This is an important new study of the roots of capitalism. Jane Whittle provides a penetrating analysis of the links between peasant society and early capitalism as she discusses north-east Norfolk, a county which played a leading role in the agrarian revolution. She uses a rich variety of sources from the precocious and commercialized locality to examine a range of topics, from the manorial system and serfdom, land rights, land markets and inheritance, to the distribution of land and wealth, the development of labor pools, and changing labor laws.

This is an economic, social and cultural analysis of the nature and variety of production and consumption activities in households in the counties of Kent and Cornwall.

This is the first book to survey the experience of servants in rural Europe from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century.