Urbanisation of Early Modern Period

A kind of urbanization trend is also apparent we see a growth in the number, size and importance of towns and medium sized cities. There were off course large cites before this period along the trade routes  , as military garrisons, as tradition cults .In the 16^th , 17^th , 18^th centuries , long distance trade continues and European mar times trade increased as we discussed it the above paragraph . it is by no meaning , however that the sea fearing Portuguese , Spanish , Dutch and English merchants of the early modern Europe expect perhaps those trading after about the middle 18^th century are carrying in trade of greater commercial value or that they are more active . The important thing is the difference in the amount of regional short- distance trade in inland. Regional market has begun to grow. Fairs, held at regular intervals become important and urban character. There is a growth in the number and in size of cities and towns of regional type central market town acting as the hub of intraregional exchange, cities served as the economic and cultural centers foe the surrounding region. The 17^th century is time of crises for the world‘s cities and for   the growth of the “regional” cities and town in particular.

The growth of the regional town is accompany not only by regional trade but also in this period we seen the influx of merchant and artisan in the cities. as the period progresses there  sharp distinction which  once separated the urban commercial class from the traditional social and cultural aristocracies gradually becomes blurred .there are more financial understanding , more business deals, more alliances, more over lapping of the functions between aristocrats and merchants , between merchant families and aristocratic families. Artists and writers who once had to satisfy the traditional esthetic requirement of a more rural elite cultural elite now satisfy the city dweller , with the urban man’s tastes and concern. Urban patrons of high culture are nothing new, as in Italian cities in Herat and in china and Japan prior to 1500, and the Italian renaissance of the fifteenth century is noteworthy even for merchant patronage of visual art, but with 16^th and 17thy century the urban character of the arts is more apparent. Islamic attitudes toward the fashioning of image make the urban influence on visual arts difficult to compare during the period in view. The fact that Aurangzeb terminates Mughal patronage of painting altogether in 1659, for Aurangzeb is responding to urban Muslim sentiment, spearheaded by Naqshbandiyya, which holds that infidel practices at court have gone too far. As patron, as appreciators and as creators, the urban commercial classes begin playing a cultural role that they have not played before and their tastes and their support leave a distinctive mark. In china, the so-called “novel” comes out into the open; popularizations of classical literary and philosophical works begin to appear; intellectuals like ku yen wu look with new eye neo-Confucianism that has dominated Chinese thinking for five centuries; and there are fresh development in social thoughts. In Muslim India, the 17^th century sees the development of vernacular literatures at the expense of Arabic and Persian: a genre like tadhkira, increasingly popular in Central Asia also at time, reflects the interest of the commercial classes.