STONE, Lawrence. Social Mobility en England

The Past and Present Society
Social Mobility in England, 1500-1700

Author(s): Lawrence Stone
Source: Past & Present, No. 33 (Apr., 1966), pp. 16-55
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society
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SOCIAL MOBILITY IN ENGLAND, 1500-1700*
THE PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER IS FOURFOLD: FIRSTLY TO SKETCH THE
configuration of a westerntraditionalsocietyat a fairlyadvanced
stage of its development,a model thatmightbe applicableto any
European societyfromthe sixteenthto the eighteenthcenturies;
secondly,to producethe evidenceforbelievingthatbetweenI540
and I640 English societyexperienceda seismic upheaval of un-
precedentedmagnitude;thirdlyto postulatesome reasonsboth for
thedevelopment ofthisupheavaland foritstermination;and fourthly
to speculateabout the politicaland religiousconsequences. The
paperattempts- perhapsrashly- to takea broadoverviewof the
societyas a whole,and therefore
ignorestheimportant localvariations
whichundoubtedly existed.
I
MODELS
The firstproblemis whatsortof a visualimagewe have of this

early modernEnglish society. Sociologiststend to describepre-
industrialsocietiesin termsof a steppedpyramid,the lowerclasses
forming the bottomstep,and the aristocracy or plutocracythe apex
(because of theerosion of thepoor and the growthofthemiddle-class
in contemporary western ithasturnedintoa steppedlozenge).
society,
But one mayreasonablydoubtwhetherthismodelfitsa traditional
pre-industrialsociety. Two alternatives presentthemselves. The
first- let us call it the UnitedNationsmodel- is a tall skyscraper
erectedon top of a vast low podium. Withinthe podium,which
extendsovermanyacres,live95% or moreofthepopulation, whoare
freeto movealongwidecorridors andto riseand descendveryshallow
staircaseswithinthis limitedlevel. The skyscraperitself,within
whichdwelltheremaining 5% orless,is composedofa seriesoffloors
forstatusgroupsbasedon theownership ofland. Withinitis a single
infrequent elevatorwhichalwaysgoesdownwitha fullload of failures
* Some of the manyerrorsof sense and logic in earlydraftsof this paper were
pointed out to me by David Bien, ChristopherHill, Michael Walzer, Jerrold
Seigel, John Shy and Joan Thirsk. Daniel Baugh went to great trouble in
helping me to guess at the number of office-holders. I am very gratefulto
them for their assistance. An earlier version of this article was circulated
forthe 1965 Past and Present Annual Conference.

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN ENGLAND, I500-I700 I7
and superfluous youngersons, but oftenriseshalfempty. Around

the skyscraper itself,however,therewind severalascendingramps,
labelledChurch,Law, Commerce,and Office. Some people camp
out on theramps,but it is draughty and wet out there,and mostof
themstruggleupwardsand thentake shelterinside at the highest
floortheycan comfortably reach.
The second- the San Gimignanomodel- is a seriesof vertical
towersupon a hill. In thismodelthehillrepresents theamorphous
massofthepoorand thehumble,and thetowersa seriesof moreor
less independenteconomicand status hierarchieswith theirown
internalelevators:land, church,law, commerce,and government
officeare the mostconspicuousof thesetowers.
Neitherof thesemodelsexactlyfitsthe observedfacts,but both
are an improvement on the conventionalstepped pyramidimage.
It will be arguedin thispaperthatbetweenI500 and I700 English
societywas moving from the United Nations towardsthe San
Gimignanomodel as the statusof businessand the professions rose
in the eyesof the landed classes.
II
CATEGORIES
The Hierarchy
of Status
In thesixteenth therewas a statushierarchy,
century nottheloose
competitive statusagglomerationsto whichwe areaccustomedtodayl.
Though thereexisteda few completelynon-integrated groups
forexample- and foursemi-independent
artistsand stage-players,
occupationalhierarchies,the vast mass of the populationwas fitted
into a singlehierarchyof statusdefinedby titularrank,and to a
certainextentby legal and fiscalprivilege. The mostfundamental
dichotomywithinthe societywas betweenthe gentlemanand the
non-gentleman, a division that was based essentiallyupon the
distinctionbetweenthosewho did, and thosewho did not,have to
workwiththeirhands. This is a criticaldivisionin all societies
wherehumanlabouris theprincipalpower-unit, apartfromthehorse
and the ox, wind and water. The more extremeconservatives,
heraldsand others,arguedthatit tookthreegenerations fora family
to purge its blood fromthe taintof inferiority and to become an
acceptedmemberofthisupperclass. In practicesuchnotionsseem
1 L. Stone, The CrisisoftheAristocracy,1558-1641 (Oxford, I965), pp. 49-53,
is an earlier attempt to tackle this problem. The present analysis provides
what is hoped to be a more sophisticatedmodel.

I8 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 33
to have had littleeffect,but the factthat theycould be seriously

propoundedis evidencethatanelementofcastetheory wasto be found
in Tudor England.
Withinthe dual systemof gentlemenand non-gentlemen con-
temporaries recognizeda roughsixfoldstatusdivision:-
Groupi. The dependentson charity,whetherwidows,aged, or
unemployed;also the apprenticesand living-inservants,domestic,
agricultural,or industrial,
who composedas muchas I5% to 250° of
theadultmalepopulation.2
Group2. The living-out labourers,bothruraland urban,agricul-
turaland industrial.
Group3. The husbandmen, the lesseryeomen(bothtenantsand
freeholders), and the more substantialyeomen; also the artisans,
shopkeepers and smallinternaltraders.
Group4. The lesser,or parish,gentry.
Group5. The countyelite:squires,knights and baronets.
Group 6. The peers: barons, viscounts,earls, marquises,and
dukes.
This sixfoldstatushierarchy is based on the valuesof a primitive
ruralsociety. At thelowerlevelsofgroupsI-3 therealreadyexisted
two parallelhierarchies forurbanand ruralsociety,but theycan be
roughlymatchedwithouttoo much difficulty.But both contem-
porariesand ourselvesare faced withthe more vexingproblemof
fittinginto this scheme four semi-independent occupationalhier-
archies,whose preciserelationship to thebasic referencegroupings
was neverfullyclarified.These were:-
GroupA. Themerchants.The middlingandlarge-scale exporters
of London, Exeter,Bristol,Hull and Newcastle,the wholesalers,
thelargeretailersofthemaincities,thecustomsfarmers and govern-
mentcontractors, and thefinanciersofLondon. In thesixteenth and
earlyseventeenth centuriestheywerestillregardedin manyquarters
as distinctlyinferiorin status to a gentleman. As late as I669
Edward Chamberlayne statedflatlythat"Tradesmenin all ages and
nationshave been reputedignoble",and a generationearlierthere
had been a briskpamphletdiscussionwhetheror not a gentleman's
son lost his gentlestatusby becomingan apprentice. Because of
2 A.
J. and R. H. Tawney, "An Occupational Census of the Seventeenth
Century", Econ. Hist. Rev., v (I934-5), p. 47. P. Laslett, "Clayworth and
Cogenhoe", in Historical Essays, 1600-I75o, ed. H. E. Bell and R. L. Ollard
(London, I963), p. 169; and data extractedfrom"Lay Subsidy Rolls, 1524-25",
Sussex Record Society, lvi (I957).

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN ENGLAND, I500-I700 I9
thisattitudethe merchantswerea mobilegroupof transients, very

manyof whommovedintoand out of thegroupin a singlelifetime,
and nearlyall in twogenerations;as a contemporary putit at thetime,
merchants "do attainto greatwealthand riches,whichforthe most
parttheyemployin purchasingland and littleby littletheydo creep
and seek to be gentlemen", In otherwords,the most successful
tendedto mergeintogroups4 and 5.3
GroupB. TheLawyers. These rangedall thewayfromthelocal
attorney and solicitorto grandeesliketheMasteroftheRollsand the
Lord Chancellor. Overthree-quarters of thosetrainedat the Inns
of Court,thatis the barristers and above, wereof gentryor clergy
stock,butwe knowlittleaboutthesocialorigins,economicprospects,
or acceptedstatusofthelocal attorneys.4
Group C. The Clergy. These ranged in income and position
fromthecurateto thearchbishop, and variedin socialoriginfromthe
copyholderto the squire. Even in a prosperousand sociallyand
intellectuallyadvanced area like Oxfordshireor Worcestershire,
betweenthree-quarters andtwo-thirds oftheearlyseventeenth-century
parishclergywerestillof non-gentry origin. Though mostrectors
were comfortably off,and thoughthe overallaveragereal income
probablyremainedmuch the same, substantialnumbersof vicars
and curateswereexistingon an incomehardlydifferent fromthatof
unskilledlabourers.5 The higherclergywere ruthlessly plundered
underthe Tudors,and theirsocial originsweregenerallyinferior to
thoseof the lawyers. For example,of twenty-eight bishopsin the
I630s, the fathersof onlynine were gentry;eightwere clergymen,
sevenweremerchants, one was a yeomanand threewereartisansor
3 L.
Stone, op. cit., p. 40. W. G. Hoskins, "The Elizabethan Merchants of
Exeter", in ElizabethanGovernment and Society,ed. S. T. Bindoffet al. (London,
I96I), pp. 166-70, 176, I85-6. W. T. MacCaffrey, Exeter, I540-I640
(Cambridge, Mass., I958), pp. 260-4. P. McGrath, "Records relatingto the
Society of Merchant Adventurersof the City of Bristol in the Seventeenth
Century", Bristol Rec. Soc., xvii (I953), pp. xxviii-xxx. V.C.H., Yorks., The
Cityof York (London, I96I), pp. I80-I. T. S. Willan, The MuscovyMerchants
of I555 (Manchester, I953), pp. 69-74. Willan casts some doubts on the truth
ofthispicture,but he offersno hard statisticalevidenceto back up his suspicions.
4 L.
Stone, "The Educational Revolution in England, I560-I640", Past and
Present,no. 28 (July,I964), pp. 58-9. R. Robson, The Attorneyin Eighteenth
CenturyEngland (Cambridge, I959).
5 D. M. Barratt,"The Condition of the Parish Clergybetweenthe Reforma-
tion and I660" (Oxford D.Phil. thesis, I949), pp. I8, I80-206. F. W. Brooks,
"The Social Position of the Parson in the SixteenthCentury",Brit. Arch. Ass.
J7.,3rd ser., x (I948). W. G. Hoskins, "The LeicestershireCountryParson in
the SixteenthCentury",in his Essays in Leicestershire History(Liverpool, I950),
pp. 1-23.

20 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 33
below.6 It seemsthatthehighestranksof theclergyweregenerally

regardedas inferiorin status to the highestranks of the legal
profession,despitethepresenceoftheformer in theHouse of Lords.
The precisereasonforthislowlystatusis hardto determine. Was it
the vigorousand widespreadanti-clericalism of the age whichboth
loweredrespectfor the professionand frightened offprospective
entrantsof gentrystock? Or the lack of assured tenureduring
a period of theologicalupheaval? Or the substantiallyreduced
financialrewardsto be expectedevenfroma successfulcareer? We
do not know,but it is probablethatall threefactorsinteracted one
upon theother.
GroupD. The Administrators. These are the office-holdersin
the royalhousehold,the majordepartments of state,and the army
and navy, men to whom administration was a professionallife
commitment.This definitionincludes all those dealt with by
ProfessorAylmerin The King's Servantsexceptthe courtiersat the
apex of the system. By the earlyseventeenth century,theseroyal
servantswere predominantly of squirearchyor gentryorigin,but
with a substantialleaveningfromyeoman,merchant,and miscel-
laneousnon-gentry stock.7
Whatwe have,therefore, is a rural-basedstatushierarchy running
fromI to 6, theclarityand utilityofwhichis marredbytheexistence
offouroccupationalhierarchies, A, B, C and D, whoseexactpositions
withinthisstandardsystemof reference were,and are, uncertain.
Moreover,it is unhappilytruethat I, 2 and 3 includewell over
90% of thepopulation- perhapsas muchas 95o - whichmeans
that a great deal of horizontal,and even some vertical,mobility
withinthe vastmass of the populationgoes unrecognized. In such
a societyone cannotexpectthereto be verymuchupwardmobility at
the lower levels. Most of the populationwas livingon the land,
enjoyinga verylow income and tied to the soil by the needs of
manuallabourforfoodproductionand distribution.A reasonable
guessis thatabout95% ofthepopulationwas stillruralin I500, and
about 85°% in I7o.8 Now in a societyin which go90 of the
populationare manualworkerson the land, even if everyotherjob
6 Stone, Crisis, pp. 40, 405-1i. This social pattern(the informationabout
which I owe to Mr. F. S. Odo, a memberof my researchseminarat Princeton)
hardly differsfromthat of the pre-Reformationchurch of the I520s and '30s.
7 G. E. Aylmer, The King's Servants (London, I96I), p. 263.
8 GregoryKing's figuressuggestthatin I690 only about 15%° of the popula-
tion was living in towns of more than ,000o (two-thirdsof whom were crowded
into London). D. V. Glass, "Two papers on GregoryKing", in D. V. Glass
and D. E. C. Eversley,Populationin History(London, i965), pp. 174, 178.

