Social Order: A Chain of Status Social Order: A Chain of Status Author Haley Zilian Supervising Editor Melissa Walter Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England Encyclopedia EMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globablink Research Internship

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 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Haley Zilian, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Born-digital Born-digital documents are anything other than primary texts Critical Critical material, such as a general introduction or a textual introduction. Responsibilities Responsibilities Author A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Editor A person, family, or organization contributing to a resource by revising or elucidating the content, e.g., adding an introduction, notes, or other critical matter. An editor may also prepare a resource for production, publication, or distribution. For major revisions, adaptations, etc., that substantially change the nature and content of the original work, resulting in a new work, see author. LEMDO uses the general term editor only in edition metadata and only to indicate when a person is responsible for editing all parts of an edition. Otherwise, use the more granular terms to describe the precise nature of the editorial role. Supervising Editor An editor who supervises the work of a student editor. Copy Editor LEMDO uses the term owner for the person who checks facts, quotations, and citations; may make formatting changes; may convert from one citation style to another; may suggest wording changes; and enforces conformity with the project style guide. Markup Editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Gloss needed. Copyright Holder A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. EMEE Keywords Culture Learn about the customs, beliefs, and daily lives of people in early modern England. Daily Life Courtiers Published page. Fixed broken link. proofed Review of article finished. updated author respStmt. Created File. Michael Best Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

 Mahayla Galliford Mahayla Galliford

Project manager, 2025-present; research assistant, 2021-present. Mahayla Galliford (she/her) graduated with a BA (Hons with distinction) from the University of Victoria in 2024. Mahayla’s undergraduate research explored early modern stage directions and civic water pageantry. Mahayla continues her studies through UVic’s English MA program and her SSHRC-funded thesis project focuses on editing and encoding girls’ manuscripts, specifically Lady Rachel Fane’s dramatic entertainments, in collaboration with LEMDO.

 Leah Hamby Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

 Kate McPherson Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

 Melissa Walter Melissa Walter

Melissa Walter is Associate Professor of English at the University of the Fraser Valley. Her research focuses on early modern English drama and English and European prose fiction. She is the author of The Italian Novella and Shakespeare’s Comic Heroines (U of Toronto, 2019), and co-editor, with Dennis Britton, of Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Authors, Audiences, Digital Technologies (Routledge, 2018). Her work on English theatre and the European novella has appeared in several edited collections, including Transnational Exchange in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2008), and Transnational Mobility in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2012). She has also written about Translation and Identity in the Dialogues in English and Malaiane Languages (Indographies, ed. Jonathan Gil Harris. Palgrave 2012). At the University of the Fraser Valley, she is a lead coordinator of UFV’s Shakespeare and Reconciliation Garden.

 Haley Zilian Haley Zilian

Haley Zilian was a student at the University of Fraser Valley.

 LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/

The social order in early modern England went, likek today, from rich to poor, with power and wealth strongly correlated. Early modern England subscribed to a belief in something called the great chain of being, which originated in ancient Greece and Rome and helped define a hierarchy for all creation. This explanation starts from the top of the chain, i.e., the link (social class) with the most power and wealth, working its way towards the bottom of the chain to those with the least power and wealth.

The Monarch

At the very top is the monarch, who was believed to be anointed by God to lead the people and rule the nation. Like other English monarchs before and after her long rule from 1558 to 1603, Elizabeth I, as the Queen of England, had the most power in the country, which came with the most wealth. The monarchy owned vast tracts of land, dozens of palaces and properties, and held significant monetary wealth, too.

The Court

Below the monarch were members of the court, the noble individuals in society. These were people with hereditary titles such as duke or duchess, earl or countess, marquis or marchioness, and baron or baroness. After the Queen, they held the most wealth due to extensive land holdings and the most power due to their close proximity to the Queen. Their connection to the Queen, if she favored them, yielded power, but the opposite was also true—the monarch’s disfavor yielded disgrace. Nobles often owned significant estates outside of London and much of their wealth was derived from the agricultural and other products of and rents from lands and houses they owned, although they also incurred significant costs to maintain and staff these estates, as well as entertain the monarch and court upon demand.

