HEGEMONY commonly means the supremacy, authority, control, leadership, power or dominance by one social group — or state — over others, exercised through political, ideological, economic or military means.  

In the late 18th and throughout the 19th century, industrial capitalists increasingly dominated other groups including the remnants of feudal landowners throughout Europe as well as over the working class.  

Their growing economic power, the growth of towns (and in Britain especially, the depopulation of the countryside) was accompanied by political changes, reflected in turn in civil society, including religious practice and educational provision.