Elizabegh Section 4 Flashcards
Lives of the gentry
New country houses
Sometimes over 50 rooms
Glazed windows, finely decorated chimneys
Hosted feasts where expensive food was served by servants on silver platters
A rich and varied diet
Did not work, earned money by renting out their land
Lives of the middling sort
Ten rooms, over two floors
Windows and chimneys but less decorated
Afford a good diet
Merchants, small business owners or independent farmers
Lives of the labouring poor
Small one room houses, no chimney or glazed windows
Diet: bread, although relied on a good harvest
Travelled around looking for seasonal work
Family life: marriage
Gentry had their partners chosen for them but most could choose who they married
Divorce was very difficult, however encouraged to remarry if their spouse died
Family life: society
Society was patriarchal,
Sex outside of marriage was forbidden, usually immediately married after finding out she was pregnant
Family life: marriage2
Same sex marriage was forbidden, had to be kept a secret
Family life: parenting
Infant mortality meant families were usually quite small
Gentry payed for their sons to go to school from 7
Poorer families children started working in the farm as soon as old enough
12/13 left family homes to be servants or apprentices
Most families did not live with extended family members
Causes of poverty
After Elizabeth
30% of the population was in poverty
Vagrants and vagabonds(unemployed people who roamed looking for work)
Middling sort and gentry:
Worried vagrants would commit crime/spread the plague
Elizabethan responses to poverty: vagrants
Vagrants caught, first time whipped and burned through the ear with a hot iron
Vagrants caught twice, could be hung
-did not work as did not deal with CAUSES of poverty
Elizabethan responses to poverty: 1601 poor law
Poor relief(benefits)
Materials for work
Apprenticeships for young people
Payed for by poor rate