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN ENGLAND, I500-I700 2I
and officeis filledby one of theirsons,stillonly II ,/ can expectto

changeoccupations.9 Under such circumstances it is evidentthat
the chancesof upwardeconomicmobilityforthe greatmajorityof
the populationmustbe verysmallindeed.
The task of the historianof social mobilityis complicatedby
a varietyof difficulties.The degreeto whicha societyappearsopen
or closed bothto contemporaries and to posterity dependspartlyon
the prevailingmyth,and partlyon hardfacts. For lack of anything
betteron which to base theirjudgements,historianstend to see
a societymuchas the contemporaries saw it. Thus if seventeenth-
centuryEnglishmen and nineteenth-century Americansthoughtof
theirsocietyas exceptionally mobile,thenexceptionally mobilethey
appear in the historybooks. But there is also the social reality
underlying the myth,a realitywhichcannotbe too remotefromthe
image without creating severe psychic tensions. The general
contentmentof the greaternumber is probably most strongly
determined bythepossibility ofminormovement up and downat the
lowestlevelsofgroupsI, 2 and 3. Butthequalityofthesocietyas it
is seen by the historianis determined by two quite different factors.
The firstis theproportion ofthelowerand middlingclasseswho are
able to filterthroughintothe elite; thatis the numberof ambitious
youthswho can move up fromgroup 3 to group 4, the speed of
acceptanceof upwardlymobileelementsof A, B, C and D by 4 and
5, and the degreeto whichincome,politicalpower,and statusare
opento talentamong4, 5 and 6. The secondfactoris themethodby
whichthis filtration occurs. Is it "sponsoredmobility"of youths
selected for advancementat an early age, an upward movement
plannedand controlledby the existingeliteforits own purposeof
functionalefficiency and the preservation of statuslines? Or is it
"contest mobility",the chance product of prolongedand open
competitive ?10
struggle
TheHierarchyofIncome
recordssuggestthatthehierarchy
Tax dataand othercontemporary
of statuscorrespondedroughlywiththe pyramidof incomes,and
that the same was true withinthe four anomalousoccupational
categoriesof merchant,
lawyer,official
and clergyman.1 It should
S. M. Lipset and R. Bendix, Social Mobilityin IndustrialSociety(Berkeley,
I959), p. 27.
10For this distinction see Ralph H. Turner, "Sponsored and Contest
Mobility and the School System", Amer.Soc. Rev., xxv (I960), pp. 855-67.
11T. Wilson, "The State of England Anno Dom. 600o", Camden Misc., xvi
(I936). C. B. MacPherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism
(Oxford, I962), pp. 280-I.

be notedthatthe spread of incomedistribution aftertaxationwas

enormousby modernstandards,perhapsas manyas I,000 families
enjoyinga netincomeaftertax of £I,ooo a yearor more,whichwas
a hundredtimesgreaterthanthatoftheunskilledlabourer.
TheHierarchy ofPower
Politicalpowerwas ratherless intimately linkedto statusthanwas
income,butit was stillclose. Groups3-6 and A, B, C and D, nearly
all enjoyedthe franchise, but in practicecontestsforseatsin Parlia-
mentwerefairlyrare,and politicalaffairs at the local levelwererun
in townsexclusively by A and in the countyby 5 and 6, withsome
supportand occasionalcompetitionfromelementsof 4.12 At the
nationallevel,powerwas exercisedby courtiersand officials: thatis,
a selectminority of groups5 and 6, and the wholeof groupD.
At Court,a knightfromthe lowergentrylike Sir WalterRaleigh
rankedhigherin status,wieldedmorepower,and mighteven enjoy
a largerincomethana backwoodsearllikeBath. But thistop Court
elite of politicianswas too ephemeralin its compositionand too
amateurin its intereststo be regardedas a permanentpart of the
officialclass.
III
PATTERNS
The evidenceis twofold,contemporary commentand statistics.
The formeris unreliable,firstly becausewhatseemslikegreatsocial
mobilityto contemporaries may appear verysmall to us; secondly
because, when dealingwitha small elite class, a numerically very
smallopeningintoit mayseem giganticto the elitebut insignificant
to theoutsiders;and lastlybecausetheindividualexample,whichmay
be quite exceptional,cannot be used to prove a generalization.
Finally,mythmay not correspondto reality. The rags-to-riches
legendof Dick Whittington may bear littlerelationto the actual
life-prospectsof an apprentice,althoughthefactthatthelegendfirst
appears in I605 may indicate growingaspirationsfor upward
mobility.
There are threekindsofmobility, ofwhichthefirstis theriseand
fall of certaingroups in relationto others. When studyingthis
kindofchange,it mustbe remembered thattherearefourelementsin
socialstratification:
therelativenumbers,income,statusand political
12
MacCaffrey, op. cit., pp. I6-I7, 22-5, 251-6. Hoskins, "Elizabethan
Merchants of Exeter", loc. cit., pp. 163-6. J. E. Neale, The Elizabethan
House of Commons(London, I949), passim.

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN ENGLAND, I500-I700 23
powerof each group. It is veryunlikelythatthe fourwill change

togetherin perfectharmony and it maybe necessaryto constructfour
differentprofilesof mobilityovertimeforeach group.
The secondconsistsof changesin the profileof stratification,
that
is to say in the distancesbetweenthe groups: thus therecan be
yawninggulfsor barelyperceptible cracksseparatingone socialgroup
fromanotherin termsof income,statusor power; and the third
consistsofchangesin thescaleandrangeofindividualmobility.This
last, whichis the one whichusuallyattractsmost attentionbut is
in somewaystheleastimportant,
historically has threevariables:the
direction,upwardsor downwards;the height,that is to say the
numberof stepsin the hierarchy to whichthe individualcan climb
or descend; and the frequency, the proportionof individualsin the
groupwho are sociallymobile.
Changesin GroupProfiles
(I) Numbers.The greatgrowthof populationup to 1620, coupled
with the continuedengrossingof holdingsby rich farmers,and
heavyregressivetaxationafter1642,musthave caused a substantial
increasein thesize of groupsi and 2 at thebottomoftheheap,and
an all too obvious growthof structuralunemployment and under-
employment whichprovokedtheintroduction ofexceptionalmeasures
of poor reliefand social control. Even in 1522-4about one halfof
thepopulationof Coventry, one thirdofthatofLeicesterand Exeter,
smallerproportion
and a substantially ofthelessercountry townswas
reckonedto be belowthepoverty-line, nottaxable. In
and therefore
i688 GregoryKing estimatedthat over half the total population,
ruraland urban,earnedless thanwas neededforsubsistence. The
lateseventeenth-century HearthTax returnsforone Midlandvillage
show 30%° of all householdsbelow the tax level altogether,and
a further46% withonlyone hearth. In a townlikeExeterconditions
wereevenworse,withsome40% ofhouseholdsbelowthetaxlevel.13
Secondly,therewas a remarkableincreasein the numberof the
upper classes,whichtrebledat a periodwhen the totalpopulation
13 D. C.
Coleman, "Labour in the English Economy in the Seventeenth
Century",Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., viii (I955-6), pp. 280-95. W. G. Hoskins,
Provincial England (London, I963), p. 83. J. Cornwall, "The People of
Rutland in I522", Leics. Arch. Soc. Trans., xxxvii (i96I-2), p. I5; "English
Country Towns in the I52os", Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xv (I962-3), p. 66.
MacPherson, op. cit., pp. 280-I. W. G. Hoskins, The Midland Peasant
(London, I957), p. I95. C. H. Wilson, England's Apprenticeship1600-1763
(London, I965), pp. 231-6, 343-7. W. G. Hoskins, Industry,Trade and People
in Exeter,x688-800o (Manchester, I935), pp. II5-6.

barelydoubled. The numberof peers rose from60 to I60; of

baronetsand knightsfrom500 to 1,400; ofsquiresfromperhaps800
to 3,000; of armigerousgentryfromperhaps5,000to aroundI5,000.
This was due partlyto the increaseof land in privateownership,
partlyto the abnormally highreproduction rateofthe upperclasses,
partlyto the generationof new wealthin trade,the law, officeand
agriculture, and partlyto the casual government attitudetowards
the inflationof honours.14
Thirdly,therewere strikingfluctuations in the numbersof the
clergy. The profession contracted -
sharply perhapsby 50o -
withtheelimination oftheregularclergyat theReformation and the
subsequentplunderof the Church. In I560, with no monksor
chantry priestsleft,and perhapsas manyas 2,000 ofthe9,000 livings
unfilled,the clergywere fewerin numbersthantheyhad been for
centuries. Thereafternumbersexpanded again as vacant livings
were filled,curaciesincreased,and a surplusof talentedpreachers
weretakenon as lecturers. The peak oftherevivalmusthave been
in the I64os, but the post-Restoration slump in both university
educationand religiousenthusiasm, and thesuppressionoflecturers,
musthavecutthenumbersbackagain.
The otherprofessions showedsustainedand strikingincreasesin
size. In particularthe lawyersgrew by leaps and bounds. The
numberscalled to the bar at the Inns of Court increasedby over
40% betweenthe I59os and the I63os. At the same time there
were complaintsabout the proliferation of attorneysand solicitors.
An officialsurveyof 1633statedthatthenumberofattorneys enrolled
in the courtof CommonPleas had risenfrom342 to 1,383 since
I578, and in I689 JohnAubreysaid it was thoughtthattherewere
nearly 3,000 in England. In i688 GregoryKing reckonedthe
entirelegal professionat I0o,ooo.5 In addition,the medicalpro-
fessiongrew veryrapidly,and theremay have been as many as
I,ooo doctors,surgeonsand apothecariespractisingmedicinebetween
1603 and 1643.16
14 A. G.
Dickens, The English Reformation(London, 1964), pp. 163-6.
Stone, Crisis, ch. iii. J. Cornwall, "The Early Tudor Gentry", Econ. Hist.
Rev., 2nd ser., xvii (1964-5), pp. 457-6I. MacPherson, op. cit., pp. 280-I.
15 W. R. Prest, "Some
Aspects of the Inns of Court I590-I640" (Oxford
D.Phil. thesis, 1965), p. 385. E. Foss, Lives of theJudges(London, I857), v, pp.
107-8, 42I-4; vi, pp. 35-7, 234-6. H. M. C. RutlandMSS., iv. p. 216. Cal.
State Papers Dom., 1633-4,p. 25I. J.Aubrey,The Natural Historyof Wiltshire,
ed. J. Britton(London, 1847), part ii, ch. xvi. MacPherson, op. cit., p. I80.
16J. H. Roach, A Directoryof EnglishCountryPhysicians,1603-43 (London,
1962). R. S. Roberts, "The Personneland Practice of Medicine in Tudor and
Stuart England", Medical History,vi (1962); viii (I964).

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN ENGLAND, 1500-1700 25
Though statisticsare whollylacking,it is likelythattherewas an

equallyimportant of secretarial
proliferation and administrative jobs.
The riseof literacystimulated therise of record-keeping, therise of
record-keepingthe increase of record-keepers.An increasingly
specializedsocietydemandedever more specializedservices. The
Courtand centralroyalbureaucracy seemsto have been stabilizedat
about600 personsup to theCivilWar,and showedonlylimitedsigns
of increasein minorand unauthorizedclericalposts,while in the
provincestherewereaboutanother600 pettyand part-time officials.
But the English Revolution- like all revolutions- demanded
a greatexpansionof stateemployees,partlyas soldiersto holddown
the defeatedpartyand wardoffexternalthreats,partlyas officials to
exacttaxesto payforthewar,and to handletheboldprojectsofsocial
engineeringthat revolutionary governments always embarkupon.
Much of this expansionsurvivedthe emergency, and Restoration
England founditself
saddled with a largenavy, a small standingarmy,
and a new force of excisemen,Hearth Tax collectors,Customs
officers, and dockyardworkerswhosepoliticalrole
Treasuryofficials,
as obsequiousgovernment supporterssoon arousedthe alarmof the
CountryParty.
How farthesenew officeswere an avenue of upwardmobilityis
uncertainbut theycertainlyexpandedenormouslythe numbersof
theprofessional and administrative classesduringand afterthe Civil
War. By the late eighteenthcenturythe numberin these new
centralofficesenjoyingfees and salariesof over £Ioo a year was
perhapsaroundI,ooo, whilethoseearningbetween£50 and £Ioo ran
into severalthousands. As for local officers, nothingwhateveris
known,but here again theremust have been severalthousandof
them. Althoughthe major increase in the number of officers
occurredin thehundredyearsaftertheaccessionofWilliamIII, there
is stillsome reasonto believethattheremusthave been up to three
or fourthousandlocal and centraloffice-holders in I690 withincomes
over£Ioo and at leastas manyagainwithincomesbetween£5o and
£I00.17
was the increasethroughout
Perhapsequallyimportant the whole
17 W. T. MacCaffrey, "Place and Patronage in Elizabethan Politics", in
Elizabethan Governmentand Society,ed. S. T. Bindoffet a!. (London, 1961),
pp. Io6-8. Aylmer, op. cit., p. 254; and "Place Bills and the Separation of
Powers", Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc., 5th ser., xv (1965), pp. 65-6. These very
rough guesses for 1690 I owe to the kindnessof ProfessorDaniel Baugh. The
firmfiguresforcentraloffice-holders in the late eighteenthcenturyare derived
from The Report of the Commissioners on Fees, I786-7 (P.P., I806, vol. vii).
Reportsof Committees, vol. xi, pp. II4 ff.,200 ff. CommonsJournals,vol. xli,
pp. 9 ff.;vol. xlii, pp. 48 ff.

