English History in the Fourteenth Century (Classic Reprint)

Download or read book English History in the Fourteenth Century (Classic Reprint) written by Charles H. Pearson and published by . This book was released on 2016-06-14 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from English History in the Fourteenth Century State of England in the 14th Century. - Towards the end of the thirteenth century England was perhaps the best ordered and most prosperous state in Europe. Politi cally, indeed, its power was small, for our kings only retained a portion of their old dominions in France, and these, it might seem, merely by sufferance. Scotland was independent under a native dynasty, a great part of Ireland was in reality unconquered. Nevertheless, three quarters of a century passed in comparative peace had doubled the population, and more than doubled its wealth respect for law had grown to an extent unknown elsewhere and the serfs were rapidly being enfranchised. The annexation of North Wales had delivered the English marches from the dread of invasion. There were no towns in England except London that could vie with the wealth of Ghent or Bruges in Flanders, or of Venice and Florence in Italy 3 but the English towns were parts of a compact dominion, at peace with one another, and protected by the armies of a whole kingdom. Our kings could not bring into the field as many thousand soldiers as gathered under the banners of the French monarchs. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.