<P> Birmingham's market is likely to have remained primarily one for agricultural produce throughout the medieval period . The land of the Birmingham Plateau, particularly the unenclosed area of the manor of Birmingham to the west of the town, was more suited to pastoral then arable agriculture and excavated animal bones indicate that cattle were the dominant livestock, with some sheep but very few pigs . References in 1285 and 1306 to stolen cattle being sold in the town suggest that the size of the trade at this time was sufficient for such sales to go unnoticed . Trade through Birmingham diversified as a merchant class arose, however: mercers and purveyors are mentioned in early 13th century deeds, and a legal dispute involving traders from Wednesbury in 1403 reveals that they were dealing in iron, linen, wool, brass and steel as well as cattle in the town . </P> <P> By the 14th century Birmingham seems to have been established as a particular centre of the wool trade . Two Birmingham merchants represented Warwickshire at the council held in York in 1322 to discuss the standardisation of wool staples, and others attended the Westminster wool merchants assemblies of 1340, 1342 and 1343, a period when at least one Birmingham merchant was trading considerable amounts of wool with continental Europe . Aulnage records for 1397 give some indication of the size of Birmingham's textile trade at the time, the 44 broadcloths sold being a tiny fraction of the 3,000 sold in the major textile centre of Coventry, but making up almost a third of the trade of the rest of Warwickshire . </P> <P> Birmingham was also situated on several significant overland trade routes . By the end of the 13th century the town was an important transit point for the trade in cattle along drovers' roads from Wales to Coventry and the South East of England . Exchequer accounts for 1340 record wine imported through Bristol being unloaded at Worcester and transported by cart to Birmingham and Lichfield . This route from Droitwich is shown on the Gough Map of the mid-14th century and described by the contemporary Ranulf Higdon as forming part of one of the "Four Great Royal Roads" of England, running from Worcester to the River Tyne . </P> <P> The de Birmingham family were active in promoting the market, whose tolls would have formed an important part of the income from the manor of Birmingham, by then the most valuable of their estates . The establishment of a rival market at Deritend in the neighbouring parish of Aston had led them to acquire the hamlet by 1270, and the family is recorded enforcing the payment of tolls by traders from King's Norton, Bromsgrove, Wednesbury, and Tipton in 1263, 1308 and 1403 . In 1250 William de Birmingham gained permission to hold a fair for three days about Ascensiontide . By 1400 a second fair was being held at Michaelmas and in 1439 the then lord negotiated for the town to be free of the presence of royal purveyors . </P>

How was birmingham affected by the industrial revolution