ABSTRACT
Social thought was dynamic in late medieval and early modern England. In Part I, we saw that the medieval model of the body social retained its power into the sixteenth century. In Part II, however, beginning with Fulgens and Lucrece and More’s Utopia, several writers challenged the traditional schema. At some point, humanist thinking moved beyond seeking the “best Commonwealth” in purely political terms. New thinking redefined the roles of the clergy and nobility, placed merit ahead of birth in social rankings, and broke with established norms of social interdependence by championing wealth over voluntary poverty and in prescribing state intervention-as opposed to traditional charity-to relieve or punish the poor. Several authors, using varied methods from learned treatises to poetry and songs, addressed the social in novel ways: in Utopia’s proposed abolition of private property, in Starkey’s remodeling of the three estates, and in Smith’s contention that social relations included competition and struggles between economic blocs, and in asserting the role of government in effecting social changes.
