English society

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English society comprises the

The

The collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century is thought to have brought general strife and anarchy to society, but the actual events are not well understood. Archaeology certainly shows a reduction in the expensive goods found before, and the Roman cities began to be abandoned, but much of British society had never had such things. Certainly, numerous peoples took advantage of the absence of Roman power, but how they affected British society is far from clear. The hegemony of Roman rule gave way to a selection of splintered, often competing, societies, including later the heptarchy. Rather than think of themselves as a small part of a larger Roman empire, they reverted to smaller tribal allegiances.

The

After the

Feudalism, although historians debate the term, is often used to describe medieval society.^[6] Basically stated, a lord owns land or a fief which he allows vassals to work in return for their military service. The vast majority of the people were peasants who would work on the vassal's fiefs. This or a similar system was the basis of later medieval society. It probably existed in some form in England before the Norman conquest, but the Normans did much to institute it, either replacing existing lords or by becoming 'overlords' above now-demoted lords. A wealth of information on these social structures can be drawn from the best early surveys of its type, the Domesday Book.^[7]

Church

The two centuries from 1200 to 1400 (when the plague hit) were prosperous. The population grew rapidly, from about 2 million to about 5 million. England remained a mainly rural society, and many agricultural changes, such as crop rotation, kept the countryside profitable. Most people lived by farming, although there were wide variations in patterns of land ownership and the status of peasants. To meet the needs of the growing population more land had to be cultivated. Waste land was exploited and major incursions were made into forests, fen and marsh lands. "High farming" was increasingly practised, whereby the landowner took personal control of his land using hired hands rather than leasing it out. Treatises appeared on the best practices, but the growth of per-acre productivity was small. On good land one acre might produce 17 bushels of wheat (compared to 73 bushels an acre in the 1960s), or 26 of barley or 22 of oats.^[10][11]

After 1300 prosperity was more tenuous owing to a combination of over-population, land shortages and depleted soils. The loss of life in the Great Famine of 1315–1317 shook the English economy severely, and population growth ceased.^[12] The first outbreak of the Black Death in 1348 then killed around half the English population, but left plenty of land for the survivors. The agricultural sector shrank, with higher wages, lower prices and shrinking profits leading to the final demise of the old demesne system and the advent of the modern farming system of cash rents for lands.^[13] Wat Tyler's Peasants' Revolt of 1381 shook the older feudal order and limited the levels of royal taxation considerably for a century to come.^[14]

Towns

The increase in population led not only to denser rural areas but also to more and larger towns. Many new towns appeared but most were small. Major cities such as Lincoln, Norwich and Thetford had 4,000–5,000 population, while London grew from 10,000 to nearly 40,000 population and York approached 10,000.^[15]

The 13th century experienced a mini-industrial revolution, with the increased use of wind power and changes in the wool industry. Wool, always important to the British economy, was traditionally exported to be processed, but it was now frequently processed in England, creating a variety of extra jobs. The export of cloth continued to increase from the 14th century onwards, and after the closing of the port of Calais (which consumed much of the raw wool) by the Spanish in the late 16th century, cloth became the primary type of wool exported.^[16] Many people were finding different roles and responsibilities within English society too, with the growth of common law giving people greater access to the law and the "commons" starting to have a place in the Parliament during Edward I of England's time.

Black Death and population decline

After many years of growth and gradual change, there was one seismic event which changed British society dramatically. The

The peasants' new-found freedoms were very worrying to the authorities, who passed laws specifying the maximum that a peasant should be paid, but this had little effect on wages. The first of several sumptuary laws were also made, dictating exactly how people at every level of society should dress and what they could own, in an effort to enforce social distinctions. These new laws, plus a newly levied poll tax which had been calculated on pre-plague population figures, led directly to the Peasants' Revolt. Although quickly put down, the revolt was an early popular reform movement—a precursor to later, more successful uprisings.^[18]

Chaucer's vision

In general terms, the

Before they were broken up and sold by Henry VIII, monasteries had been one of the important parts of social welfare, giving alms and looking after the destitute, and their disappearance meant that the state would have to adopt this role, which culminated in the Poor Law of 1601. The monasteries were decrepit and no longer were the major educational or economic establishments in the country. After they had gone, many new grammar schools were founded and these, along with the earlier introduction of the printing press, helped to improve literacy.^[21]

Food and agriculture

The agricultural reforms which had begun in the 13th century accelerated in the 16th century, with enclosure altering the open-field system and denying many of the poor access to land. Large areas of land which had once been common, and whose usage had been shared between many people, were now being enclosed by the wealthy mainly for extremely profitable sheep farming.

