Social and Political Society of Shakepeare’s Time

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SOCIETY OF THE PERIOD:

The Great Chain of Being organised society into a fixed order. God was placed at the top, then down through angels, men, women, animals, birds, fishes, insects, tress to stones. There were seven orders of angels with archangels at the top. Men were organised in a fixed oreder from king down to serf.

This great hierarchy meant that the structure of each class of being reflected the structure of creation as a whole. Even parts of the human body corresponded to elements of society. For example the head was the king, the arms were the warriors, the hands were workers, etc. As you went up the chain each link had power over the other link before it. If you disobeyed people in authority, then you were defying the divine plan. Superiors had to be obeyed even if they were wrong.

People with power during Shakespeare’s time wanted everyone else (including Elizabth’s government) to know their rightful place. They therefore argued that this hierarchy was divinely ordained. In London the merchant class was moving their way up the social ladder, accumulating wealth and power. This was seen to undermine the theory that everyone was born into a class and must not move up the hierarchy. During this period science was also developing. Men like Copernicus, Galileo and Francis Bacon showed that through observation and experimentation, the world could be explained in new ways. Copernicus’s proof that the earth went arpund the sun and not vice versa, was known in London during the time. There was a small but influential group who made it their aim to doubt everything and discard old beliefs. The writings of one such thinker, Michaeal de Montaigne were read by many, including Shakespeare.

During Shakespeare’s life there was great hardship for many people, but it was laso a time for new social mobility. In the county-side class divisions were still prominent. Men and women worked on the land, either as servants or day-labourers. Those who were able to rent land were known as husbandmen, if they were able to employ servants and labourers, they were known as yeomen. Above yeomen were the gentry and the aristocracy, whose incomes came from the land they owned. Unemployment and hunger were seen as a result of laziness or greed, however some help was given to the poor by the parishes. Leaving your parish to look for work was considered risky. Under the 1587 Poor Law, if you were found to be a ‘masterless man’ you could be classed as a vaganond and sentenced to be whipped, then returned to you parish. Despite this 6000 people a year travelled to London to seek employment. In London, though obedience to superiors was still important, many people were successfully moving their way up in the world. Merchants didn’t always have a noble ancestry, but commerce made them the most powerful social class in London. Merchants made up the council of alderman which administered the city.

Puritanism had a substantial impact on Shakespeare’s time. Puritans believed that a poor man’s reading of the bible was just as valid as a rich man’s reading. This concept built on the radical notion that every person was equal, one that had been circulating for hundreds of years. The Puritan’s first commitiment was to God, and then to civil authorities, this menat that the king was no longer seen as God’s mouthpieve. Much of the period’s political can be linked to this idea, when obeying God and obeying the monarch become two separate things.

Thirty years before Shakespeare was born, Henry VIII nationalised the possessions of the Romna Catholic Church and created the Protestant- Church of England. He became the Supreme Head. His daughter, Elizabeth I (1558-1603) was queen for most of Shakespeare’s lifetime, the early part of her reigm was relatively peaceful. She completed what her father and grandfather(Henry VII) had begun, centralising power and breaking the independent fiefdoms of lords and nobles.

She managed to bring about a truce between the different wings of the church and beat off a Spanish invasion in 1588. However, in the years following bad harvests, increasing poverty and social unrest made England a less peaceful place. Elizabeth was also queen of Wales, which had been brought under the control of the English by the Acts of Union in 1536 and 1543. Irish resistance, however continued throughout Shakespeare’s lifetime. Scotland was and independent country and a hostile neighbour, Elizabthe was succeeded by