When sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Englishmen set out to describe their society, they began by making distinctions, by classifying and ranking.

In 1580 illiteracy was a characteristic of the vast majority of the common people of England. By 1680 it was a special characteristic of the poor. At the time of the Armada, rural england possessed a vigorous popular culture of communal recreations and rituals. by the time of the Exclusion Crisis this traditional culture had been greatly impoverished, while its surviving manifestations were discountenanced by respectable society and participation in them was largely confined to the vulgar.