Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps and tables
- Preface: ‘A phoenix in flames’
- Abbreviations
- Dedication
- Introduction: Commune at the crossroads
- 1 A domination of abbots
- 2 The crisis of the early fourteenth century
- 3 Classes of the commune before the Black Death
- 4 The struggle continues, 1335–99
- 5 A turning-point: the generation of 1400
- 6 Highpoint of vernacular religion: building a church, 1400–1548
- 7 Classes of the commune in 1522
- 8 Surviving Reformation: the rule of Robert Strange, 1539–70
- 9 ‘The tyranny of infected members called papists’: the Strange regime under challenge, c.1551–80
- 10 Phoenix arising: crises and growth, 1550–1650
- 11 Only the poor will be saved: the preacher and the artisans
- 12 Gentlemen and commons of the Seven Hundreds
- 13 Immigrants
- 14 The revival of the parish
- 15 ‘More than freeholders ought to have voices’: parliamentarianism in one ‘countrey’, 1571–1643
- 16 ‘Moments of decision’, August 1642 to February 1643
- Afterword: Rural sunrise
- Bibliography
- Index
12 - Gentlemen and commons of the Seven Hundreds
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps and tables
- Preface: ‘A phoenix in flames’
- Abbreviations
- Dedication
- Introduction: Commune at the crossroads
- 1 A domination of abbots
- 2 The crisis of the early fourteenth century
- 3 Classes of the commune before the Black Death
- 4 The struggle continues, 1335–99
- 5 A turning-point: the generation of 1400
- 6 Highpoint of vernacular religion: building a church, 1400–1548
- 7 Classes of the commune in 1522
- 8 Surviving Reformation: the rule of Robert Strange, 1539–70
- 9 ‘The tyranny of infected members called papists’: the Strange regime under challenge, c.1551–80
- 10 Phoenix arising: crises and growth, 1550–1650
- 11 Only the poor will be saved: the preacher and the artisans
- 12 Gentlemen and commons of the Seven Hundreds
- 13 Immigrants
- 14 The revival of the parish
- 15 ‘More than freeholders ought to have voices’: parliamentarianism in one ‘countrey’, 1571–1643
- 16 ‘Moments of decision’, August 1642 to February 1643
- Afterword: Rural sunrise
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Gloucestershire was a county in which independent small producers predominated, and on them its parliamentarianism rested.
The most influential of Tudor-Stuart England's constitutional writers, Sir Thomas Smith, divided the English into two classes, rulers and subjects. The ‘common wealth, or policie of England’, he wrote, was ‘governed, administered and maintained by three sortes of person’. The first of these ‘governing sorts’, or ruling classes, of course, was ‘the monarch … in whose name and authoritie all things be administered’. Second were ‘the gentlemen’, whom Smith also divided into two distinct ‘partes’. Highest in rank was ‘the Baronie or estate of Lordes’, consisting of barons ‘and all that bee above the degree of baron’: marquises, dukes, earls etc. Below these national magnates came a much larger class of gentlemen ‘which be no Lords, as Knights, Esquires and simple gentlemen.’ Henry French suggests that a ‘concept of gentility’ was ‘accorded universal (if not always positive) recognition’ in early modern England; the ideal gentleman embodied ‘social distinction, political autonomy, intellectual authority and material independence’. ‘Alone among social groups’, writes French, ‘gentlemen were the people who acted upon a national stage.’
The third and lowest ‘sort’ of Smith's ruling class was ‘the yeomanrie’. The local gentry (‘second sort’) and yeomen (‘third sort’) were responsible for putting ‘policie’ ordained by the senior ranks into practice in the districts and localities.
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- Information
- Commune, Country and CommonwealthThe People of Cirencester, 1117-1643, pp. 149 - 170Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011