of the apparel laws and reiterating certain provisions which had
been disregarded. For instance, only the royal family and dukes
and marquises in mantles [cloaks] of the garter could wear the
color purple. One had to be at least an earl to wear gold or silver
or sable. Only dukes, marquises, earls and their children, barons,
and knights of the order could wear imported wool, velvet,
crimson, scarlet, or blue, or certain furs. Except that barons'
sons, knights, or men that could dispend at least 200 pounds
yearly could wear velvet in gowns or coats, embroidery, and furs
of leopards. Spurs, swords, rapiers, daggers, and woodknives were
restricted to knights and barons' sons or higher. A man who could
dispend at least 100 pounds per year could wear taffeta, satin,
damask, or cloth made of camels' hair and silk, in his outer
garments. One had to be the son and heir or the daughter of a
knight or wife of said son or a man who could dispend 20 pounds
yearly or had 200 pounds worth in goods to wear silk in one's hat,
bonnet, nightcap, girdle, scabbard, or hose. Yeomen, husbandmen,
serving men, and craftsmen were very restricted in what they could
wear. Poor men wore skirted fustian tunics, loose breeches, and
coarse stockings or canvas leggings.
Women spent much of their time doing needlework and embroidery.
Since so many of the women who spent their days spinning were
single, unmarried women became known as "spinsters".
Children wore the same type of apparel as their elders. They were
given milk at meals for good growth. It was recognized that
sickness could be influenced by diet and herbs. Sickness was still
viewed as an imperfect balance of the four humors.
There were many lifestyle possibilities in the nation: gentleman,
that is one who owned land or was in a profession such as a
attorney, physician, priest or who was a university graduate,
government official, or a military officer; employment in
agriculture, arts, sciences; employment in households and offices
of noblemen and gentlemen; self-sufficient farmers with their own
farm; fisherman or mariner on the sea or apprentice of such;
employment by carriers of grain into cities, by market towns, or
for digging, seeking, finding, getting, melting, fining, working,
trying, making of any silver, tin, lead, iron, copper, stone,
coal; glassmaker.
Typical wages in the country were: field-workers 2-3d. a day,
ploughmen 1s. a week with board, shepherd 6d. a week and board,
his boy 2 1/2 d., hedgers 6d. a day, threshers 3-7d. depending on
the grain, thatching for five days 2d., master mason or carpenter
or joiner 4d. a day and food or 8d. without food, a smith 2d. a
day with food, a bricklayer 2 1/2 d. a day with food, a shoemaker
2d. a day with food. These people lived primarily on food from
their own ground.
There was typical work for each month of the year in the country:
January - ditching and hedging after the frost broke, February -
catch moles in the meadows, March - protect the sheep from
prowling dogs, April - put up hop poles, sell bark to the tanner
before the timber is felled, fell elm and ash for carts and
ploughs, fell hazel for forks, fell sallow for rakes, fell horn
for flails, May - weed and hire children to pick up stones from
the fallow land, June - wash and shear the sheep, July - hay
harvest, August - wheat harvest, September and October - gather
the fruit, sell the wool from the summer shearing, stack logs for
winter, buy salt fish for Lent in the town and lay it up to dry,
November - have the chimneys swept before winter, thresh grain in
the barn, December - grind tools, repair yokes, forks, and farm
implements, cover strawberry and flower beds with straw to protect
them from the cold, split kindling wood with beetle and wedge, tan
their leather, make leather jugs, make baskets for catching fish,
and carve wood spoons, plates, and bowls.
There was a wave of building and renovation activity in town and
country. Housing is now, for the first time, purely for dwelling
and not for defense. Houses were designed symmetrically with
decorative features instead of a haphazard addition of rooms.
