5. DECAY OF MANORIAL SYSTEM (p. 22)--The decay of this social and economic system begins most clearly and markedly with the changes made by the Black Death (1348), and by the social revolution which followed it, of which the Peasants’ Revolt was the first and most startling symptom (cf. pp. 73, 74–77). The legislation of Edward I. forms, again, another epoch from which to date the decay of manorial institutions. As Dr Cunningham says (_Growth of Industry_, p. 243), “In regard to commerce, manufactures, and to agriculture alike, the local authorities were gradually overtaken and superseded by the increasing activity of Parliament, till in the time of Elizabeth the work was practically finished.” The essentially local and personal relations of the manor gave way to the more general and impersonal relations of national government and national economy. 6. THE JEWS (p. 36)--It appears that this expulsion of the Jews was not absolutely complete, and Jewish tradition gives the year 1358 as the date of final expulsion; but in 1410 a Jewish physician, Elias Sabot, was certainly allowed to practise in England. There seems to have been a certain immigration of Jews to England, when they were expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella (1492), for there are notices of them recovering debts in English law-courts. Their presence in this country was, however, only first _publicly_ sanctioned by Cromwell; and during the Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II. they came back here in considerable numbers. (Cf. Wolf’s _Anglo-Jewish Exhibition Papers_, p. 57; and my own _History of Commerce in Europe_, p. 99.) 7. COMMERCIAL RELATIONS WITH FLANDERS (p. 49)--We may add to the notices here given the treaty of 1274 between Edward I. and the Countess of Flanders, protecting the export of English wool to Flanders, and the well-known case of Perkin Warbeck. This impostor was supported by the dowager Duchess of Burgundy, and was well received in Flanders, then ruled by the Archduke Philip. As Philip, at the instigation of the Duchess, encouraged Warbeck, Henry VII. took the step of banishing all Flemings from England (1493), and as Philip replied by expelling all the English from Flanders, commercial intercourse between the two countries was almost entirely suspended. The result was, as {245} Bacon tells us, this interruption “began to pinch the merchants of both nations very sore,” and they besought their respective sovereigns “to open the intercourse again.” Philip withdrew his support from Warbeck and the impostor was left without resources, so that his subsequent appearance in England was a complete failure. The want of English wool thus altered the policy of the Flemish rulers, and before long the “great treaty,” or _Intercursus Magnus_, was made between the two nations (1496), by which trade was once more allowed to proceed unchecked, and “the English merchants came again to their mansion at Antwerp where they were received with procession and great joy.”