The politics of social conflict

"This book provides a new approach to the history of social conflict, popular politics and plebeian culture in the early modern period. Based on a close study of the Peak Country on Derbyshire c. 1520-1770, it has implications for understandings of class identity, popular culture, riot, custom and social relations."--BOOK JACKET. "Above all, the book challenges the claim that early modern England was a hierarchical, 'pre-class' society."--Jacket.