Palmer #13 Question 3

Palmer #13, Question 3

Will Stewart

“How did the economic changes of the 16^th and 17^th century affect the rural classes of Eastern and Western Europe differently?”

Thesis: In Western Europe, the commercial revolution proved advantageous to the middle class and peasants, while it benefited the lords in Eastern Europe.

I. Western Europe

a. Towns strongeràmanors weaker

b. Lightened burdens of manorial system, increased independence of peasantry

c. Peasants were technically free under law

d. Owed virtually no forced labor to their lord

e. Could migrate, marry, and learn trades

II. Eastern Europe- Germany, Poland, Russia, Bohemia, Hungary

a. Lords benefited from commercial revolution

b. Increased prices and expansion of shipping gave lords incentives to increase output

c. Peasants became serfs, closer to slaves than lower classes

d. Owed certain amount of days (called robot in Bohemia) to work lord’s land, used rest of time for their own land

e. Couldn’t leave manor, marry, or learn trades without lord’s express permission

f. Lords became entrenched in their domains

g. Social structure set in stone, little dynamism or innovation