of the sixteenthand seventeenthcenturiesin the numbers of

secretariesand agents of private landlords and businessmen.18
Lastly, it can hardlybe doubted that urbanizationand greater
commercial bothat homeand abroadmusthavecauseda very
activity
substantialincreasein thenumbersof merchants and shopkeepers.
(2) Income. Throughoutthe sixteenthcenturythe pressureof
excess supply of labour relativeto demand not only increased
unemployment butalso forceddownrealwagesto an alarmingdegree,
the Phelps Brownindexsuggesting a declineby as muchas 50%,.19
Even if this is an undulypessimisticcalculation,the fall was un-
doubtedlyof a magnitudeforwhichthereis no parallelin English
historysince the thirteenth century. The livingstandardsof the
labouringclasses wentdown sharplyin the sixteenthcentury,and
stayed down throughoutthe seventeenth.On the other hand,
throughoutthe whole of the sixteenthcenturyand much of the
seventeenth therewas a striking rise in the materialcomforts of all
classesfromthe yeomenupwards,groupswho benefited fromrising
agriculturalprices, increased commercialactivity,and increased
demandforprofessional services. This is shownby theincreasein
the amountof domesticequipmentmentionedby WilliamHarrison
and othersand provenbythestudyofprobateinventories; and bythe
increasednumberof roomsin housingerectedduringwhathas been
describedas "The GreatRebuilding".20At thegentry level,thereis
some roughstatisticalevidenceto suggestthatthe yearsI575-I625
saw morecountry-house buildingthanany otherSo-yearperiodin
ourhistory,21 whichis itselfsignificantproofofa "riseofthegentry".
18
Stone, op. cit.,pp. 274-94. Wilson, op. cit.,p. I7. Examples of the new
kind of secretarial/professionalcareersin private and royal service are those of
Edward Palavicino at a lower level and JohnPym and Sir Benjamin Rudyard at
a higher: L. Stone, An Elizabethan: Sir Horatio Palavicino (Oxford, I956),
pp. 316-20; M. F. Keeler, The Long Parliament,1640-41 (Philadelphia, 1954),
pp. 318-9, 329.
19E. H. Phelps Brown and S. V. Hopkins, "Seven Centuries of Prices of
Consumables compared with Builders' Wage-rates", Econonmica, xxiii (1956),
repr. in Essays in EconomicHistory,vol. ii, ed. E. M. Carus-Wilson (London,
1962).
20 W. Harrison, Descriptionof England, in R. H. Tawney and E. Power,
Tudor Economic Documents(London, I924), iii, pp. 68-72. R. Reyce, The
Breviary of Suffolk,ed. Francis Lord Hervey (London, 1902), pp. 49-52.
F. Bacon, "Observations on a Libel", in J. Spedding, Life and Lettersof Sir
Francis Bacon (London, 1890), i, pp. 158-9. W. G. Hoskins, ed., Essays in
Leicestershire History (Liverpool, I950), pp. 132-6, 179-83; "Elizabethan
Merchants of Exeter", loc. cit.,pp. 178-83. M. W. Barley, The EnglishFarm-
house and Cottage (London, 1961), pp. 38-179. W. G. Hoskins, "The
Rebuilding of Rural England, I570-I640", Past and Present,no. 4 (Nov., 1953);
The Midland Peasant (London, 1957), pp. 185-6, 296-8.
21 This observation is based on a survey of the evidence in the counties
covered so farby N. Pevsnerin the Penguin Buildingsof Englandseries.

It is probable,but not yet proven,thatthe averageincomeand

capitalvalueoftheLondon monopolymerchants and financiers,
rose
considerablythroughout the period.22 The incomeof nobles and
courtierscertainlyfell sharplyin the late sixteenthcenturybut
recoveredin the earlyseventeenth.23And lastlythe incomeof the
higherclergywas sharplycurtailedat and aftertheReformation, the
process only stoppingat the accessionof JamesI. Althoughthe
incomeof someof thelowerclergykeptpace withprices,thatofthe
others,particularly vicarsand curates,probablyfell.24 We do not
yet know enoughabout lawyersor administrators to reach a firm
conclusion,althoughthe impressionis thattheireconomicposition
was improving, as was certainly thatof medicalpractitioners.It is
an ill windwhichblowsnobodyanygood,and theincreaseof small-
pox and venerealdiseasebroughtwealthto manydoctors'pockets.25
For one hundredyears afterthe Restoration,however,thereis
reasonto believethatthefortunes of thevariouslevelsof thelanded
classes were dramatically reversedfromthe trendsof the previous
century. The holdingsof the aristocracyand greaterlandlords
steadilyincreased,those of the small yeomenand freeholders were
convertedintoleaseholds,and the smallergentrywereeconomically
depressedby thestagnation offoodpricesand theriseoftaxationon
theland.26
(3) Status. Aftera severeslumpin thesixteenth century,therewas
a markedrisein themiddleoftheseventeenth century in thestatusof
thelesserclergy,as theybecamebettereducated,betterpaid, and of
moregenteelsocialorigins;27secondly,therewas an improvement in
the statusof lesserlegal officialslike countryattorneys, culminating
in theformation in 1739 ofa professional organization,"The Society
of GentlemenPractisers" ;28 thirdly, therewas a risein statusof the
medical professionas a whole as its professionaland educational
standardsimproved;and fourthly, therewas a slowbut steadyrisein
thestandingofthe merchant classin theeyesofthegentry. By the
middleoftheseventeenth century, theold viewthattheyoungerson
22 For the wealth of the
Jacobean aldermen,see R. G. Lang, "The Greater
Merchants of London in the early Seventeenth Century" (Oxford D.Phil.
thesis, 1963). Some figuresfor officiallyrecorded personal incomes are given
in W. K. Jordan,The CharitiesofLondon,I480-i660 (London, I960), pp. 53-4.
23 Stone, Crisis,
pp. 156-64, 470-6.
24
C. Hill, EconomicProblemsof theChurch(Oxford, 1956), ch. ix.
2 The
JournalofJamesYonge,ed. F. N. L. Poynter(London, 1963).
26 H. J. Habakkuk,
"English Landownership, I680-I740", Econ. Hist. Rev.,
x (1940); "La Disparition du Paysan Anglais", Annales E.S.C., xx (I965).
27 See above, note
2 R. Robson, 5.
op. cit., ch. iii.

of a gentlemanlost his gentility by becomingan apprenticewas still

held only by a few legal pedants,heralds,and othersocial con-
servatives.
These changeswereall theproductof the upgradingof tradeand
the professionsrelativeto the landed classes. What cannot at
presentbe determined is whetherthis was a resultof an influxof
superfluousyoungersons of gentry,who had to be providedfor
somehowor other;or whethertheinfluxwas theresultnotso much
of economicnecessityas of a changein attitudetowardsoccupations
whoseutilityto societyas a wholewas increasingly beingrecognized.
The probabilityis that the ideologicaland the economicchanges
marchedhand in hand,thusrelievingthe historianof the responsi-
bilityof distinguishing horsefromcart.
Thirdly,at theupperlevelstherewas a striking thoughtemporary
fall in the prestigeof the peers in the earlyseventeenth century,
demonstrated by a declinein tenantloyalty,gentrydeference,and
electoralobedience. This declinepreparedthewayfortheabolition
of the House of Lords in I649.29 And lastlytherewas a similar
decline in the statusof courtiers,as a "Country"interestand a
"Country"morality,expressedin a "CountryParty",emergedas a
self-consciousinterest groupwitha well-defined ideologicalcontent.30
(4) Power. In the sixteenthcentury,thanks to the growing
strength oftheCrown,therewas a declinein thepoliticalauthority of
peers; in the seventeenth century,thanksto the growingpowerof
Parliament, therewas a declinein thepoliticalinfluence of courtiers;
thebeneficiaries ofbothmovements werethegreatergentry, although
thepeerswererecovering someoftheirpoweragaintowardstheend
of the century.3l Secondly,the politicalinfluenceof the clergywas
virtuallyeliminatedat the Reformation, a loss which was only
partiallyand temporarily made up in the I63os. And thirdlythere
was a markedincreasein the influenceof the merchantcommunity
over English policy - especiallyforeignpolicy - thanksto the
leverageit could exerciseover any governmentby the offeror
withholding of its facilitiesforcredit.
By dividingthis analysisof changesin group profilesinto four
distinctsections,the two importantshiftsin Englishsocietyhave
tendedto be lostto view. The firstwas a polarization ofsocietyinto
richand poor: the upperclassesbecamerelatively morenumerous,
29 Stone,
op. cit., pp. II9-22, 163-4, 266-70, 476-81, 662-8, 743-53.
30 P.
Zagorin, "The Court and the Country", Eng. Hist. Rev., lxxvii (I962),
pp. 306-II. Aylmer,"Place-bills", loc. cit.
31 Stone, op. cit., ch. v. M. E. James, Change and Continuityin the Tudor
North(BorthwickPapers, xxvii,York, I965).

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN ENGLAND, 1500-I700 29
and their real incomes rose; the poor became relativelymore

numerousand theirreal incomesfell. The second was a greater
equalityamongtheupperclasses:firstly thewealthand powerofthe
greatergentryincreasedrelativeto those of the aristocracy;and
secondlymembersof the trades and professionsrose in wealth,
numbersand social statusrelativeto the landed classes. How far
thislast development had proceededcan be glimpsedby lookingat
GregoryKing'snotimplausibleguessesaboutthestructure ofsociety
in i688. He estimatedthattherewere Io,ooo merchantsby land
and sea, o1,ooo clergy,5,000greaterand 5,000lesserofficials, Io,ooo
lawyers,I6,000 personsin the sciencesand liberalarts,and 9,000
armyand navyofficers, making65,000in all. When one considers
thathe reckonedtherewereonly 6,o00ogentlemenand above,plus
40,000wealthier freeholders, and that(ifhis figuresareto be trusted)
thetotalincomeof theprofessional and commercial groupswas now
as
nearly great as thatof the landed proprietors,it becomes clearthat
English societyno longerconformedto the traditionalpattern.32
The landedclassesmightcontinueto wieldpoliticalpowerand be the
arbitersof social statusforanothertwo hundredyears,but theyhad
nowto tempertheexerciseofthisauthority witha carefulregardfor
thesenewerelementsin the society.
Changesin IndividualMobility
(i) Horizontal. Individualmobilitymay be horizontalfromone
geographicalarea or occupationto another,or vertical,up or down
the social and economicscale. The two are interrelated in that
although most people move horizontallyto avoid slippingdown-
wards,thereare still some who do so in the hope of also moving
verticallyupwards. To the extentthathorizontalmobilityreflects
thesecondmotiveratherthanthefirst, therefore,it is an indicatorof
thoughby no meansnecessarily
risingaspirations, of risingachieve-
ments.
(a) Internal. There is good reason to suppose that physical
mobility,even in the village, was far greaterthan is generally
supposed. Boththe musterrollsand the detailedcensusreturnsof
twoindividualvillagessuggesta turnoveras highas 500 to 60% in
ten years. If removalby deathaccountedforsome 20%, thereare
still some 30-40% who moved on in a given Io-yearspan, which
indicatesthattheseventeenth-centuryvillagewas veryfarfrombeing
32 MacPherson, op. cit., p. 280. Professor Baugh tells me that he thinks
King substantiallyoverestimatedthe number of officialsin the upper category.

a staticor isolatedunit.33 This mobilitycan partlybe explainedby

the high proportionof the communitywho workedas living-in
servants. These would move away fromhome to take serviceand
moveon againto changeemployers or to getmarried. Partlyit was
caused by a steadyprocessof buyingand sellingof smallproperties
and engrossing of holdings. A good deal ofit, however,was caused
by two major trends. There was a movementfromthe more
densely-settled areas into undevelopedland in the forests,the fens
and theHighlandzone; and therewas perhapsan evenmoremassive
driftfromthe countrysideto the towns,and especiallyLondon.
The firstmovementis difficult to documentstatistically, but is
evidentfrommanylocal and estaterecords.34Moreovertherewas
a verygreatincreasein thevolumeoffoodproductionoverthesetwo
centuries,so greatthatEnglandbecame a net exporterof corn on
a verylargescale by the end of the seventeenth despitethe
century,
doublingof its population. This has to be explainedmainlyby the
openingup of virginlands by a restlessly mobilepopulationseeking
a livingwhereveropportunity offered.
The flowinto the townsis more easily demonstrated.As one
would expect if the populationdoubled, most towns show some
growthafterI550. In the earlysixteenthcenturyLondon had a
populationof about 60,000,therewas one othertownof morethan
o0,000, and not morethanfourteen of morethan 5,000. Between
1550 and I650 a few places like Norwich,Newcastle,York and
Bristol may have doubled or trebled to between 12,000 and 20,000,
but London and its suburbsincreasedsixfoldto about350,000. By
nowLondonwas clearlyin a classbyitself,and it wenton growingto
about 550,000by the end of the century. In otherwords,London
comprisedperhaps2% of the populationof Englandand Wales in
1500, 5% in 600o and Io% in I700. In viewoftheveryhighurban
deathrates,thismassiveincreaseis evidencethata largeproportion
of the surpluspopulationin the countryside was annuallypouring
intothe capitalcity. Even whenthe citywas devastatedby plague
and lostsomeI5%o ofitsinhabitants,as occurredin 1603and 1625,so
33E. E. Rich, "The Population of Elizabethan England", Econ. Hist. Rev.,
2nd ser., ii (I949-50), p. 259. P. Styles,"A Census of a WarwickshireVillage
in 1698", Univ. of BirminghamHist. Ji., iii (I95I), pp. 45-8. Laslett, "Clay-
worthand Cogenhoe", loc. cit.,p. 183. L. M. Marshall, "The Rural Population
of Bedfordshire,I67I to 1921", Beds. Hist. Rec. Soc., xvi (I934), pp. 53-64.
34 G. H. Tupling, The EconomicHistoryof Rossendale(Manchester, 1927),
pp. 42-97. J. Thirsk, Fenland Farming in the SixteenthCentury(Leicester,
I953), pp. 21-2. M. Campbell, The English Yeoman (New Haven, 1942),
pp. 72, 93-7. P. A. J. Pettit, "Charles I and the Revival of Forest Law in
Northamptonshire", Northamptonshire Past and Present, iii (1961), p. 54.
E. Kerridge, "The Revolts in Wiltshire against Charles I", Wilts. Arch.
Magazine, lvii (1958), pp. 66-70.

