Social structure of the english city during High Middle Ages
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/1728-2640.2026.162.4
Keywords:
High Middle Ages, English cities, cultural development, social structure, patriciate, artisans, traders, intelligentsia, social outcastsAbstract
Background. The pace of urbanization accelerates rapidly due to the growth of significance of the city as a centrum of medieval society’s life, its essential role in the civil, administrative, political, economic and cultural lives of Albion during High Middle Ages. It is also connected with the increase of attractiveness of the city life, which was embodied in the enhancement of the financial situation of the burgherhood, significant role of the public corporations, the peculiarities of the citizens’ mentality, and city law. In the proposed article, the attempt to analyze the social structure of the English city during High Middle Ages (11th-13th centuries), its general patterns and typological features is conducted.
Methods. The research is based on the principle of historism, scientism, and author objectiveness, and also historical-comparative, historical-systematic, and historical-typological methods.
Results. It was established that the following segments of population could be distinguished among the English burgherhood: trading and artisan population, city patriciate, and intelligentsia, which underwent the great change during the studied period. It was explored that simultaneously the active formation of the class of social outcasts such as Jews, whores and those ill with leprosy, who suffered from persecutions and oppressions.
Conclusions. The social structure of English city during High Middle Ages was defined by diversification and significant intensification of the already existing differences between the segments of population. The distillation of the new citizen classes reveals the room for opportunity to analyze the civil mentality which receives its formation during the studied period.
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