An Introduction to the Industrial 
and Social
by Edward Potts 
Cheyney 
 
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Social 
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Title: An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England 
Author: Edward Potts Cheyney 
 
Release Date: June 1, 2007 [eBook #21660] 
Language: English 
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN 
INTRODUCTION TO THE INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL HISTORY 
OF ENGLAND***
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Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies 
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An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England 
[Illustration: New Sixteenth Century Manor House with Fields still 
Open, Gidea Hall, Essex. Nichols: Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.] 
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL 
HISTORY OF ENGLAND 
by 
EDWARD P. CHEYNEY 
Professor of European History in the University of Pennsylvania
New York The MacMillan Company London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd. 
1916 All rights reserved Copyright, 1901, By The MacMillan 
Company. 
Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1901. Reprinted January, 
October, 1905; November, 1906; October, 1907; July, 1908; February, 
1909; January, 1910; April, December, 1910; January, August, 
December, 1911; July, 1912; January, 1913; February, August, 1914; 
January, November, 1915; April, 1916. 
 
PREFACE 
This text-book is intended for college and high-school classes. Most of 
the facts stated in it have become, through the researches and 
publications of recent years, such commonplace knowledge that a 
reference to authority in each case has not seemed necessary. 
Statements on more doubtful points, and such personal opinions as I 
have had occasion to express, although not supported by references, are 
based on a somewhat careful study of the sources. To each chapter is 
subjoined a bibliographical paragraph with the titles of the most 
important secondary authorities. These works will furnish a fuller 
account of the matters that have been treated in outline in this book, 
indicate the original sources, and give opportunity and suggestions for 
further study. An introductory chapter and a series of narrative 
paragraphs prefixed to other chapters are given with the object of 
correlating matters of economic and social history with other aspects of 
the life of the nation. 
My obligation and gratitude are due, as are those of all later students, to 
the group of scholars who have within our own time laid the 
foundations of the study of economic history, and whose names and 
books will be found referred to in the bibliographical paragraphs. 
EDWARD P. CHEYNEY. 
University of Pennsylvania, January, 1901.
CONTENTS 
CHAPTER I 
Growth Of The Nation To The Middle Of The Fourteenth Century 
Page 
1. The Geography of England................................. 1 
2. Prehistoric Britain...................................... 4 
3. Roman Britain............................................ 5 
4. Early Saxon England...................................... 8 
5. Danish and Late Saxon England........................... 12 
6. The Period following the Norman Conquest................ 15 
7. The Period of the Early Angevin Kings, 1154-1338........ 22 
CHAPTER II 
Rural Life and Organization 
8. The Mediæval Village.................................... 31 
9. The Vill as an Agricultural System...................... 33 
10. Classes of People on the Manor.......................... 39 
11. The Manor Courts........................................ 45 
12. The Manor as an Estate of a Lord........................ 49 
13. Bibliography............................................ 52
CHAPTER III 
Town Life And Organization 
14. The Town Government..................................... 57 
15. The Gild Merchant....................................... 59 
16. The Craft Gilds......................................... 64 
17. Non-industrial Gilds.................................... 71 
18. Bibliography............................................ 73 
CHAPTER IV 
Mediæval Trade And Commerce 
19. Markets and Fairs....................................... 75 
20. Trade Relations between Towns........................... 79 
21. Foreign Trading Relations............................... 81 
22. The Italian and Eastern Trade........................... 84 
23. The Flanders Trade and the Staple....................... 87 
24. The Hanse Trade......................................... 89 
25. Foreigners settled in England........................... 90 
26. Bibliography............................................ 94 
CHAPTER V 
The Black Death And The Peasants' Rebellion 
Economic Changes of the Later Fourteenth and Early Fifteenth
Centuries 
27. National Affairs from 1338 to 1461...................... 96 
28. The Black Death and its Effects......................... 99 
29. The Statutes of Laborers............................... 106 
30. The Peasants' Rebellion of 1381........................ 111 
31. Commutation of Services................................ 125 
32. The Abandonment of Demesne Farming..................... 128 
33. The Decay of Serfdom................................... 129 
34. Changes in Town Life    
    
		
	
	
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