10/4/2023 0 Comments Medieval english villageThe 12th and 13th centuries were a period of huge economic growth in England. William was also famous for commissioning the Domesday Book in 1086, a vast document which attempted to record the economic condition of his new kingdom. William reaffirmed this system, enforcing collection of the geld through his new system of sheriffs and increasing the taxes on trade. William I inherited the Anglo-Saxon system in which the king drew his revenues from a mixture of customs profits from re-minting coinage fines profits from his own demesne lands, and the system of English land-based taxation called the geld. William retained this arrangement and also maintained a high coin standard, which led to the use of the term sterling for Norman silver coins. Nonetheless, there was strict royal control over these moneyers and coin dies could only be made in London. The minting of coins was decentralised in the Saxon period every borough was mandated to have a mint and therefore a centre for trading in bullion. In the years immediately after the invasion, a lot of wealth was drawn out of England in various ways by the Norman rulers and reinvested in Normandy, making William immensely wealthy as an individual ruler. William I brought over wealthy Jews from the Rouen community in Normandy to settle in London, apparently to carry out financial services for the crown. The Norman invasion also brought significant economic changes with the arrival of the first Jews to English cities. Other towns saw the widespread demolition of houses to make room for new motte and bailey fortifications, as was the case in Lincoln. Some towns, such as York, suffered from Norman sacking during William's northern campaigns. Cloth was already being imported to England before the invasion through the mercery trade. Much of this trade was with France, the Low Countries and Germany, but the North-East of England traded with partners as far away as Sweden. A large amount of trade came through the Eastern towns, including London, York, Winchester, Lincoln, Norwich, Ipswich and Thetford. Trade, manufacturing and the towns A page of the Domesday Book, capturing the economic condition of England in 1086.Īlthough primarily rural, England had a number of old, economically important towns in 1066. Many of the key features of the English trading and financial system remained in place in the decades immediately after the conquest. Most of the damage done in the invasion was in the north and the west of England, some of it still recorded as "wasteland" in 1086. William's system of government was broadly feudal in that the right to possess land was linked to service to the king, but in many other ways the invasion did little to alter the nature of the English economy. This campaign was followed by fierce military operations known as the Harrying of the North between 1069–1070, extending Norman authority across the north of England. William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066, defeating the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings and placing the country under Norman rule. Invasion and the early Norman period (1066–1100) By the end of the period, England would have a weak early modern government overseeing an economy involving a thriving community of indigenous English merchants and corporations. Despite economic dislocation in urban areas, including shifts in the holders of wealth and the location of these economies, the economic output of towns developed and intensified over the period. Over the next five centuries the English economy would at first grow and then suffer an acute crisis, resulting in significant political and economic change. Norman institutions, including serfdom, were superimposed on a mature network of well-established towns involved in international trade. Although England's economy was fundamentally agricultural throughout the period, even before the invasion the market economy was important to producers. The economics of English towns and trade in the Middle Ages is the economic history of English towns and trade from the Norman invasion in 1066, to the death of Henry VII in 1509.
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