Society Flashcards
Social divisions / serfdom
- Difference between the free and unfree – unfree = manor court way they resolved disputes, marriage, inheritance etc. - all controlled by the lord
- Dunn (2002) = plague didn’t form a sense of unity among the population because of religious claims that the BD was punishment for sins
- Poor harvests – starvation, famine, death – highlighted distinctions between poorer and those better off (theme of divisions – free/unfree, poorer/better off)
- Regional differences
– Kent = villeinage was ‘virtually non-existent’
– 80% of the Ploughley Hundred in Oxfordshire = villeins (Rigby, 1995) - Serfdom in Scotland largely disappearing by the 1350s
- Not as influential in Wales
- 1/10 of peasants worked on lands not allocated to them but instead reserved for the lord (Bailey, 2021
Economic divisions
- Anything the peasant sold also was subject to levied taxes, and even in death they were charged a ‘heriot’ (had to give their best animal to the lord) and ‘mortuary fee’ (pg18) (Dunn, 2012)
- Since profits were low as food production was low, many landlords pushed their entry fines higher to protect their profits (sometimes being £2 or as high as £5)
- 458,720 people had disappeared from the rolls compared to the 1st poll tax
- There began to be concerns over the missing taxes, leading to the appointment of a new commission to track them down
- Agricultural economy – grains, arable, crops, animal products, milk, meat, wool
- Very vulnerable to climate + disease – instable
- Middle of 1300s – woolen cloth growing – big producers of wool across Britain – less of wool goes overseas and more stayed in Britain to be turned into cloth – wool declined, cloth increased
- Middle of 14th C, enough wealth for people to enjoy consumption of goods, stimulates economy
- Very wealthy landowners, powerful rich aristocracy
- Wealth generated by peasant producers who have possession of land (have to pay through rent) but contorl what’s produced (some agency?)
- Dyer = some unfree peasants under serfdom were wealthier than their free neighbours
Work / labour
Ordinance of Labourers (1349)
– Tackle inflation, everyone (men+women) work under 60, restricted wages, restricted labour market mobility (couldn’t travel)
– Took great care to enforce it – now had to evade the commission if they wanted to improve their wages
- Statute of Labourers (1351)
– Couldn’t bargain for higher wages
– Great deal of enforcement as well, not just rhetoric
– ‘Malice of employees’, ‘idle…unless for outrageous wages’ (Horrox, 1994)
– ‘Prelates, earls, barons and other great men’ imposing will –> Marxist
Demographics
- More able to bargain for wages (but regionally dependent)
– Philip Heryng of Chisledon ‘took an excess of 6d from various men contrary to statute (Horrox, 1994)
– Simon Olyer of Old Sleaford sold a gallon of oil for 16d when he should’ve sold it for 10d (1370)
- Talk of + and -’s of legal documents as sources
- Postan = demographic change allowed them to “bargain away villeinage gradually” (Bailey, 2014)
– But this is debated – from 1980s the theory that before the BD there was overpopulation which caused poor standards of living has been criticised – over-simplified
– E.g. Campbell, Bailey and Dyer
– Before the Black Death there was economic growth, population growth, a growth of towns, increased land for agriculture, and increased prices
- Dyer = ‘a time of economic decline…and… the golden age of the English peasantry’
– But Dyer ignores the rise in prices (exaggerating benefits in terms of real income)
Disease / demographics
- 50-60% pop died
- No bounce back before 1470
- Sermons are a good source for thinking about social life
- Bishop of Rochester = described ‘world turned upside down’ - also about moral decay
- Mark Bailey = although plague affects everyone, the poor were disproportionately affected (e.g. famine, a), lack of protection)
- Hilton = class interests, Bailey = not agency of peasants themselves, but market forces
- Increased purchasing power meant inflation- rising living standards limited to very specific parts of society
Class
- Sculpture of Alice Chaucer – 2nd sculpture of her as a cadaver – death we’re all equal
- Dance of death – everyone’s equal – be quite careful in relating that to the plague though – evidence nearly a century later
- The mortality rate for the higher nobility = 4.5% (1348) and 13% (1349)
- Wealthy landowners = 27% (DeWitte, 2017)
- Peasants died in greater numbers, and landless peasants more affected than more affluent peasants
Education + social mobility
- More people interested in reading vernacular Bible
- 1379 – petition – House of Commons – asking king to forbid serfs from sending their children to school
- Nunneries provided education for girls
- Painting of Anne (Virgin Mary’s mother) teaching Mary to read (1524) - suggests teaching of girls by mothers was an ideal to aspire to
- But female literacy low, educational opportunities restricted, education focused on maintaining a household
- Matriculation records – after BD – shifting demographics – more people economically able to attend uni – for ‘poor and needy scholars’
- But ‘crisis of patronage’ (1380-1400) = uni students clerics (depends on patronage, benefice – absent but get money) - patronage opportunities declined dramatically at end of century (BD), narrowing those who could afford to go
- By end of 15th C – unis increasingly populated by elite students