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN ENGLAND, I500-I700 3I
greatwas theinfluxthatthelossesweremadeup withintwoyears,to

judge from the statisticsof baptisms,marriagesand burials.35
A London parson in the reign of Elizabethremarkedthat every
twelveyearsor so "the most part of the parishchangeth,as I by
experienceknow,some goingeand some comminge"- a situation
which resemblesnothingso much as Los Angeles in the mid-
twentieth century.36Whateffectthisenormousshiftof population
had upon statusor livingstandardsis entirelyunknown,but it may
wellhavebeendownwardon bothcounts. Manyofthesewanderers
failedto finda permanent homeeitheron thewastesand forestsor in
thetowns,and thereis plentyof evidence- if of a non-quantitative
character - fora seriousincreaseofvagabondage.
One rungup the social ladder,however,horizontalmobilitywas
probablymorerewarding. It was certainly so forcraftsmentrained
in a skillthroughtheexpensiveand tediousprocessofapprenticeship,
forthe Hearth Tax returnsindicatethatthe incomeof the urban
craftsman was a good deal higherthanthatofhis ruralcounterpart.37
In this connectionsome interestingconclusionsemergefroman
analysisoftheapprenticeship recordsof London companies. These
show that betweenthe early sixteenthand the early eighteenth
centuriestherewas a striking changein thegeographicaldistribution
ofrecruitment.Professor Thrupphad notedthatin thelatefifteenth
centurynearlyhalfthe apprenticesof two London companieshad
comefromtheNorth,and thereis evidencethatthispatternpersisted
foranotherIoo years. The onlyearlysixteenth-century recordsare
whatsurvivesofthelistof menwho had completedtheirapprentice-
ship and wereadmittedto the Freedomof the City,mostlybetween
1535and I553. Theyshowthatoverhalfcamefromnorthand west
of a line Trent-Severn-Bournemouth. The patternis confirmed by
the later recordsof apprenticeship in the Carpenters'and Fish-
mongers'Companies. Bothrecruited about40% fromtheHighland
zone up to the Civil War, but only20/o or less by the end of the
seventeenth century. There was a corresponding riseof apprentices
3 Date London England and Wales /
1500 6o,ooo 3,000,000 2 /,

600o 225,000 5 /0
4,500,000
1700 550,000 5,500,000 io0%
C. Creighton, "The Population of Old London", Blackwood's Magazine,
cxlix (Edinburgh, Apr., I891). N. G. Brett-James,The Growthof Stuart
London (London, I935), ch. xx. Wilson, op. cit., p. 47. W. G. Hoskins,
ProvincialEngland (London, 1963), ch. iv. MacCaffrey,Exeter,pp. 12-13.
36 The Writingsof John Greenwood,1587-90, ed. L. H. Carlson (London,
1962), p. 198.
37 P. Styles, "The Social Structure of Kineton Hundred in the Reign of
Charles II", BirminghamArch. Soc. Trans., lxxviii (1962), p. I00.

fromLondonand thefourhomecountiesfromless than20% before

the Civil War to well over50% by 1700, risingto 70/0 or moreby
I750. This contraction of the area of recruitmentreceivesstriking
confirmation fromthe recordsof the Cutlers'Companyat Sheffield
whichshowthatrecruitsfromover31 milesawayfellfrom22%/ to
5% betweenthe second and the fourthquarterof the seventeenth
century,and did not rise above 12% for anotherhundredyears.
The second importanttrend over these years was fromsons of
agriculturalworkersand smallholders - yeomen,husbandmenand
labourers- to the sons of artisansand small tradesmen. This
movementwas most intensein the late seventeenthcentury,the
proportion of sons of artisansamongapprentices risingfrom50% to
74% in the Carpenters'Companybetween1654 and I693, and from
39% to 63% in theFishmongers' Companybetween1641and I704.38
Justwhatthesetwomovements meanis notentirely clear. These
apprenticeswerea fortunate elitewho wereonlya tinyminority of
themassofmigrants to Londonand onlyabouta thirdofwhomwere
destined to stay and become Freemen of the City after their
apprenticeship had expired. But thestartling declineofimmigrants
fromthe northand west,and the almostequallyimpressiverise in
the proportionof sons of artisans,surelyindicatea closingof both
horizontaland occupationalmobilitychannels. Whythisshouldbe
so we do not know. Was it due to changingopportunitiesfor
employment in the northand west, or to decliningattractionof
apprenticeship in London; or was it the automaticproductof the
expansionof numbersof bothartisansin generaland Londonersin
particular,whichmade internalrecruitment morepossible? What-
ever the cause, it is clear that a phase of veryactive horizontal
mobilityboth in geographicalrangeand in occupationalshiftwas
replacedby conditionsof relativequiescence.
(b) External. Between1620 and 1640 some 80,000 Englishmen
emigratedto Americaand the West Indies. Those who survived
thefirstharshyearsin Americareceivedverymuchgreaterlandthan
38 S. L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London (Chicago, 1948),
p. 2iI. C. Welch, Registerof Freeman of the City of London in the Reigns of
Henry VIII and Edward VI (London, 1908). Kahl, op. cit., pp. 17-20.
C. Blagden, "The Stationers' Company in the EighteenthCentury", Guildhall
Miscellany, x (I959), pp. 36-52. Bower Marsh, Records of the Worshipful
Companyof Carpenters(Oxford, 1913-39), vols. i and vi. Guildhall Library,
MSS. 5576/I-3 (Fishmongers); 5184/I (Bakers). For a discussion of the
changingsocial and economic r6le of apprenticeshipand freedomof a Company,
see J. R. Kellett, "The Breakdown of Gild and Corporation Control over the
Handicraftand Retail Trade of London", Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., x (I957-8).
E. J. Buckatsch, "Places of Origin of a Group of Immigrantsinto Sheffield,
1624-I799", Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd. ser., ii (I949-50), p. 305.

theycouldeverhopeforat home,and thereis evidenceto suggestthat

forthe humblethe moveinvolvedsome generalbut modestupward
status (and perhapsalso economic)mobility.39Mid seventeenth-
centuryMassachusettswas a ruralsocietyof smallyeomenfarmers,
withouteitherlandedgentry aboveor landlesspoorbelow.40
Far moresignificantmobilitywas achievedby colonialexploitation
ofIreland. Those whoenteredtheIrishscenein theI590s, obtained
rich pickingsin land grantsand government offices,and lived to
profitby theeconomic growthofthe earlyseventeenth century, found
themselvesendowedwithgreatwealthwhichwas easilyconverted
into statusby the purchaseof an Irish title. The richestman in
Englandin 1640was almostcertainly RobertBoyle,earlof Cork,who
had landed in Dublin fifty-twoyearsbeforeas a pennilessadven-
turer.41 By emigrationin the seventeenthcentury,whetherto
Ireland,or to America,or to the West Indies, horizontalmobility
oftenbecamea meansof movingupwards.
(2) Vertical
(a) Upward(economicand status). The basic evidenceto support
the hypothesisthat this period saw a phase of unprecedented
individualmobility,upwardsand downwards,followedby a fresh
periodof stability,lies in the statisticsforthe purchaseand sale of
land. They rise to a peak in the I6Ios, 250% higherthanin the
I56os. This greatmovementhad spentitselfbeforethe Civil War,
andlandtransfers had begunto slowup afterI620. By 1700theland
marketwas once again almostas tightas it had been in the early
sixteenth century.42
For those who were not gentlementherewere variousways of
movingupwards. University educationon a scholarship,followedby
entryintothechurch,certainly led to improvement in status,butonly
in the late seventeenth centurydid it normallylead to a reasonably
39
CambridgeHistory of the British Empire (Cambridge, 1929), i, p. I79.
S. C. Powell, Puritan Village (Middlebury, Conn., 1963), pp. I8-29, 92-II6.
M. Campbell, op. cit., pp. 279-80.
40 I
owe this point to Dr. Kenneth Lockridge.
41
T. 0. Ranger, "Richard Boyle and the making of an Irish fortune,I588-
I614", Irish Historical Studies,x (I957). A. B. Grosart, The LismorePapers,
I886-88, 2nd ser., iv, p. 259. Brit. Mus., Harleian MSS., 991, p. 8.
4' Stone, op. cit., p. 37, fig. i. That this rise and fall is a solid realityis
supported by a study of the mobilityof manorial propertyin Surrey between
I480 and I700, carried out by Mr. F. M. Brodhead, a member of my research
seminarat Princeton. He has shown that the marketforthis sort of property
was all but dead beforethe Dissolution of the monasteries,and that it was this
political act which set the process in motion; he has also confirmedthat the
movement reached its peak in the early seventeenthcentury and then died
away again.

well-paidor secure position.43 Shrewd manipulationof the land

and the agriculturalproducemarketwas far more important:the
social and economicrise of manyyeomenintothe lessergentrywas
a well-established featureof the society,at any rate beforerents
began risingsteeplyin the earlyseventeenth century.44Success in
the servicingand retailtradesofferedsome limitedopportunity for
self-improvement, thoughthis was rarelythe road to substantial
wealthand power. Serviceas agentor stewardof a large landed
estate sometimesbrought both status and financialrewards.45
Apprenticeship to a leadingmerchantwas a commonway to rise
quite high in the social scale. Commercewas the originof the
familywealthof two out of thefourteen richestYorkshiresquiresin
1642,one out of twenty-five leadingSomersetsquiresin the I630s,
7% of the EarlyStuartbaronetage, and 4% of thenew EarlyStuart
peerage. These figuressuggest that both contemporariesand
posterityhave exaggeratedthe scale of the movement,but how it
comparedwithearlieror laterperiodswe do notknow.46
As for the post-Restoration period,the remarkablecommercial
expansionof thelate seventeenth centuryclearlycreateda greatdeal
of new wealth. What is not so certain,however,is how it was
distributed. Was it concentrated in the hands of a few men like
Sir JosiahChild and Sir JohnBanks,or was it spread over the
mercantilecommunity as a whole? The closingdown of the land
marketsuggeststhat,howeverit was distributed, less of thiswealth
thanbeforewas beingconverted intosocialstatusby thepurchaseof
an estate,and moreofit was beingreinvested in long-term mortgages,
commerceand banking.47Thus neitherthe expansion of the
bureaucracynor the expansionof trade are incompatiblewiththe
hypothesisof an increasingly immobilesociety.
For a youngmanofgentlebirth,thefastestwaysofmovingup the
social scale were the lotteriesof marriagewith an heiress,Court
favour,and success at the law. The firstof the threeis usually
neglectedor ignoredby social historians,but it was probablythe
43 M. Curtis, "The Alienated Intellectuals of
Early Stuart England", Past
and Present,no. 23 (Nov., I962). Hill, op. cit.,ch. ix.
44
Campbell, op. cit., ch. v.
45MacCaffrey,Exeter,pp. 269-70. W. G. Hoskins, Essays in Leicestershire
History (Liverpool, I955), ch. iv, and "An Elizabethan Provincial Town:
Leicester", in his Provincial England, p. 107. Stone, Crisis,pp. 285-94.
48
Op. cit., p. I90. J. T. Cliffe,"The Yorkshire Gentryon the Eve of the
Civil War" (London Ph.D. thesis, I960), p. 96.
47 H. J. Habakkuk, "The English Land Market in the EighteenthCentury",
in J. S. Bromley and E. H. Kossmann, ed., Britain and the Netherlands,ii
(London, 1959), pp. I68-73.

