A History of Western Society: Printed Page 306
A History of Western Society, Value Edition: Printed Page 294
A History of Western Society, Concise Edition: Printed Page 306
In their backgrounds and abilities, townspeople represented diversity and change. Their occupations and their preoccupations were different from those of nobles and peasants. Cities were crowded and polluted, though people flocked into them because they offered the possibility of economic advancement, social mobility, and improvement in legal status. Some urban residents grew spectacularly rich, but the numbers of poor swelled as well.