Medieval Society

Those Who Work

Those who pray were the priests; those who fight were the knights; and then there was everybody else. Notice the designation— laborares. The word does not mean merely to work, it means to labor. To work at some higher calling, such as to write literature or to study medicine, was operare. Peasants labor, but an educated man produces an opus . . . the English words still carry something of the old tone. Peasants were what most people meant when they though of laborares, and peasants made up the great bulk of the population of Europe.

There were others, however. In particular, there was one social group that was lumped in with the peasants but didn't belong with them at all. It was a group that became increasingly significant over the course of the central Middle Ages, a group that eventually (long after the Middle Ages were over) came to dominate both the other orders.

This group was the townsmen. Those who dwelt in cities, and especially those who formed the social elite in those cities, were no mere laborers, but neither could they be called noble. It was awkward, to say the least, and the nobility of Europe did what it could to ignore them.

History of Western Civilization

E.L. Skip Knox
Boise State University

Comments and questions