378 Ch. 10 • Eighteenth-Century Economic And Social Change
that someone or something reflected “urbanity.” Three-cornered hats, along
with wigs, which wealthy commoners as well as nobles increasingly favored,
and stockings emerged as symbols of respectability. Cafes took their name
from the coffee served there, a drink only people of means could afford.
Upper-class men and women became concerned as never before with mod
esty; “water closets” became more common. A code of conduct served—with
income and private space itself—as a barrier between wealthy and ordinary
people.
The eighteenth-century consumer revolution extended to the poor, as
well. By the mid-seventeenth century, resourceful households in northwest
ern Europe were finding ways to purchase consumer goods that would
make their lives somewhat more comfortable. Families drew upon the labor
of women and children, as well as longer working hours by husbands. Now
the number of ordinary families able to acquire household utensils and
even books and cheap prints increased dramatically. Different kinds of
apparel were available even to the very poor. Many mill hands now had a
change of clothes. Some servant girls wore silk kerchiefs, and an occa
sional laborer sported a watch, for which he paid the wages of several
weeks. Even some infants deposited at foundling homes had been dressed
in printed cottons. For very ordinary people with a little money or some
credit, taverns and bars provided cheap liquor and sociability. For people
with neither, there was the street.
Social Movement within the EliteWith the growth of manufacturing, trade, and cities came concomitant
social changes, including mobility of the “middling sort.” Bankers and
wealthy merchants aspired to social distinction and an aristocratic lifestyle.
In Paris, wealthy merchants purchased elegant townhouses and mingled
with nobles. In Barcelona, members of the trading oligarchy earned the
right to carry swords like nobles. The bourgeoisie of the Austrian Nether
lands demanded the same privileges Habsburg rulers had granted to Bel
gian nobles. Noble titles could be purchased in most European states,
providing a relatively easily obtained means of social ascension, without
eliminating the distinctions between nobles and commoners. As the rising
cost of warfare (larger armies to equip, train, and send into battle, and
expensive fortifications to maintain) and reduced tax revenue during hard
economic times weighed heavily on royal coffers, the sale of titles and
offices swept more commoners into the nobility in France, Austria, and
Castile. The number of French nobles doubled between 1715 and 1789,
and relatively few noble families could trace their origins back more than a
couple of generations.
In Britain, on the other hand, it was rare for commoners to move into
the nobility. The sale of offices had never been as widespread in England
as on the continent, at least not since the English Civil War in the mid