Since early times, agriculture has been pivotal to England's economy. This is the first in a magisterial seven-volume, eight-piece compilation by the economist James E. Thorold Rogers (1823–90), which represents the most complete record of produce costs in England between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries. Drawing on a variety of sources including college archives and the Public Record Office, Rogers documents the fluctuating prices of commodities such as livestock, wheat, hay, wool, textiles and labour in a time of great economic change, when the growing economy of the early middle ages was shaken by famine and the Black Death, and then gradually recovered towards the Agrarian Revolution. First published in 1866, this volume explores the period from 1259 to 1400. The factual information provided in Volume 2 is analysed in a series of essays focusing on farming methods, international trading, taxes, currency, and the financial consequences of the plague.