ABSTRACT
Social change in late sixteenth-and seventeenth-century England was slow. Nevertheless contemporaries knew that they lived in a changing world, however blurred might be their perception of the nature and causes of social change. William Harrison discussed the matter with the greybeards of his home parish of Radwinter in Essex and found that they regarded three things as ‘marvellouslie altred’ within their lifetimes: the ‘multitude of chimnies lately erected’; ‘the great (although not generall) amendment of lodging’, by which they meant better bedding; the ‘exchange of vessell’ (that is, tableware) from wood to pewter and even silver. Such evidence of rising living standards seemed to Harrison symptomatic of a new prosperity among the farmers and artisans of rural England. He was aware, however, that it was a prosperity which was limited in its incidence both socially, being largely confined to the upper and middle ranks of society, and geographically, being largely confined to the south of England. Moreover it was counterbalanced by a number of detrimental changes. His informants also picked out three ‘Very grievous’ developments: ‘the inhansing of rents’; the ‘dailie oppression of copiholders’ forced by their landlords to pay increased entry fines or to forfeit their holdings; the spread of usury and charging of interest upon loans.1
