ABSTRACT
The New Economic Outlook.—Since the days of Michelet and Taine, it has become a commonplace to speak of the modernity of the sixteenth century. In every branch of human activity, religion, morals, art and literature, ideas were born with which moderns can sympathize and which still largely engage their attention. In the economic sphere, also, there were anticipatory developments which make this age ‘a préfiguration of our own time’. 1 Most important of all was the change in the public attitude towards the business of getting wealth. The sixteenth century was distinguished by a remarkable outburst of the spirit of self-seeking. The bitter desire for gain took possession of men’s minds, completely expelling the medieval ideal of the sanctity of poverty. Money became the measure of all things, and the search after riches, the only rational pursuit. The new acquisitive spirit worked most powerfully in trade and industry, but its results are seen most plainly in agriculture against a background of rural custom and prescription. ‘Changes which in a more mobile environment pass unnoticed are seen there in high relief against the stable society which they undermine.’ 2 The penetration of English rural life by commercial ideas was facilitated by the friendly relations which existed beween the trading and the landed classes. No impassable social barrier divided nobleman and commoner as on the Continent. Impoverished landowners married city heiresses and wealthy merchants invested their savings in land. The invasion of the country by nouveaux riches from the town was assisted by the dissolution of the monasteries which brought large quantities of land into the market. The value of the confiscated property was estimated at between two and three million pounds, and a large part of it was purchased from the original grantees by city men in search of a profitable outlet for their capital.
