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History of the Middle and Working Classes
History of the Middle and Working Classes Author:John Wade Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAP. IV. Influence of the Reformation on Property, and the Condition of tha Labouring Classes—Immense Yaltl, of the Religion Hounes—Mistaken Notions on th... more »e Hospitality of the Conventual Bodies—Increase of Mendicity, and severe Laws for its Repression. Tiif. influence of the Reformation on the condition of the labouring classes has been greatly exaggerated or misunderstood. That great event affected much more the property than the industry of the community ; by causing a transfer of a large portion of thfe soil of the kingdom from the spiritual corporations into the bands of lay individuals. The eflect of this new disposition of ecclesiastical possessions has been variously represented by writers. Discontent is inseparable from the reform of every established practice and institution. Those who profit by abuses, and those who benefit by their removal, must view in different lights and hold forth different representations of measures by which they are oppositely affected. Of the favourable influence of the Reformation on the progress of national wealth no doubt can exist at this day; since every one is aware that incorporate bodies are little adapted to the success- fill pursuit of either commerce or agriculture ; and it is evident from the Mortmain Act, passed in the reign of Henry VII., that government had become fully sensible of the hurtful tendency of the vast accumulations of the religious houses. It is not so much the excellence of our political institutions as the Reformation, which, by severing the property of the community from an indolent priesthood, has enabled the people to take the lead of the nations of Europe in the career of wealth and intelligence. Had the vast possessions of the clergy remained tied up in their hands, it must have formed an insuperabl...« less