Source Collection: Labor and Social Hierarchy c. 1450–1750 CE
Introduction to this collection
This collection of primary sources explores the different ways social life was organized from 1450 to 1750, particularly in imperial contexts. It shows how religion, gender, ethnicity, social class, and occupation determined one’s place in a broader hierarchy. In particular, it shows the different kinds of labor in different contexts, and the social value tied to the kind of labor each person did.
Guiding question to think about as you read the documents: To what extent did labor and social hierarchies change over the period from c. 1450 to 1750 CE?
WHP Primary Source Punctuation Key
When you read through these primary source collections, you might notice some unusual punctuation like this: . . . and [ ] and ( ). Use the table below to help you understand what this punctuation means.
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ELLIPSES words … words |
Something has been removed from the quoted sentences by an editor. |
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BRACKETS [word] or word[s] |
Something has been added or changed by an editor. These edits are to clarify or help readers. |
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PARENTHESES (words) |
The original author of the primary source wanted to clarify, add more detail, or make an additional comment in parentheses. |
Contents
Source 1 – Jalali’s Ethics, 1475 (1:00)
Source 2 – Report from the General Inspection of the Chupaychu, 1549 (7:00)
Source 3 – Russian Law Code of the Assembly of the Land, 1649 (11:25)
Source 4 – The Autobiography of John Fitch, 1760s (16:30)
Source 5 – d’Alvimart’s Ottoman plates, 1802 (22:15)
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Source 1 – Jalali’s Ethics, 1475 (1:00)
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Title Jalali’s Ethics |
Date and location 1475, Iran |
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Source type Primary source – treatise |
Author Jalal al-Din Davani (1426/7–1502) |
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Description Jalal al-Din Davani was a noted Persian theologian, philosopher, judge, and poet. In this excerpt from his treatise on ethics, he discusses the different social classes and how they are connected to specific economic roles. He built his ideas off earlier Persian philosophers like Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, who also wrote a book on ethics in the thirteenth century, and brought in classical ideas about the balance of the four elements (fire, earth, air, and water). Jalali’s Ethics became very popular in the Mughal Empire, and it was used as a justification for social divisions. These ideas, among others, influenced Mughal social order. |
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Key vocabulary correspondence temperament intermixture statisticians exertions subsistence vested zealots impetuous vindictive effected |
tempest disaffected dissipated undulation dissolution geometricians emolument auxiliary husbandmen bailiffs |
Guiding question
To what extent did labor and social hierarchies change over the period from c. 1450 to 1750 CE?
Excerpt
In order to preserve this political [balance], there is a correspondence to be maintained between the various classes, [just as the balance] of bodily temperament is affected by intermixture and correspondence of four elements, the [balance] of the political temperament is to be sought for in the correspondence of four classes.
- Men of the pen, such as lawyers, [religious officials], judges, bookmen, statisticians, geometricians, astronomers, physicians, poets. In these and their exertions in the use of their delightful pens, the subsistence of the faith and of the world itself is vested and bound up. They occupy the place in politics that water does among the elements. Indeed, to persons of ready understanding, the similarity of knowledge and water is as clear as water itself, and as evident as the sun that makes it so.
- Men of the sword, such as soldiers, fighting zealots, guards of forts and passes, etc.; without whose exercise of the impetuous and vindictive sword, no arrangement of the age’s interests could be effected; without the havoc of whose tempest-like energies, the materials of corruption, in the shape of rebellious and disaffected persons, could never be dissolved and dissipated. These then occupy the place of fire, their resemblance to it is too plain to require demonstration; no rational person need call in the aid of fire to discover it.
- Men of business, such as merchants, capitalists, artisans, and crafts-men, by whom the means of emolument and all other interests are adjusted; and through whom the remotest extremes enjoy the advantage and safeguard of each other’s most peculiar commodities. The resemblance of these to air—the auxiliary of growth and increase in vegetables—the reviver of spirit in animal life—the medium [of] undulation and movement …
- Husbandmen,1 such as seedsmen, bailiffs, and agriculturists—the superintendents of vegetation and preparers of [animal fodder]; without whose exertions the continuance of the human kind must be cut short. These are, in fact, the only producers of what had no previous existence; the other classes adding nothing whatever to subsisting products, but only transferring what subsists already from person to person, from place to place, and from form to form. How close these come to the soil and surface of the earth—the point to which all the heavenly circles refer. …
In like manner then as in the composite organizations the passing of any element beyond its proper measure occasions the loss of [balance], and is followed by dissolution and ruin, … the prevalence of any one class over the other three overturns the adjustment and dissolves the junction.
