ABSTRACT
Medieval social theorists, who recognized that society was differentiated into social strata with unequal access to wealth and power, nevertheless insisted on the allegedly harmonious interrelationship of these strata. Their respective and particular functions were necessary for the survival of the whole, even though the different degree of 'honour' ascribed to each status group indicated a strict social hierarchy. In view of the fact that medieval society was riven by social conflict, peasant rebellions in particular, the social doctrine of status harmony can only be regarded as ideological rather than descriptive. As Georges Duby argues in his fundamental work, Les trois ordres ou i'imaginaire du feodalisme, the concept was not a reflection of reality but a project for acting upon it.! And although a few historians have copied their medieval intellectual predecessors in interpreting medieval society as composed of interrelated status groups, most have recognized it as a class society, in which the conflict between landowners (both lay and ecclesiastical) and the peasantry was a permanent feature. A similar perception of class division and class conflict in the urban context is, however, less generally accepted and here, oddly enough, status rather than class tends still to be seen as defining social differentiation.
