Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776: June 2011 (Sixth) EditionReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776: June 2011 (Sixth) Edition
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
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.
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.
As of 1336, importing foreign cloth or fur, except for use by the
King's family, was prohibited, as was the export of unwoven wool. Later,
this was relaxed and a customs tax of 33% was imposed on wool exported.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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