Chapter 4

Question 1

Who were the gentry?

Answer 1

Gentlemen who live in large houses in the country. Provide armies for war.

Question 2

Who were the yeoman?

Answer 2

Farmers.
They own or rent land in the country.

Question 3

Who were the labourers?

Answer 3

Work for citizens or yeomen or shopkeepers.

Question 4

Who were the citizens?

Answer 4

Rich merchants and craftsmen in the towns.
The bourgeoisie

Question 5

Who were the nobility?

Answer 5

Own land - Dukes, Earls + Barons.
Part of government.

Question 6

How had the hierarchy of society stayed the same?

Answer 6

At one level society had changed little from that which had existed during the high point of the feudal system. The apex of the system under the monarch comprised the great landowners and senior churchmen; the base of the system comprised those who laboured on their behalf. The remnants of the feudal system were still apparent in the law, social relationships and attitudes.

Question 7

How had the hierarchy of society changed?

Answer 7

In contrast, society also witnessed the growth of a professional and mercantile bourgeoisie who had become increasingly important in London and the major provincial cities sug;
as Norwich and Bristol. However, economic pressures, especially since the Black Death of 1348 to 1349, had increased social mobility and had created alarm amongst more conservative-minded members of the upper classes who attempted vainly to uphold traditional values by passing sumptuary laws which proved unenforceable.

Question 8

What was The Black Death?

Answer 8

The Black Death reached England in August 1348. Between 20 and 40 per cent of the English population died of plague within 2 years. The plague returned in 1361, and there were further outbreaks in 1368 to 1369, 1374 h 1375 and 1378. These later outbreaks reduced the population of England by half, and it did not begin to recover until after 1450. These deaths caused a shortage of land usage and food.

Question 9

Numbers of peers

Answer 9

The peerage (ie. the nobility) comprised no more than about 50 or 60 men. The peerage was not a closed caste.
Peerage families died out on a regular basis but were replaced by others who had acquired or bought the king’s favour.

Question 10

Henry’s attitude to nobility

Answer 10

The Crown often relied on such families for the maintenance of order in the countryside. Henry VII, unlike Edward IV before him or Henry VIII after him, was reluctant to create new peerage titles.
This is possibly because he was deeply distrustful of the nobility as a class. Only trusted Lancastrian military commanders such as the Earl of Oxford and Lord Daubeney had much political influence under Henry. He never really trusted the Earl of Northumberland, even though he had swung the Battle of Bosworth in Henry’s favour by betraying Richard III. Nevertheless, Henry relied on Northumberland to control the northeast of England on behalf of the Crown.

Question 11

How did Henry control the nobility?

Answer 11

Henrv’s most important method of controlling the nobility was through bonds and recognizances. However, the key to the nobles’ power was the system which nineteenth-century historians labelled bastard feudalism (also known as retaining) by which wealthy magnates (the leading and most wealthy members of the nobility) recruited knights and gentlemen (also known as retainers’) to serve them as administrators or accountants, or sometimes for military purposes. Potentially, noblemen could use their retained men to bring unlawful influence on others in a court case, or use them against the Crown, so Henry sought to limit the military power of the nobility through the use of legislation against retaining. However, at the same time he remained conscious of the fact that loyal retainers were essential to maintain the Crowns security. Henry VII’s response was to have Parliament pass Acts in 1487 and 1504 and to take strong action against individual nobles who were held to abuse the system, such as Lord Bergavenny in 1506. However, such action had to be balanced with the realisation that nobles were a powerful social force.

There were a number of limits on retaining employed during Henry’s reign:
• In 1486 peers and MPs were required to take an oath against illegal retaining or being illegally retained. However, what constituted illegality in this context remained conveniently undefined.
• In 1487 a law against retaining was established.
The 1487 law was reinforced by an Act passed in 1504, under which licences for retaining could be sought.

Question 12

What was Bastard Feudalism?

Answer 12

This system implied a reciprocal relationship between the magnate and his retainers. In return for service, which could be military service if necessary, a retainer might receive rewards such as local office or grants of land as wel as direct payment. The Victorian historians who invented and developed the use of the term ‘bastard feudalism’ saw the system as abusive and contributing largely to the violence associated with the Wars of the Roses. However, the influential historian of late-medieval England, Kenneth B. McFarlane, argued that the system should be seen in a positive light as a natural response to the changes of the period. It was only when the position of the monarch was insecure that the system could be seen as politically destabilising.

