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Eighteenth-Century Society Diversity Four major groups: nobility, clergy,

Eighteenth-Century Society Diversity Four major groups: nobility, clergy, middling sort, peasants. Nobility: 2-3% of population Power derived from land Living off peasants Advisors and military commanders Rich or poor, but with rights and privileges. Clergy: Reduced influence

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Eighteenth-Century Society Diversity Four major groups: nobility, clergy,

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  1. Eighteenth-Century Society Diversity Four major groups: nobility, clergy, middling sort, peasants

  2. Nobility: 2-3% of population Power derived from land Living off peasants Advisors and military commanders Rich or poor, but with rights and privileges

  3. Clergy: Reduced influence Tensions between higher and lower clergy Questions of election, piety

  4. Middling Sort/Bourgeoisie: Merchants/manufacturers Largely urban, expanding class Tensions with nobility resenting bourgeois

  5. Peasants: 75-90% of population Financial and other burdens Free and serfs Tensions with upper classes

  6. Start of Industrial Revolution: From 17th c. Improving agricultural productivity in England: fertilisers, crop rotation, enclosure Some improvements in Europe

  7. Start of Industrial Revolution: More food, leading to… Population growth, leading to… More demand for food, leading to… Better farming, leading to…

  8. Start of Industrial Revolution: Growth of workforce leading to growth of cottage industries (domestic system/ putting-out system) Circumventing guilds in England, expanding workforce

  9. Start of Industrial Revolution: New technologies, with limited impact James Watt (1736-1819): steam engine (1769) James Hargreaves (c. 1720-79): spinning jenny (c. 1764) Birth of factory system

  10. Britain as economic power: Booming trade, with support of Bank of England Investment in transportation Careful involvement of government Impediments on expansion of economies of other European states

  11. Adam Smith (1723-90) Scottish philosopher and political economist An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)

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