Recently historians have been tracing the emergence of two cultures, elite and popular, in early modern Europe and have come to some remarkably similar and startling conclusions. The general outlines of the picture they have drawn apply to both England and the Continent. During the sixteenth century three things worked together to make the common people heard, particularly in the cities: the printing press, the Reformation, and the commercial revolution. Printing and the Reformation promoted literacy, and the commercial revolution gave hitherto obscure men (and a few women) access to the press and publication because what they had to say, whether about medicine or mechanics, would sell in a world of increasing literacy, prosperity, and economic opportunity. Finally, the Reformation gave ordinary people a vision, often millenarian in nature, of a better future order here on earth, while doctrines like predestination and the priesthood of all believers imparted a commitment to trying to achieve it.

During the seventeenth century, a dramatic change took place. The elite, having once patronized popular culture, became increasingly suspicious of and hostile to it. The price revolution had produced a widening gap between those who took advantage of it and those, particularly at the bottom of society, who were victimized by it, and this was especially the case during the severe economic decline of the first half of the seventeenth century.