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35
enough wool to satisfy its market and imported fine fleece from England.
England depended upon this trade for its foreign exchange. During the 1200’s,
the upper class English had adopted Norman fashions and switched from beer to
wine, (note that beer and wine were very important elements in the medieval
diet). Both contain vitamin and yeast complexes that the medieval diet,
especially during the winter, did not provide. Besides, the preservation of food
was a difficult matter in that era, and the alcohol in beer and wine represented a
large number of calories stored in an inexpensive and effective fashion. People
did get drunk during the Middle Ages, but most could not afford to do so. Beer
and wine were valued as food and were priced accordingly.
The problem was that England could not grow grapes to produce the wine
that many of the English now favored and had to import it. A triangular trade
arose in which English fleece was exchanged for Flemish cloth, which was then
taken to southern France and exchanged for wine, which was then shipped into
England and Ireland, primarily through the ports of Dublin, Bristol, and London.
But the counts of Flanders had been vassals of the king of France, and the
French tried to regain control its wealth. The English could not permit this, since
it would mean that the French monarch would control their main of foreign
exchange. A civil war soon broke out in Flanders, with the English supporting
the manufacturing middle class and the French supporting the land-owning
nobility.
The Struggle for Control France
The English king controlled much of France, particularly in the fertile South.
These lands had come under control of the English when Eleanor of Aquitaine,
heiress to the region, had married Henry II of England in the mid-12
th
century.
There was constant bickering along the French-English frontier, and the French
kings always had to fear an English invasion from the South. Between Flanders
in the North and the English in the South, they were caught in a “nutcracker”.
The “ Auld Alliance”
35 enough wool to satisfy its market and imported fine fleece from England. England depended upon this trade for its foreign exchange. During the 1200’s, the upper class English had adopted Norman fashions and switched from beer to wine, (note that beer and wine were very important elements in the medieval diet). Both contain vitamin and yeast complexes that the medieval diet, especially during the winter, did not provide. Besides, the preservation of food was a difficult matter in that era, and the alcohol in beer and wine represented a large number of calories stored in an inexpensive and effective fashion. People did get drunk during the Middle Ages, but most could not afford to do so. Beer and wine were valued as food and were priced accordingly. The problem was that England could not grow grapes to produce the wine that many of the English now favored and had to import it. A triangular trade arose in which English fleece was exchanged for Flemish cloth, which was then taken to southern France and exchanged for wine, which was then shipped into England and Ireland, primarily through the ports of Dublin, Bristol, and London. But the counts of Flanders had been vassals of the king of France, and the French tried to regain control its wealth. The English could not permit this, since it would mean that the French monarch would control their main of foreign exchange. A civil war soon broke out in Flanders, with the English supporting the manufacturing middle class and the French supporting the land-owning nobility. The Struggle for Control France The English king controlled much of France, particularly in the fertile South. These lands had come under control of the English when Eleanor of Aquitaine, heiress to the region, had married Henry II of England in the mid-12th century. There was constant bickering along the French-English frontier, and the French kings always had to fear an English invasion from the South. Between Flanders in the North and the English in the South, they were caught in a “nutcracker”. The “Auld Alliance”
