Urban/rural

Question 1

Sources

Answer 1

Donne, epistle to Wotton.
Sidney, Basilius in Old Arcadia “brake up his court and retired… into a certain forest nearby.”
Jonson - The Alchemist (1610)- coz’nage.
Gough - Myddle, Shropshire parish, diary 1640’s.
Lady Margaret Hoby (d.1633), East Riding, m 3 times, once to Robert Sidney
Pepys’ Diary (1660) (Great Fire 1666, Bawdy House Riots 1668 - attack of Damaris Page’s house.)

Question 2

Fiscal stats - Elizabeth I

Answer 2

Wiliams - money was available, but locals selectively forthcoming: Northamptonshire: £1056 to Coat and Conduct and £250 to defence fund at Elizabeth’s request in 1558. Collinson: Preferment to spend locally: eg. Terrington, Norfolk, raising £500 to repair flood barriers.

Question 3

Distribution of EI taxes

Answer 3

Wiliams - uneven - Norfolk charged £1000 in 1589 and Wales £360

Question 4

Changes in government under Tudors

Answer 4

Wiliams - late c16 “England was more intensively governed than before”
Tittler and Jones - “political centralisation, administrative uniformity, and cultural imperialism”; “Social process of incorporating gentry elites into the government of the shires and middling man into the governing of the parishes”. Tudors created an “aristocratic office-holding elite” of “self-government at the King’s command”; “the whole system depended upon an ethos of participation”
Elton - creation of “points of contact”

Question 5

Lord Lieutenants

Answer 5

Reintroduced 1585, had 6 deputies, responsible for training and maintaining/recruiting local militias (in absence of aristocratic mercenaries) - Tittler - an office “designed to improve defence and security”. Successful ones “mediated between the country and the court” eg. Northamptonshire one negotiated the quota of soldiers from £5-3000. Effectiveness of the system - LL levied 105,600 men between 1585 and 1603.
Elizabeth unusually left 13 spaces unfilled between 1590 and 1603.

Question 6

Scotland and government

Answer 6

Williams - very little system for military control; by 1625 had JP’s in 1/4 shires.

Question 7

Ireland and the Tudors

Answer 7

Tittler and Jones - “an autocratic gaelic system gave place to a new system of colonial exploitation”. High control = militant and therefore more expensive - 1534 rebellion = £40,000

Question 8

Justices of the Peace

Answer 8

Dealt with medium crimes and punishments.

Tittler - had to earn £20 p.a. landed income (except in Wales)

Question 9

Judges of Assize

Answer 9

Courts of Assize held every 6 months in localities by touring judges. Gowing - church courts for moral offences.
Tittler - “intermediaries” betw. central gov. and country; “channel of communication”, courts “a form of political theatre”; role was so effective that by 1603 309 statutes dictated their functions (“over-burdened”)

Question 10

London - population

Answer 10

Gowing - population tripled between 1580 and 1640. (by migration)

Question 11

London - marriage

Answer 11

Gowing - Southwark: 83% marriages were between local parishioners

Question 12

Localism in London/countryside

Answer 12

Gowing - 41% of Londoners lived in the same parish for 10+ years vs. 50% in the country. 14% born in the parish they lived in vs. 45% elsewhere. In 1600 2/3 of London’s men were citizens.

Question 13

London - parishes/neighbourhoods

Answer 13

Gowing - parishes less important because of overlaps etc.; neighbourhoods “formed the basis of many social bonds”
Wrightson - neighbourhood = “horizontal” bonds of “mutual recognition of obligations”

Question 14

Enclosure

Answer 14

Walter - in Oxfordshire = only 3 townships by 1730; in the VALE of Oxford 21% by 1640. 15% in the North by 1640 and 13% in rural areas.
Wrightson: the “prelude” to introduction of convertible husbandry. Varied in form from reorganising strips to enclosing commons.

Question 15

Population growth

Answer 15

from 3 mil in 1500 for England and Wales, to 4 mil in 1600, to 5.5 mil in 1700.
Wrightson - Staffordshire population doubled 1563-1660 whereas Cumbria = 9% decrease 1603-41.
Increase of Epworth Manor by 100 new cottages.
York and Exeter increased by 50% between early c16 and late c17.

Question 16

Key legislation

Answer 16

1534 Act of Supremacy = collapse of local support networks and parochial care.
1689 - Bill of Rights confirmed by Pmnt

Question 17

Quarter sessions

Answer 17

Held 4 x yrly, brought the leaders of the shires together to judge severe crimes

Question 18

Modes of Tudor Government

Answer 18

JP’s
Lords Lieutenant
Council of the North (“exercise of delegated authority” (TITTLER); consolidating regional councils for closer oversight)
Overseers of the Poor

Question 19

Informal modes of Tudor Government

Answer 19

Kinship and patronage ties (more important in Ireland, Scotland and Wales where regional structures were weaker)
Key families = Campbells of highlands and O’Neills of Ulster.

