In the book: The technology trap capital, labour and power in the age of automation by Carl Benedikt Frey he states that a couple of economic historians estimate 28% of the labour force in the 17th century were 'merchants or artisans' as well as a general 'growing middle class' I'm interested in the way this actually happened, for example, how did an individual peasant go from working on a lords farm to owning his own small business? and how we're so many able to do it?
My expertise is about Portugal, which was a bit of unique case in Europe: feudalism was more of a case-by-case thing, and we had two kings that completely terminated the nobility and allowed (Pedro I in the 14th century) or promoted (João II in the 16th century) the rise of the bourgeoisie.
I'm not sure if you'd be interested in that, since it's so different from the rest of Europe.