Society on Elizabeths accession

• Social hierarchy of towns in Elizabethan England

  A) merchants

  B) professionals

  C) business owners

  D) skilled craftsman

  E) unskilled workers

  
• The nobility – major landowners; often lords, dukes and earls.
• The gentry – owned smaller estates.
• The yeoman farmers – owned a small amount of land.
• Tenant farmers – rented land from the yeoman farmers and gentry.
• labouring poor – people who did not own or rent land, and had to work or labour to provide for themselves and their families.
• Homeless and vagrants – moved from place to place looking for work.
• Merchants – traders who were very wealthy.
• Professionals – lawyers, doctors and clergymen.
• Business owners – often highly skilled craftsmen, such as silversmiths, glovers (glove makers), carpenters or tailors.
• Craftsmen – skilled employees, including apprentices.
• Unskilled labourers and the unemployed – people who had no regular work and could not provide for themselves and their families.
• Wherever you were in Elizabethan society, you owed respect and obedience to those above you and had a duty of care to those below. Landowners ran their estates according to these ideas. Ideally they would take care of their tenants, especially during times of hardship.
• Households were run along similar lines to society. The husband and father was head of the household. His wife, children and any servants were expected to be obedient to him.