Mites and merchants: the crisis of English wool and textile trade revisited, c. 1275–1330†

Philip Slavin

doi:10.1111/ehr.12969

Abstract

AbstractOn the basis of 7,871 manorial accounts from 601 sheep‐rearing demesnes and 187 tithe receipts from 15 parishes, this article addresses the origins, scale, and impact of the wool and textile production crisis in England, c. 1275–1350. The article argues that recurrent outbreaks of scab disease depressed sheep population and wool production levels until the early 1330s. The disease, coupled with warfare and taxation, also had a decisive role in depressing the volumes of wool exports. Despite this fact, wool merchants were still conducting business with major wool producers, who desperately needed access to the capital to replenish their flocks.

Highlights

On the basis of 7,871 manorial accounts from 601 sheep-rearing demesnes and 187 tithe receipts from 15 parishes, this article addresses the origins, scale, and impact of the wool and textile production crisis in England, c. 1275–1350
In dealing with the ‘English urban textile crisis’, spanning from the late thirteenth century into the c. 1340s, historians focused on such endogenous factors as the shift of textile production from towns to the countryside, competition with higher quality Flemish and Brabantine cloth imports, technological advantages of the textile industry in the Low Countries, and rising transaction costs linked to ongoing international warfare and the increased burden of taxation.[1]
The aim of this article is to study the causes of the wool shortage and its impact on the English economy on the eve of the Black Death

Summary

Total animals

This conforms to modern observations of scab outbreaks, which tend to be devastating in lambs born to ewes with scab during pregnancy, or yearlings, whose physical growth overlaps with scab outbreaks.[25] Wethers (castrated rams) exhibited higher mortality rates than ewes (the respective figures of 39 and 37 per cent, deriving from deaths only, are inflated to the respective 43 and 51 per cent, when including the losses through panic sales and slaughter), most likely because wethers grew longer and heavier fleeces than sexually active sheep, and this facilitated the dissemination of scab, either through direct contact with live mites, or via shearing combs and cutters These are conservative estimates, which do not take into account the colossal losses of the Holderness flock (and similar behemoths, such as Kirkstall Abbey sheep farm, for which we do not have accounts), which could, potentially, inflate the mortality rates even further. The prolonged period of low wool prices between 1333–4 and 1349– 50, with one stone averaging 3.1s., can be ascribed to the unprecedented boom in sheep farming (especially within the demesne sector), related to the expansion of sheep population and good animal health.

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Findings

Supporting information