Citation
Jalal al-din al-Dawwani, Muhammad Ibn Asad. Jalalean Ethics. In The Practical Philosophy of the Muhammadan People, translated by W. F. Thompson. London: Oriental Translation Fund, 1839.
1 Though he writes only about different roles for men, it is implied that most women would also be socially divided in this way, based on the occupation of their husbands or fathers.
Source 2 – Report from the General Inspection of the Chupaychu, 1549 (7:00)
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Title Report from the General Inspection of the Chupaychu |
Date and location 1529, Peru |
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Source type Primary source – report |
Author Spanish official |
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Description This report from 1549 was translated from Spanish, but actually that was not the original language. It was based on an Andean quipu, a form of writing and recording that uses the careful placement of knots in strings to communicate messages. An Andean person read the quipu to the European agent, enabling him to translate this information into Spanish. This information refers to the Huallaga Valley of the Amazon basin in modern-day Peru. Indigenous people in this region resisted Spanish rule until 1542. Upon conquering this region, the Spanish authorities commissioned this report. The purpose of the report was to learn about Inca control of the Chupaychu, a people who occupied this area. |
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Key vocabulary camelids |
coca leaf |
Guiding question
To what extent did labor and social hierarchies change over the period from c. 1450 to 1750 CE?
Excerpt
[Cord 1] They were asked what full time services did [the Chupaychu] give to the Inca in Cuzco2 and they said that 400 Indian men and women remained in Cuzco full time to build walls and if one died they gave another
[Cord 2] They also gave 400 Indians to plant the fields in Cuzco so people could eat
[Cord 3] They also gave 150 Indians full time as personal attendants to Guayna Capac3 …
[Cord 9] 120 Indians more to make feathers
[Cord 10] 60 more to extract honey
[Cord 11] 400 Indians to weave fine cloth
[Cord 12] 40 Indians to make more dyes and colors
[Cord 13] 240 Indians to guard the [camelids]
[Cord 14] 40 Indians to guard the fields which they had throughout this valley; the maize grown was mostly taken to Cuzco and the rest to the warehouses [at Huanuco Pampa]
[Cord 15] 40 additional Indians to plant hot peppers which were taken to Cuzco
[Cord 16] and they also gave 60 Indians and sometimes 45 to make salt
[Cord 17] 60 Indians to make [raise] the coca leaf which they took to Cuzco and to the warehouses of Huanuco [Pampa] and sometimes they hauled 200 sacks and at others 40
[Cord 18] 40 Indians to accompany the Inca in person to hunt deer
[Cord 19] and 40 Indians more to make soles and they took them to Cuzco and to the storehouses
[Cord 20] 40 more carpenters to make plates and bowls and other things for the Inca and they took them to Cuzco …
[Cord 24] 40 more Indians to guard the women of the Inca
[Cord 25] 500 to go with the person of the Inca to war, to carry him to hammocks, and they went to Quito and to other places
[Cord 26] 500 more Indians, to plant and [do] other things without leaving their territory.
Citation
“Report from the General Inspection of the Chupaychu.” World History Commons. https://worldhistorycommons.org/report-general-inspection-chupaychu
2 Cuzco is a city in the Peruvian Andes which was the capital of the Inca Empire
3 Guayna Capac: the Inca king who ruled from 1493 to 1527
Source 3 – Russian Law Code of the Assembly of the Land, 1649 (11:25)
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Title Russian Law Code of the Assembly of the Land (Sobornoe Ulozhenie) |
Date and location 1649, Russian Empire |
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Source type Primary source – legal document |
Author Odoyevsky Commission |
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Description In 1649, civil unrest across the Russian Empire prompted the government to react with laws affecting some of the country’s poorest people. The parliament of the Tsardom of Russia's Estates, under Alexis of Russia, introduced a new law code to enforce a new, permanent class of serfs. These were peasants who were tied to specific lands. The law restricted the movement of serfs. It also affected Russian nobility, their ownership of land, and their roles in serving the state. |
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Key vocabulary sovereign (noun) allotments estate serf provincial |
chancellor musketeers gunners threshed |
Guiding question
To what extent did labor and social hierarchies change over the period from c. 1450 to 1750 CE?
