Commoner
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A commoner, also known as the common man, commoners, the common people or the masses, was in earlier use an ordinary person in a community or nation who did not have any significant social status, especially a member of neither royalty, nobility, nor any part of the aristocracy. Depending on culture and period, other elevated persons (such members of clergy) may have had higher social status in their own right, or were regarded as commoners if lacking an aristocratic background.
This class overlaps with the legal class of people who have a property interest in common land, a longstanding feature of land law in England and Wales. Commoners who have rights for a particular common are typically neighbours, not the public in general.
In monarchist terminology, aristocracy and nobility are included in the term.
History
Various
Both the
With the growth of Christianity in the 4th century AD, a new world view arose that underpinned European thinking on social division until at least early modern times.
The social and political order of medieval Europe was relatively stable until the development of the mobile
The rise of the
According to social historian Karl Polanyi, Britain's middle class in 19th-century Britain turned against their fellow commoners by seizing political power from the British upper class via the Reform Act of 1832. The emergence of the Industrial Revolution had caused severe economic distress to a large number of working class commoners, leaving many of them with no means to learn a living as the traditional system of tenant farming was replaced with large-scale agriculture run by a small number of individuals. The upper class had responded to their plight by establishing institutions such as workhouses, where unemployed lower-class Britons could find a source of employment, and outdoor relief, where monetary and other forms of assistance were given to both the unemployed and those on low income without them needing to enter a workhouse to receive it.[10]
Though initial middle class opposition to the
Trifold division breakdown
After the
In the United States, a famous 1942 speech by vice president Henry A. Wallace proclaimed the arrival of the "century of the common man" saying that all over the world the "common people" were on the march, specifically referring to Chinese, Indians, Russians, and as well as Americans.[11] Wallace's speech would later inspire the widely reproduced popular work Fanfare for the Common Man by Aaron Copland.[12] In 1948, U.S. President Harry S. Truman made a speech saying there needs to be a government "that will work in the interests of the common people and not in the interests of the men who have all the money."[13]
Social divisions in non-Western civilisations
Comparative historian Oswald Spengler found the social separation into nobility, priests and commoners to occur again and again in the various civilisations that he surveyed (although the division may not exist for pre-civilised society).[14] As an example, in the Babylonian civilisation, the Code of Hammurabi made provision for punishments to be harsher for harming a noble than a commoner.[15]
See also
Notes and references
- ^ ISBN 0-415-18223-9.
- The Republic (Plato), Part I, book IV.
- ^ ISBN 0-224-06241-7.
- ^ "The Three Orders". Boise State University. Archived from the original on 2014-04-07. Retrieved 2013-01-31.
- ^ See for example:
- McCord, William; McCord, Arline (2000). "Social stratification in agrarian societies". In Stephen K. Sanderson (ed.). Sociological worlds: comparative and historical readings on society. Taylor & Francis. pp. 180–182. ISBN 1-57958-284-2.
Referred to as the "common folk", the "common people" and "Serfs" in the description.
- Nutini, Hugo G.; Isaac, Barry L. (2009). "Estates and Classes". Social stratification in central Mexico, 1500-2000. University of Texas Press. pp. 20–23. ISBN 978-0-292-71944-6.
- McCord, William; McCord, Arline (2000). "Social stratification in agrarian societies". In Stephen K. Sanderson (ed.). Sociological worlds: comparative and historical readings on society. Taylor & Francis. pp. 180–182.
- ^ DEVAILLY, Le Berry du X siècle au milieu du XIII siècle, p. 201; CHEDEVILLE, Chartres et ses campagnes, p.336.
- ^ PERROY, E., Le Monde carolingien, Paris, SEDES, 2.ª ed., 1975, p.143.
- ^ BRETT, M., Middle Ages, Encyclopædia Britannica, 15.ª ed., 1979, 12, p.1965.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-14-100755-7.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8070-5643-1.
- ^ Henry Wallace (February 1942). "The Century of the Common Man". Winrock International. Archived from the original on 2007-09-29. Retrieved 2011-06-30.
- ISBN 978-0-253-34792-3.
- ^ Robert Reich (2012-11-09). "The real lesson from Obama's victory". Financial Times. Retrieved 2012-11-09.(registration required)
- ISBN 1-4000-9700-2.
- ^ Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics, and Society By Marvin Perry, Myrna Chase, Margaret C. Jacob, James R. Jacob, page 13
Further reading
- The common people: a history from the Norman Conquest to the present J. F. C. Harrison Fontana Press (1989)
- The concept of class: a historical introduction Peter Calvert Palgrave Macmillan (1985)