Buying and Selling

Abstract

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the vast majority of the English people lived in the countryside. Most of them, below the level of the gentry, with the exception of the yeoman farmers, were constantly engaged in the struggle to stay alive. The struggle for basic shelter and food took up most of their lives. Most material possessions which we think of as necessities would have been unimaginable to them. Two hundred years later, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, not only could they afford these necessities, but they could also buy goods once seen as inconceivable luxuries — bedlinen, pewter bowls and plates, even books and newspapers. This prosperity was the product of agricultural and population change and resulted in a dramatic rise in living standards.