The Elizabethan Age (1558 - 1603) Lifestyles Of The Rich And Poor

Question 1

What was the order of social structure in Elizabethan England?

Answer 1

The monarch
Nobles + Lords (50 great landowners families with £6000 annual income)
Gentry (10000 lesser landowners families with £200 per year)
Wealthy merchants - successful in the business of buying and selling goods (30,000 families)
Professionals - emerging middle class e.g clergy, schoolmasters, lawyers
Yeomen - owned their own property, had a few servants and farmed their land
Tenant farmers - rented between 10 and 30 acres from a landowner (100,000 families)
Cottages - small gardens to farm + also carried out some small scale industry
Skilled artisans - men with a trade (craftsmen)
Landless unskilled labourers - seasonal workers unemployed for much of the year
Poor + unemployed

Question 2

What percentage of the population lived on the edge of starvation?

Answer 2

30% - many became beggars

Question 3

What were the rich’s homes like?

Answer 3

Built on grand scale with tapestries, paintings and furniture. Defensive structures with wings, often in an H or an E structure. Costly to maintain. Had large elaborate gardens.

Question 4

What were the gentry’s houses like?

Answer 4

Owned large portions of land which they rented out. Large modern timber and brick houses. At least 8 room + servant quarters.

Question 5

What were the houses of the poor like?

Answer 5

1 room cottage often shared with animals. Wattle and daub used for walls. Few possessions.

Question 6

What was the fashion for the rich like?

Answer 6

Stockings + leather shoes
Trunk hose, jerkin and doublet for men
Ruff
Adornments e.g rapier
Gown and petticoat for women
Jewellery
Bright colours

Question 7

What was fashion like for the gentry?

Answer 7

Modern and stylish
Expensive embroidery
Jewellery

Question 8

What was fashion like for the poor?

Answer 8

Leather shoes, wooden stockings, leather breaches, doublet and jerkin in dark colours for men.
Petticoat, Manuel, doublet, kerchief and ruffs for women.
Net or cap on head.
Few changes of clothes.
Leather shoes and wooden stockings, felt hat.

Question 9

What was education like for the rich?

Answer 9

Tutored at home
Educated in classics, Latin, Greek, French and social etiquette
Hunting and dancing
Run a house
(For sons)

Question 10

What was education like for the gentry?

Answer 10

Sons attended grammar schools (360 by end of Elizabeth’s reign)
Latin, Greek
Strict, long days and punished
Oxford/ Cambridge Uni to study law, maths, music, astronomy
Boys

Question 11

What was education like for the poor?

Answer 11

Little/ no education
If lucky, attend local parish school for basic reading and writing
Work instead from teenage years
Learn fishing and archery

Question 12

Who was Bess of Hardwick?

Answer 12

Born 1527, one of five children born of a gentry father who died shortly after. Bess married Robert Barlow but was widowed quickly. She then married William Cavendish with whom she had eight children. All properties were named after both of them. He died in 1557. She then married Sir William St Loe putting her in the position of gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber. Bess was sent back to Derbyshire being convicted of conspiring after Lady Katherine Grey confessed her scandal. In 1567, following her husbands death, she married George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, working her way even further up the social ladder. Bess placed her won spy in Mary’s household to get back into Elizabeth’s good books. Bess’ granddaughter had a rightful claim to the throne, upsetting the Queen. She died in 1608 having disinherited her daughter and building a new Hardwick Hall.

Question 13

What was symbolic about Hardwick Hall?

Answer 13

Symmetrical
Coat of arms - nobility
Named after her not her husband
Her initials
Chimneys
Sculptures
Glass windows
7 years to build
Glass windows were very expensive
Long gallery
4 storeys + cellar
Grand and imposing
Elaborate gardens
H Plan

Question 14

What was the importance of gardens?

Answer 14

For pleasure not practicality
Herb beds, vegetable patches, lavender hedges
Geometric patterns
Flowers not grass, mowing grass was seen as impractical
Food was grown out of sight
Knot gardens

Question 15

How did Bess of Hardwick become so wealthy?

Answer 15

Grandmother of heir to the throne
2nd wealthiest woman in England
Married rich men
3 husbands died and left her money
Countess
Married her daughter to her stepson
Smart and clever

Question 16

What were the 9 main causes of poverty in Elizabethan England?

Answer 16

Rack renting
Rural depopulation
Costly foreign wars demobbed soldiers
Changes in the cloth industry
Dissolution of the monasteries
Rising population
Bad harvests
Rising inflation
Changes in farming methods

Question 17

What was rack renting?

Answer 17

Sharply increasing rent meant tenant farmers were evicted as they were unable to pay the higher rents

Question 18

What was rural depopulation?

Answer 18

Poor harvests and changing farming methods drove unemployed farmers out the countryside in search of work.

Question 19

What was costly foreign wars demobbed soldiers?

