But the question is not uninteresting in itself.

As there are diametrically opposite answers to it, both in the testimony of contemporaries and in the opinion of modern scholars, it is perhaps incapable of being answered.

In some districts, and in some respects, the lot of the poor was becoming a little easier; in other lands and in different ways it was becoming harder.

The time was one of general prosperity, in which the peasant often shared.

The newer methods of agriculture, manufacture and commerce benefited him who knew how to take advantage of them.