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roughly what percentage of the Aztec population were nobles?

Commoners versus nobles

Mexica (Aztec) society was largely divided into two main classes: commoners (macehualtin), like the figure on the left (C), and nobles (pipiltin), like the figure on the right (N). How did life differ for these two groups on a day-to-day basis? (Written/compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

Aztec commoner, stone sculpture, Templo Mayor Museum, Mexico City (Click on image to enlarge)

COMMONERS
• Obliged to pay tribute, in kind and in the form of communal work
• Only received tribute payments if they succeeded in moving up from commoner status to noble
• Only merchants (pochteca) who had earned high status had the right to own state-run land
• Could only take on leading public positions if they had earned these by special merit
• Subject to less severe penal code/official punishments; common criminals could be executed, always in public
• Taught in the less strict telpochcalli school
• Subject to monogamy (only allowed one wife/husband)
• Could only enter royal buildings as cleaners or builders/repairers.

Aztec noble, ‘Primeros Memoriales’ fol. 55v (Click on image to enlarge)

NOBLES
• Their work at the service of the state was considered equal in value to paying tribute; free from this obligation and from communal labour
• Received the benefits of tribute as payments either for their services to the state or for belonging to the ruling family
• Could own state-run lands known as pillalli
• Held the vast majority of public offices/positions
• Subject to a severe penal code, and liable to punishments for crimes such as prostitution that didn’t apply to commoners; subject to very severe punishments, given both to them as individuals and to their families; punishments for crimes were imposed in private
• Taught in the severe atmosphere of the calmécac élite school
• Could indulge in polygamy (allowed more than one wife/husband)
• Allowed to attend royal buildings.

Entitlement to drinking cacao and wearing sandals was limited to Mexica nobles... (Click on image to enlarge)

Strict Aztec ‘sumptuary laws’ meant that -
NOBLES
• had exclusive right to own and wear semiprecious stones
• could own and use painted ceramic vases and other luxury goods
• could wear clothes made of cotton, sandals, etc.
• were allowed to carry and enjoy aromatic flower bouquets
• could eat the flesh of sacrificial victims
• were allowed to drink cacao
• could partake of mind-changing drugs. Whereas...
COMMONERS
• were only allowed to own and use plain pottery cups
• could only wear coarse cactus-fibre clothes
• could only wear sandals when travelling on roads
• weren’t entitled to enjoy flowers/sacrificial meat/cacao/drugs (see above).

NOTE: This feature is based on, and translated from, an extract from an article by Alredo López Austin (on our Panel of Experts) ‘La sociedad mexica y el tributo’, in Arqueología Mexicana, no. 124 (Nov-Dec 2013), pp 40-47. Many thanks, Alfredo!

Picture sources:-
• Photo of Aztec commoner statue by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Image scanned from our own copy of Primeros Memoriales by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, Facsimile Edition, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, 1993
• Photo of image of cacao bags, detail from the Codex Kingsborough, British Museum, by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
• Photo of Aztec sandals - detail from a mural in the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City - by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore.

This article was uploaded to the Mexicolore website on Dec 30th 2014

In the Aztec language, Nahuatl, macehualtin (commoners) means ‘people who deserve [a rest]!’

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