Suppose you were a peasant living in England during the late 14thcentury. You live in a rural agricultural town making low wages. Life is not going so well, you are a farmer and crops are just not producing much income anymore.
On the other hand, in the wealthier urban areas of England at the time, the cloth industry was growing increasingly popular. The demand for cloth is increasing by the day. As time goes on, the manufacturing of cloth is becoming easier and easier with the addition of new technology. As a result, rural areas became a hotspot for clothmaking. Clothmaking towns began popping up all over the rural areas of England. The people who lived in these towns were not wealthy though, the wealthy would never leave their urban centers. The people that lived in these towns were peasants. These peasants benefit the cloth industry tremendously with the addition of cheap labor. The labor is not just cheap, there is an abundance of it also. This new cheap labor creates even more room for profit in the cloth industry and is what leads to the economic growth.
Suddenly there are now jobs available in this industry of clothmaking. I am still a farmer right now, making poor wages, so I think I might try this clothmaking industry. After I farm, I sell cloths here andthere and I make better money than I ever have. With this extra money I am not even close to struggling any longer.
The Clothmaking industry is growing larger than ever before. The quality and efficiency of clothmaking was also improving, which only increased the demand. Different Variations of cloth were being used at this time. England switched to woollen cloth, surprisingly increasing the amount of trade. England was known for having one of the best quality woollen cloth in the world at this time. England now was known for selling cloth nationally and internationally.
I am enjoying my new line of work very much. I am making such good money that I am making my wife and children contribute to the clothmaking. I work countless hours making one cloth, therefore I need all the help I can get. There are no regulations, so we can never get in trouble, we only make more income. We have also been spending our income lately on more cloth and other goods. We especially like the colored cloth, it is more expensive, but many times people give it to us as payment.
The clothmaking industry is responsible for a large portion of the economic success in England during the 14thand 15thcenturies. Peasants played a much larger role in the success of the cloth industry than most people realize. If the opportunity to move to rural areas with low paid peasants as workers did not arise, I believe the cloth industry in England would not have had the same success.
Kevin Antoniotti
Kevin Antoniotti
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