England's Middle Class Emergence: Hierarchy, Guilds, & Women's Roles - Prof. 473, Apuntes de Cultura Inglesa

¡Descarga England's Middle Class Emergence: Hierarchy, Guilds, & Women's Roles - Prof. 473 y más Apuntes en PDF de Cultura Inglesa solo en Docsity! GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY II • In the late Middle Ages society was still based on rank. • At the top were Dukes, Earls and other lords. Many of these were killed in war. • Under these were the knights. Most of these, by the time of Edward I were no longer heavily armed fighters on horseback. They were now mostly “gentlemen farmers” or “landed gentry”. • During the fourteenth century, a number of English merchants established trading stations -factories – in various places in Europe. The merchant organisations which operated these factories became more powerful than the guilds but they copied their aims and methods. English merchants could only export through these factories and much care was taken to maintain prices and quality. In the fifteenth century, wages rose faster than prices and there was plenty of meat and cereral. However, more and more land was being fenced off - enclosure -for sheep farming and this would lead to a social and economic crisis. By the fifteenth century most merchants were educated and considered themselves the equals of gentlemen and esquires in the country. Another class of city people were those who studied at Law Schools . By the end of the Middle Ages, these lawyers together with cloth merchant and manufacturers s, exporters esquires, gentlemen and yeomen farmers had formed a class of people who had interests both in the town and the country. • This new middle class questioned the way in which the Church and the state were run both for religious and practical reasons. They felt it was their right to be able to read the Bible and they disliked serfdom because it was unchristian. They also questioned the feudal system because it did not create wealth. THE CONDITION OF WOMEN • The Church in the Middle Ages taught that women should be obey their husbands and be silent. • There were two ideas about women: • They should be pure and holy like the Virgin Mary. • They were a moral danger to men and could not be trusted, like Eve. • Marriage was usually a decision made by the parents of the bride and groom and not the couple themselves. Everyone married for financial reasons and love had little to do with it. Once married, a woman was expected to accept her husband as her master. If she was disobedient, she was beaten. • The first duty of a wife was to provide her husband with an heir. Many women died in childbirth and, if she did not, she would be constantly pregnant until she was no longer able to bear children. To be barren was considered as a stigma and never assumed to be the husband’s fault.