- The Times: 1601-1625 -
Due in part to increasing population, the prices of foodstuffs had risen sixfold from the later 1400s, during which it had been stable. This inflation gradually impoverished those living on fixed wages. Landlords could insist on even shorter leases and higher rents. London quadrupled in population. Many lands that were in scattered strips, pasture lands, waste lands, and lands gained from drainage and disafforestation were enclosed for the introduction of convertible agriculture (e.g. market-oriented specialization) and only sometimes for sheep. The accompanying extinguishment of common rights was devastating to small tenants and cottagers. Gentry and yeomen benefited greatly. There was a gradual consolidation of the land into fewer hands and demise of the small family farm. In towns, the mass of poor, unskilled workers with irregular work grew. Prices finally flattened out in the 1620s.
Society became polarized with a wealthy few growing wealthier and a mass of poor growing poorer. This social stratification became a permanent fixture of English society. Poverty was no longer due to death of a spouse or parent, sickness or injury, or a phase in the life cycle such as youth or old age. Many full-time wage earners were in constant danger of destitution. More subdivided land holdings in the country made holdings of cottagers miniscule. But these were eligible for parish relief under the poor laws. Beside them were substantial numbers of rogues and vagabonds wandering the roads. These vagrants were usually young unmarried men. There were no more licensed liveries of lords.
During the time 1580 to 1680, there were distinct social classes in England which determined dress, convention in comportment which determined face-to-face contacts between superiors and inferiors, order of seating in church, place arrangement at tables, and rank order in public processions. It was influenced by power, wealth, life-style, educational level, and birth. These classes lived in separate worlds; their paths did not cross each other. People moved only within their own class. Each class had a separate existence as well as a different life style from the other classes. So each class developed a wariness of other classes. However, there was much social mobility between adjacent classes.
At the top were the gentry, about 2% of the population. Their's was a landed wealth with large estate mansions. They employed many servants and could live a life of leisure. Their lady wives often managed the household with many servants and freely visited friends and went out shopping, riding, or walking. They conversed with neighbors and made merry with them at childbirths, christenings, churchings, and funerals. Gentlemen usually had positions of responsibility such as lords of manors and leaders in their parishes. These families often sent the oldest son to university to become a Justice of the Peace and then a member of Parliament. They also served as justices and as county officers such as High Constable of their hundred and grand jury member. Their social, economic, and family ties were at least county-wide. They composed about 700 gentle families, including the peers, who had even more landed wealth, which was geographically dispersed. After the peers were: baronets (created in 1611), knights, esquires, and then ordinary gentlemen. These titles were acquired by being the son of such or purchase. Most gentry had a house in London, where they spent most of their time, as well as country mansions. About 4/5 of the land was in the hands of 7,000 of the nobility and landed gentry due in part to entails constructed by attorneys to favor hereditary interests. The gentry had also profited by commerce and colonial possessions. The country life of a country squire or gentleman dealt with all the daily affairs of a farm. He had men plough, sow, and reap. He takes part in the haying and getting cut grass under cover when a rain came. His sow farrows, his horse is gelded, a first lamb is born. He drags his pond and takes out great carps. His horses stray and he finds them in the pound. Boys are bound to him for service. He hires servants, and some work out their time and some run away. His hog is stabbed. Knaves steal his sheep. He and a neighbor argue about the setting up of a cottage. He borrows money for a daughter's dowry. He holds a leet court. He attends church on Sunday and reads the lesson when called upon. He visits the local tavern to hear from his neighbors. Country folk brawl. Wenches get pregnant. Men commit suicide, usually by hanging. Many gentlemen spent their fortunes and died poor. New gentlemen from the lower classes took their place.
The second class included the wealthier merchants and professional men of the towns. These men were prominent in town government. They usually had close family ties with the gentry, especially as sons. When wealthy enough, they often bought a country estate. The professional men included military officers, civil service officials, attorneys, some physicians, and a few clergymen. The instabilities of trade, high mortality rates in the towns, and high turnover rate among the leading urban families prevented any separate urban interest group arising that would be opposed to the landed gentry. Also included in this second group were the most prosperous yeomanry of the countryside.
