Since early times, agriculture has been pivotal to England's economy. This is the fifth 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 1887, Volume 5 uses the data supplied in Volume 6 to discuss the period from 1583 to 1702, exploring the costs of traditional agricultural products as well as fuel and building materials, transport, tenant farms, and changes in wages.