Well, hello! This is the History of England and this is episode 181, the 15th century

Royal Economy, doesn't that sound a hoot? First of all, just to remind you that I'm

a proud and fully paid at member of the Agora Podcast Network, a group of independent

minded folk who like a bit of a cast now and then. You can find out more at agoraapodcastnetwork.com.

This month, our featured podcast is Ten American Presidents by Roy Field Brown and you can

find out more by going to acast.com forward slash Ten American Presidents.

So before we got distracted by the finer details of the gentry, we were talking about

how things changed for the Lords and for the Masters. How the secular and ecclesiastical aristocracy

were hit by falling incomes as the effects of the Black Death finally began to bite after

the 1370s. How the poor lambs had to change from the traditional direct management of their

estates from the days of the High Middle Ages, and how this led to a new breed of farmer

as these changes gave the gentry, merchants and peasantry new opportunities to gain more

land. This time we're going to talk a bit more about how the gentry and peasantry reacted

to and were affected by all these changes and what this meant for them and their lives.

But before we get into that, I'll start with a general observation about how economic

changes began to affect the way the countryside looked in the 15th century. The 13th and 14th

centuries had seen mixed and arable farming reigns supreme as the large population demanded

food and demanded grain. And the plentiful supply of people and labour meant that this

kind of intensive farming could be supported with the plentiful workforce. All that changed

with the Black Death, though as we'd said, it took a surprisingly long time to work its

way through. But as a result, during the 15th century, the new farmers that emerged from

the late days of the 14th oversaw a massive change in land use in England. Now let me

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