How wool influence British economy

Women sheering sheep for wool fleece.
Source: wikimedia commons

10 million wool fleeces yearly were exported from England in beginning of 14th century ... that's a lot - and make England the world biggest wool producer in those time. But is not only quantity but also quality:

English farmers had developed breeds of sheep that produced fleeces of varying weight and quality, some of which were among the best in Europe. Source: History's big numbers, interviews by Charlotte Hodgman, BBC History Magazine 2/2014

Increasing demands from continental trade center  - Ypres, Ghent, Bruges (all nowadays in Belgium) - requires also good organisation.  Key role plays here monasteries which not only kept theirs own herds but also contracted flocks from peasants leaving in surrounding villages. To make it happen new occupancy like woolman or woolmongers where created. Especially in this area specialized are Cisterian monasteries  - it was integral to the order economy - sheep not only provided wool, which could be used to make clothing and blankets for the community, or else sold, but were important for the manufacture of butter and cheese. 


One of the biggest and notable were Fountains Abbey:

"Fountains was at one time the leading producer and exporter of Cistercian wool in the country, and its seventy-six sacks topped the list of wool producers in an Italian account of c. 1300. It has been estimated that the community must have had at this time c. 18 000 sheep." Source: The Cistercians in Yorkshire Project

Fountains Abbey
Source: wikimedia commons

Fountains prosperity was ended in 1539 by Henry VIII Act of Parliament, known as the “Dissolution of the Monasteries”. Abbey was abandoned for more than 200 years till was bought by Aislabie family[4] around year 1750. Interesting that was bought mainly for it's garden. William, son of John Aislabie, MP for Ripon and Chancellor of the Exchequer, continuing here passion of his father. John Aislabie found his passion when visiting the gardens of Versailles and Chatsworth, disgraced after invested large sums of government money in the “South Sea Bubble”, one of the first financial bubble.

The South Sea Bubble was a speculative bubble in the early 18th century involving the shares of the South Sea Company, a British international trading company that was granted a monopoly in trade with Spain’s colonies in South America and the West Indies as part of a treaty made after the War of the Spanish Succession. In return for these exclusive trading rights, the company assumed England’s war debt. When investors recognized the potential profits to be made from trade with the gold and silver-rich South American colonies, they bid the South Sea Company’s shares South Sea Bubble: South Sea Company Stock Certificate and the shares of similar trading companies to incredible heights in a typical speculative bubble fashion. Not long after virtually all classes of British society were thoroughly engaged in wild stock speculation, the South Sea Bubble popped and stock prices violently collapsed, financially ruining their investors. Source: The Bubble Bubble

This crisis harm wool producers however not for long time. The Industrial Revolution[5] which started in second half of XVIII century create high demand for wool fleeces as result of introducing of steam machines in wool industry.

Primary sources:

[1] History's big numbers, interviews by Charlotte Hodgman, BBC History Magazine 2/2014
[2] The Cistercians in Yorkshire Project
[3] The Bubble Bubble

Secondary sources:
[4] Fountains Abbey history on bbc.co.uk 
[5] Wool history on Seven Sisters Sheep Center

Videos:
[6] The wool trade in England, 1948