Major Themes, SOCIAL AND CLASS RELATIONSHIPS

SOCIAL AND CLASS RELATIONSHIPS
 

From  600  to 1450,  social and  class relationships varied  greatly  from  society to society around the world. Within each society, developments were dependent on local circumstances, wars, invasions, and migrations. Many invasions and group migrations  that occurred throughout Eurasia during this period greatly affected relationships between different peoples and social classes. While much information is available about  some societies, little is known  of others, especially those without written  languages.
 

In Europe  the invasions  and  chaos  that  contributed to the end of the Roman  Empire  continued through this period  as Germanic  tribes,  Magyars,  and Vikings raided,  conquered, and settled. Feudalism emerged because governments failed to provide the needed protection. Under feudalism, lords  provided  protection in return  for allegiance  and  service from  their  vassals. It was a graded social relationship with the king at the apex, followed by nobles of varying ranks  who served their superiors  in war and governed the fiefs that were granted  to them. The bulk of the population were serfs, free in person, but obligated  to remain on the land that they worked,  living in villages around a manor. Slavery was rare. Marriages in Europe were monogamous because of the teachings  of the Christian Church.  Most marriages  took place within the individual’s social group.
 

The church also functioned  to mitigate the harsher  aspects of feudalism.  As in lay society social class divisions were rigid within  the church;  whereas  most  parish  priests  came from  the common people, high-ranking clerics almost invariably  came from the aristocracy. However  religious orders, beginning with the Benedictine order from the sixth century,  presented  an alternative class structure and a powerful  source of social organization because they were independent of the political  rulers of the land  and  were put  directly  under  papal  control  after  the 10th  century.  Missionaries, some belonging  to religious  orders,  notably  the Knights  of the Teutonic  Order, spread  Catholic  Christianity  and culture  to northern and parts  of eastern  Europe  that  had not  been part  of the Roman Empire. Throughout this period in Europe,  religious orders of monks and nuns provided  education for boys and girls in monastic  and convent schools and, later, for young men in the universities.
 

European economy  prospered after  1000  because  of the waning  of outside  invasions,  technological advances in agriculture, and new lands brought under cultivation. The church also promoted economic  growth  because the lands that  belonged  to it were among  the best administered and,  as  a result,  most  productive. Local  and  international trade  also  increased.  These factors  led to  the growth  of towns,  many of them self-governing and not subject to the strict feudal social order.  The flight of serfs to towns and the need for workers  to develop new lands led to better and freer conditions for serfs who remained  on the land, leading to the eroding of serfdom.
 

In Asia, Japan  was the only country  where social and class relationships approximated those in Europe.  Beginning in the sixth century,  Japanese  leaders attempted to replicate  China’s political  and social institutions in order to achieve rapid progress. However, conditions in Japan differed significantly from those of more developed China. Thus Japanese society failed to advance into the more meritocratic and open Chinese model; instead, it developed along feudal lines. Paying lip service to powerless emperors,  feudal lords, descended from aristocratic clans that  traced their lineages to antiquity, were served by hereditary warriors (called bushi or samurai).  They ruled the land that was worked by peasants whose position  approximated that of European serfs. Social mobility was extremely rare.
 

In contrast to Europe and Japan,  Chinese society became more egalitarian as the great families that  were descended  from ancient  aristocratic clans declined and lost power.  Although  individuals were rewarded with high rank  and titles, a hereditary aristocracy had ceased to exist by the end of the ninth  century.  Bureaucrats recruited  through civil service exams  dominated government. The invention  of paper  and printing, both  of which took  place in China,  and government and private support of education all contributed to the development of an increasingly egalitarian society where many family fortunes  rose and fell through the educational attainment of their sons.
 

The social leveling and increasing  egalitarianism was severely set back when the Mongol  Yuan dynasty  completed  its conquest  of all China  in 1279.  The Mongols  instituted a class structure in China that placed themselves on top, followed by their subjects of non-Chinese ancestry from Central Asia, then northern Chinese, with southern Chinese at the bottom. Huge numbers  of Chinese were made  slaves. A similarly  iniquitous class structure characterized Mongol  rule in Persia and Russia.  In Russia,  local princes were obliged to render  tribute  of gold and  human  beings to their Mongol overlords.  The Chinese rebel who expelled the Mongols from China and founded  the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) was an orphan from an impoverished family and felt great compassion for the poor.  He emancipated people enslaved by Mongols  and enacted laws that favored the poor and dispossessed. Thus Ming Chinese society was more egalitarian than  that  of pre-Yuan  eras, and people enjoyed social mobility that  was determined by economic and educational success. Marriages were monogamous for  the  majority,  though  rich  men  could  take  concubines.  Divorces  were  rare  and favored men when they occurred.
 

