ABSTRACT
In 1520 the South East had still retained much broken-down, later-medieval feudalism. But in the next 140 years many surviving values came under close scrutiny as religious landownership gave way to that of the Crown and secular power; as patterns of worship and spiritual thought were transformed into a Church of England, centred on Kent; as rural economies were radically changed by industrial production which boomed and slumped, and by agricultural innovations which picked their way selectively among the differing ecologies of the region. And while political and religious issues were debated either on its London doorstep or actually within the region, the main devastation of the civil war touched the South East hardly at all. Life in towns became more accepted as they grew, evolved new corporations, and fostered urban oligarchies of their own.
