society

• Structure of society


  • Nobility
  • Gentry
  • Churchmen
  • Commoners
• Nobility


  • Peerage of around 50/60 men that were controlled through bonds and recognizances
  • Could buy the King's favour
  • Henry did not add more to the peerage
• Bastard Feudalism: 1486 peers and MPs were required to take an oath against illegal retaining, reinforced by 1487 and 1504 Acts
• Gentry


  • Owned 15-20% of land
  • In 1490 there were 275 knights
  • Identity can be established through knighthood, income and coat of arms
  • Esquires were numerous and could be defined by the 'eldest sons of knights'
• Churchmen


  • Lower clergy helped the ordinary folk
  • Bishops were elected off of their legal training but he did not want clergy to be from aristocratic backgrounds
  • The church was a great landowner
  • Pope Martin V said that the King is should govern the church of the england, rather than the pope
  • John Morton and Richard Fox
• Commoners


  • Middling Sort
  • Lower class
• Commoners - Middling Sort

  • In the towns: professionals like merchants and lawyers
  • In the countryside: yeoman farmers who farmed substantial properties for an increasingly sophisticated market economy
• Commoners - Lower class

  • In the towns: shopkeepers and tradesmen
  • In the countryside: husbandmen who kept smaller farms
  • Their position was very insecure
• There was a growth in professional bourgeoisie
• Due to the black death, social mobility had increased


  Which led to the upper classes creating sumptuary laws out of fear
• Variations in agricultural production, with a line drawn from the mouth of Tees to Dorset, with ¾ living below the line
• South East believed in mixed farming whereas the other side was Pastoral, with Hertfordshire being grain farming
• Magnate influence often was cut across county boundaries, and pilgrimages which was enforced by Saint Cults which placed importance on centres such as Durham