Windows were large and put on the outer walls instead of just
inside the courtyard. A scarcity of timber caused proportionally
more stone to be used for dwelling houses and proportionately more
brick to be used for royal palaces and mansions. The rest of the
house was plaster painted white interspersed with vertical,
horizontal, and sloping timber, usually oak, painted black. There
were locks and bolts for protection from intruders. The hall was
still the main room, and usually extended up to the roof. Richly
carved screens separated the hall from the kitchen. The floors
were stone or wood, and sometimes tile. They were often covered
with rushes or plaited rush mats, on which incomers could remove
the mud from their boots. Some private rooms may have carpets on
the floor. Walls were smoothly plastered or had carved wood
paneling to control drafts. Painted cloths replaced tapestries on
walls. Iron stands with candles were hung from the ceiling and
used on tables. Plastered ceilings and a lavish use of glass made
rooms lighter and cozy. Broad and gracious open stairways with
carved wood banisters, which replaced the narrow winding stone
steps of a circular stairwell. Most houses had several ornamented
brick chimneys and clear, but uneven, glass in the windows. There
were fireplaces in living rooms, dining rooms, kitchen, and
bedrooms, as well as in the hall and great chamber. Parlors were
used for eating and sitting only, but not for sleeping. Closets
were rooms off bedrooms in which one could read and write on a
writing table, and store one's books, papers, maps, calendar,
medals, collections, rarities, and oddities. Sometimes there was a
study room or breakfast room as well. A gentleman used his study
not only to read and to write, but to hold collections of early
chronicles, charters, deeds, copied manuscripts, and coins that
reflected the budding interest in antiquarianism; and to study his
family genealogy, for which he had hired someone to make an
elaborate diagram. He was inclined to have a few classical,
religious, medical, legal, and political books there. Rooms were
more spacious than before and contained oak furniture such as
enclosed cupboards, cabinets, buffets from which food could be
served, tables, chairs and benches with backs and cushions,
sometimes with arms, lidded chests for storing clothes and linens,
and occasionally chests of drawers or wardrobes, either hanging or
with shelves, for clothes. Chests of drawers developed from a
drawer at the bottom of a wardrobe. Carpeting covered tables,
chests, and beds. Family portraits decorated some walls, usually
in the dining room. Great houses had a wardrobe chamber with a
fireplace in front of which the yeoman of the wardrobe and his
assistants could repair clothes and hangings. Separate bedchambers
replaced bed-sitting rooms. Bedrooms all led out of each other.
The lady's chamber was next to her lord's chamber, and her ladies'
chambers were close to her chamber. But curtains on the four
poster beds with tops provided privacy and warmth. Beds had
elaborately carved bedsteads, sheets, and a feather cover as well
as a feather mattress. Often family members, servants, and friends
shared the same bed for warmth or convenience. Each bedroom
typically had a cabinet with a mirror, e.g. of burnished metal or
crystal, and comb on top. One brushed his teeth with tooth soap
and a linen cloth, as physicians advised. Each bedroom had a
pitcher and water bowl, usually silver or pewter, for washing in
the morning, and a chamber pot or a stool with a hole over a
bucket for nighttime use, and also fragrant flowers to override
the unpleasant odors. The chamber pots and buckets were emptied
into cesspits. A large set of lodgings had attached to it latrines
consisting of a small cell in which a seat with a hole was placed
over a shaft which connected to a pit or a drain. The servants
slept in turrets or attics. Elizabeth had a room just for her
bath.
More than medieval castles and manor houses, mansions were
designed with privacy in mind. Breakfast was substantial, with
meat, and usually eaten in one's bedroom. The great hall, often
hung around with bows, pikes, swords, and guns, was not abandoned,
but the family took meals there only on rare occasions. Instead
they withdrew to a parlor, for domestic use, or the great chamber,
for entertaining. Parlors were situated on the ground floor: the
family lived and relaxed there, and had informal meals in a dining
parlor.
The formal or "state" rooms were on the first floor above the
ground floor, usually comprising a great chamber, a withdrawing
chamber, one or more bedchambers, and a long gallery. Each room
had carved chairs and cabinets. Taking a meal in the great chamber
involved the same ceremonial ritual as in the manorial great
chamber dating from the 1400s. The table was covered with a linen
cloth. The lady of the house sat in a chair at the upper end of
the table and was served first. People of high rank sat at her
end of the table "above" the fancy silver salt cellar and pepper.
People of low rank sat "below" it near the other end of the table.
Grace was said before the meal. Noon dinner and supper were served
by cupbearer, sewer, carver, and assistants. Fine clear Italian
glass drinking vessels replaced even gold and silver goblets. Food
was eaten from silver dishes with silver spoons. Some gentry used
two-pronged forks. Meats were plentiful and varied: e.g. beef,
mutton, veal, lamb, kid, pork, hare, capon, red deer, fish and
wild fowl as well as the traditional venison and brawn [boar].