Answer 19

Wars against France, Scotland and Spain caused taxes to rise and the value of money to fall. Large numbers of unemployed soldiers wandered the countryside for work.

Question 20

What was dissolution of the monasteries?

Answer 20

This caused a rise in unemployment among servants, monks and labourers and took away the vital role of charity relief.

Question 21

What was changes in the cloth industry?

Answer 21

A decline in exports caused the cloth trade to collapse and so many spinners and weavers lost their jobs.

Question 22

What was rising population?

Answer 22

A sharp rise in the population from 2.7 million in the 1540s to 4.1 million by 1601 caused more demand for clothes, food, housing and jobs, increasing prices.

Question 23

What were bad harvests?

Answer 23

In 1556, 96 and 97 bad harvests caused a steep rise in food prices and increased the level of starvation.

Question 24

What were changes in farming methods?

Answer 24

Farmers switched from growing crops to keeping sheep, they enclosed common land and employed fewer labourers.

Question 25

What was rising inflation?

Answer 25

Wages could not keep up with the rising prices, especially food prices.

Question 26

What were dummerers?

Answer 26

Pretended to be dumb to beg for charity from passers by.

Question 27

Who were rufflers?

Answer 27

Former soldiers who had become vagabonds who survived by robbing/ threatening or begging.

Question 28

Who were counterfeit cranks?

Answer 28

Dressed in tatty clothes and pretending to suffer from falling sickness e.g epilepsy, sucking soap to fake foaming at the mouth.

Question 29

Who were clapper dudgeons?

Answer 29

Toed arsenic on their skin to make it bleed, hoping to attract sympathy.

Question 30

Who was a doxy?

Answer 30

A devious female beggar would carry a large bag on her back, while also knitting to make it look like her k Notting was going into her bag. What she was really doing was picking up anything worth money and putting it in her bag. She would often steal chickens by feeding them bread.

Question 31

Who were Abraham men?

Answer 31

Pretended to be mad hoping that their threatening behaviour would result in charity donations through pity.

Question 32

Who were hookers or anglers?

Answer 32

Carried a long wooden stick, knocking doors out of houses, seeking charity during the day to see what may be stolen. After dark they would return to steal.

Question 33

Why were Elizabethans worried about the poor?

Answer 33

Dangerous - violence and robbery/ drunk
Created unrest
Number was higher than they thought
Spreading disease
Taking their money (taxes for poor relief)
Idleness - beggars set a bad example of this sin

Question 34

How big was the problem of unemployment?

Answer 34

10,000 of a 4 million population wandering
Elizabethans felt threatened
Resentment from paying poor relief
Fear of rebellion
Too prepared to turn to crime
Spread diseases

Question 35

What was the local response to vagrancy?

Answer 35

Hospitals for the sick
Orphanages
Taxing wealthy

Question 36

What government legislation dealt with the poor and unemployed?

Answer 36

Responsibility for dealing with the poor
Deserving vs undeserving poor
Nationwide compulsory system of poor relief

Question 37

What was the 1601 poor law?

Answer 37

Nationwide poor rate compulsory
Contribute or jail
Almshouses were established to look after impotent poor
Begging was banned and anyone caught was whipped and sent back to their place of birth

Question 38

What were sumptuary laws?

Answer 38

Rules on dress for social class
Purple + ermine - royalty

Question 39

What was the gentry lifestyle like?

Answer 39

Education for law and medicine at Uni for boys, wife skills for girls
Expensive but practical dress
JP/ Sheriffs trusted, status, power
Housing had 8 rooms + servants rooms, white washing, similar to nobility

Question 40

What was the 1563 Statute of Artificers?

Answer 40

Maximum wage limit set + compulsory for boys to serve a seven year craft or trade apprenticeship.

Question 41

What was the 1572 Vagabonds Act?

Answer 41

Severe penalties to be used against vagrants - whipping, boring through the ear with hot iron, death
JPs to register poor
Local people must pay poor rate and provide shelter for elderly and sick
Appointed overseers of the poor

Question 42

What was the1576 Act for the Relief of the Poor?

Answer 42

JPs to build two houses of correction in each county
JPs to have materials to work for those unable to find a job
Those who refused were sent to the House of Correction

Question 43

What was the 1598 Act for the Relief of the Poor?

Answer 43

Four overseers in each parish to collect and supervise the administration of poor relief
Work was to be found for men and women able to work
Poor children were to learn trade
Introduction of a compulsory poor rate
Remained in force until 1834

Question 44

What was the 1598 Act for the Punishment of Rogues?

Answer 44

Establish houses of Correction for rogues and vagabonds
Begging was forbidden, punishment whipping and sent back to place of birth

Question 45

What was the 1601 Act for the Relief of the Poor?

Answer 45

Stayed in place for 200 years
Made 1598 Poor Law permanent

Question 46

What were common pastimes of the rich?

Answer 46

Hunting
Archery
Hawking