The estate hierarchy of the livery company

Londoners lived in a multitude of worlds within worlds: they lived in precincts within wards, households within parishes, they were liverymen within companies. In a city whose central government guaranteed little in the way of security or social services, people depended upon the support and goodwill of their fellow parishioners and companymen. These geographical and occupational associations were, as Stow put it, the blocks which formed the foundation of society in Tudor London:

It is important to remember that these communal associations were very small indeed. Excluding apprentices, most companies had no more than a few hundred members. Parishes within the walls averaged less than four acres in size, an area easily traversed in a few minutes, and even in the 1630s each contained an average of only 137 households. People, therefore, developed strong bonds both to the social organisations themselves and to other people in them.