Education in Middle Earth

[Morthoron]

I am in agreement with Lalwende. There is virtually no outside trade of any significance from or to the Shire at the end of the Third Age. I will add an important caveat to that statement presently.

'Strange as news from Bree' is a favorite phrase uttered by Hobbiton folk. If one reads the encounter of Frodo when he arrives at Bree, the townsfolk greet these Hobbiton Hobbits as if they were a novelty. There are actually Hobbits here from the Shire? Well doesn't that beat all! They speak in terms of a branch of Hobbits long sundered from the outside world, as if the Bree-folk hadn't seen a Shireling for years. If there were any organized trade between Bree and the Shire this would not be such an odd event. Further, Tolkien states in FotR that men are sparse in that region:

In those days no other Men had settled dwellings so far West, or within a hundred leagues of the Shire.

What does this tell us? Well for one, a hundred leagues equals three hundred English statute miles, which puts any Mannish settlements besides Bree another three hundred miles south of Hobbiton (which would be below the River Greyflood), north past the Ice Bay of Forochel, and east in Rhudaur. To the West there are no settlements of Men, only Elves (Cirdan's folk have nothing to do with anybody, really) and Dwarves (which we discuss momentarily). So, it is obvious the Shire had no dealings with men, and Bree itself, Tolkien states:

The Bree-folk...did not themselves travel much; and the affairs of the four villages were their main concern. Occasionally the Hobbits of Bree went as far as Buckland, or the Eastfarthing; but though their little land was not much further than a day's riding east of the Brandywine Bridge, the Hobbits of the Shire now seldom visited it. An occasional Bucklander or adventurous Took would come out to the Inn for a night or two, but even that was becoming less and less usual...
It was not yet forgotten that there had been a time when there was much coming and going between the Shire and Bree.

What does this passage refer to? Simply, that any existing trade between Bree and the Shire (the Shire's closest possible trading partner) had ceased long ago. Dwarves are sometimes seen passing through the Shire, but there is no evidence of any established trade between the Dwarrow-folk of Ered Luin and Hobbiton either. Dwarves, like Thorin for example, might mend a pot or two for a Hobbitish matron, but there was no transportation of wains laden with coal from Dwarvish mines, or any large scale trade of foodstuffs from the Shire to Ered Luin (no Hobbit really set foot past the Tower Hills). Everyone was a stranger or an 'outsider' to the Shirefollk; therefore, the Shire can be considered isolationist and without a trade economy.

Now, from an historical perspective, how does this isolationist view of the Shire and its apparent prosperity without apparent trade gibe with early medieval England? Quite nicely, actually. Prior to any systematized policing of roads and wool trade to Flanders, long-range trade was very dicey at best (and it was likely one couldn't get through the primeval forests of England to visit a neighboring village without much trepidation). There was a self-sufficiency that made villages insular, and the 'market' (an actual 'trading town') was usually no more than a few miles away. Therefore, the residents of these insular early medieval enclaves engaged in a wide variety of specializations, including millwrighting, carpentry, leather making, textiles, clothing, metal working, and masonry. Depending on the weather and climate (and it would seem the Shire had good weather without bad droughts or wicked winters for many years -- no 'Little Ice Ages' that would cause famine among the population of Europe just prior to the Black Death), areas of England provided nicely, if not prosperously, for themselves without any external forces intruding on their homegrown market, and there are indications that many peasants were able to produce a substantial surplus of grain and animal products which were sold at the market and allowed themm to purchase other locally manufactured products (iron pots, crockery, woolen-goods, etc.).

Now, regarding my caveat from earlier. England was also open to widescale invasions (the Vikings for instance), and one could look at Sharkey's ruffians -- outside interlopers at first only interested in plunder -- as just such pillagers, taking off with barrrels of Longbottom Leaf and foodstuffs to line Saruman's coffers. Like the Vikings, Sharkey's ruffians then became more systematic, actually subjugating the conquered race of Hobbits and taking up their abodes in the Shire (like England's Danelaw). In any case, the exportation of products from the Shire to the South at that point in time does not equate to trade, rather it was appropriation by a conquering race who began to impose their rule, and their less than subtle modifications of Hobbit culture and architecture.