2 - Lifestyles of rich and poor

• Act of Parliament

  A law passed by the Queen and both Houses of Parliament
• Beggars

  Someone who begs for food or money
• Deserving Poor

  The name given to poor people who could not help being poor
• Enclosures

  Land which landowners fenced off (enclosed with hedges)
• Legislation

  Laws made by Parliament to deal with issues
• Poor Relief

  Help for people in poverty
• Rack Renting

  Raising the cost of rent by greedy landowners
• Vagabond

  Wandering beggars who sometimes turned to crimes
• Social Structure of Elizabethan England

  • Nobles and lords = landowners (50 families)
  • Gentry = lesser landowners (10,000 families)
  • Rich Merchants = successful business owners
  • Yeoman = owned and farmed land, had a few servants
  • Tenant Farmers = rented land from landowners
  • Cottagers = small gardens to grow veg. cottage industries like spinning wool at home
  • Artisans = crafts and trades people
  • Landless unskilled labourers = seasonal workers
• Rich lifestyles

  • Needed lots of rooms to accommodate guests and servants, houses made from expensive brick
  • wore fine wool, linen or silk clothes decorated with jewels and embroidery, women wore makeup to show high status.
  • never had to work as forefathers probably owned lots of land which you would rent out at very high prices.
  • clothes displayed wealth
  • new building styles to divide owner and servant, had lots of glass windows and chimneys
  • sons tutored at home, daughters taught by governess on how to run a household
• Gentry lifestyles

  • Owned more land than they could farm so rented it out tenant-farmers to get a regular income.
  • modernised homes into more fashionable dwellings.
  • followed rich in fashion as a symbol of power and status
  • Sons attended grammar schools to learn Greek and Latin, had to be taught social etiquette and skills like hunting, fencing, music and dancing
  • 360 grammar schools by the end of Elizabethan period- one in every town.
• Rich landowners

  • Increased wealth by building grand homes full of luxurious furniture and fashionable fabrics
  • Homes were symmetrical with large hallways, galleries, fireplaces, many windows, places to hold great parties and banquets
  • Showing off wealth
• Bess of Hardwick (Countess of Shrewsbury)


  • Was the most wealthy woman in Elizabethan England –apart from the Queen.
  • She married four times and each marriage made her richer
  • Her last marriage was to the Earl of Shrewsbury who died in 1590 and left Bess a rich widow.
  • She began rebuilding her home in the period described as ‘The Great rebuilding’ and it took her 7 years to transform Hardwick Hall.
• Hardwick Hall

  • Had a Long Gallery, a high Great Chamber, massive kitchen and a façade
  • Feather beds, endless silverware and fine furniture
  • It is good example of how the rich lived in Elizabethan England.
  • Another example would be Montacute House in Somerset and Burghley House in Lincolnshire.
• Gentry followed the fashion of the rich. Their outfits lacked the fine threads of gold and silver or the jewellery embroidered on the doublets and gowns
• New houses built by the gentry

  • Made out of brick, stone and half timber
  • At least 8 rooms with a servants quarter
  • Ceilings were made higher and walls covered in tapestries
  • Oak staircases installed to connect the hall to upper rooms
  • Windows were bigger with glass instead of wooden shutters
  • Large fireplaces installed with chimneys
• • Tudor education aimed to produce the 'perfect' gentleman and teaching was very strict with flogging being common punishment
  • School day was long- 6-7am to 5pm. Break for lunch
  • From grammar schools, some boys would go onto university at Oxford or Cambridge at 15-16yrs old to study maths, music, theology, astronomy and geometry. Alternative was to go to the inns of Court, London to study law
• Poor people's houses

  • Usually made of timber (wood) and wattle and dung
  • Toilet was a basic hole in the ground
  • Rubbish would go in a bush or a field
  • would have a hole in the wall for a window, sometimes they would have wooden shutters
• Occupations of poor people

  • Worked on the land, raising crops or livestock such as cattle and pigs. This land did not belong to them – it belonged to the rich Tudors who rented it out to them. If they could not pay rent they could not work.
  • Apprentices - tailor, mason, barber, carpenter, bookbinder, blacksmith, weaver
  • Servants in the homes of the rich Tudors - cook, clean, serve and run the house
  • Some poor people had disability or disease meaning they were not strong enough to work. These people had to beg for money and food.
• Types of vagabonds

  • Clapper Dudgeon - Fake being wounded, use arsenic to make skin bleed and wrap bloody rags around arms and legs
  • The Doxy - Keeps all things stolen in sack. Steals chicken by feeding them with bread attached to a hook which chokes chicken and she hides it in her sack
  • The Abraham man - Pretends to be mad in the hope that he would be given money because people pitied him
  • Hooker/Angler - Knocked on doors in daylight begging. At night used a 'hook' through an open window to steal clothes and valuables
  • Ruffler - Ex-soldiers who robbed, threatened people and begged
  • Dummerers - Pretended to be dumb in order to beg and get money
• 1601 - Act for relief of the Poor (Poor Law)


  • JPs had to appoint 4 Overseers of the Poor in each Parish
  • Apprenticeships to be found for orphan children
  • Unemployed, able bodied made to work using supply of materials kept
  • Elderly /too sick to be housed in Almshouses
  • Begging forbidden. Whipped. Sent back to place of birth. House of Correction
  • Poor rate to be paid or face imprisonment. Wealthy encouraged to give generously
• Causes of poverty in Elizabethan England

