ABSTRACT
This paper deals with three dynamic factors leading to rural social change in the years before 1525. The rise of population changed man/land ratios, brought alterations in inheritance customs, and helped create a class of landless agricultural labourers. Alterations in the nature of market relationships changed the balance between city and country and introduced new wage relationships in the countryside with the putting out system. Increasing articulation of state institutions led to attempts to rationalise armed force, brought taxation to pay for larger and more complex armies, and changed the relationships between central authority and subjects. The effects of these changes should be investigated regionally before generalisations about all of Central Europe are made, and the paper shows how one such regional study might be done.
