royal household. The king used a privy seal to issue
directives to the chancery. Edward III made some merchants earls
and appointed them to be his ministers. He did not summon anyone
to his council who did not have the confidence of the magnates
[barons, earls, bishops, and abbots].

There was a recoinage due to debasement of the old coinage. This
increased the number of coins in circulation. The price of wheat
went from about 7s. in 1270 to about 5s. per quarter in 1280. Also
the price of an ox went from 14s. to 10s. Then there were broad
movements of prices, within which there were wide fluctuations,
largely due to the state of the harvest. From 1280 to 1290, there
was runaway inflation. In some places, both grain and livestock
prices almost doubled between 1305 and 1310. Wheat prices peaked
at 15s.5d. a quarter in the famine year of 1316. In 1338, prices
dropped and remained low for twenty years. The poor were hurt by
high prices and the lords of the manors were hurt by low prices.

As before, inadequate care and ignorance of nutrition caused many
infant deaths. Accidents and disease were so prevalent that death
was always near and life insecure. Many women died in childbirth.

In the 1300s, there were extremes of fashion in men's and women's
clothing including tight garments, pendant sleeves down to the
ground, coats so short they didn't reach the hips or so long they
reached the heels, hoods so small they couldn't cover the head,
and shoes with long curved peaks like claws at the toes. Both men
and women wore belts low on the hips. The skirt of a lady's tunic
was fuller and the bodice more closely fitted than before. Her
hair was usually elaborately done up, e.g. with long curls or
curled braids on either side of the face. A jeweled circlet was
often worn around her head. Ladies wore on their arms or belts,
cloth handbags, which usually contained toiletries, such as combs
made of ivory, horn, bone, or wood, and perhaps a little book of
devotions. A man wore a knife and a bag on his belt. Some women
painted their faces and/or colored their hair. There were hand-
held glass mirrors. Some people kept dogs purely as pets.

There was a great development of heraldic splendor with for
instance, crests, coat-armor, badges, pennons [long, triangular
flag], and helmets. They descended through families. Not only was
it a mark of service to wear the badge of a lord, but lords wore
each other's badges by way of compliment