Rural Europe During the Age of Exploration

During Europe's Great Age of Exploration (1492-1620) most of Europe was rural.

The vast majority of the population of Europe was tied to the land, either as serfs, in central and eastern Europe, or as subsistence farmers, in western countries such as England.

About 80% of people in England worked the land. Of those who lived in towns, many had small plots where they grew fruits and vegetables and kept goats and chickens.

In rural Europe, people rarely moved from place to place. They generally did not travel more than a few miles from their home village and died not far from where they were born.

While travel itself was difficult and dangerous, financial conditions often placed limits on travel as well.

Low wages kept people tied to the land. In Elizabethan England, a laborer usually earned about three pence a day with meals, or seven pence without.

The laws of many countries restricted the ability of people to move to seek work.

The English Statute of Artificers of 1563 stated that anyone not trained as a craftsman, or not worth more than 40 shillings or more a year, had to work as an agricultural laborer from 5 am to 8 pm in summer and from dawn to dusk in winter.

Governments everywhere did not like mobility, because they did not want to support poor people who moved into their parishes and because they did not want to have to deal with an increased risk to law and order.

Thus, they passed acts outlawing gypsies and beggars.