CONTENTS: Preface Abbreviations Introduction: Social Structure as Social Closure PART 1: CLASS STRUCTURE AS SOCIAL CLOSURE Agrarian Class Structure: Exclusion and Dual Closure Agrarian Class Structure and the Forces for Change (I) Trade, Population and the Money-supply (ii) Usurpationary Closure Urban Class Structure and Usurpationary Closure PART 2: ORDER, GENDER AND STATUS-GROUP AS SOCIAL CLOSURE Order as Social Closure (I)- The Nobility Order as Social Closure(ii)- The Clergy Gender as Social Closure: Women Status-group as Social Closure: the Jews Social Ideology: Closure Legitimated? Conclusion Select bibliography Bibliography of references.

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'[Rigby] has produced a book which manages to be both stimulating and useful.' - Rosemary Horrox, History Today 'Overall, this book is a very important contribution for both its theoretical interpretations and its empirical description of English medieval society. It will be much valued and is to be highly recommended.' - David Postles, Continuity and Change '[Students] will learn from Rigby's illuminating discussions of medieval, as well as modern, social theory, and his richly nuanced analysis of terms such as 'estate', 'order' and 'class', some valuable lessons about the sensitivity with which the historian must use language and the political nature of so much of our inherited historical discourse.' - W.M. Ormrod, The Historian

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