Lecture 3: The Socio-Cultural Layout of Britain, 1399-1660
I. Introductory Comments
A. Plymouth Road—port town, naval base, port for Mediterranean and New
World
B. Ireland ports—primarily Dublin.
C. tolls—really none that I note until eighteenth century with advent of canals and
turnpikes—since made travel easier, it became costly
D. What were roads made of? lots of different types of paving at this time. First,
a modification of old Roman Roads which were in disrepair. Roman roads were
built in layers: brick, rock, tiny gravel, and tightly compacted. Some roads in the
middle of this period were somewhat like this. Most towns were paved with tight
cobble, some of which remains in Kent and parts of "The City" today. Large
stretches of Road were often "paved" each year by turning over the soil, drying it
and letting it harden, and then setting it. So, while there were paving projects,
you don't really see the sophisticated roads until well in the nineteenth century
II. The main ethnic / linguistic groups during our period (see map)
A. Anglo-Saxons (combination of the Angles and Saxons)
B. the CeltsWelsh, Irish
C. The Scots Pictish nation subsumed by Scots and other invaders
D. New immigrants during the period
III. Ranks of Society-like any civilization, England operated under a system of social
stratification, which essentially means a system of institutionalized inequalities designed
to lessen conflict in a society
A. The Monarchy—the monarchy was at the top of this hierarchy. The right to
become monarch was hereditary, but those claims could be disputed and
succession was often quite tenuous. As we'll see briefly next time, the Wars of
the Roses between the Lancastrians and Plantagenets in the mid-15th century
developed out of disputed succession. As a result, the Tudors, especially Henry
VII, Henry VIII and Elizabeth were intimately concerned with finding an
appropriate, LEGAL heir to the throne.
B. The Peerage—to be a peer means essentially to be among equals (jury of
your peers, etc.)
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1. status—status is conferred by privilege, connections with monarch,
relations and wealth
2. ranks within the Peerage—Duke, Marquis, Earl (Count), Viscount,
Baron, Baronet, Lord
3. Parliament—The Peers comprised the house of Lords in Parliament.
Parliament comes from the French "parler" and was before the 13th
century applied to meetings at which views were exchanged. Gradually
emerged as a meeting of the King with his Council (both great and small).
Parliament is the body that advised and governed the king and as such
acted as an extension of royal power until the 17th century. By the 1250s
with the Magna Carta, Parliament solidified its power, and would continue
to develop more legislative control throughout our period. Parliament had
numerous functions including acting as a high court, setting laws and
administration. Its members acted as the King's advisors war and
peace. They also heard local petitions, which we'll talk about later in the
term with the Stuarts. After the Magna Carta, taxation and consent was
important in the functions of the body. By the 15th century, Parliament
was divided into two houses:
a. Lords, both Spiritual (Archbishops, Bishops) and Temporal (the
great magnates throughout the realm). The Lords Temporal
becomes quite important after the Reformation
b. Commons—means, according to your textbook, general or
public. But the House of Commons was not like today with its
openness to all walks. This was very hierarchical. Often younger
sons of peers went to Commons. Local shire knights and
burghers (town dwellers) were part of the House of Commons.
While this governing body was "elected" the property qualifications
for VOTING was forbidding.
C. Gentlemen and the marks of gentility—different from the nobility in the internal
definition of the peers (that is there are rankings within this group). The
gentlemen were defined by William Harrison in the late seventeenth century as
beneath the esquires: "last of all they that are simplie called gentlemen…whose
race and blood or at least their virtues doo make noble and known" (in Wrightson
19). This comprised "gentility." But gentility could also be made—not just the
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blue bloods of heredity, but also people who were educated, military heroes who
became knights, etc. In 1600, a man named Sir Thomas Wilson divided English
people into five groups: nobles, citizens, yeomen, artisans and rural laborers.
Within the nobility, there was a clear delineation between those on the top and
those at the bottom: knights, esquires, gentlemen. But he also included people
in the professions, like lawyers, educators, officers in the military, the clergy, as
part of the gentry. To be part of the gentility was based on landed wealth and
conspicuous consumption. Very few possessed this level of wealth.
D. Middle Rank society—after Gentlemen came citizens and burghesses (like
the freedom of the city of London). Also in this group was the yeoman of the
countryside. Yeoman were in two groups: they could be freeholders in their own
right having land valued at 40s / year, or they could be farmers to gentlemen.
