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They were used to fine foods and magnificent clothing. They were used to being served on by hundreds of servants. They were used to being guarded and to
giving commands that others obeyed quickly. They were used to sleeping in soft, comfortable beds. In the 16
th
century, there were some people who owned large lands who rent them to other people, called landlords. Mostly the landlords were
the nobles. They had traditionally let the poor took care of their lands, by breeding some animals or growing some crops.
The nobles were a small group, drawn, in the eighty years between Elizabeth accession and the civil war, from just over one hundred and fifty
families. They were great landowners but, like the Crown, they had an example to set, and only those who were desperate for money resorted to
rack-renting and eviction Lockyer 142.
In the Tudor times, landlords realized that the land could be more beneficial when they managed it well, while they could get the poor handled it.
They had the authority employed or fired the people who they wanted. Sometimes they drove away the poor to leave their land. With nothing to do in the
countryside, many poor drifted to towns and cities to look for work. Also landlords were moving away from growing crops like corn and turning to sheep
farming as a growing population required more clothes and good money could be made from breeding sheep. As there were more people than jobs available in the
countryside, this caused more problems for the towns and cities as people went
from the country to the towns looking for work Poor in Elizabethan England.
3. The Common People
a. The Clothing
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Greenberg’s Mens and Womens Work Clothing: A Portfolio of Image describes that there were no special clothes for common people. They only had
some pieces of cloth, or even the poor commonly only had a piece of cloth. The clothes of the common people in England, especially for the poor who were
categorized who could work, depended on what the field they work on and the season at that time. In January the woman used front fastening gown rose wool
gown over narrow sleeved, red under gown and fur-lined. The woman who worked in milking the cow wore an over gown, fitted to the waist, of light redrose
with a deep v backline, over an under gown of black. The shift sleeves were visible beneath the short sleeves of the gown, and had drawn blue over sleeves on
to protect her arms. She also wore a linen apron and head wrap. In December when it was snowing, the woman wore a blue, long-sleeved,
lined over gown over a blue under gown. The footwear protected the feet while two head wraps and a hat protect the head Mens and Womens Work Clothing: A
Portfolio of Image.
b. The Housing
Generally, the common people in 16
th
century usually lived in wooden houses. A little stone chimney or funnel stood in the center of the house,
providing cooking facilities and heat during the long winters. The house only had one room for all activities. One side of the room was used for general-purpose
room where the family worked and ate. On the other side was the room where all the member of the family slept. While the kitchen was part of the room where the
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family worked and ate together along the rear of the house Microsoft ® Encarta ® Reference Library 2005.
c. The Food
Halsall’s Of The Food And Diet Of The English states that the poor lived in a hard life which few looked back upon with contentment and satisfaction in
their face. However they were happy and well fed with any amount of bread and bacon, and plenty of home-brewed beer. Most of them worked from rising dawn
until sunset and they only ate bread and potatoes with an occasional piece of bacon and an apple dumpling. Therefore, it was not surprisingly if they often went to bed
hungry. There were there kinds of bread in England in the sixteenth century. The
first and most excellent was the manchet, which was commonly called white bread. This was a kind of bread which generally was consumed by the high rank
people. The second was the cheat or wheaten bread. The actual color of this bread was not white, because it was made from the grey or yellowish wheat. It was
being cleaned and well dressed, that was why this kind of bread was named so. This kind of bread sometimes was used in the halls of the nobility and gentry only.
The third kind of bread which, of course, had lower quality was called brown bread, which was appointed for servants, slaves, and the inferior kind of people
Of The Food And Diet Of The English. There was one characteristic of the food of the poor family. They had
bread and treacle or molasses for breakfast, and sometimes a little tea made from used leaves collected from local inn. Therefore, for dinner they were used to have
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potatoes and possibly dumplings. For supper they sometimes just like as what they have in breakfast, with the occasional addition of an apple pie. Sometimes
they used vegetables as their food when they could not afford the meat. That was why the idea of vegetables as paupers food was still very strong at that time.
People of this time did not use the utensils that the noblemen use. They thought that using their hands to scoop out the food was much more efficient Food in
England.
d. The Life
