised by the mobilization offeudal levies and by CommissionsofArray,and fought,or were supposed to have fought, n the fieldsofCrecy andPoictierswere, n themiddle and the aterstagesof theWar, largely uper-seded by units raised and maintainedby professionalmilitary ontractors.In theHundred Years' War, as in so manyotherEnglish wars, t was theamateurs who were winningcampaigns, and the professionalswho werelosingthem. Butwhateverwe maythinkofthemilitary ualifications, hetactics nd the trategyftheprofessionalaptains, t s mpossible ogainsaythe administrative nd economic enterprisewhich went into the making

1 The De la Poles began the purchasesn Lincolnshirend Yorkshire, uteventually ost f he amily ossessionsere oncentratednEastAnglia.SirJohnPoultney's urchasesweremostlynKent. HenryPickardbought and all overthe country.2 Dr Lewis, n theUniversityfSheffield,asbeen engagedon the ubject orsometime. An unpublished hesis yDr RushtonCoulborn, n the Crusade'oftheBishopofNorwichn 1383, contains briefnalysis fthe compositionfthe expeditionaryorce.


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8 THE ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEWand maintaining ftheir ompanies. The contractors, ho appear tobelongto everypossible rung of the feudal ladder except, perhaps, the lowest,undertook o find, quip and feed bodies offightingmen forperiodswhichoften an intomonths nd years. The systemhad manyobviousdrawbacks.The professionalcompanies attracted the debris of English society,-theriff-raffftown and country, nd thewaste productsofeveryoccupation,including the Church, and spelt ruin )o the countries in which theyoperated. But they opened greatopportunities or nrichment o themenwho ran them.A marginofprofitwas probably provided in the termsof the captains'contracts. But, n addition,therewerecountless peningsfor rregulargain.To begin with,the termsofthe contractwith the crown offered he cap-tainsevery emptation o economize on theprovisioning ftheir roops, ndthis temptationwas often turned into necessityby the delays in royalremittances.The troops, eft o theirown devices, were often emptedandsometimescompelled to live on the country to an extent which, as therecord of the English occupation of Normandy shows, could, even bymedieval standards,be thought excessive. But the heavier the burdenon thepopulation, thegreaterwere thecaptains' economies. And in addi-tionto economies n purveyance,therewere also prizes ofwar which wereopen to amateurs and professionals like: ransoms and loot. Needless tosay not every aptain made a fortune,andcertainlynotevery aptain livedto enjoy one. But the royal-grants nd obligations to themilitary eadersare so numerous as to suggest hat it is to them that a greatproportion, fnot the bulk,of the war expenditurewent.The only other group of the population whose opportunitiesforwarprofits r forwar profiteeringivalled those of the militarymen were thegentlemen fthe cloth: theroyalclerks n chargeofpurveyanceofthenavyand the armyand of the administration fthe war treasuries.Their num-bers were never very large, but the company, though small, was verychoice. Richard De la Pole belonged to theprofession,nd William De laPole was a royal purveyor nd a merchantrolled into one. At least six ofthe men who figuredprominentlyn the syndicatesofthewool magnates,Wesenham, Chirton,Quedlinburg, the two brothersMelchebourn, andJohn Poultneyhimself,had, at one time or another,acted as officersncharge of purveyance. In addition, there were also clerkslike WilliamBurton, Mathew Torkesey,William Wenlock, Ralph Kesteven, WilliamRothwellandJohnHatfield n thefourteenthentury, rWilliamLoveney,WilliamSoperandJohnFeriby nthefifteenth,hooperatedonthefrontiersoftheexchequerand thearmy, nd had every pportunity or nrichment.'

Perhaps hebestknown f hese s WilliamNorthwell hose amewas argelybased on theExchequerProceedingswhich rosefrompurious ills ssued ndcirculated y him. Cf. P.R.O. Chancery iscellanea,8/i.-But therewere manyother essnotorious lerks mong the King's principal reditors. homas Kentofthe middledecades of thefifteenthenturywas one of the last ofthe race.Curiously nough, WilliamPhilipp, the official reasurerof theWar at thebeginning f the fifteenthentury,s least prominent mong thebeneficiariesof the War.


