Between 1500-1650, Europe experienced significant transformations. Large-scale land reclamation increased agricultural production but depleted natural resources. Rising populations led to inflated food prices and wages, disrupting societies. Peasants lived in poor conditions and revolted against imposed changes, though they were brutally suppressed. A new social class of gentry emerged between the nobility and commoners. Overall, this period was defined by extensive social, economic and demographic changes in European societies.

1. 1500-1650

2. Fact #1: Large Land Reclamation
 Not since the Black Death had Europe transformed so
much
 Agriculture increased: more land cleared, crops grown,
better tools
 More irreplaceable resources lost: more trees felled,
soil eroded, water polluted

3. Fact #2: Don’t Be a Peasant
 Manors, the church and the state gained their wealth
from peasants
 Peasant housing was raw
 single long hall with a fireplace for heat
 single window to the outside world
 housing was shared during bad weather with
animals
 property was limited—a chest, a table, a
bedstead, some pots and utensils

4. Farming Life

5. Farmers Threshing Grain

6. Pig Killing and Baking

7. Fact #3: Huge Population Growth
 Population growth created change
 80 mil to 105 mil in Europe
 France and England doubled
 In 1500 4 cities had more than 100,000
 In 1600 there were 8
 15 large cities doubled their pop’n
 London grew by 400%!

8. Trading Port of Antwerp

9. Population Density in Europe: 1600

10. Fact #4: Inflation Anyone?
 By midcentury a limit was reached
 Guilds raised fees, limited one son per father
 Increased population in town = poorer wages
 Purchasing power in England was halved
 Large inflation (500% in agriculture)
 Increased population and metals from the New World
 Commodity prices increased along with State debt

11. Fact #4: Inflation Anyone?
 Inflation disrupted whole societies
 99 year leases
 Lords could buy goods at set prices (even from 300 years
ago!)
 Push to create a surplus to sell, specialize
 Many who had sold land to go to the city came back
with no land

12. Moneylender and Wife

13. Fact #5: Gentry Anyone?
 European society was divided into two status groups:
nobles and commoners
 Nobility implied certain rights
 eligible for high office in the state
 paid no taxes
 In return they were expected to serve as military
commanders
 Expected to raise, equip, and lead troops
 Professionalism of warfare limited this by 16th century

14. Fact #5: Gentry Anyone?
 Between the nobility and the commoners, a new group
without clear status was emerging
 Some of the wealthiest and most powerful townsmen
rose into the lower ranks of the nobility
 In the countryside, landowners separated themselves
from the labourers
 This group is referred to as the gentry

15. Feeding the Hungry

16. Fact #6: Revolts All Around
 Social changes led to conflict between the orders
 Peasant revolts, although moderate and well organized,
were brutally suppressed
 Many were in response to changes in the agricultural
system imposed by surges and recessions in the economy
 Protection of woodlands and enclosure of open fields for
commercial agriculture provoked strong peasant responses
 Peasant revolts broke out in Hungary in 1514, England in
1549, and Germany in 1525.
 German revolt saw peasants objecting to changes taking
place in villages and demanded freedom from serfdom

17. Twelve Articles of the Peasants of
Swabia
 The First Article. First, it is our humble petition and desire,
as also our will and resolution, that in the future we should
have power and authority so that each community should
choose and appoint a pastor, and that we should have the
right to depose him should he conduct himself improperly.
The pastor thus chosen should teach us the gospel pure
and simple, without any addition, doctrine, or ordinance of
man.
 The Tenth Article. In the tenth place, we are aggrieved by
the appropriation by individuals of meadows and fields
which at one time belonged to a community. These we will
take again into our own hands ...

18. Fact #7: Gender Roles
 The economic role of women within the household
was varied
 Prepared food, kept domestic animals, educated
children and provided primary child care, made
clothing, and cleaned
 In towns women might add the tasks of selling goods
and directing domestics.
 Men performed more public duties
 the primary agricultural tasks, the construction of farm
equipment, performance of owed labour services, and
participation in the political life of the village

19. Embroidery Depicting a Mother
with her Thirteen Daughters

20. BONUS: Festivals For Everyone!
 Village church was both a spiritual and social center, a focal point for
holidays and celebrations
 Communities expressed their unity by ceremonial activities in which all
members of the village participated
 Weddings were significant ceremonies for the entire community
 Marriages bound families—and often wealth—together
 They marked the admission of a new household to the community
 Because property and community approval were involved, weddings
were public affairs
 Other festivals were associated with the passage of stages of the
agricultural cycle
 Festivals released community members from labour and presented
opportunities to resolve community squabbles
 Festivals also offered the chance for the social hierarchy of the
community to be placed on public display

21. Wedding Feast at Bermondesy

22. BONUS: Ignorance Is Not Bliss
 Despite the print revolution, most Europeans remained illiterate
 The common man’s sense of the world around him was
individual and experiential, not scientific
 16th century society was imbued with the magical
 Magical solutions abounded for medical problems, changes in
the weather, disastrous harvests, and for prediction of future
events
 Use of magical powers for evil was considered witchcraft
 Consultation with the black powers of evil spirits and the devil,
himself, brought the repressive powers of the churches into play
 Prosecutions for witchcraft became common in the sixteenth
century
 Women were most often the objects of prosecutions for
witchcraft

23. # of Witchcraft Persecutions

24. What’s Next?
 Large changes in Europe
 Social, political, cultural and scientific revolutions are
brewing
 Conflict between societies
 Nobles vs. Peasants
 Church vs. Peasants
 Control vs. Freedom of Knowledge

25. Sources
 Civilization in the West, Kishlansky, Geary, and
O’Brien, Longman, New York, 1998.
 http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/files/2008/06/r
ace-history-great-chain-of-being.jpg