Orders And Hierarchies In Late Medieval And Renaissance Europe

Just as class is a key term for understanding modern Europe, so hierarchy and order are the key terms for the earlier period. These exceptional essays by some of the leading historians in the field are designed to allow students to get a better grasp on this critical subject. Life in the late medieval and early modern periods was simply organized in a very different way to that of the industrial or post-industrial society we are accustomed to. Each essay tackles a different aspect of this European-wide experience - whether looking at the nobility, the gentry, the commons or the religious castes, the contributors greatly increase our ability to understand the complex and fascinating phenomenon of how society ticks and how it is perceived by its members to tick. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Introduction....Pages 1-5 Approaches to Pre-Industrial Social Structure....Pages 6-25 European and Middle Eastern Views of Hierarchy and Order in the Middle Ages: A Comparison....Pages 26-32 Dante: Order, Justice and the society of orders....Pages 33-55 Froissardian Perspectives on Late-Fourteenth-Century Society....Pages 56-73 Hierarchies and Orders in English Royal Images of Power....Pages 74-93 Heraldry and Hierarchy: Esquires and Gentlemen....Pages 94-108 The Risings of the Commons in England, 1381–1549....Pages 109-125 Tidy Structures and Messy practice: ideologies of order and the practicalities of office-holding in ragusa....Pages 126-146 ‘Three Orders of inhabitants’: social Hierarchies in the Republic of Venice....Pages 147-168 Back Matter....Pages 169-206