Editing Cleckheaton (section)

===Textile working===
The area was very disorganised for a long time after the [[Norman Conquest]] and the richest townships at that time were still the richest 300 years later as the Poll Tax returns of 1379 show.  They also demonstrate the lack of administration as only the richest four of the 227 families living in the Spen Valley were made to pay more than the 4d (approx. 2p) minimum tax. These tax returns also show the recent deviation from the traditional sources of wealth in the area (i.e. farming and allied trades). These were centred on textiles and included dyeing, weaving and fulling (common names in the area nowadays still recall these early trades: Lister- dyer, Webster- weaver, Walker- fuller).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/e179/details.asp?piece_id=23796&doc_id=18439&doc_ref=E179/206/49|title=The Returns for the West Riding of the county of York of the Poll Tax laid in the second year of the reign of King Richard the Second|publisher=National Archives|access-date=8 May 2022}}</ref>

After the [[English Reformation|Reformation]], Kirklees Priory was largely destroyed, many families were driven from the area and new non-aristocratic lords of the manor who were sympathetic to Protestantism were introduced by [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth I]], as was a puritan clergyman who was installed at Birstall Church. By 1570, at the time of the [[Rising of the North|Rising of the Northern Earls]], the last of the old Norman noble families had been swept away. Sir John Neville went into exile and forfeited his estate and Thomas Hussey (heir to the de Tilly family of Oakwell Hall) was imprisoned in the [[Tower of London]] for some time before being pardoned.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/thoresbypt126thoruoft/thoresbypt126thoruoft_djvu.txt|page=30|title=Birstall, Gomersal, and Heckmondwike|publisher=The Publications of the Thoresby Society| access-date=8 May 2022}}</ref>

By the 17th century land-owning farmers were finding it increasingly difficult as were their landlords and some payments were still in kind as farmers had no money to pay their debts.  Meanwhile, the textile workers were becoming more and more prosperous and paid less and less attention to their hard up and increasingly impotent landlords. During the [[English Civil War]] the clothiers were on one side and the landlords on the other. Lords of the area were made Royalist officers and made some progress such as at the [[Battle of Adwalton Moor]] about a mile east of [[Birkenshaw, West Yorkshire|Birkenshaw]] and the [[Sieges of Bradford|siege of Bradford]], before the Parliamentarians took control of the area.<ref>{{cite web |last1=MacKenzie |first1=John |title=Battle of Adwalton Moor |url=https://www.britishbattles.com/english-civil-war/battle-of-adwalton-moor/ |website=BritishBattles.com |access-date=4 August 2020 |date=2020 }}</ref>