The third class was the yeomanry at large, which included many more than the initial group who possessed land in freehold of at least 40s., partly due to inflation. Freehold was the superior form of holding land because one was free to sell, exchange, or devise the land and had a political right to vote in Parliamentary elections. Other yeomen were those who possessed enough land, as copyholder or leaseholder, to be protected from fluctuations in the amount of the annual harvest, that is, at least 50 acres. A copyholder rented land from a lord for a period of years or lives, usually three lives including that of the widow, and paid a substantial amount whenever the copyhold came up for renewal. The copyholder and leaseholder were distinguished from the mere tenant-at-will, whose only right was to gather his growing crop when his landlord decided to terminate his tenancy. The average yeoman had a one and a half story house, with a milkhouse, a malthouse, and other small buildings attached to the dwelling. The house would contain a main living room, a parlor, where there would be one or more beds, and several other rooms with beds. No longer was there a central great hall. Cooking was done in a kitchen or over the open fire in the fireplace of the main room. Furniture included large oak tables, stools, settes or forms, chests, cupboards, and a few hard-backed simple chairs. Dishware was wood or pewter. The yeomen were among those who governed the nation. They often became sureties for recognizances, witnesses to wills, parish managers, churchwardens, vestrymen, the chief civil officers of parishes and towns, overseers of the poor, surveyors of bridges and highways, jurymen and constables for the Justices of the Peace, and sheriffs' bailiffs. The families and servants of these yeomen ate meat, fish, wheaten bread, beer, cheese, milk, butter, and fruit. Their wives were responsible for the dairy, poultry, orchard, garden, and perhaps pigs. They smoked and cured hams and bacon, salted fish, dried herbs for the kitchen or of lavender and pot-pourri for sweetening the linen, and arranged apples and roots in lofts or long garrets under the roof to last the winter. They preserved fruits candied or in syrup. They preserved wines; made perfumes, washes for preserving the hair and complexion, rosemary to cleanse the hair, and elder-flower water for sunburn; distilled beverages; ordered wool hemp, and flax to spin for cloth (the weaving was usually done in the village); fashioned and sewed clothes and house linens; embroidered; dyed; malted oats; brewed; baked; and extracted oils. Many prepared herb medicines and treated injuries, such as dressing wounds, binding arteries, and setting broken bones. Wives also ploughed and sowed, weeded the crops, and sheared sheep. They sometimes cared for the poor and sold produce at the market. Some yeomen were also tanners, painters, carpenters, or blacksmiths; and as such they were frequently brought before the Justices of the Peace for exercising a craft without having served an apprenticeship. The third class also included the freemen of the towns, who could engage independently in trade and had political rights. These were about one-third of the male population of the town.
The fourth class included the ordinary farmer leasing by copyhold, for usually 21 years, five to fifty acres. From this class were drawn sidesmen [assistants to churchwardens] and constables. They had neither voice nor authority in government. Their daily diet was bacon, beer, bread, and cheese. Also in this class were the independent urban craftsmen who were not town freemen. Their only voice in government was at the parish level.
The fifth and lowest class included the laborers and cottagers, who were usually tenants at will. They were dependent on day labor. They started work at dawn, had breakfast for half an hour at six, worked until dinner, and then until supper at about six; in the summer they would then do chores around the barns until eight or nine. Some were hedgers, ditchers, ploughmen, reapers, shepherds, and herdsmen. The cottagers' typical earnings of about 1s. a day amounted to about 200 shillings a year, which was almost subsistence level. Accordingly they also farmed a little on their four acres of land with garden. Some also had a few animals. They lived in a one or two room cottage of clay and branches of trees or wood, sometimes with a brick fireplace and chimney, and few windows. They ate bread, cheese, lard, soup, and greens. If a laborer was unmarried, he lived with the farmer. Theirs was a constant battle for survival. They often moved because of deprivation to seek opportunity elsewhere. The town wage-earning laborers ranged from journeymen craftsmen to poor casual laborers. The mass of workers in London were not members of guilds, and the crime rate was high.
The last three classes also contained rural craftsmen and tradesmen, who also farmed. The variety of trades became very large, e.g. tinsmiths, chain smiths, pewterers, violin makers, and glass painters. The curriers, who prepared hides for shoemakers, coachmakers, saddlers, and bookbinders, were incorporated.