In the seventeenth century Europe, the peasants and artisans in the country¬side readily agreed to work for merchants. Explain.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, merchants from the towns in Europe began moving to the countryside, supplying money to peasants and artisans, persuading them to produce for an international market. With the expansion of world trade and the acquisition of ? colonies in different parts of the world, the demand for goods began growing. In the countryside poor peasants and artisans readily agreed to work for the merchants due to the reasons as mentioned below : This was a time when open fields were disappearing and commons were being enclosed. Poor peasants and cottagers who had earlier depended on common lands for their survival, gathering their firewood, berries, vegetables, hay and straw, had to now look for alternative sources of income. Many had tiny plots of land which could not provide work for all members of the household. In view of the above factors when merchants came around and offered advances to produce goods for them, peasants and artisans readily agreed to work for them.
