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If asked at the time, people would probably have given different answers, as they do today. English wool dyers or ale brewers may well have feared an influx of people they thought were competing with them for jobs. Members of London guilds and English merchants may have worried about threats to their profits. At times, people suspected that foreigners - especially the French - were acting for the enemy. But the fact that migrants were scattered so far and wide, in nearly every town and village, and that we have very few accounts of tension, suggests that they mostly fitted in and settled down. People were used to the presence of 'aliens'. Most people, when asked, may well have seen immigration as a good thing, especially after the shortage of skills and labour following the Black Death.

With the long view we can see that Medieval immigration was very good indeed for England’s economy and, therefore, people’s lives. Migrants brought much needed manufacturing and creative skills. At the start of this period, England was part of a small island on the edge of Europe, invaded and colonised, producing basic raw materials. By 1500 it had a growing manufacturing economy based around the cloth trade, linked to a trading and financial centre of increasing importance. Migrants made this possible.

Most migrants themselves, if asked whether the move had been good for them, would probably have been positive. England usually offered greater safety, a better income and the chance to build a new life. At times, however, there was great danger, most of all for the Jews, whose experience was a very dark chapter in English history.

England was both welcoming and unwelcoming, a pattern that still continues today.

Revision tip

Was the story of immigration to Medieval England a largely positive one?

This is a complex question. Read through this guide and note down evidence of the effect of immigration on the people already living here, on the migrants themselves, and on the country as a whole.