ABSTRACT
The creation of a market for grain in Amsterdam and its effective hinterland — the port cities of the whole of Europe — meant that any East Elbian landlord who established contacts with Dutch agents in Danzig, Konigsberg or Hamburg was well on the way to making a fortune. Early modern Spain remains an enigma. Usually regarded as a vibrant part of the core of western Europe in the early sixteenth century, at a time when it had more large cities and thriving urban industries than France, by the end of the century it had slipped on to the sidelines and became what is known today as an underdeveloped country. In the fifteenth century Catalonia provided the setting for one of the most successful of the many peasant movements found in early modern Europe. The German Peasants' War was the greatest of all the rural movements which occurred in early modern Europe.