Kitchen gardens and orchards supplied apricots, almonds,
gooseberries, raspberries, melons, currants, oranges, and lemons
as well as the traditional apples, pears, plums, mulberries,
quinces, pomegranates, figs, cherries, walnuts, chestnuts, hazel
nuts, filberts, almonds, strawberries, blackberries, dewberries,
blueberries, and peaches. Also grown were sweet potatoes,
artichokes, cabbages, turnips, broad beans, peas, pumpkins,
cucumbers, radishes, carrots, celery, parsnips, onions, garlic,
leeks, endive, capers, spinach, sorrel, lettuce, parsley, mustard,
cress, sage, tarragon, fennel, thyme, mint, savory, rhubarb, and
medicinal herbs. The well-to-do started to grow apricots, peaches,
and oranges under glass. Sugar was used to make sweet dishes.
Toothpicks made of brass or silver or merely a stiff quill were
used. After the meal, some men and women were invited for
conversation in a withdrawing or drawing chamber. Some might take
a walk in the gardens. After the upper table was served, the food
was sent to the great hall to the steward and high household
officers at the high table and other servants: serving men and
women, bakers, brewers, cooks, pot cleaners, laundresses,
shepherds, hogherds, dairy maids, falconers, huntsmen, and stable
men. What was left was given to the poor at the gates of the
house. Great chambers were used primarily for meals, but also for
music; dancing; plays; masques; playing cards, dice, backgammon,
or chess; and daily prayers if there was no chapel.
The idea of a long gallery was copied from Henry VII and was used
for exercise, recreation such as music and dancing, and private
conversations. Without the necessity of fortifications, the estate
of a noble or gentleman could spread out to include not only a
garden for the kitchen, but extensive orchards and beautiful
formal gardens of flowers and scrubs, sometimes with fountains and
maybe a maze of hedges. Trees were planted, pruned, and grafted
onto each other.
Householders had the responsibility to teach their family and
servants religion and morals, and often read from the Bible to
them. Many thought that the writers of the Bible wrote down the
exact words of God, so the passages of the Bible should be taken
literally. A noble lord made written rules with penalties for his
country household, which numbered about a hundred, including
family, retainers, and servants. He enforced them by fines,
flogging, and threats of dismissal. The lady of the house saw that
the household, held together as an economic and social unit. The
noble's family, retainers, guests, and the head servants, such as
chaplain and children's tutor, and possibly a musician, dined
together at one table. The family included step children and
married sons and daughters with their spouses. Young couples often
lived with the parents of one of them. Chandeliers of candles lit
rooms. There were sandglass clocks. Popular home activities
included reading, conversation, gardening, and music-making.
Smoking tobacco from a clay pipe and taking snuff became popular
with men. For amusement, one of the lord's household would take
his place in managing the estate for twelve days. He was called
the "lord of misrule", and mimicked his lord, and issued comic
orders. Clothes were washed in rivers and wells. At spring
cleanings, windows were opened, every washable surface washed, and
feather beds and pillows exposed to the sun.
Most dwellings were of brick and stone. Only a few were of wood or
mud and straw. The average house was now four rooms instead of
three. Yeomen might have six rooms. A weaver's house had a hall,
two bedrooms, and a kitchen besides the shop. Farmers might have
two instead of one room. A joiner had a one-room house with a
feather bed and bolster. Even craftsmen, artificers and simple
farmers slept on feather beds on bed frames with pillows, sheets,
blankets, and coverlets. Loom tapestry and painted cloth was hung
to keep out the cold in their single story homes. They also had
pewter spoons and plates, instead of just wood or earthenware
ones. Even the poorer class had glass drinking vessels, though of
a coarse grade. The poor still used wooden plates and spoons.
