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The rapid growth and renewed vitality of English cities and towns in the century after 1660 was remarkable. But what was the effect of this urban renaissance on villages and those ordinary people whose roots were in the countryside? This book shows how a persistent urban-rural divide shaped conscious choices at the heart of experience in early modern England. The author asserts that, contrary to modern assumptions, villages and migrants of rural origin widely resisted the cultural and social influence of cities and towns well into the second half of the 18th century. Sexual relations, work consumerism, the printed word, celebration, protest, hospitality and xenophobia were all influenced by people's profund identification with their natural and artificial surroundings. This book reveals that the dynamic of urbane and rustic mentalities had a place with gender awareness, class consciousness and religious belief among the forces of continuity and change in early modern society.