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THE HUNDRED rEARS' WAR 9Oftheseopportunities ll of themfreely vailed themselves.Some ofthem,like the other magnates, were not allowed to enjoy their newly acquiredwealth for any length of time and sooner or later fell victimsto royalappetites, but many survivedthe royal depredations and saved at leastsome of their wealth.In the present state of our knowledgeit is difficult o be precise eitherabout the numbers or about therichesof the war captains and the clerks,but the employmentto which the new riches were put is easy enough todiscover. It is almost certainthat very ittle went into industry r trade.It would be uselessto searchamong the hundredsofnames ofthefifteenthcenturywool merchants r clothiers orfamily ssociationswithmenwho,in the previous generation or two, figured n the royal grantsforservicesrendered in the War. Traces of indirect nvestmentn trade are equallyhard to find. England, unlikeother European countries,did not developthe specialized legal forms f the Commenda' and the Societas' to servethe purposes of sleepingpartnership nd of othertypesof investment ynon-merchants nto mercantile or industrial enterprises. But the legalsecurityof the Action of Account, in which the passive partner,or theinvestor, ppeared in the fictitious uise of masteror employer,performedthefunction fa partnership ontract nd produced a vast mass of evidenceof medieval investment. In that mass, names of nobles and gentlemenoccasionally occur, but theyare no more frequentduringor immediatelyafterthe Hundred Years' War than theyhad been in the thirteenthr theearly fourteenth enturies,or were to be in the late fifteenth.Most ofthe transactions are between merchants and merchants. Such 'non-professional nvestments' as are to be found belong mostly to widows,orphans and spinsters.In so far as theemployment fwar profits y themilitary rofiteers anbe traced at all, it will be found to be identical withthe use to whichnewricheswere put by merchants.War wealth went the way of all new wealth:what was notwasted in riotous ivingor hoarded in plate and clotheswasput into and. Some oftheland was in thetowns,but most of t was in thecountry.The captains and the clerks as well-as the merchantspreferredto invest in broad acres and social elevation. Indeed some of themweregivenno choice. The Crown was constantlyn debt to its servants ndto its war creditors, nd more often hannotpaid its debts orrewarded tscreditors'patience by grantsofland or of reversions. he bulk of the vastland possessionsof the De la Pole family,which later became part of thegreat Suffolkpatrimony,was acquired in that way; so also were someof the lands of the famous war captains. Sir John Falstaff,who gotmuch publicityas a resultof the royal seizures in the late fifties f thefifteenthentury,had received some of his lands fromthe King twentyorthirty earsearlier. Documentsalso abound with grants o other famoussoldiers:John Chandos, William Felton, Thomas Kyriel, Nigel Loring,Hugh Calverley, Thomas Ufford, Reginald Cobham, to say nothingofthe feudal leaders, likeJohn de Vere Earl of Oxford.The fortunes ftheVere family,ikethoseof theBeauchamps, theBerkeleys nd the d'Umfre-


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Io THE ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEWvilles,must have been greatlyhelped by the wartime enterprises ftheirmembers, nd by the grantsof and in paymentofroyal war debts.But most ofthe new men also acquired land forhard cash. A studentpassing from heexchequerdocumentsof the late fourteenthnd the earlyfifteenthenturies o thestudyoftheAncientDeeds or oftherecognisanceswhichaccompanied transactionsn land findshimself mong old acquaint-ankces. he names of royalcreditors n theIssue and Receipt Rolls occur sofrequentlyn the records of and purchasesand leases as to precludemerecoincidence. The identity f names obviouslybetraysthe homecomingofthecountry'sprodigalmoney.Wealth,wrungfrom he and in imposts ndtaxes, was now returning,much shrunk and depleted, to the place fromwhich it came.

IVThe circulartourof ruralwealth had obvious social consequences. Evenif hewar financedid not revolutionizeEnglish ndustrynd trade, t couldand did affectthe composition of rural society. It may have left theclass structure naltered,for t brought o thecountrynew menrather hannew classes,and affected he country's ocial metabolismwithout alteringthe layout of its social anatomy. Yet, the importance of the metabolicchangeswas real and greatenough,and their nfluencewas all the greaterin that it so oftenagreed and combined with othercontemporarymove-ments.What thesemovementswere studentsof economic historywell know.The closing hundred and fifty ears of the Middle Ages were markedby a profoundtransformation f agriculture.The manorial systemwasbreakingup all over thecountry.The capitalistor quasi-capitalist conomyin demesnesor monasticgrangeswas invaded and conquered by peasantunits. By the end of the fifteenthentury abour services,villeinage andcultivationby landlordsor estatebailiffswere nearlyeverywhere eplacedby copyholds, easeholds and rent-collectingandownership.It would be useless to attemptto explain the agriculturalrevolutionbythe effectsf theWar. What caused it we do not yetknow,but all the ndi-cationspoint eitherto thefallingprices, or to the decliningpopulation,orto both. Neither the pricesnor the population were at the mercyoftheWar., The prices apparently broke before Edward decided to invadeFrance. Their subsequent depression had very littleto do with the wardrain on the country'streasure,for it was also observed abroad. Whatcaused the decline of population (if therewas one) in the earlyfourteenthcenturyt is impossibleto say. But it is moreor lesscertain that militaryexpeditionsdid not absorb a substantialenoughproportionof thepopula-tion to make much difference.The English Army at Crecy probablynumbered I5,000, the Army at Poictierswas much smaller and couldhardly have exceeded 8ooo. The Army at Agincourtmay have reached10,000. The numbers absorbed by intermediate campaigns and bygarrisonswere even smaller.The Black Death and-thegreatpestilenceofthe mid-sixtieswere infinitelymore lethal, but neithercould directlybe


