1 - The Aristocracy’s Appearance

Summary

Abstract

This chapter aims to understand the self-image that Northumbrian aristocracy constructed. It will seek to discover how the aristocracy portrayed itself in the historical sources, examining the nouns used to refer to them, the image of warriors and/or clerics, the war gear, the role played by women, the idealized impossibility of social mobility and how the aristocracy understands itself at the end of the long eighth century, as represented in the Durham Liber Vitae. The main argument of the chapter is that the way the aristocracy wanted to be perceived played a major role in its ideological (re)production. Self-perception is also fundamental for organizing the aristocracy internally, and for establishing its own internal hierarchies.

Keywords: social mobility; medieval Latin; class identity; class consciousness

All science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided

Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 3 (1883)

Introduction

The image of the Middle Ages as the ‘Age of the Three Orders’ is a powerful one. In King Alfred's translation of Boethius's De consolatione Philosophia, the king reflected on the division of people:

You know of course that no-one can make known any skill, nor direct and guide any enterprise, without tools and resources; a man cannot work on any enterprise without resources. In the case of the king […] he must have praying men, fighting men and working men. […]. Another aspect of his resources is that he must have the means of support for his tools, the three classes of men.

According to this division, society was divided into those who pray (oratores), those who wage war (bellatores) and those who work (laboratores). Alfred's understanding of the Middle Ages, however, was coloured by his social position, and to a certain extent reflected what medieval society looked like for a king close to the end of the ninth century. Modern scholarship on social phenomena must go beyond the appearance of a thing, but at the same time cannot ignore the importance of contemporary perception. The way a phenomenon is perceived, or how it is intended to be perceived, is an essential element of that phenomenon and the social practices associated with it. This is the first chapter of a book dedicated to the understanding of Northumbrian aristocracy in the eighth century.