England's food supply was plentiful throughout most of the era; there were no famines. Bad harvests caused distress, but they were usually localised. The most widespread came in 1555–57 and 1596–98.^[22] In the towns the price of staples was fixed by law; in hard times the size of the loaf of bread sold by the baker was smaller.^[23]

The poor consumed a diet largely of bread, cheese, milk, and beer, with small portions of meat, fish and vegetables, and occasionally some fruit. Potatoes were just arriving at the end of the period, and became increasingly important. The typical poor farmer sold his best products on the market, keeping the cheap food for the family. Stale bread could be used to make bread puddings, and bread crumbs served to thicken soups, stews, and sauces.^[24] At a somewhat higher social level, families ate an enormous variety of meats, especially beef, mutton, veal, lamb, and pork, as well as chickens and ducks. The holiday goose was a special treat. Many rural folk and some townspeople tended a small garden which produced vegetables such as asparagus, cucumbers, spinach, lettuce, beans, cabbage, carrots, leeks, and peas, as well as medicinal and flavoring herbs. Some raised their own apricots, grapes, berries, apples, pears, plums, currants, and cherries. Families without a garden could trade with their neighbours to obtain vegetables and fruits at low cost.^[25]

The people discovered new foods (such as the potato and tomato imported from the Americas), and developed new tastes during the era. The more prosperous enjoyed a wide variety of food and drink, including exotic new drinks such as coffee and chocolate. French and Italian chefs appeared in the country houses and palaces, bringing new standards of food preparation and taste. For example, the English developed a taste for acidic foods—such as oranges for the upper class—and started to use vinegar heavily. The gentry paid increasing attention to their gardens, with new fruits, vegetables and herbs; pasta, pastries, and dried mustard balls first appeared on the table. The apricot was a special treat at fancy banquets. Roast beef remained a staple for those who could afford it. The rest ate a great deal of bread and fish. Every class had a taste for beer and rum.^[26]

At the rich end of the scale the manor houses and palaces were awash with large, elaborately prepared meals, usually for many people and often accompanied by entertainment. Often they celebrated religious festivals, weddings, alliances and the whims of her majesty.

17th century

England was wracked by civil war over religious issues. Prosperity generally continued in both rural areas and the growing towns,^[27] as well as the great metropolis of London.

The

The diet of the poor in the 1660–1750 era was largely bread, cheese, milk, and beer, with small quantities of meat and vegetables. The more prosperous enjoyed a wide variety of food and drink, including tea, coffee, and chocolate.[36]

Crime and punishment

Historians examining the period 1300–1800 have detected a high level of continuity in their studies of crime and punishment. They have used local records, as well as literary sources, to explore how crime was defined and detected, the changes in the court system, the central importance of elite attitudes toward the poor and dangerous classes, professional criminals, and the amateur and community element in law enforcement before the establishment of police forces in the 19th century.

From the left, historians such as E. P. Thompson have emphasized that crime and disorder were characteristic responses of the working and lower classes to the oppressions imposed upon them. Thompson argues that crime was defined and punished primarily as an activity that threatened the status, property and interests of the elites. England's lower classes were kept under control by large-scale execution, transportation to the colonies, and imprisonment in horrible hulks of old warships. There was no interest in reformation, the goal being to deter through extremely harsh punishment.^[39][40]

Georgian society

Agriculture

Major advances in farming made agriculture more productive and freed up people to work in industry. The British Agricultural Revolution included innovations in technology such as Jethro Tull's seed drill which allowed greater yields, while the process of enclosure, which had been altering rural society since the Middle Ages, became unstoppable. The new mechanisation needed much larger fields – the layout of the British countryside with the patchwork of fields divided by hedgerows that we see today.

