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cities these merchants had gained political power to
match their economic might, becoming merchant oli-
garchs who ruled through city councils. This hierarchy
of wealth was more fluid than the older divisions into
noble and commoner, allowing individuals and families
to rise — and fall — within one generation.
The development of a hierarchy of wealth did not
mean an end to the prominence of nobles, however,
and even poorer nobility still had higher status than
wealthy commoners. Thus wealthy Italian merchants
enthusiastically bought noble titles and country vil-
las in the fifteenth century, and wealthy English or
Spanish merchants eagerly married their daughters
and sons into often-impoverished noble families. The
nobility maintained its status in most parts of Europe
Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample.
not by maintaining rigid boundaries, but by taking in
Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
and integrating the new social elite of wealth.
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
Along with being tied to hierarchies of wealth and
family standing, social status was linked to consider-
ations of honor. Among the nobility, for example, cer-
For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.
tain weapons and battle tactics were favored because
they were viewed as more honorable. Among urban
dwellers, certain occupations, such as city executioner
or manager of the municipal brothel, might be well
paid but were understood to be dishonorable and so
of low status. In cities, sumptuary laws reflected both
Laura de Dianti, 1523 The Venetian artist Titian portrays a young Italian
woman with a gorgeous blue dress and an elaborate pearl and feather wealth and honor; merchants were specifically allowed
headdress, accompanied by a young Black page with a gold earring. fur and jewels, while prostitutes were ordered to wear
Enslaved servants from Africa and the Ottoman Empire were common in yellow bands that would remind potential customers of
wealthy Venetian households. (Private Collection/© Human Bios International AG) the flames of Hell.
Gender Roles
difference, beginning to define, and in visual art to por-
tray, themselves as “white.” (In Greek and Roman art and Renaissance people would not have understood the word
texts, heroes are ruddy or dark-skinned from their active gender to refer to categories of people, but they would
life outdoors while women, sick people, and cowards are have easily grasped the concept. Toward the end of the
white.) European Christians associated the color black fourteenth century, learned men (and a few women)
with sin, evil, and the Devil, and increasingly applied this began what was termed the debate about women
to people, viewing Black Africans as inferior, barbaric, or (querelle des femmes), a debate about women’s charac-
even demonic — attitudes that allowed them to buy and ter and nature that would last for centuries. Misogynist
sell enslaved Africans without any concern. By linking (muh-SAH-juh-nihst) critiques of women from both
whiteness with freedom and blackness with slavery, the clerical and secular authors denounced females as devi-
slave trade strengthened these ideas. Distinctions based on ous, domineering, and demanding. In answer, several
skin color, facial features, and continent of origin would authors compiled long lists of famous and praiseworthy
later mix with those based on religion, kinship, and other women exemplary for their loyalty, bravery, and morality.
characteristics to coalesce into modern notions of race. Christine de Pizan (1364?–1430), an Italian woman who
became the first woman in Europe to make her living as
Wealth and the Nobility a writer, was among the writers who not only defended
women, but also explored the reasons behind women’s
The word class — as in working class, middle class, secondary status — that is, why the great philosophers,
and upper class — was not used in the Renaissance to statesmen, and poets had generally been men. In this
describe social divisions, but by the thirteenth cen- they were anticipating discussions about the social con-
tury, and even more so by the fifteenth, the idea of a struction of gender by six hundred years. Christine also
hierarchy based on wealth was emerging. This was par- wrote histories, biographies, a book of military tactics,
ticularly true in cities, where wealthy merchants who and an advice book for women of all social classes (see
oversaw vast trading empires lived in splendor that “AP® Claims and Evidence in Written Sources: Christine
rivaled the richest nobles. As we saw earlier, in many de Pizan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies,” page 69).
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