Laborers had canvas sheets. Richer farmers would build a chamber
above the hall, replacing the open hearth with a fireplace and
chimney at a wall. Poorer people favored ground floor extensions,
adding a kitchen or second bedchamber to their cottages. Kitchens
were often separate buildings to reduce the risk of fire. Roasting
was done on a spit and baking in irons boxes placed in the fire or
in a brick oven at the side of the fireplace. Sometimes dogs were
used to turn a spit by continual running in a treadmill. Some
people lived in hovels due to the custom in many places that a
person could live in a home he built on village waste land if he
could build it in one night.
Yeomen farmers still worked from dawn to dusk. Mixed farming
began. In this, some of the arable land produced food for man and
the rest produced food for sheep, cattle, pigs, and poultry. This
was made possible by the introduction of clover, artificial
grasses, and turnip and other root crops for the animals. Since
the sheep ate these crops in the field, they provided manure to
maintain the fertility of the soil. This meant that many animals
could be maintained throughout the winter instead of being
slaughtered and salted.
Farmers' wives used looms as well as spinning wheels with foot
treadles. Since animals could now be kept through the winter,
salted meat and salted fish were no longer the staple food of the
poorer people during the winter. Farm laborers ate soup, porridge,
milk, cheese, bacon, and beer or mead (depending on the district),
and dark barley or rye bread, which often served as his plate.
Gentlemen ate wheat bread. There was a scarcity of fruits and
vegetables that adversely affected the health of the affluent as
well as of the poor due to the overall decline in farming. During
winter, there were many red noses and coughing.
The value of grain and meat rose compared to wool. Grain became
six times its value in the previous reign. Wool fell from 20s.8d.
per tod to 16s. So sheep farming, which had taken about 5% of the
arable land, was supplanted somewhat by crop raising, and the
rural population could be employed for agriculture. In some
places, the threefold system of rotation was replaced by
alternating land used for crops with that used for pasture. The
necessity of manuring and the rotation of crops and grasses such
as clover for enrichment of the soil were recognized. Wheat, rye,
barley, peas, and beans were raised. There was much appropriation
of common land by individual owners by sale or force. Many farms
were enclosed by fences or hedges so that each holder could be
independent of his neighbors. Red and black currants, rhubarb,
apricots, and oranges were now grown. These independent farmers
could sell wool to clothiers, and butter, cheese, and meat to the
towns. They also often did smithwork and ironwork, making nails,
horseshoes, keys, locks, and agricultural implements to sell. A
laborer could earn 6d. a day in winter and 7d. a day in summer.
Unfree villeinage ceased on the royal estates. But most land was
still farmed in common and worked in strips without enclosure.
Elizabeth made several proclamations ordering the enclosure of
certain enclosed land to be destroyed and the land returned to
tillage. Windmills now had vanes replacing manual labor to change
the position of their sails when the wind direction changed.
Prosperous traders and farmers who owned their own land assumed
local offices as established members of the community.
The population of the nation was about five million. Population
expansion had allowed landlords to insist on shorter leases and
higher rents, instead of having to choose between accepting a long
lease and good rent or allowing their estates to pass out of
cultivation. Over 50% of the population were on the margin of
subsistence. 90% of the population lived in the countryside and 5%
in the London and 5% in the other towns. Life expectancy was about
40 years of age. Over 50% was under the age of 23, while only
about 9% were over 60. Fluctuations in rates of population growth
were traceable back to bad harvests and to epidemics and the two
were still closely related to each other: "first dirth and then
plague".
Most of London was confined within the city wall. There were
orchards and gardens both inside and outside the walls, and fields
outside. Flower gardens and nurseries came into existence. No part
of the city was more than a ten minute walk to the fields. Some
wealthy merchants had four story mansions or country houses
outside the city walls. The suburbs of the City of London grew in
a long line along the river; on the west side were noblemen's
houses on both sides of the Strand. East of the Tower was a
seafaring and industrial population. Goldsmiths' Row was replete
with four story houses. A few wealthy merchants became money-
lenders for interest, despite the law against usury. The mayor of
London was typically a rich merchant prince. Each trade occupied
its own section of the town and every shop had its own signboard,
for instance, hat and cap sellers, cloth sellers, grocers,
butchers, cooks, taverns, and booksellers. Many of the London
wards were associated with a craft, such as Candlewick Ward, Bread
St. Ward, Vintry Ward, and Cordwainer Ward. Some wards were
associated with their location in the city, such as Bridge Ward,
Tower Ward, Aldgate Ward, Queenhithe Ward, and Billingsgate Ward.
