ABSTRACT
The society of ancient Rome had been strongly hierarchical. King Alfred had expressed a traditional division in society when he said that a kingdom must have those who pray, those who fight and those who work. The staple food of mankind in the Middle Ages was bread, and his staple drink ale or water. These centuries were the age of what is commonly called the feudal' society. The Canterbury monk, Eadmer, delighted to report the conversation of King William Rufus, a monarch of whom he profoundly disapproved. Anglo-Saxon law recognised that a peasant who prospered became a thegn and the thegns were a wide class including folk who would be called knights and folk who would be leading barons after the Conquest. Slavery in the Mediterranean world was continuous from Caesar to Columbus. The story of St Godric was one of the foundations of Henri Pirenne's notions about the recruitment of merchants in this age.
