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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5102758" data-attributes="member: 42582">I didn't say no one, I said most. Most were illiterate.And most leisure time was not spent at circuses or fairs or being entertained by troupes - which in any event were not commercial conglomerates remotely comparable even to a contemporary opera or theatre company, let alone Disney or a commercial television broadcaster.Exactly right. And tithing was not commercial, either, although it involved the payment of money or goods.I'm not intending to romanticise the pre-industrial. But equally, one does not want to be anachronistic about it. There is a reason that the romantics and other 19th century figures (both conservative and radical) lamented the coming of industrialism. It really did have a dramatic impact on the nature of cultural (and other) aspects of life.</blockquote>