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THE HUNDRED rEARS' WAR Iascribed to the War. The only directbearingwhichthe War may have hadon the agricultural risiswas in discouraging nd controlling nvestment nagricultural equipment and improvements. But even this was due moredirectly to the agricultural depression itself than to the action of wartaxation.Yet it would be wrong entirely o divorce the agricultural risis rom heWar. Their causes may have been separate and independent, but theireffectswere not. In the,upper ranks of societythe impact of the Wardoubtlessamplified nd implemented he action ofthe manorialdepression.As most studentswould now admit, the humbler ranks of rural societymust have benefitedfromthe agricultural changes. Wages rose, land be-came cheaper, average holdings larger. Not so the ruling classes. Thedecline of demesneagriculturewas in itself signthat circumstanceswerenot favourable to large-scale agriculture. For the manorial lords theperiod was indeed one of profound risis. It began with the break in pricesin the opening decades of the fourteenth entury, nd was accentuated byshortageof labour and of tenants n the second half of the century.Thefalling profits f cultivation ed to the leasing out of demesne and of cus-tomary holdings, and this produced a fall in land values, which even thedemand fromthe nouveaux icheswas unable to check.The crisiswas therefore ound to affect he fortunes f the landowningclasses, though what effectt had upon their compositioncan, as yet, beonly guessed. In spite of the abundant documentaryevidence, the socialcondition of the rulingclasses s the most conspicuous gap in our historicalknowledge. The topics of economic historyhave been determinedby theinterest f its founders n social reform,with the result that more is nowknown about theChartists nd the trade unionsthan about the capitalistsand manufacturers, nd much more about the medieval labourer thanabout the medieval landlord. Guesses must take the place of knowledge,superficial mpressions he place of proof.

The impressionwhich is, perhaps, least superficial s that of a 'generalpost', a re-shufflef ownership and of the effective ccupation of landedestates.The magnates found it difficult o maintain themselveson theirpurely agricultural ncomes. Some of themtried to supplementtheir n-comes in other ways. Most of them must have found feudal revenues,profits f courts and of local influencerelativelymore importantas agri-cultural revenuesfell,and offices f state or shares n the spoils of politicalpower must have become more temptingthan ever. So also were theprofits f the sword forthose who could wield it.It was at this pointthat the social consequences ofthe Hundred Years'War impinged upon the social consequence of the agricultural risis.Themagnates, even men as great as the Duke of Lancaster, triedto stabilizetheir ncomesby sub-lettingheir estatesto men small enough to live onthem, nd substantial noughtoafford hem. Men ofthistypewererising othe surface ll over the country. Some of themboughtdemesnefarmsorwholemanorsoutright; thers ppeared merely s tenants 'farmers'),butall ofthemrepresented new and risingclass. Where theyall came from


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12 THE ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEWcannot be said with certainty. We find among them local men of thehumblestorigin, the 'kulaks' of the English countryside,who had beenassembling and piece by piece for manyyears, and also reeves,manorialofficialsor other officers f noble households. But many, possibly the-majority,weremerchants, lerks, rreturned aptains, n short, henouveauxriches f the War. If the agriculturalrevolution created the demand for'the 'gentry', the War and the war finance were there to provide thesupply.The distantrepercussions f the re-shuffle ust have reached faroutsidetheconfines frural society nd farbeyondthe span ofthe Hundred Years'War. It does not require much ingenuity o follow them up throughtheWars of the Roses to the political and constitutional evelopmentswhichaccompanied the establishment f the Tudors. The sub-letting f manorsraised all over the country a wave of what looked suspiciously ike sub-infeudation. Even though the creation of new intermediate fiefswasall but illegal, the new 'farms' and beneficiary eases enabled many agreat ord not only to stabilize his income,but also to consolidate his localinfluence. nd to augment his following. Some of the great northernfamilies, ikethe Nevills or the Percys,may have found n the chronicwarswith Scotland and in the disturbed conditions of the Border sufficientimpetus and sufficient acilities orthe recruitment f theirgreatretinues.They may,therefore, ot have needed thetwofold pheaval ofthe War andofthe agricultural revolution to stimulateeithertheir demand forgentle-men tenantsor their upply of suitable candidates. Elsewhere, and aboveall in East Anglia and the West Country, he decline of the great estates sagricultural enterpriseswas accompanied by the temporary esurgenceofthegreat fiefs s a political force nd bythe formation f arge, and mostlyrecent,quasi-feudal retinues. But the future belonged to the retainersand notto theirmasters. In the political struggle f the Wars ofthe Rosesthe 'great connexions' found their doom. As a result f that-strugglehenew men, who in the preceding two or threegenerationshad succeeded tothe commanding positions in rural economy,were also able to succeedto local power and political influence.In this ightthe evolutionofthe andowning classes n the closingcenturyand a half ofthe Middle Ages, like the evolution of the middle classes inthe same period, appears as a joint product of a protractedwar and ofa deep-rooted economic change. Our main conclusions are thereforeobvious to thepoint of being trivial. In the machinery fsocial change theWar was not so much the mainspringas a make-weight.Wherever itsactionran counter othe economictendenciesofthe age, as in thedevelop-mentof financialcapitalismor the movementof and values, it was on thewhole ineffective. Only at points at which changes were taking placeanyhow was its influence great and irrevocable enough to deserve theattentionnot only of the chroniclerbut also of the social historian.

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