These men held esteem from the "common people."
E. Urban / rural poor—the bottom of the list. This group contained day laborers,
poor farmers (husbandmen), artificers, servants. Described by Harrison as
possessing "neither voice nor authoritie in the common wealth, but are to be
ruled and not to rule other" (in Wrightson 19).
By the late seventeenth century, society had been divided even more intricately:
Peerage  gentlemen, same as above; persons in offices, merchants, lawyers
and clergymen; freeholders, farmers, persons in "sciences and liberal arts",
shopkeepers and tradesmen, artisans and officers, common seamen, laborers,
day workers, cottagers, paupers, common soldiers, vagrants.
So, while there was a system of order ranking society into four main groups, there was
tremendous room for social mobility—especially downward mobility on the part of
younger sons. Many of these young men were placed in the professions, sometimes as
lawyers or clergymen, but it meant that they were certainly not living the most stable
lifestyles as they could. In reality, people in the towns had relative freedom to maneuver,
especially people engaged in trades or the professions
IV. The Structure of everyday life
England during this period was still fairly local, but this did not mean that they
were tied solely to the area in which they lived. Nevertheless, there was
increasing contact between town and country over the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. Consequently, there was greater interaction between the different
provinces as well. They began to operate more forcefully as a nation. People
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did travel, but not all that much, especially if they didn't have money. Community
was important, and the community engaged in conflict, recreation, and trade. But
our period was a period of social change. Lands changed hands as the
monasteries were dissolved in the sixteenth century, religious belief, and
consequently tradition was in a state of flux, areas like London grew rapidly. The
middling orders, also known as the middling sort, further consolidated their
economic power to political power, and while not necessarily working as
members of Parliament, they did have influence in daily affairs.
But the period was marked also by fear of change, riots for food, etc. The
seventeenth century was known as a period of crisis because of climactic,
economic and political challenges to the growth of the world the English had
been building. There was constant conflict not only from within, but from the
periphery—Ireland, Wales and Scotland proved points for skirmishes throughout
the period.
There were specific gendered attitudes about the roles each sex should play in
society and that changed very little despite the fact that there were two Queens,
one of them embodied in the powerful form of Elizabeth. Elizabeth very carefully
constructed her identity to "fit" prevailing ideas about sex and sexuality. Women
were part of the household and managed the domestic economy, both in the
gentry families and in the lesser middling families. But we'll talk more about this
as the term progresses.
Education—no sense of public education at this time. To be educated, you had
to pay for it. But this didn't mean it was completely prohibitive. The merchant
classes could well afford education, either at the public schools and then
university or at the Inns of Court as clerks to lawyers.
Literacy was not widespread over the bulk of the adult population despite
increase in education for the middling orders. By the middle of the seventeenth
century, illiteracy was as high as 70%. Even among the middling ranks, illiteracy
rates could jump to 44%, though merchants and shopkeepers were only at most
12% illiterate. Illiteracy was markedly different between town and country.
Yeoman farmers were 35% illiterate. This improved as the seventeenth century
progressed, but improved for the upper orders, including the middling sort, not for
the lower orders.
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Nevertheless, improvements were being made, and according to English
population historian Keith Wrightson, within the Tudor-Stuart period, "literacy had
become incorporated into the very structure of popular culture." What that
means is that while public education was not developed until the nineteenth
century, the idea of being able to read and write was part of the basic
components of English society. It was everywhere. Popular literacy. People
knew that not being able to read could be a hindrance, especially if they were
involved in business (Wrightson, 195). Thus, literacy had a practical application
and became embedded in popular culture.
V. Concluding Comments / setting up for next class period—Today we've covered the
basic elements of social structure and order in Tudor-Stuart Britain. While there was a
definite system of order, there was also considerable malleability in the ways in which
people operated. England was by no means cordoned off provincially.
Next time we're going to get started on the "real" history of the period by skimming
through the end of the struggle between the Lancastrians and Plantaganets and by
examining the ways in which Henry Tudor solidified his power, both on Bosworth Field
and in the Capital. We will not be going into detail about earlier history, nor will I get into
excruciating explanations of the Wars of the Roses, though of course it will play a role in
my lecture. Our goal for Thursday is simply to get us to where we need to be to "start"
this course with Henry VII, the first Tudor Monarch.