English Society in the
Middle Ages
Lecturer Dr. Alis Zaharia
• England in the Middle Ages - from the end of the 5th
century to the start of the Early Modern period in 1485.
• After the collapse of the Roman Empire, England’s economy - in
a dire state; many of the towns abandoned.
• After several centuries of Germanic immigration, new identities
and cultures began to emerge >>> predatory kingdoms that competed
for power.
• A rich artistic culture under the Anglo-Saxons >>> epic
poems such as Beowulf composed; sophisticated metalwork.
• The Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity in the 7th
century >>> monasteries and convents built across England.
• 8th and 9th centuries - Viking attacks for many decades>>>
Wessex became the most powerful kingdom >>> the growth of an
English identity.
The Norman Conquest
• the military conquest of England by the Norman-French army of
William, duke of Normandy, (William I/ William the Conqueror) who
defeated the English army led by the Anglo-Saxon King Harold
Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings (October 14, 1066)
• the conquest >>> profound political, administrative, and social
changes in the British Isles.
CONSEQUENCES OF THE CONQUEST
• the most radical change was the introduction of land
tenure and military service as well as the elimination of slavery in
England, which had disappeared by the middle of the 12th century.
• the introduction of Anglo-Norman, a northern dialect of Old
French, as the language of the ruling classes in England,
displacing Old English.
• French words entered the English language.
• MULTILINGUALISM - three languages used in Medieval
England:
English - the lower classes
French - the aristocracy and in administration
Latin – for study and in the church
• 14th century England : important events
• the Great Famine and the Black Death (the plague) - killed around
half of England's population >>>undermining the old political order.
• Social unrest followed, in the form of the Peasants' Revolt of 1381,
while the changes in the economy resulted in the emergence of a
new class of gentry.
• English kings in the 14th and 15th centuries laid claim to
the French throne, resulting in the Hundred Years' War.
• by 1450 the country was in crisis, facing military failure in France
and an ongoing recession.
• More social unrest >>> the Wars of the Roses, fought between rival
factions in the English nobility (Houses of Lancaster& York)
•. Henry VII's victory in 1485 typically marks the end of the Middle Ages
in England and the start of the Early Modern period.
In trying to understand the meaning and significance of any literary
text - put that text into some broader cultural and historical context.
an extremely popular context in which to understand medieval
literature has been that of the social structure, social change and
social conflict of the period >>> works of medieval literature come to
be seen as social interventions in which the power relations of their
time are reinforced or challenged.
does a particular piece of literature support the contemporary social
hierarchy through its reproduction of the dominant ideology of the
day? Or, on the contrary, does it provide a dissident or questioning
voice which challenges orthodox views about class, status and gender
inequalities? (Rigby 1996).
Social Inequality:
The necessity for hierarchy and inequality within society-
commonplaces of the ‘official’ medieval social theory
In his Pilgrimage of the Life of Man (1426), John Lydgate took for
granted the absurdity of the idea that all people should be of one social
condition. Such equality between rich and poor would only produce
‘confusioun’ in the world and would cause all to suffer, including the
poor themselves.
the social hierarchy - in terms of the three estates (= orders - class
divisions)
1st estate the oratores - those who pray – THE CLERGY
2nd estate bellatores - those who fight – THE NOBILITY
3rd laboratores - those who work – THE COMMONMERS.
• the clergy - duty is to teach society the way to salvation;
• the knights- bear arms to defend society;
• and the peasantry - work the fields to feed society.
• the prime purpose of the theory was to offer a moral justification of
social inequality and urge the members of the third estate to accept
the rule of their superiors.
• in theory, it was the clergy who constituted the first estate in order of
pre-eminence, with the other estates ranked beneath them, in practice
the English people could adopt an alternative vision of the social
pyramid >>>> based on the hierarchy of wealth, status and power.
Social inequality - presented as part of the hierarchical ordering of
the universe as a whole, from God, down through angels, men,
women, animals, plants and minerals – the chain of Being.
To challenge this arrangement was to be guilty of the sin of pride
by questioning the wisdom of God who had ordained everything in
its rightful place.
Those among the lower orders who refused to accept their
traditional position within society were likely to be met with open
hostility;
Gower’s Vox clamantis - depicts the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 in
terms of a nightmare vision in which farmyard beasts turned into
ravening monsters and refused to know their place, the asses
demanding to be as horses and the domesticated fowl daring ‘to
assume the eagle’s prerogatives for themselves’ (1.7, p. 61).
• despite the fine words of clerical moralists for whom Death was
the great leveller, even the ritual of death and burial tended to reflect
the realities of secular social stratification.
Social Ambition
- Yet, certain events allowed at times individual social mobility.
- Underlying much of the social mobility of the late medieval period
was the high mortality resulting from regular outbreaks of
epidemic disease.
- England’s population plummeted (decreased) from c. five million
before the Black Death (1348–9) to around 2.75 million in 1377 >>>>
places on the higher rungs of the social ladder were now waiting to
be filled.
• marriage, the church, education, the law and Crown service had
been a source of social advancement from at least the twelfth
century
• Thus, although things did not change radically at once , the
period from the mid-fourteenth century saw a further widening of the
opportunities for people to put existing aspirations into practice as a
result of high mortality, warfare, the growth of government and an
expansion of lay literacy.
• Of course, the extent and means of social mobility were
relatively narrow when compared with those found in modern
society.
Literary Ideals and Social Reality
• in this rapidly changing society poets such as Gower, Langland,
Chaucer, Hoccleve and Lydgate were writing.
• When these writers came to discuss the nature of the good society,
they did so by addressing the themes of deference, ambition and
social conflict. Of these it was, inevitably, deference which they
presented as vital for the creation of rightful social order.
• Langland’s advice to the poor was to remember wise Cato’s words:
‘bear patiently the burden of poverty’ (B 6.314).
• the Lollard author of Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede (c.1393–1401),25
were agreed that those of low birth were more suited to labouring and
cleaning out ditches than to chasing after the wealth, status and power
that promotion in the church could bring.
• Those individuals who sought to attain a higher social status were
likely to be confronted with the moral indignation of a Gower or, as in
the case of the Wife of Bath, the Franklin and the five Guildsmen, with
the ironic satire of a Chaucer.
N.B. This lecture is based on the chapter “English Society in the Later Middle Ages:
Deference, Ambition and Conflict” by S. H. Rigby in A Companion to Medieval English
Literature and Culture c.1350–c.1500, edited by Peter Brown, Blackwell Publishing,
2007.
