Social Class in Medieval England

Prof. G. Steinberg

    • THOSE WHO PROTECT
      • 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
    • THOSE WHO PRAY
      • Clergy/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 crude and radical in political and theological thought (e.g., Lollardy)
    • THOSE WHO PLOW
      • 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)

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