In the 17th and 18th centuries, merchants living and trading in the towns and cities of Europe started moving to the countryside to expand their production. They started providing money and resourced to the peasants and artisans, urging them to start producing for the international market. They started relying on the countryside for increasing their production since they were not able to expand their production within the towns as the dominant urban crafts and trade associations were the only group involved in training craftspeople, maintaining control over production, regulating competition and prices and restricting the entry of new traders into the market. Also, the rulers had given many organisations the monopoly to manufacture and trade in specific products. This prevented the merchants from expanding their production. Thus they started to depend on the artisans and craft persons of the countryside to expand their production.
In the countryside, poor peasants and artisans readily accepted the offer from the merchants and started working for them. Since the open fields and commons were being converted to private property at an increasing rate, the poor peasants and artisans who had depended on them for a living had to find other alternative sources. Thus they willingly accepted to work for the merchants of the towns and cities.
By working for the merchants, the rural artisans were able to remain in the countryside and cultivate in their plots. Income incurred by producing for the merchants enhanced the income received from cultivation. This led to the development of a network by which a close relationship developed between the town and the countryside.