Excerpt
CHAPTER 11. The Judicial Process for Peasants
- Concerning the sovereign’s peasants and landless peasants of court villages and rural taxpaying districts who, having fled from the sovereign’s court villages and from the rural taxpaying districts, … those fugitive peasants or their fathers were registered [as living] under the sovereign: having hunted down those fugitive peasants and landless peasants of the sovereign, cart them [back] to the sovereign’s court villages and to the rural taxpaying districts, to their old allotments as [registered in] the cadastral4 books, with their wives, and with their children, and with all their movable peasant property, without any statute of limitations.5
- Similarly, if [estate holders] proceed to petition the sovereign about their fugitive peasants and about landless peasants; and they testify that their peasants and landless peasants, having fled from them, are living in the sovereign’s court villages, and in rural taxpaying districts, or as townsmen in the urban taxpaying districts, or as musketeers, or as cossacks,6 or as gunners, or as any other type of servicemen in the trans-Moscow or in the frontier towns … Return fugitive peasants and landless peasants from flight on the basis of the cadastral books to people of all ranks, without any statute of limitations.
- If it becomes necessary to return fugitive peasants and landless peasants to someone after trial and investigation: return those peasants with their wives, and with their children, and with all their movable property, with their standing grain and with their threshed grain. Do not impose a fine for those peasants [on their current lords] for the years prior to this present Law Code. …
CHAPTER 16. – Estate Lands. In It Are 69 Articles.
- The following size estates shall be in Moscow province: For boyars,7 260 acres per man.
For courtiers and for counselor state secretaries, 195 acres per man.
For state officials, and for Moscow nobles, and for state secretaries, and for commanders of Moscow musketeers, and for senior stewards of the office of the chancellor, and for stewards responsible for managing various parts of the palace economy, 130 acres per man.
For provincial nobles who are serving by selection in Moscow, 91 acres per man.
Citation
Odoyevsky Commission. “Ulozhenie, 1649.” In The Muscovite Law Code (Ulozhenie) of 1649. Edited and translated by Richard Hellie. Irvine, CA: Charles Schlacks, 1988. See also https://pages.uoregon.edu/kimball/1649-Ulj.htm#ch11.
4 cadastral: a map or survey showing the extent, value, and ownership of land, especially for taxation
5 A law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated.
6 cossacks: a group of predominantly East Slavic Orthodox Christian people, who became known as members of democratic, self-governing, semi- military communities originating in the steppes of Eastern Europe. Usually capitalized, e.g. Cossacks, though not in this document.
7 boyar: a member of the old aristocracy in Russia, next in rank to a prince
Source 4 – The Autobiography of John Fitch, 1760s (16:30)
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Title The Autobiography of John Fitch |
Date and location 1760s, Colonial Connecticut |
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Source type Primary source – autobiography |
Author John Fitch (1743–1798) |
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Description John Fitch was an American inventor, clockmaker, entrepreneur, and engineer, known for operating a steamboat service. In this excerpt from his autobiography, Fitch recounts his difficulty with his apprenticeship to become a clockmaker. It describes an indenture, or contract, designed to benefit the apprentice and the master. However, in practice, this wasn’t the case for Fitch. Artisan labor like clockmaking was increasingly a path toward a better life, but achieving that was not always easy. |
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Key vocabulary apprentice executed trifling subsist genteel redress |
insolence obliged professed indentures pottering bond |
Guiding question
To what extent did labor and social hierarchies change over the period from c. 1450 to 1750 CE?
Excerpt
My father sent me to mill. … When at the meeting of two [roads] I met and fell in with one Benjamin [Cheney] and his wife who told me that they wanted just such a boy as I was as an apprentice to learn the [clockmaking] business. I was pleased at the idea, as it was a trade I wished to learn. …
A few days after I called to see him and soon perceived that instead of wanting me to learn a trade he wanted me to work his place. …
I soon got the indentures executed. …
I then found myself fixed with them people for three years and was pleased at the idea of getting a trade that I might do something for myself at a future day and had no dread of any hardships … I had strong suspicions that my master wanted me more to work his place than to [teach] me the trade …
I continued my apprenticeship with him for two years and till June following [1764] it being about 2 and a half years.