Question 20

Court structures

Answer 20

Patronage and court politics intense between 1590-1600.
Inner sanctum = Privy Chamber (Bed Chamber from JI) - inner circle of confidants, less “British” under CI, non-political under EI and CII

Question 21

Agents of cultural standardisation

Answer 21

Communications, gentry/peers education, print press, travel and connections between cities and villages by trade.

Question 22

Conceptions of the state

Answer 22

EI - ‘Ditchley portrait” E on a map - territorial
CI - on a horse - the body politic.
Hobbes’ Leviathan - monstrous

Question 23

Presence of state in parishes

Answer 23

Texts - register of baptism, marriage, and death. Books of Orders.
Collection of taxes and administrative personell (Overseers (est. 1597), constables)
Tittler/Jones - gov. structures “presupposed the existence of a substantial pool of wealthy gentry to serve the leading offices”

Question 24

Resistance to centralisation

Answer 24

rebellions vs. covert resistance - foot-dragging, insubordination/irreverence, resisting taxation, gossip.
Could escape the state in busy cities or difficult terrains (cumbria)

Question 25

Things to consider in rel. betw. urban/rural

Answer 25

Crisis of the aristocracy (lineage to civil soc.)
Highlands/lowlands (incompatible government structures)
'points of contact' - Elton - court clientage
Gentry community (local vs. national culture)
State formation (increase in gov. power over people)

Question 26

Towns

Answer 26

Tittler - x 800, provincial capitals (York) = 10-20,000. Freemen lost trad. roles in civic affairs because of the expenses of office. More oligarchic over the period - people willing to accept that because of increasing pop, crime, and poverty rates?

Question 27

Reinforcement of town hierarchy

Answer 27

Tittler - gowns, silence in hall, Mayor’s chair visually differentiated, Town Hall in market place, stocks and pillories, hierarchy of seats in Church (Gough)

Question 28

Wales

Answer 28

“Act of Union” 1536-43 - from 130 Marcher lordships to 7 English “shires”. Dissatisfaction - led to E placing 13 of 16 new bishops as Welshmen.

Question 29

Rural occupations

Answer 29

Derbyshire - Lead mining - petition to Charles I “many thousand people are dailie implyd in the lead mynes”
Wrightson - Essex - 4-50,000 dependent on manufacturing jobs in 1629.

Question 30

Population Change

Answer 30

Wrightson - Honiger, Suffolk, from 63 family names in 1600-34 and only 2 remained in 1700-24.

Question 31

Households

Answer 31

Laslett - 27.6% gentry had resident kin, whereas 17% yeomen and 7.9% poor.

Question 32

Landlords and profits

Answer 32

Wrightson - Landlords seeking to maximise profits from land - series of surveys in 1590’s. Led to rent raises from £1400 in 1572 to £42000 in 1640 (Essex); Yorkshire = Savilles of Thornhill increased rents by 400% between 1619 and 51.

Question 33

Poverty

Answer 33

Wrightson - Haydon, Essex, 43% below the poverty line in 1625.
In Warrington in 1636 153 punished for vagrancy.

Question 34

Case study of local organisation

Answer 34

Hindle, Swallowfield Articles

Question 35

Swallowfield Articles - about

Answer 35

26 articles, written by the “chief inhabitants” of the parish of Swallowfield (on the border of Wiltshire and Berkshire).
Winter 1596 - context of 3 years poor harvests
Prioritises the reformation of manners - punishing drunkenness, illegitimate children, petty theft, malicious gossip, profanation of sabbath…
Written by middling men - none of the names appear in tax records/law courts.

Question 36

Swallowfiled parish - about

Answer 36

Hindle - population rose 78% 1520-1664.
26 deaths recorded March 1596-1967; 3 x more than usual.
Poor relief/charity = Yeoman gave 2 bushels of wheat/rye before Palm sunday to be distributed to the poor. Scheme had an income of £2. 3s. 4d. and expenditure of £2.4.6 in 1667. Cash of £3 distributed between poor at Easter.

Question 37

Swallowfield Articles - quotes

Answer 37

“chief inhabitants”
“to the praise of God, and for the better service of her majesty”
“none shall interrupt an other in his speech”
“all shall do their best to supress pilferers Backbyters hedge breakers”