Industrial Revolution

Historians typically date the coming of the Industrial Revolution to Britain in the mid-18th century. Not only did existing cities grow but small market towns such as Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds became cities simply by weight of population.^[41]

Middle class and stability

The middle class grew rapidly in the 18th century, especially in the cities.^[42] At the top of the scale, the legal profession succeeded first, establishing specialist training and associations, and was soon followed by the medical profession. The merchant class prospered with imperial trade. Wahrman (1992) argues that the new urban elites included two types: the gentlemanly capitalist, who participated in the national society, and the independent bourgeois, who was oriented toward the local community. By the 1790s a self-proclaimed middle class, with a particular sociocultural self-perception, had emerged.^[43]

Thanks to increasing national wealth, upward mobility into the middle class, urbanisation, and civic stability, Britain was relatively calm and stable, certainly compared with the revolutions and wars which were convulsing the American colonies, France and other nations at the time.^[44] The politics of the French Revolution did not translate directly into British society to spark an equally seismic revolution, nor did the loss of the American Colonies dramatically weaken or disrupt Great Britain.

Religion

Historians have emphasized the importance of religion, including the domination of the Anglican establishment.

Scholars have recently been moving toward cultural history rather than social history. The language and self images of people are the chief targets of cultural studies. Of special importance is the concept of an emerging consumer society. Studies of middle- and upper-class manners, tastes, and fashions have proliferated, along with studies of gender, national, and racial identities.[47]

Victorian era

The social changes during the Victorian era were wide-ranging and fundamental, leaving their mark not only upon the United Kingdom but upon much of the world which was under Britain's influence during the 19th century. It can even be argued that these changes eclipsed the massive shifts in society during the 20th century; certainly many of the developments of the 20th century have their roots in the 19th. The technology of the Industrial Revolution had a great impact on society. Inventions not only introduced new industries for employment, but the products and services produced also altered society.^[48]

The

Culturally there was a transition away from the rationalism of the Georgian period and toward romanticism and mysticism with regard to religion, social values, and the arts.^[52] The era is popularly associated with the "Victorian" values of social and sexual restraint.

The status of the poor is one area in which huge changes occurred. A good illustration of the differences between life in the Georgian and Victorian eras are the writings of two of England's greatest authors, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Both writers held a fascination for people, society and the details of everyday life but in Austen the poor are almost absent, mainly because they were still the rural poor, remote and almost absent from the minds of the middle classes. For Dickens, only a few years later, the poor were his main subject, as he had partly suffered their fate. The poor now were an unavoidable part of urban society and their existence and plight could not be ignored. Industrialisation made large profits for the entrepreneurs of the times, and their success was in contrast not only to the farm workers who were in competition with imported produce but also to the aristocracy whose landowning wealth was now becoming less significant than business wealth. The British class system created an intricate hierarchy of people which contrasted the new and old rich, the skilled and unskilled, the rural and urban and many more.^[53]

Some of the first attacks on industrialisation were the

Environmental and health standards rose throughout the Victorian era; improvements in nutrition may also have played a role, although the importance of this is debated.[57] Sewage works were improved as was the quality of drinking water. With a healthier environment, diseases were caught less easily and did not spread as much. Technology was also improving because the population had more money to spend on medical technology (for example, techniques to prevent death in childbirth so more women and children survived), which also led to a greater number of cures for diseases. However, a cholera epidemic took place in London in 1848–49 killing 14,137, and subsequently in 1853 killing 10,738. This anomaly was attributed to the closure and replacement of cesspits by the modern sewerage systems.^[58]

Communications and travel

Communication improved rapidly. Stage coaches, canal boats, steam ships and most notably the railways all speeded up the movement of people, goods and ideas. New communication methods were very fast if not instantaneous, including the telegraph, the telephone and the trans-oceanic cable.

