Whats so wrong with Social Orders?

What is so wrong with social orders? Today there is not a defined separation of classes as there was in the Middle Ages. Some people may fly first class while others are in coach, but this is not as far as the medieval peoples went with separating the classes.

First off, you could never switch into a different class. There was no promotion at work that increased your pay; there was no miraculous invention that made you a billionaire over night. If you were born a peasant, you stayed a peasant for the rest of your life. If you were born a knight or nobleman, that’s what you were for the rest of your life. You could never upgrade, and you never had to downgrade.

The middle ages were all about feudalism. The upper class, the noblemen, preserved their power over the lower class through the feudal system. The kings, at the top of the status charts, understood that they had their land and were so powerful because God gave them that power. This was called the “divine right”. They were very pompous and treated their peasants terribly. “Raging against them beyond the bounds of malice and stupidity and doing unspeakable injuries to them”. (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/575Rauching.html) This is a quote describing the harsh treatment of slaves.

The problem with these social classes is that the upper classes were very crude and harsh to the lower classes. There is a big difference in this treatment between the classes than there is between today’s social classes.

The way the classes are designed also causes problems. It is not right the way they keep people limited to one class. To be born a serf is basically to be born a slave with no absolute hope of escape, and probably no happiness. You would work your whole life and nothing else. As aforementioned, you couldn’t get a promotion one day or a raise. You were stuck with what you got till the day you died. The noblemen surely didn’t see this as a problem. They would never have to become peasants. They would never have to work. They stayed in much nicer homes than the serfs and were treated like royalty, well what royalty was then.

The slaves and serfs were commonly traded and sold to other noblemen. They were not people, they were property. “You would have seen queues of the wretches of both sexes shackled together and you would have pitied them”. They would send the peasants to the market to run their errands. “those who were beautiful and those who were in the flower of youth were daily prostituted and sold amidst much wailing to the barbarians” (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1066serfs3.html) The women serfs that were pretty or young were sold into prostitution to other men.

The social orders of the middle ages gave not only opportunity for maltreatment, but encouragement for that treatment. The people of the upper social classes had nothing to be afraid of. The peasants would never have any social status high enough to be able to make a legitimate accusation against the noblemen mistreating them. Their thoughts and ideas would never be considered true or even relevant no matter what.

The medieval people were about who was the best and who was the worst. There was no middle. Just the top and the bottom. They needed a better system than kings and slaves. The ideology of the kings, knights, and noblemen of the middle ages was seriously flawed. They showed no respect for human life as expressed by the fact that they just sold people off and bought new ones. Medieval social orders were not ordered at all.

Works Cited

"Feudalism." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 07 June 2010. .

"Medieval Sourcebook: Gregory of Tours: Harsh Treatment of Serfs and Slaves, C." FORDHAM.EDU. Web. 07 June 2010. .

"Medieval Sourcebook: Traffic in Slaves: England, 1065-1066." FORDHAM.EDU. Web. 06 June 2010. .

"Middle Ages." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 07 June 2010. .