Daily Life in Elizabethan England by Jeffrey L. Forgeng Read Free Book Online

town as well. A freeman initially ranked as a journeyman, meaning that he was free to work in the trade under someone else’s employ. Those who had the means and were approved by the guild could set themselves up as independent practitioners, called masters or householders. All freemen had some participation in the governance of the guild, but as with the town government, real authority typically lay in the hands 20
    Daily Life in Elizabethan England
    Table 2.1.

The Social Hierarchy
    Aristocracy and
    Rural
    Urban
    Their Servants
    Clergy
    Commons
    Commons
    Others
    Queen
    Duke (1,
    executed 1572)
    Marquis (1–2)
    Earl (ca. 20)
    Archbishop
    Mayor of
    (2)
    London
    Viscount (2)
    Baron (ca. 40)
    Bishop (24)
    Knight (ca. 300–
    Archdeacon
    Alderman of
    Major legal
    500)
    London; Mayor
    officer
    of great town
    Esquire, Gentle—
    Parish priest
    Lesser mayor
    Professional
    man (ca. 16,000)
    (ca. 8,000)
    or civic officer;
    (Physician,
    Merchant
    Lawyer, etc.)
    Yeoman
    Deacon,
    Yeoman
    Free tradesman
    Master of Arts
    Vicar
    (ca.
    500,000)
    Groom
    Husband-Journeyman
    man
    Page
    Cottager
    Apprentice
    Laborer,
    Laborer, Servant
    Servant
    Vagrant
    Vagrant
    A schematized table of the social hierarchy. Approximate numbers have been included where available to give a sense of proportions. Ranks at the same horizontal level could be considered roughly equivalent.
    of a self-coopting oligarchy of leading masters, often called liverymen.
    The wealth and status of guild members varied enormously: at the lower end, ordinary freemen might live at a level comparable to a yeoman or husbandman in the country, while the richer merchants in London had incomes that approached that of the peerage.
    Outside the guilds were those whose work was not part of the guild system, with limited prospects of advancement: servants, porters, water carriers, day laborers, and other unskilled workers. Nor did all skilled workers belong to a guild. Few guilds were authorized to exercise author-Society 21
    ity outside the town where they were based, so a tradesman might set up shop beyond the city’s jurisdiction in order to avoid guild restriction. The suburbs of London were a magnet for skilled craftsmen, often foreign, who could not break into the guild system, and many crafts were practiced in the countryside beyond the reach of guild supervision.

THE UNDERCLASS
    Unskilled laborers were always at risk of falling into the substantial and growing number of unemployed poor. Perhaps 10 percent of the population at any given time were in need of assistance to support themselves, with the rate of poverty higher in the towns than in the country, due to the constant influx of people in need of work. Many of the poor were orphans, widows, abandoned wives, the elderly, and the infirm; but their ranks were increased by growing numbers of unemployed but able-bodied
    adults displaced by economic change, as well as by men returning from service in the army or navy.
    Villagers who were unable to support themselves might turn to the
    charity of neighbors and relatives. In the towns, there were endowed private institutions, called hospitals, that took in residents for the medium or long term. In London, Christ’s Hospital received orphans and foundlings, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital provided care for those with curable illnesses, St. Thomas Hospital took in the disabled, and Bethlehem Hospital housed those with mental illnesses. Other foundations provided permanent residences for the elderly poor. Conditions in these institutions were generally spartan at best; all were chronically underfunded, and none had the capacity to accommodate everyone who was in need of a place.
    In response to growing concerns over the problems of poverty and
    vagrancy, Elizabeth’s government began to implement laws to punish THE PUNISHMENT OF VAGRANTS, 1573
    At High Holborn, county Middlesex and elsewhere in the same county on the same day, Nicholas Welshe, Anthony Musgrove, Hugh Morice, John Thomas,