ABSTRACT
We have seen in earlier chapters that society in late medieval England was increasingly stratified. Not only did the old division persist between those who fought (essentially the land-owning class) and those who tilled the soil, but within the former, which constituted the politically significant element in society, new lines of distinction were drawn. Most important was the emergence of the peerage from the mass of armigerous families, but within both ‘noble’ and ‘gentle’ society the hierarchical principle was carried further. The new ranks of marquess and viscount were established in the peerage, and the consciousness of rank and status in the lower landed class was reflected in the classifications of knights, esquires and gentlemen. However, this social stratification was not rigid; men moved from one grade to another within the landed class, and there were even instances of recruitment into it from outside, although these were less common. It was certainly rare, though not unknown, for a man to rise directly from peasant stock, but urban society provided a common intermediate stage, by providing facilities for accumulating wealth which could then be used to acquire land. Social ambition was the main motive for acquiring land, particularly at a time when the profitability of landed wealth was at best doubtful. In this there was nothing new, and this tendency to move from city to country persisted into later centuries, so it is perhaps misleading to write, as one historian has done, of the late Middle Ages as an ‘Age of Ambition’. There is no evidence to suggest that men’s attitudes in this period were markedly different from those of earlier or later dates.