commonestmethod of upward movementfor gentlemen. The
second, which was only open to a tiny handfulof the horde of
aspirants,could lead to dizzy heightsof wealthand grandeur-
witnessthe careersof the earl of LeicesterunderElizabeth,and the
duke of Buckinghamunder James. An analysisof the available
evidencesuggeststhatroyalbountyreacheda peak in the reignof
Jamesand then declined. The top positionsin the law were also
veryrewarding in termsof wealthand status,but we haveno wayof
telling what changes occurred over time in the numbers who
benefitedor the amountof profittheyrealized. Lastly the com-
monest,but certainly theslowest,ofall thestatuselevatorswas thrift
and diligencein estate management,a forcewhich carriedmany
gentryupwardsintothesquirearchy, and one or twosquiresupwards
intothepeerage.48 It is worthnotingthatifwe substitute India for
Ireland, these avenues of upward mobilityare preciselythose
operatinga hundredyears later,in the middle of the eighteenth
century:four fast elevators:marriage,the law, high government
service,and the colonies; three mediumfast: trade, government
contractingand finance;and two slow: estate management,and
professionsotherthan the law.49
(b) Downward(economicand status). Downwardmobilitywas
thelot ofthosewhowereimprovident or incompetent,extravagant or
unlucky. History,however,rarelyrecords,and even more rarely
paysattention to, suchtragedies. The victimssinkwithouttraceor
comment. The factthattheywereextremely commonbetween1560
and I640 is provenby the dizzyriseof land sales up to 1620, before
theotherfactorscameintoplayto reduceagainthelikelihoodofruin
and to shutoffthesupplyoflandforthemarket.
The finalquestion,to whichno firmanswercan be given,is the
degreeofstability achievedbythesociallyand economically mobileat
this period. Plentyof examplescan be instancedof wastefuland
dissolutesons of self-mademen, who ran throughthe fortune
accumulatedby theirfatherand so reducedthe familyto the status
fromwhichitbegan. Andit maywellbe thatthestatus-seeker ofthe
Tudor age experiencedconsiderabledifficulty in foundinga family
thatwouldlast. But whenthe land marketclosed downin the late
seventeenth century, whenthepressuresof demographic growthand
pricerevolution eased off,whenthestrictsettlement madealienation
of propertyextremely when institutional
difficult, road blockshad
48
Stone, op. cit.,pp. I9I-4.
49
L. B. Namier and J. Brooke, The House of Commons,I754-I790 (London,
I964), p. 104.

been erectedto confinepowerto the existingelite,thenit maywell

be thatfamilieswereestablishedwhichwerecapableof withstanding
forgenerations all but the ineluctableprocessesof biologicalfailure
in the male line. ProfessorTawneydiscoveredthatin ten counties
one thirdof all manorschangedhandsby purchaseand sale at least
once everyfortyyearsbetween1561 and I640. He also foundthat
of sixty-two largelandowningfamiliesin the area in I640, overhalf
werestilllargelandownersin I874.50 These twopiecesof evidence
puttogether suggestthatthosewhorosein thesocialscalein theearly
seventeenth century, towardstheend of thegreatphase of mobility,
had a good chanceof establishing theirfamilyon the new level of
incomeand statusoncetheavenuesofmobility wereclosed. Indeed,
it mayhavebeen justthesesocialclimberswhoweremostanxiousto
slam the door behindthem,a suggestionwhichis supportedby the
sociallyveryexclusivemarriagepatternsofthechildrenof thenewly
risenHenricianand Jacobeanpeers in the mid-sixteenth and mid-
seventeenth centuries.51
The argumentthat the period I560-I640 was an exceptionally
mobile one depends upon the statisticalevidence,but it is also
supportedby the weightof contemporary commentrunningfrom
Thomas Fuller,WilliamHabingtonand RobertReyceto the play-
wrightslikeMarstonand Massinger. In 1665,EdwardWaterhouse
publishedhis Gentleman's Monitor,or a soberInspectioninto the
Virtue,Vicesand ordinarymeansof therise and decayof menand
families. Thoughnota veryprofoundanalysis,and thoughsloppily
organized,so faras I knowthisis the firstfull-scalestudyof social
mobilityeverto have been attempted in Europe,and possiblyin the
world. It is surelyno merecoincidence thatWaterhouse shouldhave
written at theend ofthisperiodofmaximumupheaval.
IV
CAUSES
UniversalFactors
We haveverylittleprecisedata aboutsocialmobility in traditional
societies. All we do knowis firstly
thatbeforethenineteenth
century
townsfailedto reproducethemselvesbecause of the high wastage
rate fromdisease,and thatas a resultthereis bound to be a good
50 R. H.
Tawney, "The Rise of the Gentry, I558-I640", Econ. Hist. Rev.,
xi (I94I), repr. in Essays in EconomicHistory,vol. i, ed. E. M. Carus-Wilson
(London, r954): pp. I73-4, I92.
51 Stone, op. cit., pp. 629-32.

deal of horizontalmobilityfromruralto urbanareas if townlifeis
to surviveat all.52 Secondlywe knowthatthe randomdistribution
ofsterility (orlackofit) createssomeverticalmobility
and intelligence
in all societies,howeverhighlystratified and caste-riddentheymay
be. There is a highprobability thatanyone familyovera periodof
one or twohundredyearswillfailin thedirectmaleline; thereis also
the certaintythat the distributionof inheritedintelligenceand
stupiditywill not conformto the existingstatushierarchy and that
inequality of opportunitycannot always prevent consequential
mobility upwardsordownwards.Thirdlywe knowthatin all societies
the most promisingavenues of upward mobility,apart fromthe
lottery of marriage,are throughoccupationalGroupsA, B, C and D.
Boththeamountand therangeofthismobility willdependpartlyon
the psychologicalattitudesof the entrantsinto these occupations
(whetherthey are active risk-takingentrepreneurs, or cautious
conservativeswith limitedambitions);partlyon major long term
changesin the demandsby societyfortheirservices;and partlyon
changesin the legal and psychological obstaclesto assimilationinto
the elite of the upwardlymobile. If this is the normalsituation,
there were certainpeculiar featuresoperatingin sixteenth-and
seventeenth-century Englandthat gave Englishmobilityits special
character, and dictatedthe remarkablechangesthattookplace over
thesetwo hundredyears.
Factorsparticularto earlymodern England

(I) Primogeniture.In all the upper ranksof societyprimogeniture
was the rule.53 Eldest sons usuallyinheritedthe greatbulk of the
estatesof peers,gentryand yeomanfarmers. Moreover,eldestsons
receiveda betterand longereducation,and were betterplaced to
obtainrichwivesand good jobs at courtand in government, thanks
to the moreenergeticpatronageof theirfathers. Theirlifechances
were therefore verygood. In the sixteenthcenturyyoungersons
wereoftenleftsmalllandedestates,eitherin outright giftor forlife
orlives,butbytheseventeenth century theycouldnormallyexpectno
morethana modestlifeannuitywhichexpiredat theirdeath. They
weretherefore downwardly mobilefromthe verybeginningof their
careers,and wereobligedto feedintothe professional and business
groupsif theywereto maketheirwayin the world. If theyfailed,
52 J. Le Goff and R.
Romano, "Paysages et Peuplement rural en Europe
apres le XIe Siecle", Comit6 International des Sciences Historiques, XIIe
Congres International,1965, Rapports,iii, pp. 2I-2.
53
Stone, op. cit., pp. I78-83.

theirchildrenwere liable to sink still furtherdown the scale and

disappearinto the great mass of labourersand small tradesmen.
Examplescan be foundofthisdownwardprocess,but thepaucityof
evidencemakesit virtuallyimpossibleto demonstrate the trendin
statisticalterms.
(2) FamilyPatterns. Much moreresearchis neededon thissubject
but,so faras we can tell,marriageswerearrangedbyparentswithan
eyeto materialadvantage. At theupperlevelsamongtheheirsmale
therewas relativelylittleinterstratal
marriage, althoughgreatwealth
couldoftenbuya sociallygoodmarriage fora daughter:thusbetween
I600 and I659 some4% ofall marriages ofpeersweretothedaughters
or widowsof aldermen. Some two thirdsof the youngersons and
daughtersof peers were obligedto marrybelow them,presumably
mostlyintothesquirearchy. At thelowerlevelsofsociety,we know
virtuallynothingabout marriage,and until some such study as
CharlesTillyhas just publishedon the Vendeehas been completed,
our ignorancewill remain.54
The two main requirements forupwardmobility- capitaland
patronage- bothhingedon thefamily. At a timewhentheinterest
ratewas Io% and long-term credithardto comeby,theeasiestroad
to richeswas throughinheritance or marriage:forexamplesome8%
of London Jacobeanaldermenhad, whenapprentices, marriedtheir
master'sdaughter,while severalof the richestmerchantsof Eliza-
bethanExeterhad gota startbycapturing thefancyofa richwidow.55
Similarlyfamilyconnectionsusuallyprovidedthe initialleverageto
geta manstartedon a careerin thisdeferential societywheresuccess
hingedon patronage,as is wellexemplified in thecase of Pepys.
(3) The Value System. Societiesare profoundly affectedby theway
people thinkof themselves, regardlessof objectivecriteriasuch as
wealth. The mostimportant aspectsof sixteenth- and seventeenth-
centurythinkingwhichaffected social mobilitywere:
(a) The Great Chain of Being. The officialtheory,which was
verywidelyaccepted,was thateveryonehad his place in the social
systemand that it was his dutyto stay in it. Both upwardand
downwardmobilitywere deplored. This theorywas clearly at
variancewiththe factsand in the earlyseventeenth centurythere
began to be heard moreegalitarianideas whichculminatedin the
54
Op. cit., App. xxx. T. H. Hollingsworth,The Demographyof theBritish
Peerage, Supplement to Population Studies, xviii (1965), p. 9. H. Tilly, The
Vendee(Cambridge, Mass.), I964, p. 97.
55
R. G. Lang, "The GreaterMerchants of London in the early Seventeenth
Century"(OxfordD.Phil. thesis,1963). Hoskins, "The Elizabethan Merchants
of Exeter", loc. cit., p. 167.

social and politicalthinkingof the Levellers. These views were
egalitarian in thattheyexpressedhostilityto theconceptofhierarchy,
and a desireto reducethe distinctions thatcut one groupofffrom
another:onlytheearlyRenaissancehumanists had wishedto preserve
the hierarchybut to throwit open to talent. Both of these were
minority opinionsand themorecommonviewwas thatthefunctional
needsofa modernstatecouldand shouldbe matchedto thetraditional
hierarchy ofbirthbyeducatingeachsocialgroupto meetitsinherited
responsibilities.This re-vamping of medievalsocialidealsto fitthe
new politicalconditionsled to an intensificationof hostility towards
social mobility,which was at the same time undoubtedlyon the
increase. There was a floodof lamentsabout the decayof ancient
families,there was widespreadand embitteredcommenton the
ostentatiousupwardmobilityof the merchantclass, and therewas
also a good deal of complaintthat consumptionstandardsand
patternsof lifeno longerconformed to the ideal statushierarchy.56
This criticism madeit verydifficultforthearriviste to achievesocial
acceptability in his own person,although it was usuallyeasyenough
forhis son.
On the otherhand,we shall see thatthesetraditional viewswere
undergoingconsiderablemodification, and attitudestowardsthe
professions weresoftening markedly bythemiddleoftheseventeenth
century. The decline of war and the churchas the two major
occupationsforthe upperclasses,the rise in educationalstandards,
theshiftto an ideal ofadministrative and politicalserviceto thestate
or local community, the growingrealizationof the potentialitiesfor
upward mobilityof trade and the professions,all led increasing
numbersofthegentryclass,bothelderand youngersons,to seekan
outletfortheirenergiesin a careerin thelaw and government office,
and some in trade and medicine. For both functionaland social
reasons,the statusof the professions was risingrelativelyto thatof
thelandedclasses,so thatbythelate seventeenth the
century church
and the armed serviceswere again becomingpopular.
(b) Consumptionas a test of status. All commentators stressed
theobligationto maintaina suitabledisplayas a markof gentility or
nobility. The costofsuchdisplaysroseunderpressurefrombelow,
and theredevelopeda double standardof consumption, thatof the
old feudal lord with open house and numerousservantsin the
country,and that of the cultivatedMaecenas at Court. Either
couldbe ruinous,and thosewhotriedto maintainbothusuallyspent
56
Stone, op. cit., pp. 21-36.

in excess of income. Excessiveconsumptionwas thus one of the

principalcausesof downwardmobility,57 and theobligationto spend
to maintainstatuswas a powerfulbrakeon rapidupwardeconomic
mobility. At each stagethenew richhad to pause and spendfreely
in orderto establishthemselves
in theirpositionin society.
Destabilizing Factors,I540-I640
There was a wholeseriesof strongly disruptive forcesat workon
societybetween 1540 and I640, but which were not presentto
anything likethesame degreebeforeor after.
(I) Demographic Growth. Firmstatistics are impossibleto comeby,
but the best guess is thatbetween1500 and 1620 the populationof
Englandand Wales nearlydoubled,frombetween2½ and 3 million
to 5 million. This added enormously to thelabourforceand caused
horizontalmobilityand urbanization. After1620, however,there
is everysign that,exceptperhapsin the north-west, plague, land
hunger,commercialdifficulties, familylimitation,and emigration
combinedto reducetheincreaseto farmoremodestproportions.58
(2) DifferentialFertility. Between1500 and I630 therewas almost
certainlya differential fertilitypatternby whichthe upper classes
producedmorechildrenthanthepoor- theexactoppositeoftoday.
Thus an Elizabethancensusofsome450 poorfamilieswithchildrenin
Norwichshows an averageof 2 2 childrenper household,against
between4 *25 and4 *7 childrenperhouseholdofwell-to-domerchants
of Norwichand Exeter. In the countryside the same discrepancy
emergesfromsuchdataas areavailable.59 The causesofthisstriking
difference are not hard to find.
(a) There was a difference in the averageage, duration,and fre-
of
quency marriage. For the eldestsonsofpeers(andprobablyalso of
squires)in thelatesixteenth century, theaverageage of marriage(of
thosewho did marry)was 21, and forall childrenand grandchildren
ofpeers,includingbothheirsmaleand youngersons,it was 25 to 26.
57 Op. cit., pp. 184-8, 547-86.
58 V.C.H., Leics. W. G. Hoskins, "The
(London, I955), iii, pp. I37-47.
Population of an English Village, o086-i80o: a study of Wigston Magna", in
his ProvincialEngland, pp. 185-200. Lionel Munby, Hertfordshire Population
Statistics, 1563-1801 (HertfordshireLocal History Council, I964), p. 21.
L. Owen, "The Population of Wales in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries", Trans.oftheCymmrodorion Society(I959), pp. II3. W. G. Howson,
"Plague, Povertyand Population in parts of North-WestEngland, 1580-1720",
Lancs. and Chesh.Hist. Soc. Trans.,cxii (I960), pp. 29-55.
59J. F. Pound, "An Elizabethan Census of the Poor", Univ. of Birmingham
Hist. J7.,viii (I962), p. I42. P. Laslett, The World We Have Lost (London,
I965), p. 69.

