I probably shouldn’t be expecting a letter of thanks from old King Charles over at Windsor Palace soon. Let alone some kind of remuneration. Now, in case you know the guy personally, do put in a good word for me, and I’ll consider sharing the spoils. You never know with these kinds of things. Anyway, I think my arguments are pretty convincing. 

A long time ago in England, there was nothing. Then, there were sheep. Stocky sheep, hardy animals, with short legs but long, thick coats. Naked after being shorn, the high quality thread of their fur soon ended up in bales or spools, sent across the Channel. In the weaving cities of Flanders, Ypres, Bruges, and Ghent, this English wool became the best cloth in Western Europe, dyed bright colours, and sold in Champagne to the rich merchants of Italy. Of course the magnanimous weavers of Flanders allotted part of the profit to the English and their sheep.

Sadly, the British population grew, meaning some of the sheep had to be eaten, and less wool remained for export. Even worse, in 1585 the Spanish occupied Antwerp and the surrounding lands of Brabant and Flanders. Unimpressed by the low quality beer of Spain, the most daring and inventive part of the city departed, many of them settling in Norwich. These new arrivals are still known as The Strangers.

The Strangers didn’t just bring proper beer with them (back then, the local ale-brewers competed with the freshly arrived beer-brewers, distinguished by their Belgian hops) they also brought colour and sound along with their looms. For while the city up until then had largely been clad in blue, obtained from woad plants grown in the marshes of East Anglia, the Flemish knew how to make yellow and red pigments, competing strongly during  the weekly fair. 

To accompany their monotonous weaving, the Strangers also imported lots of canaries, which had arrived in Antwerp not long before through the Spanish occupiers, fierce owners of the Canary Islands. These birds sang and chirped, and lent their name to the local football team of the city, playfully nicknamed ‘The Canaries.’ Meanwhile, fond of art, the Strangers discussed painting, as they loved to “schets” or “ets” a beautiful “landschap” on a canvas carried by an “ezel.”

The Strangers didn’t bring the complete catalogue of fabrics to Norwich. Instead they focussed on high quality, bright pieces of  cloth, designed for luxury and high profits. They left the rougher, coarser fabrics to the small community of Duffel, just South of Antwerp, where weavers created the dense, rugged, and nearly waterproof duffel coats and duffel bags that powered the British overseas expansion. Without these, a sailor’s life on the North Sea wouldn’t have been nearly as manageable. 

As the sixteenth century turned into the seventeenth, the English finally realised their swamps and moors weren’t nearly as productive as they could be. The Brabantine Engineer Humphrey Bradley was the first to put his hands down into the mud, but it would take the genius of the admittedly not very Belgian, and instead quite Dutch Cornelius Vermuyden to drain the Fens surrounding Norwich and Cambridge. Under his oversight, canals and windmills drained the waterlogged ground, delivering hundreds of brand new acres to the Duke of Bedford.

Again, to optimally use their newly obtained lands, the English turned to Belgium, specifically, to the farmers of Waasland, the region between Ghent and Antwerp. Hampered by sandy and poor soil, these farmers had figured out methods to vastly increase the yield of their fields, alternating years of growing wheat (for bread) and barley (for beer), with years of growing clover (which enriches the soil) and turnips (which naturally eliminate pests and weeds). Generously, Secretary of State Charles “Turnip” Townshend implemented the “Norwich Four-Course System”, conveniently forgetting who he owed it to!

Why the “Norwich Four-Course System” Changed the World

The system’s brilliance lies in a cycle that keeps the soil productive 100% of the time, replacing the old-fashioned fallow year with a perfect loop:

• Year 1: Wheat = The cash crop for bread.
• Year 2: Turnips = The “cleaning crop”. Turnips kill weeds and provide winter fodder for livestock.
• Year 3: Barley = The cash crop for beer.
• Year 4: Clover = The “secret weapon”. As a nitrogen-fixing legume type of plant, clover naturally recharges the soil’s nutrients for next year’s growing season.

As a result, the crops fed the animals, the animals provided meat and wool, and their manure fertilized the fields. This triggered a massive population boom and provided the surplus food that fueled the Industrial Revolution.

Soon after, the industrial revolution took off, which is a story more familiar to all. Therefore I will leave you here with Mister “Turnip” Townshend, a man probably dressed in expensive red and yellow, ‘sketching’ or even ‘etching’ silly doodles while bored in parliament. The Lord Chancellor speaks from atop his ‘woolsack’ chair, discussing a measure to import a new type of nearly indestructible coats for the navy’s sailors, while looking forward to a strong beer, brewed with hops, grown on reclaimed land.