Question 13

What was the feudal system?

Answer 13

The medieval system by which society was structured depending on relationships in which land was held in return for some form of service; at the top end of the structure land was held of the monarch in return for military service, and at the bottom serfs were required to give labour services to their lord in return for the lord’s protection

Question 14

Info about the 1504 retaining act

Answer 14

The 1504 Act stated that only the king could grant licences for retaining. However, this lasted only for the duration of the king’s lifetime.
The one significant victim of the Act was Lord Bergavenny, who was indicted for illegal retaining in 1507 and fined the enormous sum of £100,000. However, he probably paid no more than £1000 and was pardoned by Henry VIlI shortly after he came to the throne.

Question 15

How many gentry?

Answer 15

In 1490 there were about 375 knights.

Esquires and ‘mere gentry’ were far more numerous. At the end of the 15th century the status of ‘esquire could still be defined quite tightly the eldest sons of knights, the younger sons of barons, men ‘invested esquire, nagistrates and others of wealth. Mere ‘gentlemen’ were harder to define. in practice, a ‘gentleman’ was anyone recognised as such by his neighbours.

Question 16

Purpose of the gentry?

Answer 16

-Originally, this status had imposed military obligations upon its holders. Though that was dying out as a specific obligation, it was, nevertheless, assumed that those holding the status would assist in the administration of their localities.

-Landowners: According to John Guy peers and knight together owned 15 to 20 per cent of the country’s land and together they formed a homogeneous [of the same kind] elite with a common outlook derived from their substantial interest as landowners.

Question 17

Importance and role of The Church

Answer 17

The Church was hugely important, not merely for its spiritual role but also as a great landowner. The social status of the clergy varied enormously. At the lower parish level, curates and chantry priests were modestly rewarded for dealing with the spiritual needs of ordinary folk. On the other hand, bishops and the abbots of larger religious houses were important figures who were entitled to sit in the House of Lords and who often had political roles to undertake.

Question 18

Henry’s authority over the Church and how he used it

Answer 18

Martin V, Pope from 1417 to 1431, famously declared that the king of England rather than the Pope governed the Church in England. Henry VII tended to use that power to appoint as bishops only men who had legal training and whose administrative competence was valued more than their spirituality. The two most important clergymen of the reign, John Morton and Richard Fox, both came into this category. Moreover, the king was reluctant to appoint men whose social background was aristocratic. The higher clergy were thus becoming less socially exclusive than had once been the case.

Question 19

Info about the commoners in towns and cities

Answer 19

Below the nobility, gentry, and higher clergy were the commoners. At the top level of the commoner group were those known as the middling sort, the bourgeoisie. In towns and cities, the relatively small number of educated professionals, of whom the most numerous and influential group were Rawvers, exercised considerable influence, often in collaboration with wealthier merchants. Lower down the social scale, but still considered respectable, came shopkeepers and skilled tradesmen. Such groups tended to dominate the borough corporations (town councils) and also played a key role in organisations such as guilds and lay confraternities which were a common feature of urban life in pre-Reformation England.

Question 20

Info about countryside commoners

Answer 20

In the countryside the middling sort comprised yeomen farmers who farmed substantial properties for an increasingly sophisticated market economy. The decline in population that had occurred as a result of the Blag Death in 1348 to 1349 had reduced the demand for land and the resulting drop in land values had enabled the emergence of this group, which loyce Youings termed a ‘peasant aristocracy’ Below yeomen came husbandmen who typically kept smaller farms than yeomen and who supplemented their farming incomes through employment by yeomen or gentry. Together, the veomanry and husbandmen can be described by the term peasant.
Labourers were usually dependent for income on the sale of their labour, though in some cases they could supplement their irregular income through the planting of vegetables or the exercise of grazing rights. Their position
was very insecure.

Question 21

How were regional divisions reinforced by agricultural differences?

Answer 21

Some of these derived from differences in agriculture. A line drawn roughly from the mouth of the Tees to Weymouth in Dorset would have revealed the extent of these contrasts, though even within the two areas distinctions could be made. Roughly three quarters of the population lived below this line, which divided the country into two basic agricultural areas. South and east of that line, mixed farming predominated in the more densely populated counties, especially Norfolk, Suffolk and Kent. In the more sparsely populated area to the north and west, pastoral farming predominated with the rearing of sheep, cattle and horses. There were exceptions to this rule: pastoral farming dominated in the Fens and in the wood pastures of the Kent and Sussex Weald, and grain farming and fruit growing in Herefordshire and the Welsh border counties. Contemporaries were certainly aware of regional differences. Londoners, in particular, tended to look down upon northerners for their perceived savagery, while northerners were envious of southern riches.