The Gentry

After the nobility that comprised the court was the gentry. This class was composed of individuals who held enough wealth that they did not need to work in any sort of trade or perform any labor, and they owned their own land. This class was comprised of knights, gentlewomen/gentlemen, and squires. Most of them held the customary coat of arms, which enabled bearers to style themselves gentlemen. The gentry became more favored during the Elizabethan era and began to amass greater wealth and power.

Merchants, Artisans, and Yeomanry

Below these ruling classes were the merchants, artisans, and yeomanry. These several groups would be considered middle class. This was a diverse group without much hereditary wealth and a slimmer chance at greater power, due to their distance from the monarch and court. Despite this, increasing numbers of urban merchants in this group gained great wealth due to trade, particularly in international trade as London grew in the latter half of the 16th century. Some rose into positions of civic power, with the Mayor of London sometimes pushing back against the Queen’s decisions, such as closure of the playhouses during plague.

Skilled artisans such as carpenters, goldsmiths, tailors, ironworkers, and vinters (winemakers and wine merchants) also occupied a middle position in the power dynamics of early modern England. Craftsmen were often organized into guilds or livery companies, which originated in the medieval period to regulate prices and quality of goods. Young men were apprenticed in these skilled trades, working for seven years without pay to learn the craft.

The yeomanry were small land holders from rural areas who, although not wealthy, still had the right to help elect members of the House of Commons. They owned and farmed their own land, typically with the help of tenants who rented fields and homes from them.

Laborers

Next to last on the chain were labourers. These were non-landowners who did physical labor for a living, often renting homes or fields to farm. These were the peasants who worked the land and did other menial jobs, including the large number of servants in wealthier households.

The Poor

At the bottom of the chain, often scorned or invisible, were the poor. These were people who either could not work or not find regular work. English historian Liza Picard notes they were given licenses to beg in certain areas, but also that several Parliamentary acts in the Tudor period attempted to sort those unable to work from those who were unwilling.

This group of people unwilling to work were often termed masterless men and were the cause of significant anxiety in the early modern period. These vagrants were often criminals that participated in petty theft and scams. Significant punishments were levied against vagrants, with public shaming like the stocks or the pillory for a first offense and increasingly severe punishments such as the removal or an ear or even hanging for further offenses. The vagrants were hated and feared in early modern society, though the accounts of their numbers appear to be over-exaggerated (Beier 6).

Key Print Sources Cannon, John and Robert Crowcroft. Guilds. A Dictionary of British History. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, 2015. Cannon, John and Robert Crowcroft. Vagrancy Acts. A Dictionary of British History. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, 2015. Cressy, David. Describing the Social Order of Elizabethan England. Literature and History vol. 3, 1976, p. 29.
Key Online Sources Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. Great Chain of Being. Encyclopedia Britannica. 10 Dec. 2021. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Great-Chain-of-Being. Beier, A. L. Vagrants and the Social Order in Elizabethan England. Past & Present vol. 64, 1974, pp. 3–29. Oxford University Press, The Past and Present Society, https://www.jstor.org/stable/650315. Suzuki, Mihoko. Gender, Class, and the Social Order in Late Elizabethan Drama. Theatre Journal vol. 44, no. 1, Mar. 1992, pp. 31–45. JSTOR. DOI doi.org/10.2307/3208514.
Image Sources Brewer, John Sherren, and Godfrey Goodman. The Court of King James the First ... To Which Are Added Letters Illustrative of the Personal History of the Most Distinguished Characters in the Court of That Monarch and His Predecessors. Now First Published from the Original Manuscripts by J. S. Brewer. British Library. https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11017021146/. Smith, J.F., and William Howitt. John Cassell’s Illustrated History of England. The Text, to the Reign of Edward I, by J. F. Smith; and from That Period by W. Howitt. MS. British Library. https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11048764365/.