It is sometimes said that the landmarks of political history, such as those which serve to delimit the period to which this volume is devoted, have little or no relevance to economic history. This is a half-truth. And it is especially mischievous if it leads to the supposition that the economic history of nations can somehow be written without reference to the actions of governments, as though economic life existed in a vacuum, emptied of political contamination. It remains true that in certain aspects of economic life political events and personalities made no real mark. In the day-to-day or year-to-year life of English husbandman or Spanish peasant it mattered little then that Charles of England should lose his head or Charles of Spain his empire. In the forty years between the Peace of Westphalia and the English Revolution, no innovation significantly altered costs, output, or methods of production in any of the main economic activities of Europe. It was not always for want of effort: what science does today, the State tried vainly to stimulate then. This is not to say that economic life remained wholly static; it is simply to stress both that continuity and change have to be carefully balanced, and that if at certain levels a slow evolution paid little heed to the explosions of political history, at others those explosions were real enough. And for all the inventions of ingenious men, there is no set of historical laws to guide us.

The first section of this chapter consists of a broad survey of the main trends in population, agriculture, industry, trade, and finance. Here the impact of State policy is virtually ignored. The second section examines the nature of certain economic and social problems as they presented themselves to the governments of the time, and the efforts made to solve those problems.