Social+&+Political+Structure

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Social Structure__ -Social heirarchy depended completely on how wealthy your family was. -If born into a poor family there was no way to scape that life style -There were three main classes of people -There were the rich and powerful nobles or royalty, the free average men and there were the poor slaves -The nobles (kings family, monks) lived a great life with lots of land and slaves to take care of it -Free men (Ceorls) had lots less land and money then nobles but had decent amount along with slaves sometimes -The slaves (Chattels) owned nothing had no money and worked endlessely for small amounts of food

__Political Structure__ -At the time the political structure was pretty unorganized -the power was in the ruling king -simple form of government existed -The king was head of state -King didnt have complete power he must rule in line with laws created by councilmen and go by will of his people -Next to the king were the ealdormen who were men who werethe head of the administration of justice much like sheriffs who have controll over army of England -Below the ealdormen whee the Thanes who worked in the Administration of justice offices -Below the Thanes were then the sherrifs who were responsible for things like collecting taxs keeping crime low and carry out decisions made by the courts -no real laws just simple rules like no killing innocents or stealing -punishments for breaking a rule could be loss of a hand/nose for stealing, or paying a fine to the King and nobles 