338 The Stuarts
tunnage of shipping engaged in coastal trading probably rose
by the same amount. The roads were thronged with petty
chapmen, with their news-sheets, tracts, almanacs, cautionary
tales, pamphlets full of homespun wisdom; pedlars with trin-
kets of all sorts; and travelling entertainers. If the alehouse had
always been a distraction from that other social centre of vil-
lage life, the parish church, it now became much more its rival
in the dissemination of news and information and in the forma-
tion of popular culture. In the early years of the century,
national and local regulation of alehouses was primarily con-
cerned with ensuring that not too much of the barley harvest
was malted and brewed; by the end of the century, regulation
was more concerned with the pub's potential for sedition.
In the century from 1540 to 1640 there was a redistribution
of wealth away from rich and poor towards those in the middle
of society. The richest men in the kingdom derived the bulk
of their income from rents and services, and these were notor-
iously difficult to keep in line with inflation: a tradition of long
leases and the custom of fixed rents and fluctuating 'entry
fines'—payments made when tenancies changed hands—
militated against it. Vigilant landowners could keep pace with
inflation, but many were not vigilant. Equally, those whose
farms or holdings did not make them self-sufficient suffered
rising (and worse, fluctuating) food prices, while a surplus on
the labour market and declining real wages made it very hard
for the poor to make good the shortfall. The number of land-
less labourers and cottagers soared. Those in the middle of
society, whether yeomen farmers or tradesmen, prospered.
If they produced a surplus over and above their own needs
they could sell dear and produce more with the help of cheap
labour. They could lend their profits to their poorer neighbours
(there were after all no banks, stocks and shares, building
societies) and foreclose on the debts. They invested in more
land, preferring to extend the scale of their operations rather
than sink capital into improved productivity. Many of those
who prospered from farming rose into the gentry.
Society and Economic Life 339
Only two groups had 'social' status in seventeenth-century
England—the gentry and the peerage. Everybody else had 'eco-
nomic' status, and was defined by his economic function (hus-
bandman, cobbler, merchant, attorney, etc.). The peerage and
gentry were different. They had a 'quality' which set them
apart. That 'quality' was 'nobility'. Peers and gentlemen were
'noble'; everybody else was 'ignoble' or 'churlish'. Such con-
cepts were derived partly from the feudal and chivalric tradi-
tions in which land was held from the Crown in exchange for
the performance of military duties. These duties had long since
disappeared, but the notion that the ownership of land and
'manors' conferred status and 'honour' had been reinvigorated
by the appropriation to English conditions of Aristotle's notion
of the citizen. The gentleman or nobleman was a man set apart
to govern. He was independent and leisured: he derived his
income without having to work for it, that income made him
free from want and from being beholden to or dependent upon
others, and he had the time and leisure to devote himself to the
arts of government. He was independent in judgement and
trained to make decisions. Not all gentlemen served in the
offices which required such qualities (justice of the peace,
sheriff, militia captain, high constable, etc.). But all had this
capacity to serve, to govern. A gentleman was expected to be
hospitable, charitable, fair-minded. He was distinguished from
his country neighbour, the yeoman, as much by attitude of
mind and personal preference as by wealth. Minor gentry and
yeomen had similar incomes. But they lived different lives: the
gentleman rented out his lands, wore cloth and linen, read
Latin; the yeoman was a working farmer, wore leather, read
and wrote in English. By 1640, there were perhaps 120 peers
and 20,000 gentry, one in twenty of all adult males. The per-
manence of land and the security of landed income restricted
gentility to the countryside; the prosperous merchant or crafts-
man, though he may have had a larger income than many
gentlemen, and have discharged, in the government of his
borough, the same duties, was denied the status of gentleman.