ABSTRACT
Social mobility is an abstract idea, and to put flesh and blood on to it involves the examination of individual case histories. This method, however, raises problems for the historian, because he can no more identify an 'average family', which typifies the methods of social advancement than he can isolate that statisticians' concept, the 'average man'. Families such as the Pastons who rose from the agricultural class through acquiring a professional skill were a pointer to the future, and it is possible that by the early Tudor period there were more opportunities for yeomen to rise into the gentry. The rise of the Tudors is closely paralleled by that of the Woodville's, who emerged to prominence from the mass of lesser landed families in royal service. Richard Woodville, who was summoned to Parliament as Lord Rivers in 1449, was the son of the chamberlain to John, duke of Bedford, Henry V's brother.