Trains opened up leisure destinations, especially seaside resorts. The Bank Holidays Act 1871 created a number of fixed holidays which the middle class could enjoy. Large numbers travelling to quiet fishing villages such as Worthing, Brighton, Morecambe and Scarborough began turning them into major tourist centres, and people like Thomas Cook saw arranging for domestic and foreign tourism as a viable business model. Steam ships such as the SS Great Britain and SS Great Western made international travel more common but also advanced trade, so that in Britain it was not just the luxury goods of earlier times that were imported into the country but essentials such as grain and meat from North America and Australia. One more important innovation in communications was the Penny Black, the first postage stamp, which standardised postage to a flat price regardless of distance sent.

The Victorians were impressed by science and progress, and felt that they could improve society in the same way as they were improving technology. The model town of

Reformers organised many movements to obtain greater rights for women; voting rights did not come until the next century.[59]^[60] The Married Women's Property Act 1882 meant that women did not lose their right to their own property when they got married and could divorce without fear of poverty, although divorce was frowned upon and very rare during the 19th century. It is too much to claim that the Victorians "invented childhood," but they deemed it the most significant phase of life.^[61] The trend was towards smaller families, probably because of the rise of modern inner-directed families, coupled with lower infant mortality rates and longer life spans. Legislation reduced the working hours of children while raising the minimum working age, and the passing of the Elementary Education Act 1870 set the basis for universal primary education.

In

In Britain before 1857 wives were under the economic and legal control of their husbands, and divorce was almost impossible. It required a very expensive private act of Parliament costing perhaps £200, of the sort only the richest could possibly afford. It was very difficult to secure divorce on the grounds of adultery, desertion, or cruelty. The first key legislative victory came with the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, which passed over the strenuous opposition of the highly traditional Church of England. The new law made divorce a civil affair of the courts, rather than a Church matter, with a new civil court in London handling all cases. The process was still quite expensive, at about £40, but now became feasible for the middle class. A woman who obtained a judicial separation took the status of a feme sole, with full control of her own civil rights. Additional amendments came in 1878, which allowed for separations handled by local justices of the peace. The Church of England blocked further reforms until the final breakthrough came with the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973.^[65][66]

20th century

First World War

Edwardian ideals were a bit more liberal 1901–1914, but what really changed society was the Great War. The army was traditionally never a large employer in the nation, and the regular army stood at 247,000 at the start of the war. By 1918 there were about five million people in the army and the fledgling Royal Air Force, newly formed from the RNAS and the RFC, was about the same size of the pre-war army. The almost three million casualties were known as the "lost generation", and such numbers inevitably left society scarred; but even so, some people felt their sacrifice was little regarded in Britain, with poems like Siegfried Sassoon's Blighters criticising the ill-informed jingoism of the home front. Conscription brought people of many different classes, and also people from all over the empire, together and this mixing was seen as a great leveller which would only accelerate social change after the war.

1920s

The social reforms of the previous century continued into the twentieth with the

After the War, many new food products became available to the typical household, with branded foods advertised for their convenience. The shortage of servants was felt in the kitchen, but now instead of an experience cook spending hours on difficult custards and puddings the ordinary housewife working alone could purchase instant foods in jars, or powders that could be quickly mixed. Breakfast porridge from branded, more finely milled, oats could now be cooked in two minutes, not 20. American-style dry cereals began to challenge the porridge and bacon and eggs of the middle classes, and the bread and margarine of the poor. Street vendors were fewer. Shops were upgraded; the flies were gone as were the open barrels of biscuits and pickles. Groceries and butcher shops carried more bottled and canned goods as well as fresher meat, fish and vegetables. Whereas wartime shipping shortages had sharply narrowed choices, the 1920s saw many new kinds of foods—especially fruits—imported from around the world, along with better quality, packaging, and hygiene. Middle classes households now had ice boxes or electric refrigerators, which made for better storage and the convenience of buying in larger quantities.[69]

Great Depression

The relatively prosperous 1920s gave way by 1930 to a depression that was part of a worldwide crisis.^[70][71]

Particularly hardest hit were the north of England and Wales, where unemployment reached 70% in some areas. The

People's War: 1939–45

The war was a "people's war" that enlisted every party, class and every region and every interest, with strikingly little dissent.