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN ENGLAND, 1500-1700 4I
For yeomenand below,however,the averageage of marriagein the

earlyseventeenthcenturywas 27 to 28. Far more importantfor
is the age of marriageof women,and it is here that the
fertility
contrastis mostmarked. BetweenI550 and 1625 the daughtersof
theupperclassesmarriedat 20 to 21, whereasdaughtersofthelower
classeshad to waittilltheywere24 to 25. The reproduction period
ofthelatterwas therefore significantlyshorter thanthatoftheformer,
and in the absenceof contraception wouldhave resultedin between
one and twochildrenfewerper family. The reasonsforthispattern
of delayedmarriageamongthelowerclassesare fairlyclear. In the
artisanclass the seven-yearapprenticeshipsystemput a stop to
marriagebeforetheage of25 or thereabouts; in thecountryside most
young people began as living-in servants for either domestic or
agriculturalwork,while the eldest sons of freeholdersor tenant
farmershad to wait forthe deathof theirfatherbeforetheycould
affordto marry. This pattern determinedthe female age of
marriage, sinceit seemsto havebeena convention fromtopto bottom
of seventeenth-century societyto marrywomen only about three
yearsyoungerthanoneself.60
Equallyimportant in producinggreaterupperclassfertility was the
veryhigh rate of re-marriage at this level of society,so that the
interruption of the procreative processby deathof husbandor wife
(which was an extremelyfrequentoccurrence)was reduced to a
minimum. There is reason to believe that both marriageand
re-marriagewas less easy for those in less favourableeconomic
circumstances, and indeedat Lichfieldat the end of the seventeenth
century manyas 31% ofall womenin thefertile
as age-groupbetween
25 and 44 wereeitherwidowsorspinsters.6
(b) Therewas a difference in naturalfertility:
thereis clearevidence
that lactationimpedesfertility, althoughthe preciseshare of this
effectbetweenthe physiological prevention of ovulationand a social
taboo on sexual intercoursewith a sucklingwoman is at present
unknown. 62 Now in the upperclassesinfants wereputout to lower-
class wet-nurses at birth,whereasprolongedlactationbythe mother
forup to twoyearswas normalamongthepoor.
60
Hollingsworth,op. cit., p. 25. Laslett, op. cit., p. 83. Stone, op. cit.,
App. xxxiii and furtherinformationfrom peerage genealogies extracted by
Mrs. J. C. Stone. Glass and Eversley, op. cit., pp. I53, 454, 468. P. Styles,
"A Census of a WarwickshireVillage in I698", Univ. of BirminghamHist. Ji.,
iii (I95I), p. 38.
61
Stone, op. cit.,pp. 6I9-23. Glass and Eversley,op. cit.,p. I8I. Hollings-
worth,op. cit., p. 20. Styles, op. cit.,p. 40.
62 P. Vincent, "Recherches sur la Fecondite
Biologique", Population, xvi
(1961), p. 112. L. Henry, "La Fecondite Naturelle", Population,xvi (1961),
p. 633.

(c) There was a difference in infantmortality:moreupper-class

childrensurvivedto a marriageable age, sincethe deathrateamong
upper-classinfantswas almostcertainly lowerthanamongthepoor.
In one parish of the city of York in the healthyyears I572-85,
childrenunderthe age of two made up 34% of all burials. The
genealogicalrecordsofthepeeragesuggesta considerably lowerrate,
theexpectation oflifeat birthat thatperiodbeingabout35 forboys
and 38 for girls.63 This was presumablybecause these children
livedin thecountryside ratherthanin towns,and werebetterhoused,
betterclothedand betterfed (thoughtheywereadmittedly exposed
to theattentions offecklesswet-nurses and of doctors,who oftendid
moreharmthangood). Moreover,in theseventeenth century,there
grewup institutions whose practicalachievement, if not ostensible
purpose,was to eliminatethe unwantedchildrenof the poor: both
foundling hospitalsand workhouses were highlyeffective infanticide
agencies. In early eighteenth-century London, the latter were
killingoffsome88% oftheirchildren, and indeedin someparishesit
was reportedthat"no infanthad livedto be apprenticed fromtheir
workhouses". 64
As a resultof all thesefactors,fertility amongthe upperclasses
was veryhigh indeed, and the peers had an effective generation
replacementrate of unparalleledmagnitude- as high as 5 for
thosebornbetweenI550 and 600o. In otherwordsbetweenabout
1580 and I630 the childrenof peers were producing50% more
childrenper generation.65The intensecompetitionfor jobs and
offices in thedecadesbeforethe CivilWar can bestbe understoodin
thelightofthisremarkable demographic phenomenon.
(3) Price Revolution.Largely,but not entirely,as a resultof this
demographic growth,pricesrose by between400% and 650% from
I500 to I640. Food prices (and thereforeagriculturalprofits)
soared, wages and other less adaptable revenueslagged behind.
Wholesocialand occupationalgroupsroseor fellas a result.
(4) FreeLand Market. BetweenI534 and i650 theCrownseizedall
the revenuesof the monasteriesand the chantries,and substantial
portionsof those of the bishops. To pay forwar, it immediately
sold muchofit,therestbeingdisposedofat intervals underfinancial
stress. Includingall sales of Crownand Churchlands,as muchas
25% or 30% of the total landed area of the country,whichhad
previouslybeen locked up in institutional hands, may have been
63 V.C.H., Yorks., loc. cit., p. 12I.Hollingsworth,op. cit., pp. 56-7.
64 Wilson, England's Apprenticeship,600o-1763, p. 352.
65 Hollingsworth,op. cit., pp. 32-4.

releasedon to the privatemarketbetweenI534 and I660. By the
Restorationthe processwas virtuallycomplete.66
This throwingof Crownand Churchlands on to the marketwas
accompaniedby an equally importantdevelopmentwhichreleased
a hugemassofprivateproperty, whichhad previously beentiedup by
againstalienation. In the late middle ages the
legal restrictions
barrieragainstthe free dispositionof
entail was a fairlyeffective
propertyby the currentowner;in the late seventeenth centurythe
strictsettlementservedthesame purpose. BetweenI530 and I660,
however,therewere relativelyfew and weak legal obstaclesto the
alienationof property. The resultof this legal situationand of
various economicpressureswas the massivetransferof land by
purchaseand sale, whichreacheda peak in the I6Ios. It shouldbe
notedthatbothfactorsinvolved,theseizureand dispersalof Church
lands and the freeingof private propertyfrom restrictionson
alienation,were the result of politico-legalaction supportedand
encouragedby the landed classesthemselves.
(5) Increased CommercialActivity. Foreign trade expanded in
sudden bursts, particularlyfrom I508 to 1551, I603 to 1620, and
I660 to I688. More important, butless easyto document,mayhave
beenthegrowthofcreditand transport and theconsequent
facilities,
expansion of market activityinsidethe country. Theirdevelopment
increasedboththenumbersand theamountand rangeofmobility of
the merchants.
(6) IncreasedLitigation. The end of violence,the growthof com-
mercialactivity,and the openingof the land marketenormously
increasedthe volumeof litigation, the main resultof whichwas to
transfer wealthfromthe landed classesto the lawyers.67
(7) The PuritanEthic. The Puritanstook a stronglymoralistic-
indeed medieval- approachto economicaffairs,and the puritan
merchant was consequentlysubjectto almostintolerablepsychological
pressuresas he stroveboth to maximizeprofitsand to conformto
ethicaldoctrinesof the just price.68 On the otherhand, insistent
puritanindoctrination on self-discipline
and the virtueof striving
in
the callingcould hardlyavoid producingpersonalitieswith strong
anal-eroticcharacteristics
and a highachievement motive. Once the
childrenwere grown up, their obsession with thriftand hard,
66
Stone, op. cit., p. I66.
67
Op. cit., pp. I9I, 240-2.
68The autobiography of the pious London and Boston merchant Robert
Keayne is the locus classicusof this dilemma: B. Bailyn, ed., The Apologia of
RobertKeayne (New York, 1965).

rationallyplanned,workcarriedtheminexorablyalongtowardsthe
corruptions of wealthand upwardsocial mobility.
There is some reason to believe,however,that this ideological
factordid not become fullyoperativeuntilthe I63os, forits best
theoreticalexpression comes from Richard Baxter. Moreover,
evidenceof close associationof religiousDissent with commercial
successdoes notbecomeplentifuluntilafterthe Restoration. Even
thentheassociationmayhavebeenas muchan incidentalby-product
of exclusionfromsocial and politicallifeunderthe ClarendonCode
as a directconsequenceof religiousideology.
More important thanthispossibleeconomiclink,are the indirect
and accidentalconsequencesof Puritanism. One is the stressthe
Puritanslaid on Bible-reading, and hencethe spreadof elementary
education. Anotheris theself-confidence and senseofrighteousness
arisingfromcontracttheologyand the doctrineof the Elect,which
gave men the assuranceto aspirehighand to challengetheirsocial,
economicand politicalsuperiors. Furthermore the democratic,or
at theveryleastoligarchic, tendenciesofPuritanchurchorganization
workedagainstthe heirarchical and authoritarianconceptof society
and was thusa destablizing force. "Purityis Parity"was theslogan
oftheirAnglicanenemies,and therewas something in thetaunt.
Finally one can point to certainchronologicalcorrespondences
which are, at the veryleast, suggestiveof interconnections.The
greatage of social mobilitypreciselycoincideswiththe greatage of
Puritanism. It is also, perhaps,rathertoo much of a coincidence
thata contentanalysisof popularliteraturerevealsa highpeak of
achievementmotifsat preciselythe same period.69 This periodof
widespreadchallengesto the officialsystemof values contrasts
sharplywiththe post-Restoration development of Divine Rightand
PassiveObediencenotions,and stillmorewiththesmugcomplacency
with which Englishmenregardedthe existingsocial and political
orderafterthe GloriousRevolutionof I688.
(8) EducationalExpansion. The period I560 to I640 saw an un-
precedentededucationalboom, which affectedall but the lowest
levels of society. This did not only produce quantitatively a re-
markablyliteratesociety;it also turnedout an educatedgentryand
aristocracy in excessof the capacityof government serviceto absorb
them,and lower-classclergymenin excess of the cures of souls
available. If formanythe fruitsof thiseducationalexpansionwere
bitter,thespreadofliteracy andtheincreasedopportunities forhigher
69M. Walzer, The Revolutionof theSaints (Cambridge, Mass., I965), passim.
D. McClelland, The AchievingSociety(New York, I96I), p. I39.

educationforthe childrenof yeomenand artisans,must have in-

creasedthe possibilityof upwardmobilityforintellectualtalent.70
The secularization of the statemayhave destroyedthe opportunity
fortheoccasionalchildofthemoderately humbleto shootup via the
churchto highpoliticaloffice, but thegrowthofeducationand ofthe
professions openedup otherand wideravenuesto hardlyless exalted
positions.
AfterI640 firstthe disturbanceof the Civil War and then the
social reactionof the Restorationput an end to the expansionof
secondaryand highereducation,whichwentinto a decline. After
I660 opportunities forsocial advancementvia the professions must
havebeen proportionately reduced,and confinedto thosewho could
stillgainaccessto thisnarrowededucationalladder.
(9) Revolutionary PoliticalAction. One would have supposed that
the politicalupheavalsof the EnglishRevolutionbetweenI640 and
I660 must have producedfar-reaching social changes. Now it is
certainlytruethatrevolutionary activitywas itselfa vehicleforsocial
mobility, in thatpreviouslysubmergedindividuals, low-bornparsons
like Stephen Marshall, backwoods gentrylike Oliver Cromwell,
frustrated pettybourgeoislikeJohnLilburne,foundan opportunity
to take the centreof the stage and even to seize powerfromtheir
socialsuperiors.
But the temporary collapseof the traditionalorderand the tem-
poraryinversionof roleshad no lastingeffectupon Englishsociety.
It has been shown conclusivelythat the old landlords,even the
royalists,survivedthe Interregnum farbetterthanmighthave been
expected. No new class of successfulgenerals,entrepreneurs and
parliamentary committee menaroseout of the I65os, if onlybecause
Church,Crown,and Royalistlands werenearlyall restoredto their
former ownersat theRestoration.7 Lowerdownthesocialscalethe
schemesoftheLevellersforconverting copyholdtenureintofreehold
weredefeated,and thetenantry and smallfreeholders wereprobably
depressedbytheburdenofwartaxation,plunderand billeting, rather
than elevatedby any new officialconcernfortheirwelfare. The
risinggovernment debt and the expansionof government services
enhanced the prestigeand increased the fortunesof financiers,
contractors and leadingofficials,but the significanceof thesefactors
70 Stone, "Educational Revolution", loc. cit.
71 J. "The Sale of land
Thirsk, Royalist during the Interregnum",Econ.
Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., v (1952-3), pp. I88-207; and "The Restoration Land
Settlement", Jl. Mod. Hist., xxvi (1954), pp. 315-28. H. J. Habakkuk,
"Landowners and the Civil War", Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xviii [I] (I965),
pp. I30-51.

