ABSTRACT
Although continued outbreaks of plague restricted recovery, not helped by war in France and conflicts for the Crown, some signs of improved living standards can be seen. A number of well-built houses survive both in towns and the countryside, pottery shows new tastes for better food, and money was spent on building the parts of churches with which people identified. A few aristocrats built expensively, but a general shift to London as the centre of government meant that the Crown did not maintain most castles and palaces that were not within easy distance. The fifteenth century ended with a new ruling dynasty, but that it would hold power for over a hundred years could not have been foreseen.