Austerity: 1945–51

The Labour Party victory in 1945 represented pent-up frustrations. The strong sense that all Britons had joined in a "People's War" and all deserved a reward animated voters. But the Treasury was near bankruptcy and Labour's nationalization programs were expensive. Prewar levels of prosperity did not return until the 1950s. It was called the Age of Austerity.^[75] The most important reform was the founding of the National Health Service on 5 July 1948. It promised to give cradle to grave care for everyone in the country, regardless of income.^[76]

Wartime rationing continued, and was extended to bread. In the war the government banned ice cream and rationed sweets, such as chocolates and confections; sweets were rationed until 1954.^[77] Most people grumbled, but for the poorest, rationing was beneficial, because their rationed diet was of greater nutritional value than their pre-war diet. Housewives organized to oppose the austerity.^[78] The Conservatives saw their opening and rebuilt their fortunes by attacking socialism, austerity, rationing, and economic controls, and were back in power by 1951.^[79]

Prosperous 1950s

As prosperity returned after 1950, Britons became more family centred.

The 1960s saw dramatic shifts in attitudes and values led by youth. It was a worldwide phenomenon, in which British rock musicians, especially The Beatles, played an international role.^[83] The generations divided sharply regarding the new sexual freedom demanded by youth who listened to bands like The Rolling Stones.^[84]

Sexual morals shifted towards greater acceptance of sexual behaviors and identities that had been considered taboo or immoral. One notable event was the publication of

Reforms in education led to the effective elimination of the grammar school. The rise of the comprehensive school was aimed at producing a more egalitarian educational system, and there were ever-increasing numbers of people going into higher education.

In the 1950s and 1960s,

One important change during the 1980s was the opportunity given to many to buy their council houses, which resulted in many more people becoming property owners in a stakeholder society. At the same time, Conservative Margaret Thatcher weakened her bitter enemy, the trade unions.^[86][87]

The environmentalism movements of the 1980s reduced the emphasis on intensive farming, and promoted organic farming and conservation of the countryside.^[88]

Religious observance declined notably in Britain during the second half of the 20th century, even with the growth of non-Christian religions due to immigration and travel (see

Following on from the resurgence of economic liberalism in the 1980s, the last decade of the 20th century was noted for a greater embrace of social liberalism within British society, largely attributed to the greater influence of the generation born in the socially transformative 1960s. In 1990, 69% of Britons surveyed believed homosexuality was morally wrong; by the end of the decade this had fallen to below half, and the legal age of consent for homosexual sexual activity had been lowered to 16, in line with heterosexual sex.^[90]

The death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997 was also observed to have demonstrated the way in which social attitudes towards mourning had changed, with the unprecedented mass public outpourings of grief that characterised the days after her death being remarked upon as reflecting a change in the national psyche.^[91]

Growing disparity in the relative affluence of those who have benefitted and those 'left behind' from the deindustrialisation and globalisation of the economy was attributed as one of the primary factors behind the surprise victory of the 'leave' campaign in the 2016 European Union membership referendum, and began wider discourse on the emergence of 'two countries' within England that represented greatly differing social attitudes and outlooks.^[92]

Historiography

The social history of the medieval period was primarily developed by Eileen Power, H. S. Bennett, Ambrose Raftis, Rodney Hilton, and Sylvia Thrupp before the rise of the New Social History in the 1960s.

Burchardt (2007) evaluates the state of English rural history and focuses on an "orthodox" school dealing chiefly with the economic history of agriculture. The orthodox historians made "impressive progress" in quantifying and explaining the growth of output and productivity since the agricultural revolution. A challenge came from a dissident tradition that looked chiefly at the negative social costs of agricultural progress, especially enclosure. In the late 20th century there arose a new school, associated with the journal Rural History. Led by Alun Howkins,^[93] it links rural Britain to a wider social history. Burchardt calls for a new countryside history, paying more attention to the cultural and representational aspects that shaped 20th-century rural life.^[94]

See also

• Economic history of the United Kingdom, after 1700
• History of women in the United Kingdom
• Political history of the United Kingdom (1945–present)
• Social history of the United Kingdom (1945–present)

References