ABSTRACT
Beside issues of patriarchy, common land, and state control, the period witnessed robust assertions of new social positions. This chapter locates these redefinitions in five places. The first lies in county histories published between 1576 and 1730, which provide micro-histories of communities whose representations of society broke with the three-estate model and bear closer resemblances to those of Smith, Harrison, and Wilson. The county histories echoed these writers in emphasizing wealth and economic roles, in discussions of definitions of noble and gentle status, and in their views of the populace and the poor.
