Social Thought in England, 1480-1730

From Body Social to Worldly Wealth

A.L. Beier

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317352303
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

Authorities ranging from philosophers to politicians nowadays question the existence of concepts of society, whether in the present or the past. This book argues that social concepts most definitely existed in late medieval and early modern England, laying the foundations for modern models of society. The book analyzes social paradigms and how they changed in the period. A pervasive medieval model was the "body social, " which imagined a society of three estates – the clergy, the nobility, and the commonalty – conjoined by interdependent functions, arranged in static hierarchies based upon birth, and rejecting wealth and championing poverty. Another model the book describes as "social humanist, " that fundamentally questioned the body social, advancing merit over birth, mobility over stasis, and wealth over poverty. The theory of the body social was vigorously articulated between the 1480s and the 1550s. Parts of the old metaphor actually survived beyond 1550, but alternative models of social humanist thought challenged the body concept in the period, advancing a novel paradigm of merit, mobility, and wealth. The book's methodology focuses on the intellectual context of a variety of contemporary texts.

Part I

The Body Social, 1480–1550

1 The Body Imagined

I. Introduction

The belief in people’s freedom to improve their social positions, based upon personal merit, is an ideological cornerstone of modern American society. Arguably, one reason Barack H. Obama was elected president of the U.S. in 2008 and 2012 was that he articulated, even personified, this ideal of upward progress for the meritorious, no matter what their background. Obama presented himself as the champion of the middle class and of those who aspired to join it through the avenue of equal opportunities. His campaign in 2012 targeted social inequality and downward mobility as threatening the middle class. Generally, when we in the U.S. discuss civil rights, education, gender, and race, these discussions often involve equal opportunities for upward mobility; above all, whether routes are open to improve one’s lot and that of one’s children, ethnic community, and social class.

What are the historical origins of the ideals of meritocracy and upward mobility? The question is worth asking, for it was not always so in Europe. For roughly half a millennium, from c. 1100 to c. 1600 CE, as Chapter 1 through 6 show, social norms did not include equal opportunity or social mobility. Quite the contrary: social position was determined by birth. With the exception of the clergy, rank was dictated by your parents’ position. If you were born a lord or a peasant, you inherited your status for life. The system of serfdom forbade changing your physical residence as well as your social status.¹

Social position was defined, not by education or merit, but by being born into one of three “estates,” each with its own special functions and a place in a hierarchy: those who prayed (clergy), those who defended society and governed it (nobles, aristocrats), and those who toiled in the fields (peasants or rustici). The estates belonged to a fixed order: the clergy at the top, followed by the nobility, and below them, the most numerous, the commonalty. The ideal was that the estates, despite having differing roles and ranks, worked interdependently and harmoniously with the others. These estates were the constituent members of what is termed here the body social, a model whose half-life extended into the sixteenth century in England and longer in other European states.

This book examines how the English stopped thinking that society should be an unchanging hierarchy, which ultimately led, at least in the U.S., to a worldview that accepted, even reveled in, upward social mobility. When, where, how, and why did the transformation in theories take place? The answers to these questions are not self-evident in the historical literature and are imperfectly captured by abstract statements about “the decline of feudalism,” “the rise of the middle classes,” and “the Protestant ethic.” This book’s premise is that studying social thought in late medieval and early modern England allows us to see how contemporaries defined their evolving culture. Chapters 7 through 17 undertake this task, advancing the thesis that after c. 1500, the theory of a body social of three estates underwent serious questioning, and was ultimately supplanted with a model ranking people based upon their accumulation of worldly wealth and position.

II. Questioning the Existence of the Social

We must begin, however, by noting that some authorities doubt whether social thinking even existed in Europe before c. 1800. That questions linger about the existence of social thought might seem surprising. Already in the early fifteenth century, one distinguished figure, Leonardo Bruni (c. 1370–1444), Chancellor of Florence, confidently asserted that “man is a social animal, as all philosophers agree …”.² Yet, various authorities did question the existence of the concept of society. One historian maintains that society as a collectivity “did not exist before 1600” in England. Scholars who study the period after 1800 may be justified in using the term, but medievalists and early modernists should eschew it, except possibly in reference to small groups. When the term was more widely used in the work of John Locke (1632–1704), its principal application was to civil society rather than to the social.³

Although a “new social history” has flourished since the 1960s, doubts about its validity are no longer uncommon in what now seems to be a crisis of faith among historians. According to critics, the social became a virtual theology because it “came to signify the complex and ultimately unknowable reality of human existence …”. It is asserted that society is a slippery concept with a host of meanings—e.g., formal associations such as guilds and trade unions, informal ones as limited as companionship and friendship, or much larger ones embodied in nation-states—that defy generalization. Postmodernists are prepared to treat society as no more than a product of ideology or discourse, “a discursive fact” but not a “self-evident and permanently valid category of the real world.”⁴