People lived at the back or on the second floor of their shops. In
the back yard, they grew vegetables such as melons, carrots,
turnips, cabbages, pumpkins, parsnips, and cucumbers; herbs; and
kept a pig. The pigs could still wander through the streets. Hyde
Park was the Queen's hunting ground. London had a small zoo of ten
animals, including a lion, tiger, lynx, and wolf.
London was England's greatest manufacturing city. By 1600 the
greatest trading companies in London ceased to be associated only
with their traditional goods and were dominated by merchants whose
main interest was in the cloth trade. Ambitious merchants joined a
livery company to become freemen of the city and for the status
and social benefits of membership. The companies still made
charitable endowments, had funeral feasts, cared for the welfare
of guild members, and made lavish displays of pageantry. They were
intimately involved with the government of the city. They supplied
members for the Court of Aldermen, which relied on the companies
to maintain the City's emergency grain stores, to assess and
collect taxes, to provide loans to the Crown, to control prices
and markets, to provide armed men when trouble was expected, and
to raise armies for the Crown at times of rebellion, war, or
visits from foreign monarchs. From about 1540 to 1700, there were
23% involved in cloth or clothing industries such as weavers,
tailors, hosiers, haberdashers, and cappers. 9% were
leatherworkers such as skinners; tanners; those in the heavy
leather crafts such as shoemakers, saddlers, and cobblers; and
those in the light leather crafts such as glovers and pursers.
Another 9% worked in metals, such as the armorers, smiths,
cutlers, locksmiths, and coppersmiths. 8% worked in the building
trades. The victualing trades, such as bakers, brewers, butchers,
costermongers [sold fruit and vegetables from a cart or street
stand], millers, fishmongers, oystermen, and tapsters [bartender],
grew from 9% before 1600 to 16% by 1700. Of London's workforce,
60% were involved in production; 13% were merchants before 1600;
7% were merchants by 1700; 7% were transport workers such as
watermen, sailors, porters, coachmen, and shipwrights; and 5-9%
were professionals and officials (this number declining). Life in
London was lived in the open air in the streets. The merchant
transacted business agreements and the attorney saw his clients in
the street or at certain pillars at St. Paul's Church, where there
was a market for all kinds of goods and services, including
gentlemen's valets, groceries, spirits, books, and loans, which
continued even during the daily service. Some gentlemen had
offices distant from their dwelling houses such as attorneys, who
had a good income from trade disputes and claims to land, which
often changed hands. Plays and recreation also occurred in the
streets, such as performances by dancers, musicians, jugglers,
clowns, tumblers, magicians, and men who swallowed fire. The
churches were continuously open and used by trades and peddlers,
including tailors and letter-writers. Water carriers carried water
in wood vessels on their shoulders from the Thames River or its
conduits to the inhabitants three gallons at a time. A gentleman
concocted an engine to convey Thames water by lead pipes up into
men's houses in a certain section of the city. In 1581, a man
took out a lease on one of the arches of London Bridge. There
he built a waterwheel from which he pumped water to residents
who lived beside the bridge. Soldiers, adventurers, physicians,
apprentices, prostitutes, and cooks were all distinguishable by
their appearances. An ordinance required apprentices to wear long
blue gowns and white breeches with stockings, with no ornamentation
of silk, lace, gold or silver and no jewelry. They could wear a
meat knife, but not a sword or dagger. Apprentices lived with their
masters and worked from 6 or 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Some people knitted
wool caps as they walked to later sell. There were sections of town
for booksellers, butchers, brewers, hosiers, shoemakers, curriers,
cooks, poulters, bow makers, textwriters, pattenmakers, and horse
and oxen sellers. Large merchant companies had great halls for trade,
such as the mercers, grocers, drapers, fishmongers, and goldsmiths.
The other great guilds were the skinners, merchant tailers, salters,
haberdashers, ironmongers, vintners, and clothworkers. Smaller
guilds were those of the bakers, weavers, fruiterers, dyers, Thames
watermen and lightermen, carpenters, joiners, turners, and parish
clerks. The guilds insured quality by inspecting goods for a fee.