does notseemto havebeenverygreat. Societyin I660 lookedmuch

as it had in I640, and the numberof new familieswho had risen,
or old familieswho had fallen,overthe previoustwentyyearsdoes
not seem to have been at all exceptional. In termsof permanent
socialchange(as opposedto a permanent legacyofideas) theEnglish
Revolutionwas theleastsuccessfulof all the "Great Revolutions"in
history.
StabilizingFactors,I65o- 1700
During the course of the late seventeenthcentury,a series of
stabilizingfactorsbecame operativewhich severelydampenedthe
processofsocialmobility,and at thesametimeeasedsocialtensions.
(I) Of the maindestabilizingfactors,demographicgrowth,price
revolution,freeland market,educationalexpansion,Puritanideo-
logical enthusiasm,and revolutionary activityhad all been sub-
stantiallyreducedby I660, some of thembeginningto declineas
early as 1620.
(2) There was a sharpdropin fertility and a sharprisein mortality
amongtheupperclasses,so thatcohortsbornbetween1625and I674
were barelyreproducingthemselves,and those betweenI675 and
1749 wereactuallyfallingbehind.72 This dramaticchangefromthe
pre-CivilWar conditionof an excessof childrento be accommodated
in a relativelystaticjob marketmustenormously havereducedsocial
competition twenty-five yearslater,thatis afterI660.
(3) The naturalresultof a longperiodof social mobility, followed
by civil war and violentpoliticaland social upheavalwas a deter-
minationin themindsofall classesto puta damperon change,and to
reasserttraditional controlby traditional authorities.73Althoughin
some respectsit only acceleratedtrendsalreadyvisible in Early
Stuart society, this post-Restorationconservativereaction was
perhapsthe moststrikingpracticalconsequenceof the Revolution.
The resultscan be seen mostclearlyin the fieldof education,which
was now carefully adjustedto the needsof the elite. BetweenI570
and 1650 secondaryand university educationhad beenrunningwild,
resulting in a free-for-all
competitive struggleuncontrolled by the
existingelite,whichproduceda surplusof qualifiedmen for the
availableelitejobs, and whichfailedto indoctrinate themwithelite
values and elite behaviourpatterns. Hence the lamentationsof
conservatives likeBaconand Hobbes in theearlyseventeenth century
that educationwas undermining the basis of establishedsociety.
72
Hollingsworth,op. cit.,pp. 32-3.
73Stone, Crisis,pp. 30-I.

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN ENGLAND, I500-1700 47
Afterthe Restoration,however,educationalopportunitiesat this
higherlevel weresharplyreduced,and Englisheducationalpatterns
settleddownto thattraditionof "sponsoredmobility"whichit has
retainedeversince. By thissystema minority ofyouthsare selected
by the eliteand theiragentsat an earlyage fortrainingin classical
studiesand aestheticappreciation, in preparationforadmissioninto
thisexclusiveworld. The eighteenth-century grammarschoolsand
universities withtheirlimitedscholarshipfacilities,and the public
schools of the nineteenthcentury,both performed this task of in-
doctrinating theaspiringfewwiththeidealsand valuesoftheexisting
elite. A recurrenceof the dangerously competitive situationof the
earlyseventeenth century has consequentlybeenavoidedeversince.
This adjustmentof the educationalsystemwas only achieved,
however,at considerableintellectual cost. It was not onlyin terms
of quantitythat English education declined: qualitatively,the
Ancientstriumphed overtheModerns,and enforced theirviewofthe
role of classicalstudiesin thecurriculum;sociallytheRoyal Society,
aftera promisingbeginningas an intellectualgroupopen to talent
regardlessof rank,degeneratedinto a club for gentlemanly dilet-
tantes.74 By I720 Englandhad lostits scientific pre-eminence, and
theUniversities had sunkintoa torporwhichonlythepen of Gibbon
could adequatelydescribe.
Parallelto thisdevelopment, rulebya narrowelitewasstrengthened
at all levelsofgovernment.Controloftheparishfellintothehands
of selectvestriesof "the bettersort". Countyadministration, for
examplein Northamptonshire, was confinedto a smaller,morestable
and moreclosed-off elitegroupof families.75In thetownsthesame
processhad long been at workas controlof both guilds and civic
government passed into the hands of an ever smallerand less fluid
oligarchy. At the Freemanlevelthesamethingwas happening,and
at Yorktheclosingoftheranksseemsto haveoccurredbeforetheend
of the sixteenthcentury. In I509-I8, only I6% of Freemenwere
sons of Freemen,but the proportionhad jumpedto 38% by I594-
1603,andto 43%oby I675-99. The sametrendis visibleat Leicester,
and itscontinuance is indicatedbytheriseofpatrimony and purchase
74 Stone, "Educational Revolution", loc. cit. M. 'Espinasse, "The Decline

and Fall of RestorationScience", Past and Present,no. 14 (Nov., I958), pp. 7I-
89.
75 W. E. Tate, The Parish Chest (Cambridge, I946), pp. I8-I9. A. Everitt,
"Social Mobility in Early Modern England", Past and Present,no. 33 (Apr.,
I966).

as meansofentryintoseveraloftheLiveryCompaniesof Londonin
theeighteenth century.76
In boththe Churchand government succession
service,hereditary
became more marked. In the formerthis was an inevitableby-
productofclericalmarriageand growingrespectforthedignity ofthe
cloth. In the diocesesof Oxfordand Worcester, the proportionof
parishclergywho werethesons of clergymen rosefrom5% in I600
to 23/ in I640. In the I63os, overa quarterof the bishopswere
sons of clergymen.77By I660 theAnglicanChurchwas wellon the
wayto becominga markedly hereditaryprofession.
Well before the Civil War there is evidence of consider-
able nepotismin government service. In the early seventeenth
century,patrimonyand patronagewere the two principalkeys to
entryintogovernment service,withpurchasea bad third. The role
of patrimony is shownby thefactthatthefathersof morethanhalf
the officials
who weresons of peersor knights, had themselvesbeen
in governmentservice. Of the whole body, I80/O were second
generation in the royalservice. Almosthalfcame fromthe squire-
archyand above, and about two thirdsfromthe gentryor above.
The criticalquestionis whetheror not the situationwas getting
worse,and thiswe justdo notknow. CharlesI was certainly reacting
againstthistendencyin the I630s, butthismaybe evidenceofa new
politicalattitudetowardsthe bureaucracyby the absolutemonarch
ratherthanofanyactualchangein recruitment 7
patterns. All one
can say is that an increasingtrendtowardsnepotismand social
exclusivenessis whata priorione wouldexpectto resultfromthevery
highreproduction rateof the landed classesoverthe previoussixty
years.
V
CONSEQUENCES
TheCentury
ofMobility,
I540-I640
Modern societiesare learningslowlythatwideningopportunities
conduciveto humancontent-
and rapidmobilityare not necessarily
ment. Giventhetraditional valuesystemoftheage,
and conservative
76
A. H. Johnson,The Historyof the IVorshipful CompanyofDrapers (Oxford,
I9I4-22), ii, pp. 54-5, I97 n. I;iv, pp. 253-4, 634, 643. V.C.H.Yorks,loc. cit.,
pp. I28, 166. W. G. Hoskins, Provincial England, p. o09. W. K. Kahl,
"Apprenticeshipand the Freedom of London Livery Companies, I690-I750",
Guildhall Miscellany,vii (I956), pp. I7-20.
77 Barratt,thesis cited note 5, p. 19. Informationsupplied by Mr. F. S.
Odo.
7S Aylmer,op. cit., ch. iii and pp. 263-5.

the greatincreasein mobilityof all kindsin the hundredyearsfrom

I540 to I640 probablycreateddiscontent ratherthansatisfaction,due
primarilyto the wide discrepancieswhich developedbetweenthe
threesectorsofwealth,statusand power.
(I) Social Discontent.This was feltby boththeupwardlyand the
downwardly mobile. One economically risinggroup,themerchants,
felt themselvesdenied social prestige,and resentedthe affront.
Othereconomically advancinggroups,thesuccessfullawyersand the
greatersquires, felt
themselves excludedfrompowerbytheCourt,and
also resentedtheaffront.Of the declininggroups,thewage-earners
were in a stateof abject miserywhichfoundintermittent reliefin
rioting and mob-violence. The clergy lamented theirloss of income
and statusrelativeto thoseof the laity,and underLaud theyallied
themselveswiththe Crownin a vain attemptto recoverboth. An
economicallystaticgroup,the humbleparishgentry,resentedtheir
stagnation and wereconsumedwithenvyattheconspicuoussuccessof
merchants,courtiersand squires. Those nearestLondon feltthe
resentment mostkeenly,sincetheyweremostawareofthediscrepancy
in opportunities.Though the gentryof the home countieswere
betteroffeconomically thanthoseof the northand westtheywere
more bittersince theyknew what theywere missing. Hence the
loyaltyto Churchand King of the poor backwoodsmen of the west
and northin theCivilWar,and therallying to theIndependentcause
ofa sectionofthesmallgentryofthehomecounties.
(2) ReligiousDiscontent.How Puritanismaffected mobilityhas
already been discussed, but we must now examine how mobility
affectedPuritanism. Afterall, the two rose and fell togetherin
extraordinary unison,and a reciprocalfeed-backsystemof causation
is by no means theoretically impossible. ProfessorWalzer has
suggested thatrigid at theserviceofan ideologyis one
self-discipline
possibleresponseto a conditionofanxietyinducedby theoverthrow
ofstablesocialrelationships and agreedpolitical,ethicaland religious
ideals; cheerful opportunism,quietistic withdrawal,and fierce
nostalgiafora lost worldare others.79 It is not difficult to under-
stand the predicamentof late sixteenth-and early seventeenth-
centuryEnglishmenas the ancientpropsof theiruniversefellaway.
Competingreligiousideologies shatteredthe unquestioningand
habit-forming faithof the past; the failureof theAnglicanChurch
to put its house in orderleftit open to everyenterprising under-
graduate to draw up an alternativescheme for ecclesiastical
79
Walzer, The Revolutionof the Saints,passim.

organization;constitutionalconflictsbetweenCommonsand Crown
disturbedconventional notionsof ther61eofthe stateand posed the
insolublequestionof sovereignty; the collapse of the quasi-feudal
ties of hereditarydependence leftmen freeto seek clientagewhere
theycould findit; the declineof the craftguildsfreedlabourfrom
both rules and companionship;the bonds of kinshipwereloosened
under pressurefromnew religiousand politicalassociations,and
fromnewidealsoflove and freedomwithinthenuclearfamily. The
upsetting ofthehierarchy ofstatusas a resultofrapidsocialmobility
was thus just one of manyfactorswhichgeneratedunease,anxiety,
anomie.
At present,it is hardlypossible to identifyPuritanismas the
ideologyofgroupsclearlymovingin anyparticular direction. Many
were undoubtedlymembersof upwardlymobile groups seeking
security,companionship and assuredstatusin theemerging societyof
the seventeenth century. There were newlyrisenHenricianpeers
and officials
liketheDudleys,Cecils,Norths;richsquiresat lastfreed
fromdependenceon aristocratic power,like Knightley,Barrington
and Hampden;newacademicsand preachingministers likeLaurence
Chadertonand AnthonyGilby; new merchants, shopkeepers,and
artisansin the flourishing towns. Others were membersof the
staticsmallgentryclassbewildered bythetransformation aroundthem
and seekingsome support,like Oliver Cromwell. Both revolu-
tionary Puritanismand the reactionary"Church and King"
conservatismof Laud, Staffordand the backwoods royalistsare
alternateresponsesto identicalpressuresof social change. On the
otherhand, many of the key figuresin the movement,like their
Huguenotcounterparts in France,seem to belongto rich,ancient,
self-confidentfamilies,who should have been immunefromsuch
fears. The thesisis an attractiveone, but thereare stillmanyloose
ends to be tidiedup.
TheDecadesofRevolution, I640-I660
I havearguedat lengthelsewherethatit was thetemporary decline
in status and income of the nobles relativeto the gentrywhich
allowedthehouseofcommonsto takethecentreofthepoliticalstage;
and thatit was thisdeclinein prestige,
togetherwitha similardecline
of the higherclergyand the ineptitudeof the remediesadoptedby
the Stuarts,whichallowedthegentry in theCommonssuccessfully to
challengethe establishment in Churchand Statein I640. Further-
moreit was theirvisionof an increasingly corrupt,wealthy,wasteful
and wicked Establishmentwhich galvanizedthe squirearchyinto