  • Bad harvests 1556, 1596, 1597 caused rise in grain prices
  • Rack renting – landowners could charge what they liked. Could stop poor using land to graze their animals
  • Sheep farming more popular than arable farming – poor farm labourers lost jobs, spinners and weavers lost their jobs too
  • Cloth trade collapsed – the country relied on the woollen cloth industry when it collapsed many spinners and weavers lost their jobs
  • Soldiers and sailors lost jobs when wars ended – resulted in rise in unemployment
  • No monasteries meant poor had nowhere to go for help
  • Rising Population 2.7 million in 1540s to 4.1 million in 1601. This meant more jobs, food, houses and clothes were needed –not enough for everyone
  • Land enclosure – land owners closed their fields with hedges which meant that ordinary folk couldn't graze their animals cause poverty. Less arable land available
  • Coin debasement – Henry VIII had reduced the quantity of precious metals in coins so Merchants were asking for more coins to cover the cost of goods. Elizabeth called in all the debased coins and issued new ones with more precious metal in the hope to bring down the price of goods BUT prices still rose
  • Inflation – (rising prices) food became expensive but wages didn't rise
  • Rural depopulation – there was a drift from the countryside into towns and cities
• Reasons Elizabethans were worried about the poor

  • Rebellions: Possible that the poor might join rebellions
  • Crime: Beggars sometimes turned to crime – threat to society
  • Charity: It was assumed that rich people would help the poor but too many!
  • Vagabonds: spread disease
  • Idleness: Puritans believed idleness was a sin – beggars set a bad example
  • Social Order: Large numbers of beggars wandering the streets threatened the social order
• Good Significance of government legislation on poverty:

  • Progressive move from private charity to welfare state
  • Created a new, nationwide system
  • Care and provision for elderly, very young, infirm embodied in law and to be managed by individual towns
  • Disorder and disturbances did not develop into a rebellion
  • Crime was dealt with on several levels Court of Star Chamber, Assizes, Quarter Sessions and Petty Sessions
  • An attempt to standardise
  • System of Poor Relief was in place for the next 200 years
• Poor dressing style:

  Poor women wore a wool dress that went down to the ground. They often wore an apron over this and a cloth bonnet on their heads. Most poor men wore trousers made from wool and a tunic which  

  came down to just above their knee. 
• Poor education:

  With little or no education, the lower classes spent what little time they had on visits to the inn and tavern, gambling in cock or bear baiting rings, playing cards etc. Fishing and archery were popular. Some children attended the local parish school if they could afford it. Most started work young. 
• Poor law introduced in 1601:


  'Deserving Poor’ needed help.

  • Beggars were given a licence to beg.

  • 1572 all people had to pay to contribute to a local poor rate to help the deserving poor.

  • Overseer of the Poor was appointed to administer the system of outdoor relief and indoor relief in alms-houses and workhouses
• Poor law was unsuccessful


  • poverty continued to rise

  • Famines caused by bad harvest

  • Vagabonds punished for being idle –whipped/branded. 3rd offence – executed

  • Poor relief hit and miss – not all towns/villages did it
• The issue of unemployment and vagrancy:

  Rising unemployment caused more homelessness & begging

  • These groups were referred to as ‘rowdy beggars’/vagabonds/rogues

  • They were blamed for increasing crime

  • They were seen as idle/lazy

  • It was believed they would spread disease

  • There was a fear that the increase of vagrancy would lead to rebellion

  • The burden of looking after the poor meant increasing in taxes which

  caused resentment.
• • Tudor Clergyman William Harrison said there were about 10,000 vagabonds in England

  • 1566 Thomas Harman identified 23 different categories of vagabonds
• Government Legislation on Poverty:

  Poverty was an issue because there was a drop in the standard of living and an increase in vagrancy which brought with it a real fear that society was crumbling and crime rate rising. Fear that there would be rebellions. Series of acts passed recognising that sorting issue was the responsibility of society as a whole.
• Categorisation of poor 1563:


  ‘Deserving poor’ – elderly, very young, infirm, families in financial difficulty due to unforeseen circumstances - deserve help.

  ‘undeserving poor’ – feared that this group would turn to crime and were a danger to society - pickpockets and highwaymen

  ‘deserving unemployed’ – fit to work but unable to find work

  Reaffirmed whipping of able-bodied beggars

  Compulsory 7 year apprenticeships.
• 1572 – Vagrancy Act:


  Severe punishments for vagrants. Ear-boring of right ear, imprisonment and execution continued until 1593.
• 1576 – Act for the relief of the Poor:


  JPS had to build 2 ‘Houses of correction’ in each County. Beggars must be forced to work in them . Keep a stock of materials –give work to unemployed.
• 1597:


  Each town had to have a prison for vagabonds to be financed by taxes from local people. JPs had to be responsible to oversee this programme
• unsignificance of Government Legislation on Poverty:

  • Problem of poverty remained
  • More money raised by charity than Poor Rate
  • Many people who were scraping a living did not qualify
  • 1597 and 1601 Poor Laws continued into the 20th Century
  • Crime increased between 1596 and 1598
  • JPs not paid and voluntary. Not always reliable and competent in enforcing laws. Some followed their own agenda. INCONSISTENT
  • Varied form county to county