Social Classes

Society consists of three strictly separate social classes — nobles, clergy, and commoners. Everyone participates in this system. People are born into a specific class and enter the same occupation as their parents. People do not usually expect to change their status. This seems shocking to us today, when individual freedom is the highest ideal. Members of our modern, democratic society have difficulty understanding the class system that dominated medieval society, but an understanding of it is necessary to capture the feel and meaning of the literature and events of the Middle Ages. Strict social classes are not inherently wrong or bad. Many people find comfort in avoiding responsibilities and knowing that their daily routine will be predictable and unchanging. It is not being in a caste that is bad, but rather being in an exploited and abused caste. Thus, although many miserable serfs would like to have their condition improved, they know they will always be serfs, with all the advantages and disadvantages of being a man or woman of the soil.