Economic and demographic problems began to affect England decades before the arrival of the Black Death, although Shropshire was partly insulated by its mainly pastoral economy. The agrarian crisis of 1315–1317 brought the desertion of holdings and falls in rents. Large livestock raising businesses, like Buildwas Abbey, were less affected than the more labour-intensive arable estates and even the Murrain which followed in 1319–21 destroyed herds of cattle, not the Cistercian flocks of sheep. A notable delay by Buildwas in paying papal income tax dates from January 1325 and may indicate that the abbey was already feeling the pinch. Eyton notes the extraordinary violence of tone with which Bishop Roger Northburgh assailed the abbot in his exasperation or desperation, with threats of excommunication if the required sum were not paid by 2 February. By the 1340s, falling population and sheep disease were a general problem and must have been pressing on the revenues even of Buildwas. Other large monasteries had begun to pull out of demesne farming by this time.