Social and intellectual challenge, 1625-88 Flashcards
What 5 ways saw society change between 1625-88?
1) The gentry class began to increase in wealth and status and threatened the power of the traditional ruling nobility.
2) A new merchant class emerged, as well as a professional class of doctors, lawyers and other professionals.
3) There was gradual population growth.
4) A rising population led to increasing urbanisation, as more people moved into towns and cities to find work.
5) The role of women in society saw many having roles in radical religious groups.
What example did a change to society add pressure?
- The few larger towns that existed were experiencing food shortages and widespread poverty due to scarce resources.
What philosophical ideas arose in this time period?
- The idea that the monarch should have an undisputed right to rule.
Who were key figures in the changing philosophy of England?
- John Locke and Thomas Hobbes
What happened to the population between 1520-1680?
- The population of England doubled, from around 2.5 million to more than 5 million.
What was the population distribution of England during the time period?
- Scattered unevenly with three-quartars of the population living in the south-east.
What was the status of London during the time period?
- The largest city in Western Europe.
What was the migration in 1651 due to?
- The establishing of the Commonwealth and the presence of religious tolerance.
What was an example of migration into an English town in the 1600s?
- Migrants accounted for 35% of the population of Norwich, being skilled workers from the Low Countries.
What was the general migration multiplier effect in England when a family moved?
- A family would move for better job opportunities, gaining more job security in towns and having more children as a result.
How did widespread poverty impact migration patterns?
- Large numbers of the poor would leave for a better life elsewhere.
What was the mortality trend during the time period?
- Mortality rates were lower in the preceding three centuries because of the decline in incidences of plague.
Why did epidemics not affect the population as much as it had done before?
- The population began to become more adapted to isolating individuals to contain the disease.
What was the correlations between mortality and fertility?
- When mortality was high, fertility was high, meaning the population was able to recover.
What was the overall trend of the population throughout the Stuart period?
- There was expansion but contraction of population.
- E.G A contract by 1650, but expansion by 1680.
Give an example of a statistic which presents the population in regard to London?
- 9% of English people lived in London by the year, 1700.
What impact did the growth of London have on other aspects in English history?
- The success of the Stuart economy.
- The success of the empire.
How did the growth of London impact the rural economy?
- Huge amounts of agricultural goods, including nearly 400% more grain between 1600 and 1680 were needed to feed the City of London.
Why was London the ideal location for the Stuarts’?
- It was the heart of the shipping and road networks, being able to support the increasing demand for goods.
What is an example of other towns in England experiencing population growth?
- In 1600, there were 8 towns with a population over 5000 and this number increased to 30 towns by 1700.
What was the common feature of towns other than London which grew?
- They were towns by ports or industrial centers.
What was Norwich’s role in trade and population?
- The centre of East Anglian cloth trade.
- The population was 30,000.
What was the importance of Newcastle?
- The centre of the coal industry in the north east.
- Newcastle’s importance was shown when the Scots invaded it in 1640, leading to a coal shortage in London.
What happened to Ipswich between 1600-1680?
- Population grew from 4000 to 7500 due to the growth of the manufacturing industries, mainly being textiles.
What was the main impact on the growth of towns?
- It was undoubtedly the increase in poverty and the number of people officially classified as vagrants.
What was another impact of growth?
- A shortage of work.
What fraction of the population lived below the poverty line?
- Two-thirds
What industry was the most prominent in 17th century Britain?
- Agriculture
How much land was devoted to the growing of crops in Britain?
- 9,000,000 acres of English land.
What happened in 1650 which made owning farms difficult?
- Inflation emerged and meant that many small landowners were unable to invest in their farms and had to sell.
How did the wealthier landowners respond to inflation?
- Made their farms more enclosed in order to make larger farms that could focus on the production of a single crop or rear animals.
How was transport infrastructure improved?
- Improving the conditions of river
- Improving roads (First toll roads after 1662)
Roughly what fraction of the population were poor?
- One-third
What were the settled poor?
- The settled poor were poor citizens who lived in one parish and didn’t need to move around consistently.
What were the vagrant poor?
- Those poor people who travelled in order to sustain themselves and were treated as criminals under the law..
How many people were arrested for vagrancy in the 1630s?
- 26,000
How did people aim to escape the poverty trap?
- Two-fifths of the workforce in villages took up jobs as servants, living and working in the households of others.
What was the reasoning for being servants as a poor person?
- Apprenticeships took seven years to complete.
- Able-bodied poor people needed masters to live anyway.
- Workers were given free housing, clothing and food.
What was the last resort for poor people wanting to migrate?
- 200,000 people followed the Puritan founders to the American colonies.
