ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book explains the clash between the upholders of the Great Tradition and those who lived within the framework of popular culture. In western Europe during the early part of the early modern period, say around 1450–80, the ruling elites freely shared in the rituals and culture of the populace and probably helped to shape them in more ways than historians who would like to study history only from the grass roots upwards would care to admit. As one of the newer fields of history, social history has had difficulty in shaking itself clear of its immediate generators, most notably economic history. Historicists were primarily concerned to study each unique past society for itself and not to judge it by the standards of their own contemporary Western Europe.
