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This paper charts the growth trajectory of grammar schools in England at the county level between 1270 and 1700, shedding new light on the long-term development of the economy in the centuries before the Industrial Revolution. The evidence on schooling shows that there were two “educational revolutions.” The first occurred in the period between the Black Death and the 1530s, and can probably be attributed to the favorable conditions for schooling created by the European marriage pattern (EMP). The second revolution occurred in the second half of the seventeenth century. Interestingly, this phase of rapid educational expansion was concentrated in the counties in the northwest of England, which at the time was undergoing rapid urbanization and commercialization and which would form the core of the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century. Moreover, it was this region that saw a decline in human capital formation during the Industrial Revolution.