Which act provided the basis of poor relief throughout the Stuart period?
- Elizabeth’s Poor Relief Act in 1601
How did Charles I deliver poor relief?
- The policy ‘Thorough’ aimed at making local governments more efficient and at enhancing poor relief.
How did Charles enforce his policy ‘Thorough’?
- Charles implemented Thorough through a book of orders to local councils and JPs.
Why was Charles’s Book of Orders controversial?
- They had no new features
- Charles implemented Thorough based on his fears of rioting rather than his sympathy with poor people.
How much money did state relief stand at in 1650 compared to 1614?
1650 - £188,000
1614 - £30,000
What happened to the view of vagrants as poverty levels increased?
- As poverty increased, poor individuals were seen as an inconvenience.
How did some of the gentry treat vagrants?
- Some members of the gentry saw it as their duty to look after the poor, providing charitable gifts and endowments.
What did wealthier parishes claim about the poor after 1660?
- Wealthier landowners complained that the poor were squatting on their common land and eventually claiming poor relief.
When was the Settlement Act introduced?
- 1662
How did the Settlement Act have an impact?
- The Settlement Act gave more powers to the local administration and attempted to restrict the movement of individuals claiming poor relief.
What were 2 negatives of the poor relief act?
- The labour force was now not as mobile.
- The poor had less freedom economically or personally.
What was a settlement certificate?
- A form of identification to prove that a person lived in a parish.
What are the 2 reasons for the Act being significant?
1) Poor people could now prove which parish they belonged to.
2) A definition of a poor person was finally solidified.
How was the Settlement Act manipulated?
- Local officials would send their poor to other parishes, sometimes with instructions that they should avoid detection until they became eligible for relief.
What was the overall impact of the Settlement Act?
- More power was given to the local authorities but less power was given to vagrants and poor people.
What group in society contained the highest status?
- The nobility, who were just under the monarchs.
What percentage of the population belonged to the nobility or gentry?
- Only 2%
What happened to the status of the nobility?
- Declined by the end of Elizabeth’s reign and throughout the Stuarts’ period.
Why were the gentry increasing their status?
- They contained key political figures such as John Pym and Oliver Cromwell, who were behind the English Revolution of 1649.
What was the total number of gentry and what was the proportion of each group?
- 15,000 members of the gentry, 12,000 lesser genry and 3000 higher gentry.
What proportion of wealth and property belonged to the gentry class?
- Half of all the wealth and property in England belonged to the gentry.
How did ownership vary between gentry members?
- Some held property in a single parish, but some owned a number of estates and manors and then some could control the politics of a country.
What other class began to grow in Stuart Britain?
- The Merchants
How many merchants were trading by 1688?
- 64,000
What did the landed elites think about merchants?
- Landed elites looked down on merchants.
What was the main trigger of merchants becoming more influential in society?
- The increasing levels of urbanisation in Stuart Britain.
How wealthy could merchants become?
- They could hold positions such as aldermen or mayors.
Why were merchants often triggered to leave cities?
- Often forced out due to the threat of disease
- Also, there is instability associated with the world of commerce.
What was the difference between gentry knighthoods and merchant knighthoods?
- Gentry knighthoods were based on wealth and family but merchant knighthood were based on commercial success.
How were the number of professionals affected?
- Rose considerably.
Why did the number of professionals increase?
- Increased demand for legal services, healthcare, new buildings and education led to a growth in the number of lawyers, doctors, architects, academics and bankers.
How many barriesters were working in the four Inns of Court by 1619?
- 200.
What was the status of women’s rights by the 17th century?
- Women had virtually no rights, being lawfully binded to their husbands and father’s control.
What was the role of most women?
- To run a household and look after children.
How would the role of a women in a gentry family differ to the role of a women in agriculture?
- Women in the gentry families would manage staff and servants.
- Women in agriculture would be required to do physical labour.
What were the punishments against women?
- Women could face a brank, a metal device preventing speech.
- Women could be accused of being a witch and hung or burnt at the stake.
What opportunities came about in the Civil War for women? (Give an example)
- Women were able to fufill the roles of their men at war.
- This was most common in gentry families where women would run large owned estates
- Lucy Hutchinson managed the estate of her parliamentary husband John.
How did increasing puritanism benefit women’s rights?
- Puritans advocated for more widespreads education so more women would need to be able to read and write to support their children’s heritage.
What was the remaining fundamental that puritans believed about women?
- Puritans still believed that women were dangerous if highly educated.
What were 2 examples of women protests at Parliament?
- 6000 women protested to end the Civil War in 1643.
