The Social Order of Tudor England

In his 1577 Description of England, William Harrison listed four separate social categories, each with numerous subdivisions: 1) gentlemen, 2), citizens and burgesses, 3) yeomen and husbandmen, and 4) artificers and laborers. In all the orders, a woman's status depended on that of her father when unmarried and her husband when married. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1577harrison-england.html#Chapter%20I

The top of category #1 was the. ruler who acquired his throne The top of category #1 was the ruler who acquired his throne through primogeniture and ruled by divine right. Under the king was the peerage, consisting (in order of precedence) of dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons. The average annual income of a peer was £1000. Harrison put some non-peers also in category #1: knights, esquires, and gentlemen. These men derived their wealth from land and disdained manual labor.

Category #2 consisted of wealthy individuals who had to work for their living. A Citizen was a tradesman or merchant with certain specified business privileges; a burgess was an eminent citizen who had served his town politically.  

In category #3 yeoman usually owned or leased a farm of 100 or 200 acres, and because they were at least 40 s. freeholders they were entitled to vote in parliamentary elections. Husbandmen farmed rented land of about 30 acres.

Category #4 consisted of those whom Harrison said had "neither voice nor authority in the commonwealth, but are to be ruled and not to rule others."