![feudalism in the middle ages classes feudalism in the middle ages classes](http://s3.amazonaws.com/libapps/accounts/25806/images/feudal4.jpg)
“You see people moving to a town or to another village where opportunities were better. “For most people the main way out of their village, or out of the relative poverty in which they lived, was migration,” says Professor Dyer. Perhaps more common than this approach was simply to move to a different location, in the search of a better life. One route – which was only taken by a small minority, but still an important one – was to become a clergyman For a small minority, there was that avenue of mobility.” In theory, you could rise up into the very top of the church. There is an example of a peasant’s son who became a bishop. The son would become fluent in Latin, which is the qualification, and then he could be ordained as a clergyman. So it was only the relatively well-off peasant who would have been able to afford to do that. They cost money, of course, so it was only the better-off people who could afford this as well as having to pay for their school fees, families were also losing their labour because boys worked. There were schools in almost all the small towns, so schools were accessible. Peasant men would go to their lord and seek permission for their son to go to school.
![feudalism in the middle ages classes feudalism in the middle ages classes](https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.timetoast.com/public/uploads/photos/4473197/Feudalismclass.jpg)
“One route – which was only taken by a small minority, but still an important one – was to become a clergyman. So the question is, then, was it possible for a serf or peasant generally to break out of the place and position they were born into? According to Professor Dyer, one avenue that might have been available was the church. So, though there were these dreadfully constraining rules and regulations and demands as you might think, there were ways out of them or around them.” So off she went and married the chap she had met in the next village and all were happy. The lord was very happy with that because he wanted the money. But in fact, she went to the manorial court – and it was the woman who often did this – and offered a sum of money for the licence. “You might think that meant that the lord chose who she married. “The rule was that a servile woman could not marry without the lord's licence,” he says. Black Death facts: your guide to “the worst catastrophe in recorded history”.He tackles the question of control of marriage partners, for example. However, despite these apparently clear restrictions and conventions, Professor Dyer feels that there were ways to subvert the social order.