Historical Context - Post 1

WEEK 1 - SETTING THE SCENE – LIFE IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 

  

QUESTION: What sense do you get of what life was like in Elizabethan England? Try to include information on: The population, entertainment, religion, superstition, money, jobs, medicine, theatre. 

What sense do you get of what life was like in Elizabethan England? 

The Elizabethan period ran from 1558-1603. It all began when Elizabeth was crowned Queen in 1558. At the time, England wasn't the best place to live; with cottages housing 7-8 people in a small, dark place, it was difficult to have reasonable living conditions as you would go to sleep in the dark and wake up in the dark. Cottages had one room with an earth floor and a fire permanently lit, as that was the only way to have light inside, however this caused the room to fill up with smoke so there had to be a hole in the roof to stop people from suffocating. Candles were too expensive for poor families to afford. Also, windows let in the cold therefore they were small to stop the cold from entering.  They were also filled with vermin. To us, heaths, hills and wastelands are seen to be quite scenic however, in the Elizabethan time, they were seen as dangerous and horrific - anything but beautiful. 

There was a clear class system in place. You were the class that you were born into. Most countrymen fell into one of three categories:  Yeomen, Husbandmen, Labourers. Yeomen might own/rent his farm and employ workers. Husbandmen rents the lands that he works on. Labourers work on other people's farms. Poor people looking for jobs in the countryside had very limited options; their best bet was to go from farm to farm as a labourer, offering their services in hope that they might get hired and get to sleep in a barn. Their working day would start at dawn and finish at sunset; in return, their reward would be a Groat - a coin made of pure silver. The Groat would mostly be spent on Ale since the water was too polluted. 

London was different from any other city because it was a lot more populated and much richer. If someone wanted to go and do tourist-like activities, it would cost them around 12 weeks worth of wages. London was also the centre of government. During Elizabeth's reign, London's population went from 70,000 to 200,000; this caused houses to be so crammed together so, when they ran out of space to build, houses were built upwards (sometimes up to seven storeys supported only by timber wood). Because of the amount of waste, London smelt really terrible since they didn't have toilets! People dismissed this stench smell by saying, "The smell of sewage was the smell of progress". People would empty their waste into the street. To cross the river, there were River Taxis, which would cost you a penny to use. People believed that if you wanted the finer things in life, you had to be in London in order to get it (since most imported products would go be imported into London). Although London was a very successful city, there was one major downside to it - The Plague. With 70,000 Londoners who recorded to have died from it; it was a deadly disease - carried by rats. If you showed signs of the Plague, you and your family would be boarded up in your house for 6 weeks.