Society

• Society on Elizabeth's accession

  Elizabethan society was very rigid, based on inequality and a social hierarchy or structure where everyone knew their place
• The social hierarchy of towns

  • 10% of the population of Elizabethan England lived in towns
• Who's who in the countryside

  • The nobility-major landowners; often lords, dukes and carls
  • The gentry-owned smaller estates
  • The yeoman farmers owned a small amount of land
  • Tenant farmers - rented land from the yeoman farmers and gentry
  • The landless and 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
• Who's who in the towns

  • 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 fom 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 of obedience and care, and would take care of their tenants, especially during times of hardship
• Households were run along similar lines to society, with the husband and father as head of the household, and his wife, children and any servants expected to be obedient to him
• The social hierarchy of the country side

  90% of the population of Elizabethan England lived in the countryside