Literacy Rates

• Elizabethan rates


  • 160 public grammar schools were opened; which taught reading, writing and English and Latin Grammar
  • By 1600, illiteracy rates were at 72% and 93% rather than 80% and 98% in 1550s
• What did literacy rates allow for?

  Greater access to education for the yeomanry
• University admissions rates

  Increased from 1,150 in 1550 to 2000 by the end of the period
• illiteracy rates in Localities

  • In essex- 33% of people used a mark rather than a signature
  • In Durham, 78% of yeomanry didn’t use a signature
• Impact on stability- Positive

  • Rebellions such as the cornish rising of 1497 and 1549 had been mostly put down by literate yeomen
  • prosperous yeomen began to administer poor laws and voted in elections
  • Yeomen were less likely to rebel
• Impact on stability- Negative

  • Robert Kett was a yeoman and the leader of the Kett’s rebellion in 1549
  • John Hellman, a yeoman also lead Bigods Rebellion in 1537
• law in wales act 1535


  enforced an english style of government which made enforcement easier - especially if Yeomen were literate, and there was a rise of local officials.