… Benjamin [Cheney] … was not obliged to [teach] me anything but wooden clocks which he paid no attention to but kept me almost the whole of the time that I was in the shop at trifling pottering brass work and was when I left him almost totally ignorant of clockwork.
His brother Timothy [Cheney] followed making brass and wooden clocks and repaired watches. And agreed to take me for one year and [teach] me. … I … agreed to accept his offer knowing I could not get it where I was. I applied to my father to be my security for my faithful performance of the time I was to serve him after I was of age. Who readily gave his bond for the same and the bond and indentures was executed on the 8th of June [1764]. … And the specifications was very particular that he was to [teach] me the art of making brass and wooden clocks and also watch work. I took up my old indentures and went to him. …
As soon as my situation was changed, I sat into work with high spirits, expecting then I was sure of getting a trade whereby I might subsist myself in a genteel way. …
I never got a belly full with him at any one time …
And as to watchwork I never saw one put together during my apprenticeship and when I attempted to stand by him to see him put one together, I was always ordered to my work. … [I]t was but seldom that I could get to see any of his tools for watchwork as he had a drawer where he was particularly careful always to lock them up as if he was afraid I should know their use and by that means gain some information of the business. And he never would nor never did tell me the different parts the watch. And to this day I am ignorant of the names of many parts of a watch.
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[A]fter I was twenty one years of age I requested him to put me to clock or watch work. When he refused, I informed him that he had bound himself to [teach] me … And after some words [I] told him it he did refuse me. I certainly would seek redress by the law after my father’s bond had expired. For which insolence he threatened to strike me … I … faced him and said Mr. [Cheney] do not strike me now for I am no longer your apprentice but if I do not serve you faithfully sue out the bond you have against my father. Which I believe checked him and perhaps was the first time that he recollected that I was a subject on an equal footing with him. …
[T]he dilemma which I had brought myself into by running myself in debt three years …
I then found myself … obliged to take care of myself. I found myself bare of clothes and money I had none. I found myself upwards of twenty pounds in debt which in New England where money is so [hard] to be acquired was a pretty serious thing. I dare not attempt to go to … journey work … for fear I should show my ignorance in the business I professed and [I] resolved to set up the business of small brass work myself if I could.
Citation
Fitch, John. The Autobiography of John Fitch. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1976.
Source 5 – d’Alvimart’s Ottoman plates, 1802 (22:15)
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Title The Costume of Turkey |
Date and location 1790–1800, Ottoman Empire |
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Source type Primary source – illustrated travel writing |
Author Gaëtan-Octavien Souchet d’Alvimart (1770–1854) |
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Description This is a series of illustrations and written notes by Gaëtan-Octavien Souchet d’Alvimart, a French soldier, artist, poet, and a classmate of Napoleon Bonaparte. He grew up in a family that was loyal to the French monarchy, so when the French Revolution began, he fled his country and looked for work elsewhere. In the 1790s, he ended up joining the army of the Ottoman Empire before traveling to West Asia, North Africa, the Americas, and Europe. Fortunately for historians, he painted some of his observations, which were later published along with his notes in 1802, in English translation. Here are some selections from his published paintings and notes of the diverse peoples of the Ottoman Empire. |
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Key vocabulary inhabitant provincial esteemed |
avaricious plate sumptuary |
Guiding question
To what extent did labor and social hierarchies change over the period from c. 1450 to 1750 CE?
Excerpt
Plate II. A Sultana, or Odalisk8
The Seraglio itself, of which this female is a principal inhabitant, is an irregular building of vast extent; and contains in all at least six thousand persons … within its walls there are six large divisions for the divan9 … besides very extensive gardens. …
The female slaves of the Seraglio consist chiefly of Georgian and Circassian slaves. …
Although the females in the Seraglio amount to more than five hundred, yet the Sultan generally chooses six or seven … who alone have the privilege of producing an heir to the throne.
Plate 4. A Turkish Woman in a Provincial Dress
No dress can possibly be better calculated to conceal the person than that worn by Turkish females, both in Constantinople and the country, whenever they appear abroad.
Plate 9. A Turk In His [Shawl]
… The male dress of the Turks is regulated by sumptuary laws, and is distinctive of the different classes, but the females are permitted to wear any sort of ornaments they choose.
Plate 13. A Greek Woman of the Island of Marmora10
… The inhabitants [of the island of Marmora] are all of the Greek church; though for a short time a few years ago, those of the village of Klassaki professed [Islam], in order to avoid the capitation-tax:11 but the Turks did not like the experiment; and, for fear of the example, they doubled the tax. The consequence was a return to the Greek church.
