Status, Estate, or Profession?
This article focuses on how social stratification was performed in everyday practice in 1730s Sweden. By studying the titles people were given in the court material of three communities – Uppsala town, Lagunda härad, and Sala town with its silver mine – three factors
defining social categorization can be identified: status, estate, and profession. Only people who rose above the commoners were entitled, which means that all titles denoted status. Some titles were shared by different social groups that had little in common, and therefore cannot be said to
mark anything other than status. Other titles were exclusive to definable groups. Among those, some were given to groups whose exclusivity was based on legal and fiscal privileges, rather than education or competence. They were simply feudal corporations, or estates. In other groups –
all defined by occupations – the members had completed specialist education that included formal exams. In those, social stratification was the result of professionalism.
Keywords: 18th-century Sweden; estate society; professionalism; social categories; titles
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 15 March 2017
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