CHANGES IN EUROPEAN SOCIETY 1450-1750

With the growth of trade, European towns grew, and by 1700 Europe had large cities. Paris and London both had over 500,000 people, Amsterdam had about 200,000, and twenty other cities had populations over 60,000. Life in these cities was vastly different than before, and their existence affected people who lived elsewhere, in villages and towns. Some of the changes are:

• The rise of the bourgeoisie - Whereas the social structure in medieval Europe was split into two classes (nobility and serfs), increasing trade and business created a new class that the French called the bourgeoisie, meaning "town dwellers." Over time the bourgeoisie came to have more wealth than the nobles, since they often formed mutually beneficial alliances with monarchs anxious to increase state revenues.
• Growth in the gap between the rich and the poor - By the late 16th century, the rising wealth of the bourgeoisie created a growing gap between the rich and the poor. The poor were not only the rural peasants, but they also lived in cities as craftsmen, peddlers, and beggars.
• Changes in marriage arrangements - Most marriages in the rest of the world were still arranged by families, but the custom of young men and women choosing their own spouses started in early modern Europe. This change was partly due to separations between generations that occurred when younger people moved to towns, but also to the growing trend toward later marriages. Craftworkers and the poor had to delay marriages while they served as apprentices or built their dowries, and bourgeois men delayed marriage in order to finish their educations. The need for education was growing because of the demands for business success. For example, participation in long-distance trade often meant learning new languages and/or acquiring legal expertise. Since people were older when they married, they tended to be more independent from their parents.