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This study builds on a unique corpus of source material that allows for an unsurpassed view of changes at the level of households. It does so for fifteenth to sixteenth century Holland, which was on its way to become the core region of the mighty Dutch Republic. The researchers direct their view to Edam and its surroundings, a small town to the north of Amsterdam. How did its households respond to new opportunities? Where they able to adjust their strategies, for instance by means of scale enlargement, specialization and wage-labour? And how did they manage to do away with the existing socioeconomic constraints, particularly the dependence on the family economy, which provided security, labour supply and social status?