The structure of Society Flashcards
(24 cards)
What are the three orders of medieval society
Laboratores, Bellatores and Oratores
What is a Laboratore
The workers, peasants both free and unfree
What was the difference between free and unfree peasants
Unfree are tied to Land by the Lord
What was the difference between male and female roles as peasants
women work in secondary industry such as textiles and pottery
What was the Tallage tax
A tax for support for military activity
What was the merchant tax
fine to marry off daughter as she belonged to the Lord
What is the Leywrite
Fine for extramarital sex
What was a Mill privilege
Paid to mill owner for permission to use his mill
What did oratore do
Lots of different institutions doing entirely different things. No uniform ecclesiastical body. Monastries and abbeys don’t always do what papacy tells them to. Don’t agree on anything apart from basic fundamentals.
Who owns all the land in the country technically
The King
Explain the hierarchy of society
Marxist idea of feudalism is not true, much more complicated
What is a Bellatore
The fighters,Owed occasional military service to lords but then would extort peasants. Knights are glorified thugs. Not necessarily rich. Swap protection for food
Explain the cycle of monasticism
- Monasticism becomes a new aspect of life- Chastity, poverty and obedience. Holy radical men who want to get away from money and corrupt life they go into wilderness and set up monasteries People are impressed with their holiness and give them money and land
What was the idea of separation between religious people
- Religious people should be separate from rest of society
Explain the importance of reputation
- The importance of reputation incredibly important in Medieval society. Who you knew/Who your family was could stop you even being killed. This idea is called Kinship. Feud is the fight between too medieval Kins. SOCIAL STATUS BASED ON KEEPING REPUTATION SAME.
Were Feuds illegal
- People could have interpersonal legal violence , law upheld that. However if you had feud in market then you could be done for breaking the King’s Peace.
Was it good to have a kin group
The bigger the better
Were feuds the primary way to solve violence
No, go before community first
How do we know different parts of society were worth different things
Look at dismemberment lists, how much your fine for attacking a person was depended on who they were and what you took (ear/eye etc.) from them
What is a form of evidence that shows that there was blurred line between religious and secular
Thomas Becket’s appointment
Roger of Salisbury- who gave his family different roles
What does Christopher Dyer say
Social status and roles defined rural communities and landownership, wealth and kinship ties shaped identity
Susan Reynolds
Argues that the division between the three orders of society were actually not clear cut and in fact quite fluid.
Marc Bloch
The different orders were reliant on each other
Georges Duby
The orders of society give us a framework to understand