Question 22

How were regional divisions reinforced by differences in local gov structures?

Answer 22

Regional identity was also reinforced by local government structures.
Justice was increasingly administered at a county level and county towns often contained jails and major churches. On the other hand, areas of magnate influence often cut across county boundaries.

Question 23

How were regional divisions reinforced by Saints’ cults?

Answer 23

Local identities were also reinforced by saints’ cults which placed importance on centres of pilgrimage, such as Canterbury and Durham.

Question 24

Historian view on how unified medieval England was?

Answer 24

Nevertheless, Derek Keene has argued that medieval England, ‘was a country where ideas of language and nationhood conferred a stronger sense of a single identity than ever before.

Question 25

How discontent was the country?

Answer 25

During much of the second half of the fifteenth century, living conditions for the poor appeared to be improving. Real wages seem to have increased, but rowards the end of the fifteenth century inflationary pressures were becoming more evident. Though evidence points tentatively towards a further slight increase in real wages in the 1490s, by the following decade this situation seems to have reversed. Compared with later in the Tudor period, there does not seem to have been much social discontent. England also seems largely to have avoided the subsistence crises which every so often affected some other countries so that in John Guy’s words, Tudor England’s greatest success was its ability to feed itself.

Question 26

How many rebellions and what were the causes?

Answer 26

Two rebellions did take place in Henry VIl’s reign, in Yorkshire in 1489 and in Cornwall in 1497. In each case the main catalyst (or trigger) was taxation.

Question 27

What was The Yorkshire Rebellion of 1489 about and what happened?

Answer 27

This rebellion was sparked off by resentment of the taxation granted by Parliament in 1489 in order to finance the involvement of English forces in the campaign in Brittany. It became particularly notorious because of the murder by the rebels of the Earl of Northumberland just outside Topcliffe near Thirsk in the North Riding of Yorkshire in April of that year.
The details on this rebellion are sparse. Northumberland was, according to Polydore Vergil, a victim of resentment against taxation. He was murdered by his tenants, but what enabled them to murder the earl was the fact that Northumberland’s retainers allowed them to do so by deserting him in his hour of need - as punishment for his own desertion of Richard III at Bosworth.

Crushed by Surrey?

Question 28

What was The Cornish Rebellion of 1497 about and what happened?

Answer 28

Just as the Yorkshire Rebellion was sparked off by the demand for extraordinary revenue to finance a far-away military campaign, so also was the Cornish Rebellion of 1497. In this case the revolt was triggered by the need for revenue to finance the campaign against Scotland.

Though the Cornish rebels did not murder a high-profile political figure like the Earl of Northumberland, their rebellion posed a much greater threat to the stability of Henry’s rule. This was a reflection of three factors:
. the sheer numbers involved (15,000 according to some estimates) the attempt to exploit the rebellion made by Perkin Warbeck . the fact that the rebels marched on London, only being halted at Blackheath.
Christine Carpenter considers the rebellion to have been alarming for the king. It was certainly a cause for immense concern for the Crown that the rebels could have marched such a long distance without any serious attempt being made to stop them. It raises questions about just how effective were the Crown’s systems for maintaining order in the countryside. Moreover, by reaching London they were in effect challenging the security of Henry VIl’s regime.
The rebellion created a problem for Henry in that in order to ensure its effective suppression he needed to withdraw Lord Daubeney and his troops from defending the Scottish border. In the end the rebellion was crushed easily enough by Daubeney. The rebel leaders, including the peer Lord Audley, were executed. However, Henry punished only the leaders, and treated the bulk of the rebels with conspicuous leniency. The rebellion shocked Henry into ensuring that Anglo-Scottish tensions were eased and made him particularly cautious about entering into any further foreign conflicts.

Question 29

How stable was England under Henry overall?

Answer 29

Socially, England remained broadly stable in this period, and this is mainly because the people at the bottom of the social scale remained reasonably well off, as they had been since the Black Death.
For most of Henry VII’s reign, most English people remained peaceable most of the time, and the various pretenders and claimants were unable to attract much support.
The two rebellions of the reign, the Yorkshire Rebellion of 1489 and the Cornish Rebellion of 1497, were exceptional, and easily suppressed.