Indian society continued to be divided by caste, which originated with the Aryan invasion or the migration of Indo-Aryans from the Eurasian  plains into the Indian subcontinent during the second millennium  b.c.e.  Caste was a method  to separate the Aryans from the non-Aryans—the Dravidians and aboriginal tribes—and was a more peaceful solution than the victors enslaving, killing, or evicting the conquered. The four castes were Brahman,  who were priests and scholars;  Kshatriya,  who were warriors and rulers; Vaisya, who were farmers, artisans,  and merchants; and Sudra, who were servants. The first three castes claimed Aryan origins, while Sudras were the natives. Each caste was subdivided  into numerous occupational groups or subcastes  called jati.
 

Below the four castes were outcasts,  also called untouchables—peoples relegated to the bottom of society who performed scorned functions.  They were probably descended from tribal peoples or those that had been thrown out from their original places in society because of crimes or other mis- deeds. Over the centuries, invaders and immigrants had assimilated  into the caste structure. Around
500 b.c.e., Buddhism and Jainism, two major new religions that  evolved out of the Aryan Vedism- Hinduism, both  rejected  caste,  but  by 600  c.e.  Buddhism  was in decline  in India,  while Jainism never claimed the loyalty of large numbers  of people. Thus the caste system remained  the prevailing method  of social organization. While there were many local variations in marriage  customs,  most 

Hindus  were monogamous, although the ruling elite had concubines.
 

While many earlier incoming groups had been absorbed, Muslims who came into India after 712 either  as conquerors, settlers,  or traders  maintained their  own religious and social structures. Since
the Muslim impact was felt mainly in northern India, many Hindus  fled southwards, while those who remained  retreated into the relative safety of their caste social structure, which became stricter  as a result.  Hindu  women  in northern India began to veil themselves in public,  and girls married  earlier partly  due to fear for their  safety in an area  that  was constantly under  threat  of Muslim  raids and conquest. Some Hindus,  mainly  from  lower  castes, converted  to Islam voluntarily. However,  many were forcibly converted.  Social intercourse between Hindus  and Muslims was restricted.  Even among Hindus,  interdining between castes was taboo,  and intermarriages were severely frowned  upon.  Vegetarianism, especially among  upper  castes,  was encouraged, and  the immolation of widows  at the cremation of their husbands was esteemed and encouraged among  the upper  castes. Great  divisions existed between the upper classes and the majority  farmers,  and while many men and women of the upper classes/castes were educated, the majority  of both faiths were illiterate.
 

Until the rise of Islam in the seventh  century,  much  of eastern  Europe  and  western  Asia was ruled  by the Byzantine  Empire.  It was ethnically  and  culturally  diverse, with  many  Arabs,  Slavs, Armenians,  and Jews among the population, but was dominated by peoples of Greek descent. Much of the land was owned  by wealthy  aristocrats and worked  by free tenant  farmers.  The small numbers of slaves mostly  worked  in the home.  Society was hierarchic,  and  while a few highly placed women  wielded power,  most women  tended  to affairs related  to the home.  Missionaries from the Byzantine Empire converted  the Slavic peoples of eastern Europe to Christianity and also passed to them the ideals and mores of Greek civilization.
 

In western Asia, the rise and spread of Islam had significant impact on all aspects of life. Victorious Muslim  leaders did not attempt to force the conquered people to adopt  Islam and allowed  them to maintain their own laws, content  with collecting taxes in lands under their control. Those who did not convert  were sometimes  treated  as second-class  subjects. Thus, in time, many of the local populations  converted  to Islam and  were then  treated  as equals within  the community. Islamic law also strictly regulated  the treatment of slaves. Muslims could not enslave other Muslims, and slave owners were encouraged to free their slaves. Most  slaves in Islamic societies were used for domestic  chores, or as soldiers. Although  women  in Islam enjoyed higher status  than  did women  in many other  contemporary societies, men remained dominant. They were allowed a maximum of four wives and were favored in divorce, among other advantages. By the eighth century, as in most of the world, there was great disparity  between the ruling wealthy and the rest of the community in the Islamic realms under the Abbasid Caliphate.
 

While northern Africa was Islamized,  the many  peoples  who  lived in sub-Saharan Africa followed diverse cultures with different social patterns. Islam spread peacefully to sub-Saharan Africa through commerce  and  the  movement  of peoples.  Societies and  polities  of sub-Saharan societies were extremely  varied.  Some, for example  the Kikuyu of Kenya, were open and egalitarian, while others in societies in central Africa were narrowly hierarchic.  Work in most was divided along gender lines; men were hunters,  warriors, and herders, while women farmed and produced most of the food. Assignment of tasks by age was also common.  One group,  the Bantus, migrated  from central to eastern  and  southern Africa, spreading  their  language  from  a common  language  group.  Bantu societies were often led by tribal chieftains who also maintained armies. The societies were generally polygamous  and patriarchal, although a few passed descent or “blood” through women.