Prof. G. Steinberg

Social Class in Medieval England

• 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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