SOCIAL MOBILITY IN ENGLAND, 1500-I700 5I
action. Finally,it was the rise in educationand in numbersof the

urbanpettybourgeois,especiallyof London, whichmade possible
thedevelopment oftheLevellerPartyand ofLevellerideasin thelate
1640s. If these hypothesesare correct,the shiftsin wealth and
prestigeamongthe variousstatusand occupationalgroups,and the
"contestmobility"createdby the expansionof educationduringthe
previoushundredyears,played no small part in generatingthe
tensionsthatled to politicalbreakdown in 1640,to CivilWarin 1642,
and to theemergence ofradicalismin I647.
Post-Restoration
Stability,I660-I700
One of the obviousconclusionsof thispaper is thatmuch more,
and more sociologicallyand statistically sophisticated,researchis
neededbeforewe willbe in a positionto confirm orrefutesomeofthe
mostbasicassumptions thatarecommonly madeaboutthecharacter of
early modern English society. Contemporariesasserted, and
posterity has followedthemin believing,thatby Europeanstandards
Englandwas an exceptionally mobilesocietyin the sixteenth, seven-
teenthand eighteenth centuries,and thatthiswas perhapsthe main
reasonwhy Englandwas the firstEuropeannationto industrialize
and why it was successfulin avoidingbloody revolutionin the
process. Now thereis no doubtthatprimogeniture and theconfining
ofa titleto theeldestson ensureda steadyflowofdownwardly mobile
youngersons,and so madeEnglishsocietyat all timesdifferent from
thatof Europe. But recentworkon Francehas revealeda hitherto
unsuspecteddegree of upward mobilityin the apparentlycaste-
structured societyoftheancienregime. It was Turgotwhoremarked
that"il n'estaucunhommerichequi surle champne deviennenoble;
en sorteque le corpsde noblescomprendtoutle corpsdes riches".80
It maywellbe thatit was onlyin the century1540-1640, whenland
was changinghands at a speed which was quite unprecedented
betweenI200 and I900, thattherewas any unusualmobilityin the
upperranksof Englishsocietyas a whole. Could it be thatEnglish
societyclosedranksa centuryearlierthanFrance,in the late seven-
teenthinsteadof thelate eighteenth century, and thatthereputation
enjoyedby pre-industrial Englandas an unusuallymobilesocietyis
largelyan illusion based on false assumptionsand a dearth of
statistical
evidence?
80 F. L.
Ford, Robe and Sword (Cambridge, Mass., I953). P. Goubert,
Beauvais et le Beauvaisis de I600 a 1730 (Paris, I960). G. Bluche, Les
Magistrats du Parlementde Paris au XVIIIe sikcle (Paris, 1960). Turgot is
quoted by BettyBehrens in Hist. J1.,viii (I965), p. 123.

52 PAST AND PRESENT NUMNBER33
If highmobilitywas onlya temporary phenomenon, however,it

effectedcertainstructuralchangeswhichhad profoundand lasting
results,and whichundoubtedly made Englandratherdifferent from
Francein theage ofVoltaire. The firstwas theincreasein numbers
of the squirearchy and gentry,whichhad far-reaching politicaland
social consequences. Politically,it meant a massive numerical
extensionof the politicalnationand so providedthe basis forthe
eighteenth-century constitutionalsystem,which was operated in
roughconformity to theinterestsand aspirationsofthisbroad-based
class.
Socially,it meantthatforthe firsttimein historythe majorityof
thepopulationwerelivingdirectly undertheeyeof a memberofthe
ruling elite. If we may generalizefrom Buckinghamshire and
Rutlandshire, in I522 onlyabout one villagein ten had a resident
squire;by I680 theproportion in thewholecountry had risento over
twothirds.81The potentialities forsocialand politicalcontrolwere
thus greatlyincreasedover whattheyhad been two hundredyears
before.
The secondstructural changewas the rise of the commercialand
professionalclasses in numbersand wealth,and theirconsequent
acquisitionbothof a sharein politicaldecision-making and of social
recognition.The massiveincreasein numbershad the important
social functionof absorbingthe youngersons pushed out of the
landed classes by the primogeniture system. The merchantshad
littleformalpowerbut theireconomicinterestscloselyinterlocked
withthose of the landed classes,thanksto the dependenceof the
price of land on the price of wool,in turndependenton the cloth
exporttrade. The maintenance ofthistradewas also ofvitalconcern
to the government, sincea slumpnot onlycreateda threatto social
stabilityin theclothingareasdue to unemployment, butalso reduced
government revenue from the customs. Furthermore, the growing
role of the leadingLondon merchants as government creditorsand
contractors, culminating in the foundationof the Bank of England,
gave them considerable behind-the-scenes influence. As a result,
foreign, military,and economicpolicieswereincreasingly conducted
withan eye to the interests, and withthe advice,of this merchant
elite.82
Alongwiththeiradmissionto the politicalnationwenta rise in
81J. Cornwall, "The Early Tudor Gentry", Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xvii
(1964-5), p. 460. Laslett, The World We Have Lost, pp. 62-3.
82
B. E. Supple, CommercialCrisis and Change in England, 1600-42 (Cam-
bridge, I959), ch. x. R. Ashton, The Crown and the Money Market, I603-40
(Oxford, 1960), pp. 67-78.

theirsocial status. There was a slow but steadyshiftof attitudes

on the part of the landed classes, a growingrecognitionthat the
previouslyanomalous occupationalcategoriesformeda series of
semi-independentand parallel status hierarchies- the "San
Gimignanomodel". By the late seventeenthcenturymerchants,
lawyers,clergymen wereheldin muchlesscontempt
and officials than
theyhad beena century earlier. The hypothesis (whichhas yetto be
proved)thatmanyofthesemiddle-classoccupationalgroupswereof
gentryoriginwould makeit thatmucheasierforthe landed classes
to treatthemwithrespect. It wasperhapsthiswhichgaveforeigners
theillusionthatEnglandwas a moremobilesocietythantheirown.
Three consequencesfollowedfromthis rise in status. Firstly,
therewas muchmoreintermarriage betweenthe landedclasses and
theappropriate economicstrataoftheseoccupationalgroups. Thus
of the Io5 armigerousgentryof Warwickshire recognizedby the
Heraldsin 1682,two-thirds had mercantile connections (mostlywith
London)builtintotheirpedigreessomewhere, thoughonlya handful
may have owed theireconomicprosperity primarily to this source.
Secondly,thegentry losttheirearlierreluctanceto puttheirsonsinto
trade. By themiddlethirdoftheseventeenth century nearlyhalfthe
Freemen of the Drapers' Companyof Shrewsburyand nearlya
fifthof the London Stationers'Companyapprenticeswere coming
fromgentry stock.83 Thirdly,thebusinessor professional mancould
acquirethetitleof"Gent.", and on occasioneven"Esquire", without
havingto buy an estateand cut himselfofffromhis economicroots.
As earlyas I635, therewerenearly1,200 personsresidentin London
who describedthemselves as gentlemen, thegreatmajorityof whom
wereengagedin tradeor in some professional occupation. In one
Hundredof Warwickshire, in thelate seventeenth century,a thirdof
the "gentlemen"of the area were now residentin the town of
Warwick,and mostofthemwereprobablyearningtheirlivingthere.84
The substantialshrinkage ofland offered forsale on the marketthus
coincidedwitha distinct,if less pronounced,shrinkageof demand.
An estatewas still essentialforentryinto the restrictedelite who
83Laslett, op. cit., pp. I86, 191. P. Styles, "The Heralds' Visitation of
Warwickshirein 1682-3", BirminghamArch. Soc. Trans.,lxxi (I953), pp. 131-2.
T. C. Mendenhall, The ShrewsburyDrapers and the Welsh Wool Trade in the
Sixteenthand SeventeenthCenturies(Oxford, I953), pp. 89-9I, and App. C.
Calculations from the figuressupplied in D. F.. Mackenzie, "Apprentices in
the Stationers' Company, I555-I640", The Library, 5th ser., xiii (I958), pp.
296-7.
84 J.
Grant, "The Gentry of London in the Reign of Charles I", Univ. of
Birmingham Hist.Jl., viii (I962), pp. I97-20I. P. Styles,"The Social Structure
of Kineton Hundred. ..", BirminghamArch. Soc. Trans., lxxi (I953), p. io6.

wieldedpoliticaland administrative powerat bothcountyandnational

levels,but it was no longernecessary in orderto be recognizedas the
socialequal ofa minorlandedgentleman. If 1540-1640saw therise
ofthegentry,I600-I700 saw theriseofthe"pseudo-gentry".
A strikingexampleof this developmentis HenryBell. He was
bornin 1647,his fatherbeingan AldermanofKing's Lynn,a mercer
by trade,and twicemayorof thetown. Henrywas educatedat the
local grammar-school and at Cambridge,then spent his life as a
merchantand civic dignitaryof Lynn, followingin his father's
footsteps as aldermanand twicemayorofthetown. But despitethis
impeccablybourgeoisfamilyand career,Bell had goneon the Grand
Tour, and was a virtuosowhosegreatpassionin lifeseemsto have
beenthearts. He wrotea treatiseon theinvention ofpaintingbefore
the Flood, he was one of the half-dozenEnglishmenwitha good
professional knowledgeofItalianarchitecture, and he practisedas an
architecton the side. On the otherhand his clientelewas as urban
as himself,beingthe corporation of Northampton, who enlistedhis
servicesin the rebuildingof thetownaftera disastrousfire,and the
authorities and dignitariesofhis hometownof Lynn.85 Here in the
fleshis thetruebourgeois gentilhomme,theself-assuredtownsmanand
tradesmanwith the education,the values and the interestsof the
cultivatedaristocrat. He is a peculiarlyEnglish phenomenon,
impossiblebefore the late seventeenthcentury,whose like was
unknownto Moliere.
Furtherevidence of this trendratherfurtherdown the social
scale maybe seen in the blurringof thatpreviouslycrucialdivision
betweengentlemenand othersby the emergenceof a new titular
group,sandwichedin between,and comprisingpartsof, the lesser
gentryon theone handand theupperyeomanry and shopkeepers on
the other. These were the people, the numbersof whom were
steadilyincreasingas the seventeenth centuryworeon, whosenames
in official
lists,etc.wereprefixed bytheword"Mr.".86 By 1700the
topmostelementsof Group 3 and the lowestelementsof Group 4
werebeginning to formanotherstatusgroupoftheirown.
These twostructural changescausedbythemobility oftheprevious
hundredyearswereaccompaniedin the late seventeenth centuryby
that deliberaterestriction of mobilitychannelswhich has already
been described. At the upperlevelstherewas the narrowing of the
avenues of mobility,partlyby legal changesdevised to preserve
85 H. M. Colvin and L. M. Wodehouse,
"Henry Bell of King's Lynn",
ArchitecturalHistory,iv (I96I), pp. 41-62.
86
Styles, "Kineton Hundred", loc. cit., pp. 107-8.

existingfortunesand property, and to restrict

to establishedfamilies
accessto positionsofwealthand power;partlyby biologicalchanges
whichcaused the striking reductionof the reproduction rate of the
upper classes between 1630 and 1740; and partlyby economic
changeswhichshutoffthe disturbing forcesof demographic growth
and price inflation. At the lower level therewas the attempted
restrictionof horizontalmobilityby the pass-lawsystemintroduced
by the Act of Settlementof 1662; the reductionof educational
opportunitiesto a patternof carefullysponsoredmobilityfor a
selectedfew;thereductionofthelastremaining democratic elements
in parish,guild and urbangovernment; and the perversionof the
national electoralprocess by the extravagantuse of corruption.
These developmentspreparedthe way for the politicaland social
stabilityof the centuryfollowingthe GloriousRevolutionof 1688,
duringwhichEnglandwas governedby a broad-basedbut relatively
closed oligarchy,partlanded,part monied,underthe leadershipof
a still narrowerelite of extremelywealthyand influentialnoble
landowners.
Princeton University LawrenceStone


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What is the purpose of the paper according to the author?

What is the purpose of the paper according to the author?

What model does the author use to describe pre-industrial societies?

What model does the author use to describe pre-industrial societies?

The Past and Present Society

Social Mobility in England, 1500-1700

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The firstproblemis whatsortof a visualimagewe have of this

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and superfluous youngersons, but oftenriseshalfempty. Around

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to have had littleeffect,but the factthat theycould be seriously

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thisattitudethe merchantswerea mobilegroupof transients, very

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below.6 It seemsthatthehighestranksof theclergyweregenerally

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and officeis filledby one of theirsons,stillonly II ,/ can expectto

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be notedthatthe spread of incomedistribution aftertaxationwas

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powerof each group. It is veryunlikelythatthe fourwill change

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barelydoubled. The numberof peers rose from60 to I60; of

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Though statisticsare whollylacking,it is likelythattherewas an

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of the sixteenthand seventeenthcenturiesin the numbers of

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It is probable,but not yet proven,thatthe averageincomeand

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of a gentlemanlost his gentility by becomingan apprenticewas still

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and their real incomes rose; the poor became relativelymore

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a staticor isolatedunit.33 This mobilitycan partlybe explainedby

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greatwas theinfluxthatthelossesweremadeup withintwoyears,to

1500 6o,ooo 3,000,000 2 /,

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fromLondonand thefourhomecountiesfromless than20% before

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theycouldeverhopeforat home,and thereis evidenceto suggestthat

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well-paidor secure position.43 Shrewd manipulationof the land

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been erectedto confinepowerto the existingelite,thenit maywell

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Factorsparticularto earlymodern England

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theirchildrenwere liable to sink still furtherdown the scale and

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in excess of income. Excessiveconsumptionwas thus one of the

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For yeomenand below,however,the averageage of marriagein the

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