The parish churches of the period are one of the most visible signs of affluence still to be observed in the English landscape, parish rivalling parish with the extent of its patronage; the screen-work and roof carvings are of the finest quality. It was the great age of the church tower, from Fulham in London to Mawgan-in-Pyder at St Mawgan in Cornwall. The majority of the stone bridges of the country were improved in the fifteenth century; London Bridge itself was rebuilt and widened. In the first half of that century a vogue for building libraries in the cathedrals, and in the colleges of the two universities, can be identified; fine examples can be found at Merton College and at New College in Oxford as well as in the cathedrals of York, Lincoln, Wells, Canterbury and All Saints, Bristol. The divinity school at Oxford began to rise in 1424 and was roofed in 1466.
Schools, almshouses and hospitals were constructed throughout the realm. It was the age of the large and unfortified country residences, where increasingly brick rather than stone was considered the suitable medium. The wall around the town of Hull, constructed in the second half of the fourteenth century, was the first public edifice built entirely of brick. The public institutions of town and city were improved or built anew; between 1411 and 1440, for example, the present Guildhall of London was erected. The Guildhall at York was built in the 1450s. We have already mentioned Henry’s meticulous concern for the building of Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge; the foundation stone of the extraordinary King’s College Chapel was laid by the king in the summer of 1446. Architecture was in the fullest possible sense the expression of the country, as it clothed itself in vestments of stone. It acts as a balance to the historical accounts which almost of necessity chronicle the violence and insecurity of the age. Most of what is now regarded as ‘medieval’ dates from the fifteenth century, and we can say with confidence that it remains physically close to us. The churches and libraries, the guildhalls and bridges, are still in use.
Periods of great economic activity succeeded periods of slump, so that the familiar cycle of overconfidence and anxiety was always in motion; yet what we now call the gross domestic product of the country materially increased. When a ship coming from Dieppe landed at Winchelsea harbour in 1490, it contained satin and pipes of wine, razors and damask, needles and mantles of leopards’ skins, five gross of playing cards and eight gross of plaques stamped with the image of the Lamb of God. A trade in monkeys from Venice, described as ‘apes and japes and marmosets tailed’, flourished. An inventory of the household goods of Sir John Fastolf reveals that he purchased cloth from Zeeland (now part of the Netherlands), silver cups from Paris, coats of mail from Milan, treacle pots from Genoa, cloth from Arras and girdles from Germany. An old rhyme tells the story:
Hops and turkies, carps and beer,
Came into England all in a year.
In fact by the end of the fifteenth century, beer itself was coming out of England. It had once been imported from Prussia, but English merchants were soon carrying beer from London to Flanders.
Economic activity quickened in a variety of different spheres. A small native industry of glass-painting emerged, and carpet manufactories were established at Romsey in Hampshire. Great merchants now rivalled their competitors in Genoa or in Venice. William Cannynges of Bristol possessed, in 1461, ten ships and employed 800 sailors as well as 100 craftsmen. The ships of the merchants were in fact employed as a volunteer force working with the royal navy to patrol the seas and to defend the shores. The cities and towns that engaged in maritime trade, such as Bristol and Southampton, naturally flourished. John Cabot sailed out of Bristol for the New World in 1497, looking for new markets and new trade. The mercantile interest was successful in another sense; the more affluent merchants of the towns were now attending the parliament house, and pressing their demands for the exclusive management of what was not necessarily fair trade.
