Social Orders and Social Classes in Europe Since 1500

This pioneering survey evaluates the notions of class and order throughout European history since 1500. After a general theoretical section on the concept of orders and class, the book provides discussions and case studies of the nobility, the clergy, the middle classes and the rural and urban proletariat. The studies are drawn from all over Europe, from early modern Castile to late Tsarist Russia. Contributors include Peter Burke, Stuart Woolf, A A Thompson and Joseph Bergin.

M. L. Bush

Preface 1. The language of orders in early modern Europe Peter Burke 2. The concept of class William Reddy 3. An anatomy of nobility A L Bush 4. Between estate and profession; the clergy in Imperial Russia Gregory L Freeze 5. Between estate and profession; the catholic parish clergy of early modern western Europe Joseph Bergin 6. The middle classes in late Tsarist Russia Charles E Timberlake 7. From 'middling sort' to middle class in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England John Seed 8. Tenant right and the peasantries of Europe under the old regime M L Bush 9. Deferential bitterness; the social outlook for rural proleteriat in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England and WalesK D M Snell 10. Order, class and urban poorStuart Woolf 11. A people and a class: industrial workers and the social order in nineteenth-century England Patrick Joyce 12. Myths of order and ordering myths William Doyle 13. Class and historical explanation Huw Beynon Suggestions for further reading Notes on contributors Index