Static and dynamic views of social stratification

Evidence presented in the previous chapter suggests that many historians have accepted too readily the steep pyramid, with its enormous base and needle-like point, as a model for describing the distribution of wealth and power in sixteenth-century London. Yet there is another and perhaps more fundamental reason for believing that current historiography exaggerates the degree of inequality in London and other cities in early modern England. Social stratification is normally conceived of statically, its focus being the structural inequality of a society at some point in time. But as a system which distributed access to communal resources it must be studied dynamically, that is, in terms both of the way in which it actually operated and ultimately of the principles which institutionalised the mode of distribution.

In their heyday medieval gilds are thought to have provided for London's men a highly regulated but relatively available system of mobility. An apprentice finished out his term and, after a few years of journeywork, became a householder and eventually a liveryman, a member of his gild's elite. A glance at a tax roll would show a considerable degree of inequality within the gilds. However, because gilds furnished sufficient opportunities for social mobility, the mode of distribution was institutionalised in such a way that ultimately most gildsmen were assured of equal access to positions of advantage over time. It is also thought that by the early modern period much had changed.