Social Thought in England, 1480-1730: From Body Social to Worldly Wealth

ISBN-13: 9781138956865 / Angielski / Twarda / 2016 / 462 str.

A. L. Beier

Opis

Authorities ranging from philosophers to politicians nowadays question the existence of concepts of society, whether in the present or the past. This book argues that social concepts most definitely existed in late medieval and early modern England, laying the foundations for modern models of society. The book analyzes social paradigms and how they changed in the period. A pervasive medieval model was the "body social," which imagined a society of three estates - the clergy, the nobility, and the commonalty - conjoined by interdependent functions, arranged in static hierarchies based upon birth, and rejecting wealth and championing poverty. Another model the book describes as "social humanist," that fundamentally questioned the body social, advancing merit over birth, mobility over stasis, and wealth over poverty. The theory of the body social was vigorously articulated between the 1480s and the 1550s. Parts of the old metaphor actually survived beyond 1550, but alternative models of social humanist thought challenged the body concept in the period, advancing a novel paradigm of merit, mobility, and wealth. The book's methodology focuses on the intellectual context of a variety of contemporary texts.

Spis treści

Part I: The Body Social, 1480–1550  1. The Body Imagined  2. Contexts and Conflicts  3. The Body Examined: Ancient, Medieval, Modern  4. Different Metaphor, Similar Message: Edmund Dudley’s "Tree of Commonwealth," 1509-1510  5. The Body Historicized: Clement Armstrong, 1529-1536  6. Defending the Body: "Commonwealth-Men," c. 1520–c. 1553  Part II: Social Humanist Challenges to the Body Social, 1516-1549  7. Moving Away from the Body: An Overview  8. Poverty, Wealth, and Labor: New Theory, New Practices  9. A Radical Re-Ordering: Thomas More’s Utopia, 1516  10. Social Humanist Thought Re-Defines the Social, c. 1523/5-1536.  11. Rethinking the Three Estates: Thomas Starkey’s "Dialogue Between Lupset and Pole," 1529-1532  12. Virtue Meets Profit: The Brave New World of Sir Thomas Smith, 1549  Part III: Society as Property, 1550-1697  13. Re-Drawing the Social Picture, 1550-1600  14. Property, Patriarchy, and the Agrarian Problem, 1593-1656  15. The Power of Property Perceived, 1576-1730  16. Property Assailed and Defended: Grandees, Levellers, and Diggers: 1647-1649  17. Conclusions: The Past Makes the Future

O autorze

A.L. Beier is Professor Emeritus at Illinois State University.