Social Class in Medieval England

Prof. G. Steinberg

- King and Royal Court
  - Constantly worried about money/taxes
  - Always attempting to centralize power
  - Jealous of royal prerogatives
  - Sometimes pro-diplomacy (rather than pro-war)
  - Often snobbish toward “provincials” from outside royal court (e.g., nobles)
  - Stereotypically wasteful and given to excess
- Nobility
  - Jealous of noble prerogatives (e.g., Magna Carta and hunting)
  - Always attempting to decentralize power
  - Associated with countryside
  - Often pro-war
  - Opposed to courtly refinement/excess
  - Often money poor and land rich
  - Stereotypically uncouth, dangerous, and fiercely independent
- Commons
  - Guilds
    - Wealthy and powerful because in control of skilled labor
    - Often in control of cities and towns (e.g., London)
    - Often allied to king and royal court
    - Stereotypically “salt of the earth” – rough around edges but good at heart
  - Merchants and Cottage Industries
    - Associated with cities & towns (merchants) or country (cottage industries)
    - Wealthy and powerful because of control of goods but often money poor
    - Often at high risk for bankruptcy
    - Sometimes allied with king and royal court against nobles and Church
    - Stereotypically shifty and radical politically, not to be trusted
  - City Leaders and Professionals (e.g., Lord Mayor or lawyers of Inns of Court)
    - Growing in power as educated elite in competition with clerks (below)
    - Often catered to merchants and royal court
    - Primarily in London
    - Stereotypically young, clever, and arrogant (like clerks below)
  - Peasants
    - Growing in consciousness of political and economic clout (as source of labor for entire economy)
    - Without a great deal of rights or privileges
    - Often anti-noble but not necessarily pro-city
    - Stereotypically dirty, unrefined, and dangerous (particularly in a mob)
- Church
  - Bishops (see Nobility above)
  - Monks (and Nuns)
    - Often anti-feminist
    - Declining as educated elite
    - Tied to a monastery (often cloistered there)
    - Both male and female but predominantly male
    - Stereotypically fat, lazy, and socially pretentious (aspiring to noble or courtly status)
  - Clerks
    - Associated with cities and with Church
    - Growing in power as new educated elite
    - Exclusively male
    - Often anti-feminist
    - Stereotypically young, clever, and arrogant (e.g., at odds with peasants)
  - Friars
    - Anti-monastic
    - Anti-local church (i.e., anti-parson and anti-bishop)
    - Itinerant
    - Often well-educated
    - Stereotypically slick and unsavory
  - Canons
    - Associated with big cathedrals in cities and towns
    - Often undereducated but with pretensions to education
    - Often associated and allied with bishop (i.e., nobility)
    - Stereotypically dark, secretive, and dangerous (think the bad guy in Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame)
  - Parsons
    - Often uneducated but concerned, as a group, about increasing own education
    - Often from the peasant class themselves (and, therefore, sympathetic toward peasants)
    - Stereotypically radical in political and theological thought (e.g., Lollardy)

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