t, the completeness with which
all occupations were organized under the "gild system," were all of
them still more marked in 1450 than they had been in 1350. It is true
that far-reaching changes were beginning, but they were only
beginning, and did not reach an important development until a time
later than that included in this chapter. The same thing is true in
the field of foreign trade. The latter part of the fourteenth and the
early fifteenth century saw a considerable increase and development of
the trade of England, but it was still on the same lines and carried
on by the same methods as before. The great proportion of it was in
the hands of foreigners, and there was the same inconsistency in the
policy of the central government on the occasions when it did
intervene or take any action on the subject. The important changes in
trade and in town life which have their beginning in this period will
be discussed in connection with those of the next period in Chapter
VI.

*35. BIBLIOGRAPHY*

Jessop, Augustus: _The Coming of the Friars and other Essays_. Two
interesting essays in this volume are on _The Black Death in East
Anglia_.

Gasquet, F. A.: _The Great Pestilence of 1349_.

Creighton, C.: _History of Epidemics in Britain_, two volumes. This
gives especial attention to the nature of the disease.

Trevelyan, G. M.: _England in the Age of Wycliffe_. This book,
published in 1899, gives by far the fullest account of the Peasant
Rising which has so far appeared in English.

Petit-Dutaillis, C., et Reville, A.: _Le Soulevement des Travailleurs
d'Angleterre en 1381_. The best account of the Rebellion.

Powell, Edgar: _The Peasant Rising in East Anglia in 1381_. Especially
valuable for its accounts of the poll tax.

Powell, Edgar, and Trevelyan, G. M.: _Documents Illustrating the
Peasants' Rising and the Lollards_.

Page, Thomas Walker: _The End of Villainage in England_. This
monograph, published in 1900, is particularly valuable for the new
facts which it gives concerning the rural changes of the fourteenth
century.

CHAPTER VI

THE BREAKING UP OF THE MEDIAEVAL SYSTEM

Economic Changes Of The Later Fifteenth And The Sixteenth Centuries

*36. National Affairs from 1461 to 1603.*--The close of the fifteenth
and the opening of the sixteenth century has been by universal consent
settled upon as the passage from one era to another, from the Middle
Ages to modern times. This period of transition was