- When John Lilburne, the leveller leader was imprisoned, his wife Elizabeth and Catherine Chidley organised a petition for his release which was signed by 10,000 women.
- Parliament were sexist. ———————-
Why did the middle of the century offer the best opportunities for women?
- The diggers advocated for male and female suffrage.
Why did the quaker’s offer women the most support/freedom?
- Quakers believed that God was the light in every person, male or female and believed that women had the right to speak up in church.
- Quaker’s were tolerated, restricted and then further tolerated, allowing a minority of women to gain rights within their community.
How did Charles II influence women rights to a degree?
- He lifted the restriction of women performing in stage play due to his love of theatre.
What was the Marriage Act?
- An act passed in 1653 which allowed civil marriage officiated by JPs, however, the act gave women a more equal amount of rights than men, which was why men preferred church weddings.
What was the Adultery Act?
- The Adultery Act meant that there was a punishable crime for affairs, but women’s sexual misdemeanours were seen as worse.
WHy did radical ideas become more common after Charles’s death?
- The lack of censorship against them.
What was millenarianism?
- The belief that the second coming of christ was near and that there would be the Kingdom of God.
What political group was the most prominent?
- The Levellers
When did Levellers become popular?
- During their call for change against Cromwell and Ireton between 1647-49
What did the Levellers demand at the Putney Debates in 1647?
- House of Commons should be the centre of politics.
- New constitution
- House of Lords to be abolished.
- New system based on universal male suffrage
Why did the Levellers fail?
- Despite revolutionary message, it lacked cohesiion and clarity, and there were disagreements within the party itself.
- The proposals didn’t satisfy rural poor people.
Who were the Ranters?
- Group of radicals who believed they were incapable of sin and could therefore oppose social rituals and norms.
- They would swear, drink and involve themselves in sexual misconduct.
What was significant about the Ranters?
- They didn’t pose a threat in terms of revolution but posed a conservative fear which triggered the reduction of Toleration by the Rump Parliament.
Who were the Diggers?
- Group that believed in the creation of small, egalitarian rural communities
Where did the Diggers dig vegetables on common land?
- Weybridge, Surrey in April 1649
What were the diggers’ views on society?
- Common ownership of the means of production, compulsory education for boys and girls and the abolition of the monarchy and House of Lords.
Why did the diggers receive less support?
- Their ideas were too revolutionary for their time.
What ideas about the monarchy developed within society within the 17th century?
- The view that the King had divine right was starting to be heavily challenged, especially during Oliver Cromwell’s reign.
What was the relationship between king and people by 1688?
- The monarch was now subject to law.
What was political philosophy?
- The ideas about the way in which governments and power are organised.
What political leanings did Thomas Hobbes have?
- Hobbes was a royalist sympathiser, hence his flee to Paris in 1642 to become the tutor of a young Chalres II.
What is the concept of Leviathan?
- Due to society fearing one another, there becomes a social contract between people and one person who possesses a high level of power.
- He believed that people should have individual rights if a strong ruler is placed in charge.
What was John Locke’s poltical viewpoint?
- Locke was a key liberal and his ideas influenced the American and French Revolutions.
What was Locke’s view?
- In favour of individual rights and liberties compared to absolutism.
What is empiricism?
- Making conclusions based on knowledge and experience of living events.
What was Locke’s role for Governments?
- Governments should defend the basic rights of life, liberty and property.
What was the Scientific Revolution?
- Reference to the emergence of modern scientific beliefs and methods after 1550.
What was Francis Bacon’s viewpoint?
- He was an empiricist, aiming to pursue the ‘experimental and the rational concepts’
How did Bacon want to conclude scientific discoveries?
- Believed that scientific discovery is best aided by accumulating as much data about the subjects as possible.
- His method involved rejecting any preconceived theories or conclusions about the subject matter.
How were Bacon’s ideas able to be expressed during the 17th century?
- The Civil War offered a chance for the expression of ideas and ideologies.
- The Royal Society was founded 40 years after his death.
Why was Isaac Newton considered one of the most influential scientists of all time?
- His theories about calculus, laws of motion and gravity haven’t changed.
When did Newton become the 12th President of the Royal Society?
1703.
What were the views of the quakers?
Equality – Believed all people were equal, including women and different races.
Pacifism – Opposed war and violence, refusing to take up arms.
Inner Light – Thought everyone had a direct connection to God, rejecting clergy and church hierarchy.
Religious Tolerance – Advocated for freedom of worship and opposed religious persecution.
Oath Refusal – Would not swear oaths, believing in always telling the truth.
Abolitionism – Strongly opposed slavery and supported its abolition.
Social Reform – Promoted prison reform, fair treatment of the poor, and education for all.
