The impact of transition on rulers, elites and ordinary people

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They generally gained — more revenue and often control over religion — but faced new threats from religious division, rebellion and rival states.

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Protestant rulers often took charge of the Church in their lands, gaining Church land, revenue and the loyalty that came with religious authority.

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Old aristocracies tied to fixed land rents lost ground to inflation; nobles who took royal office or farmed for the market, plus rising merchants and professionals, thrived.

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The sustained rise in prices across Europe during the 16th century, driven by population growth and inflowing silver, which cut the buying power of ordinary people's wages.

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Higher prices, heavier taxation, and disruption from enclosure, religious upheaval and war.

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A large German uprising against heavy dues, lost common rights and harsh lords, partly inspired by Reformation ideas. It was brutally crushed, with perhaps 100,000 killed.

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The peasants were poorly armed and divided, Martin Luther condemned them, and well-equipped princely armies defeated them town by town.

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They stayed excluded from formal power, though some gained literacy and a religious role; the 16th–17th-century witch-hunts targeted mainly women, especially the poor and old.

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Intense persecutions across Europe that executed tens of thousands, mostly women, who became scapegoats for society's fears in an age of religious upheaval.

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The expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella, and the later expulsion of the Moriscos (converted Muslims) by 1609.

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Centralising rulers demanded religious and cultural conformity, defining unity against an 'enemy within' and expelling or forcing the conversion of those who did not fit.

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'Winners and losers' — transition benefited rulers and adaptable elites while burdening ordinary people, women and minorities, with an impact uneven across region, class and gender.