Plate 15. A Jew.
In no country does that persecuted race enjoy more privileges than it does at Constantinople. The Jews are put upon the same footing with Turks; and even in some instances have greater liberty. They profess their own religion, and are judged by their own laws, unless they appeal to the law of the country. They consequently possess a great degree of respectability and great riches, because a very considerable part of the trade passes through their hands, most of the rich merchants being Jews. …
Plate 17. A Hamal, or Common Porter.
These men are very numerous, particularly at Pera,12 where they are employed in removing various goods and merchandise. Those, who are of Armenian origin, are reckoned the strongest, and carry an immense weight … each person must support near three hundred pounds.
Plate 32. An Armenian.
The Turks are not the only nation who live at Constantinople. Its inhabitants consist also of Greeks, Jews, and Armenians, and hence there results a great variety in manners, language, and religion. The Armenians form about one-twelfth of the population. They reside both in the interior of the city, and in the suburbs, particularly in Pera. They are almost all merchants, and some of them to an immense extent, and possess warehouses and correspondents in almost every part of Asia. Their manners are in general very correct, and their engagements may be depended upon, although they are esteemed avaricious. The Armenian is very exact in the performance of every thing relative to religion; …
Plate 34. Two Janissaries in their Dress of Ceremony.
The formation and first establishment of that vast body of men, the Janissaries, is said to have taken place during the reign either of Osman I or [Murad] II.13 They were at first composed of boys, who were sent as tributes from Macedonia, Bulgaria, and the different Greek provinces. Being sent at a very early age, they were brought up to the [Muslim] religion, and were called … the children of strangers. This tribute, however, was soon altered to the more convenient one of money, and this corps has since been supplied by volunteers. Hence called, “Yeni-tcheri,” new soliders, and by Europeans corrupted to Janissary.
The pay of these troops differs in time of war or peace. In the latter it is much less. Their numbers, though very great, are not well ascertained, as the title is hereditary; and many get enrolled, while they continue the exercise of their trade, in order to enjoy certain privileges. Each Janissary has a certain indelible symbol marked in the flesh of the arm by means of gunpowder, to [show] the Odah, or regiment, to which he belongs …
Citation
Dalvimart, Octavian, William Alexander, J. Dadley, and W. Poole. The Costume of Turkey: Illustrated by a Series of Engravings; with Descriptions in English and French. London: William Miller and T. Bensley, 1802.
Notes or additional materials
View the entire book, with additional plates and unabridged descriptions, at this link: https://wellcomecollection.org/works/sd49rgn8/items?canvas=21
Learn more about d’Alvimart here: https://shannonselin.com/2020/01/gaetan-octavien-dalvimart/
8 Sultana/Odalisk: both words refer to a female slave or concubine in a harem, especially one in the seraglio (women’s residence) of the Sultan of Turkey.
9 divan: a legislative body, council chamber, or court of justice in the Ottoman Empire
10 Marmoa: A Greek island in the Aegean Sea which was part of the Ottoman Empire until Greek independence
11 capitation-tax: a per capita yearly taxation historically levied in the form of financial charge on permanent non-Muslim subjects (dhimmi) of a state governed by Islamic law
12 Pera: a district in Constantinople, modern-day Istanbul, known for trading.
13 Osman I (c. 1258–1324/26), founder of the Ottoman Empire; Murad II (c. 1421–1446/51), sultan of the Ottoman Empire
Eman M. Elshaikh
Eman M. Elshaikh is a writer, researcher, and teacher who has taught K-12 and undergraduates in the United States and in the Middle East and written for many different audiences. She teaches writing at the University of Chicago, where she also completed her master’s in social sciences and is currently pursuing her PhD. She was previously a World History Fellow at Khan Academy, where she worked closely with the College Board to develop curriculum for AP World History.
Image credits
This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0 except for the following:
Cover: Fashionable clothing in Turkey in the 17th century, costumes at the court of the Sultan. From the left, orderly officer of the Sultan, a bread carrier for the troops in the army, officer of fools and foolhardy, a secretary of the sultan and the fan carrier of Sultan mother, digital improved reproduction from an original from the year 1900. © Bildagentur-online / Universal Images Group via Getty Images.