Some historians identify difficulties in adopting the ontology of the social. One is the tendency to treat as “natural” and inevitable the sodalities of the group, rather than as outcomes of processes requiring explanation. A second pitfall is the tendency to stress the synchronic over the diachronic, so that change is considered to be dysfunctional rather than being inherent in groups and processes. Third and fourth, the social limits processes to individuals and the structures to which they belong, rather than identifying links between entities.⁵

In recent times, sociologists, philosophers, and politicians inform us that the concept of society is “all but dead,” and that attempting to find norms of human relations is passé. Social networks have superseded the paradigm of structures and functions. As Simmel put it, “society is merely the name for a number of individuals connected by interaction.” We are governed by “tele-relations” that are “fluid and diverse” and by postmodern “aesthetics, language and singularity” as against the collective, the material, and the social. Besides, the social was always mythical. To Baudrillard, it was a simulation, the “effect of second-order simulacra …”.⁶ Still others have thrown out baby and bathwater alike. The sociologist Michael Mann asserted that he “would abolish the concept of ‘society’ altogether.” Rejection of the social even appeared in the political world, with the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declaring, “[T]here is no such thing as society …”.⁷

If we accept such propositions, however, we risk ignoring the thoughts of past people, treating them as muddle-headed children. We will also consign to the dustbin the work of a long line of distinguished social scientists. What will remain are concepts of ideology and imagined societies, with concessions to the role of dominant classes in the retention and exercise of coherent cultures.⁸

What possible defenses are there for thinking about the social? Consider the proposition that language, while powerful in supplying semantics and syntax, is also social, because meanings are possible only through pre-existing knowledge and relations. It may be that “all social relations are semiotically generated,” including information about quantification and social structures, but it is also the case that “society,” as Bruni asserted, provides the “ontological ground of our common life as humans”, unambiguously representing “interdependence in human relations.”⁹

Language shapes social perceptions in a number of ways. It is almost impossible to think about society without reference to metaphors and models, whether of structures, orders, classes, body members. Yet we must guard against assuming that legislation prescribing social formations meant that people actually behaved according to “the rules,” because sometimes they did not. In the three-estate model, people sometimes changed positions, as when wealthy merchants were promoted to noble status, even though social mobility was officially discouraged.

Reading a social vocabulary was not objectively or universally “true,” because those who wrote it had a purpose in doing so. Despite these caveats, this book contends that it is possible to observe contemporaries ordering their social worlds using language according to precepts held in common, and expressing beliefs that were regularly debated. No doubt these ideas were expressions of one’s affinities, but it is precisely the task of the scholar to identify those interests.¹⁰

Recent scholarship is more optimistic about the existence of social thought in England. It suggests the Middle Ages gave birth to a populist culture focused on the concept of the “commonweal” that shaped England’s constitutional and cultural development into the seventeenth century.¹¹ Another authority finds that the use of the language of “society” and “modern” developed in mid-sixteenth-century England, demarcating the early modern period from the Middle Ages and questioning the notion that modernity only began in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.¹² These recent studies are valuable contributions to the historiography. No longer can we believe that notions of “the social” did not exist before 1700. Yet, the story is incomplete, because it leaves out essential developments and questions. It omits discussion of an alternative, pre-existing medieval paradigm, the body social of three estates.¹³

III. Saving the Social

This book examines whether concepts of society existed and how, if they did, they were constructed—according to class, function, moral philosophy, or worldly wealth? What norms did they follow, and what were their institutional manifestations? This study maintains that concepts of society did exist in late medieval and early modern England. As Chapters 1 through 6 show, the paradigm of the body social retained its currency into the sixteenth century in England and beyond, appearing in a variety of texts and contexts.

In the twenty-first century, England retains a hereditary monarchy, a titled nobility based upon birth, and an official church, just as it had in the twelfth century. But does that mean nothing has changed in 900 years? In reality, early modern English social thought saw dynamic changes. The transition included a new order ranked by wealth in “sorts” or social classes, rather than functions and birth. Chapters 12 through 17 show how this new paradigm was articulated between 1549 and 1730.

How does one explain the demise of the old and the birth of a new social paradigm in England? From the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the theory of a body social began to be challenged by new beliefs. The new model, envisioned a social order based upon novel precepts, which are examined in Chapters 7 through 11. The origins of the change, it argues, lay in a brand of humanist thought best described as “social.” It must be emphasized that this humanist thinking is not the same as “humaneness,” nor “humanitarianism,” nor modern humanist theology. Rather, it sought to improve the moral and intellectual character of its students and practitioners, to contribute to the health and wealth of the state and its subjects, even to improve their table manners! Chapter 7 defines social humanist thought in greater detail.¹⁴

New precepts included many of the hallmarks of modern society, especially personal virtue, education, or “merit” as determinants of social position, rather than functions based upon birth. Instead of belief in organic harmony and unity, there was a g...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Abbreviations
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I The Body Social, 1480–1550
• Part II Social Humanist Challenges to the Body Social, 1516–1549
• Part III Society as Property, 1550–1697
• Bibliography
• Index