Social and Economic Progress
Following the Black Death and the agricultural depression of the late 15th century, population growth began to increase. The export of woollen products resulted in economic upturn with products exported to mainland Europe. Henry VII negotiated the favourable Intercursus Magnus treaty in 1496.
The high wages and abundance of available land seen in the late 15th century and early 16th century were replaced with low wages and a land shortage. Various inflationary pressures, perhaps due to an influx of New World gold and a rising population, set the stage for social upheaval with the gap between the rich and poor widening. This was a period of significant change for the majority of the rural population, with manorial lords beginning the process of enclosure.
Read more about this topic: Tudor Period
Famous quotes containing the words social, economic and/or progress:
“The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption of fifty different peoples.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Our country has deliberately undertaken a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far- reaching in purpose.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“Progress celebrates Pyrrhic victories over nature. Progress makes purses out of human skin. When people were traveling in mail coaches, the world got ahead better than it does now that salesmen fly through the air. What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way? How will the heirs of this age be taught the most basic motions that are necessary to activate the most complicated machines? Nature can rely on progress; it will avenge it for the outrage it has perpetrated on it.”
—Karl Kraus (1874–1936)