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Medieval Society

Introduction

We tend to think of society in terms of hierarchy. We speak about ladders and moving up and down a rung, or we draw pyramids with upper class, middle class and lower class. And we generally define status in terms of money. There are exceptions. Certain professions carry some faint echoes of prestige regardless of income: a minister, for example, or a teacher. The term "white collar" has a different social resonance than does "blue collar". That gives you the barest hint of how to go about thinking differently about medieval society.

There are other ways to look at society, though, than the purely hierarchical. One way is to look at a society in its own terms, using the concepts and descriptions the people at the time used. In the Middle Ages, writers regularly divided society into three groups: those who pray (oratores), those who fight (bellatores), and those who work (laborares).

Another way is to look at groups, the way a sociologist or anthropologist would. Here we would view society in terms of family, clan, neighborhood, work, and what are generally called "solidarities", meaning groups that have a clear identity and may include non-kin members.

Still another way is to look at the law: who gets defined as special groups. Here we look not only at privilege, but also at who gets disadvantaged before the law (e.g., women).

No one of these approaches is necessarily more correct, nor are the ones listed above all the approaches available to the historian. Each approach offers its own perspectives. In this essay I will spend some time in each.