Structure
The ability to read and write was the main division between social groups. It was possible to move up from the labouring poor to the middle class through learning, though few boys (and no girls) would have that opportunity. Some estimates suggest that only one person in a hundred could read. Illiterate labourers, such as the farmworker, unskilled labourer, soldier, fisherman, boatman and domestic servant, with their families, made up the majority of the population. Even within social groups, there was a big difference between, say, a high priest and a part-time priest.