ABSTRACT

In analysing such social groups as the medieval mind understood, it is useless expecting to have the exercise cut and tied. As soon as the whole unwieldy mess seems neatly parcelled a corner gives way and disgorges some part of its contents. The fact is that different medieval writers had different perceptions. Those amongst medieval men who were quirky enough to want to sit down and write about their society were often indeed quirky men with their own opinions. The key to the business is not to be too particular. The great hereditary dignities registered in the medieval consciousness as a clear social group, as is evident from the addresses of royal charters. A charter of Henry I (1100-35) would commence typically with an address to ‘his earls, sheriffs, barons and men’; a charter of Richard II (1377-99) would be addressed to ‘his dukes, marquises, earls, sheriffs, barons, knights and men’. It is the ‘barons, knights and men’ with whom the following chapters are concerned; the ill-defined ‘others’ within the medieval consciousness of its society. These ‘others’ were for the most part men who carried no hereditary title. But here a corner of our package rips. There were, for instance, families in England and Ireland whose chiefs carried the hereditary style of ‘baron’ long before it was a title recognised and awarded by the king. There were also other hereditary dignities which arose within society, titles which derived from household offices but with which a family’s importance and dignity became inextricably entangled. All these come within the classification here of ‘social dignities’: titles in use in society which the king had no pretensions to control, and which were (in general) outside his gift.