Impact of Social and Economic Changes Flashcards
Why did Elizabeth come to the throne at a difficult time for the English economy?
- Combination of bad harvests, high mortality rates, high taxation and significant cut in real wages
- All meant that there was considerable fear about social instability (i.e. possible riots/rebellions)
What were proposed as a result of difficult economy?
Various pieces of legislation to deal with these problems but none passed into law.
What 2 ineffectual mechanisms were the central govt left with?
- Instructions issued to JPs and other officials
- Royal proclamations
What were the problems with the solutions central govt had?
- Issuing royal proclamations was effectively admitting the govt impotence (not surprising as they were dealing with problems they only dimly understood
- Govt lacked powers of enforcement - not enough bureaucrats investigating wages rates across country, difficult for JPs to manage within their own counties.
What did Local Initiatives do?
- Real wages were falling but most thought wages were too high
- Council of the N tried to get corporations of York and Hull to enforce wage rates that had applied in 1513 and 113 labourers were charged with unlawfully high wages
- Other counties tried to est wage rates for various trades
What did the Statute of Artificers do in 1563?
National attempt to sort out wage rates
Est these rules:
- Compulsory labour (harvest)
- Min period of 1yr hire
- No one could follow a craft unless served 7yr apprenticeship
- Setting of max wages rates by JPs
What was the situation like for the poor?
Probs of poverty and and vagabonds (homeless who wander without job) remained widespread.
Causes:
- Population increase
- Real wages lower
- Rises in prices
- Harvest failures
What did the govt do for poor relief?
- Alms-houses continued BUT this was no longer enough o deal with large numbers of homeless and unemployed
- Cecil worried about serious threat to law and order due to large numbers
- ‘Deserving Poor’ - entitled to receive some limited assistance, included old, widows, disabled
- ‘Undeserving Poor’ - to be punished
- Main responsibility for providing poor reef HAD been the Church. BUT reformation had destroyed most such institutions offering poor relief e.g. monasteries
- Parli made various stumbling attempts to deal with e.g. 1563 Act but impact was haphazard and national laws lagged behind local provision e.g. Norwich
How did govt stabilise the currency?
- Govt was more successful in restoring confidence in the currency
- Early in E reign debased coins were withdrawn and replaced by soundly minted coins
- Govt wisely did NOT resort to debasement during rest of thr century
- Prices continued to rise but govt not responsible for the problem.
