In the early part of the 1700s the majority of Europeans were living in rural communities of no larger than 1000 people. Their lives focused only on survival. They would farm small plots of a larger field, the right for which they would often have to pay a considerable amount of their income as rent to the landholder. In most cases, for warmth they would sleep under the same roof as their animals, and heating sources usually consisted of wood, peat or dung, but very rarely coal.

While this lifestyle is harsh it had its benefits. Due to the fact that one field w

Public opinion on poverty at the time did nothing to help the situation either. The poor were grouped into two categories: the deserving and the undeserving. The deserving consisted of children, the elderly and the crippled. The undeserving were healthy men and women who either were unable to find work. The attitude was that it was their fault they were poor, and thus they were treated as little better than criminals.

ould be cultivated by a large portion of the community, decisions on the crop rotation would have to be determined as a community. This provided the peasant with some modicum of freedom.

I feel it evident that these economic reforms consistently threw the lives of the average citizen into upheaval. We must not overlook, however, the ultimate good this period did for the world. Were it not for the willingness of those early capitalists to take advantage of the peasantry as they did, we would all likely be farming a small plot of land and heating or homes wit

Some common words found in the essay are:
, average citizen, living rural communities, economic reforms, putting-out system, living rural, rural communities,
Approximate Word count = 661
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)