ABSTRACT
Agriculture was the dominant economic activity from Roman times, through the Anglo-Saxons, Normans and beyond. The Black Death (1346-53) wiped out half the workforce, helping to push up agricultural wages. Wool became the dominant commodity in medieval times; it was produced in the heartlands of England and exported to the textile cities of Europe. So important was it that the Speaker’s seat in the House of Lords was symbolically stuffed with wool: the woolsack. Textile production had evolved by the
seventeenth century, ready for the huge expansions connected with Empire and the Industrial Revolution.
