AMSCO 4.7 Changing Social Hierarchies Notes

Topic 4.7

📍Topic 4.7 Changing Social Hierarchies

📖 AMSCO p.251-260

Main Idea

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Things to Know

Global Societal Transformations:

Internal and External Conflicts:

• Shaped social hierarchies globally.
• Varied treatment of minorities.

Europe

Treatment of Jews:

• Expulsions from England (1290), France (1394), Spain (1492).
• Ottoman Empire demonstrated relative tolerance.

Social Hierarchies:

• Evolving structures included royalty, nobility, merchants, artisans, and struggling lower classes.
• Discriminatory policies based on religion, ethnicity, and social class.

Worldwide Social Hierarchies

Distinctive Structures:

• Royalty, nobility, merchants, artisans, and lower classes.
• Discriminatory policies based on religion, ethnicity, and social class.

Gunpowder Empires

Ottoman Empire:

• Internal tensions, especially within the military elite.
• Janissaries gained power and prestige.
• The sultan's powers included the timar system.
• Relative tolerance toward religious minorities.

Qing Dynasty in China:

• Displayed intolerance toward the Han ethnicity.
• Required men to wear queues as a test of loyalty.

European States

Evolution of Social Structures:

• Challenges to the nobility from royalty, the middle class, and common people.
• Acceptance of Jews increased in the 17th century influenced by the scientific revolution and Enlightenment.

Russian Social Classes

Hierarchy Similarities:

• Mirrored historical tensions between rulers and nobility.

Americas

Social Changes:

• Drastic shifts due to European arrival, African slavery, and disease outbreaks.
• Establishment of a racial hierarchy through the Casta system in Latin America.
• Social status determined by factors like skin color.
• Casta system tiers included peninsulares, criollos, mestizos, mulattoes, and zambos.
• Assignment to levels at baptism with limited mobility.
• Higher taxes and tributes for those at the bottom of the hierarchy.

Terms to Remember