Then there were the maritime groups: traders, ship owners,
master and seamen, and the fishers.
Over one fourth of all households had servants. They were the social equals of day laborers, but materially better off with food and clothing plus an allowance of money of two pounds [40s.] a year. Those who sewed got additional pay for this work. There was no great chasm between the family and the servants. They did not segregate into a parlor class and a kitchen class. The top servants were as educated as their masters and ate at the same table. Great households had a chaplain and a steward to oversee the other servants. There was usually a cook. Lower servants ate together. Servants were disciplined by cuffs and slaps and by the rod by master or mistress. Maids wore short gowns, a large apron, and a gypsy hat tied down over a cap. Chamber maids helped to dress their mistresses. Servants might sleep on trundle beds stored under their master's or mistress's bed, in a separate room, or on the straw loft over the stables. A footman wore a blue tunic or skirted coat with corded loop fasteners, knee-britches, and white stockings. He walked or ran on foot by the side of his master or mistress when they rode out on horseback or in a carriage and ran errands for him, such as leading a lame horse home or running messages. A good footman is described in this reference letter: "Sir, - You wrote me lately for a footman, and I think this bearer will fit you: I know he can run well, for he has run away twice from me, but he knew the way back again: yet, though he has a running head as well as running heels (and who will expect a footman to be a stayed man) I would not part with him were I not to go post to the North. There be some things in him that answer for his waggeries: he will come when you call him, go when you bid him, and shut the door after him; he is faithful and stout, and a lover of his master. He is a great enemy to all dogs, if they bark at him in his running; for I have seen him confront a huge mastiff, and knock him down. When you go a country journey, or have him run with you a-hunting, you must spirit him with liquor; you must allow him also something extraordinary for socks, else you must not have him wait at your table; when his grease melts in running hard, it is subject to fall into his toes. I send him to you but for trial, if he be not for your turn, turn him over to me again when I come back…"
Dress was not as elaborate as in Elizabethan times. For instance, fewer jewels were worn. Ladies typically wore a brooch, earrings, and pearl necklaces. Men also wore earrings. Watches with elaborate cases were common. Women's dresses were of satin, taffeta, and velvet, and were made by dressmakers. Pockets were carried in the hand, fastened to the waist by a ribbon, or sewn in petticoats and accessible by a placket opening. The corset was greatly reduced. Women's hair was in little natural-looking curls, a few small tendrils on the forehead with soft ringlets behind the ears, and the back coiled into a simple knot. Men also wore their hair in ringlets. They had pockets in their trousers, first as a cloth pouch inserted into an opening in the side seam, and later sewn into the side seam. The bereaved wore black, and widows wore a black veil over their head until they remarried or died. Rouge was worn by lower class women. Toothbrushes, made with horsehair, were a new and costly luxury. The law dictating what classes could wear what clothes was difficult to enforce and the last such law was in 1597.
Merchants who had become rich by pirating could now afford to extend their trading ventures well beyond the Atlantic sea. Cotton chintzes, calicoes, taffetas, muslins, and ginghams from India now became fashionable as dress fabrics. Simple cotton replaced linen as the norm for napkins, tablecloths, bed sheets, and underwear. Then it became the fashion to use calicoes for curtains, cushions, chairs, and beds. Its inexpensiveness made these items affordable for many. There was a cotton-weaving industry in England from about 1621, established by cotton workmen who fled to England in 1585 from Antwerp, which had been captured. By 1616, there were automatic weaving looms in London which could be operated by a novice.
Even large houses now tended to do without a courtyard and became compacted into one soaring and stately whole. A typical country house had deep-set windows of glass looking into a walled green court with a sundial in it and fringed around with small trees. The gables roofs were steep and full of crooks and angles, and covered with rough slate if there was a source for such nearby. There was an extensive use of red tile, either rectangular or other shapes and with design such as fishscales. The rooms are broad and spacious and include hall, great parlor, little parlor, matted chamber, and study. In the hall was still the great, heavy table. Dining tables were covered with cloth, carpet, or printed leather. Meals were increasingly eaten in a parlor. Noble men now preferred to be waited upon by pages and grooms instead of by their social equals as before. After dinner, they deserted the parlor to retire into drawing rooms for conversation and desserts of sweet wine and spiced delicacies supplemented by fruit. Afterward, there might be dancing and then supper. In smaller parlors, there was increasing use of oval oak tables with folding leaves. Chests of drawers richly carved or inlaid and with brass handles were coming into increased use. Walls were lined with panels and had pictures or were hung with tapestry. Carpets, rugs, and curtains kept people warm. There were many stools to sit on, and some arm chairs. Wide and handsome open staircases separated the floors. Upstairs, the sitting and bedrooms open into each other with broad, heavy doors. Bedrooms had four-post beds and wardrobes with shelves and pegs. Under the roof are garrets, apple-lofts, and root-chambers. Underneath is a cellar. Outside is a farmyard with outbuildings such as bake house, dairy, cheese-press house, brewery, stilling house, malt house, fowl house, dove cot, pig stye, slaughter-house, wood house, barns, stable, and sometimes a mill. There were stew-ponds for fish and a park with a decoy for wild fowl. There was also a laundry, carpenter's bench, blacksmith's forge, and pots and equipment of a house painter.
In the 1600s, towns were fortified by walled ditches instead of relying on castles, which couldn't contain enough men to protect the townspeople. Also in towns, water was supplied by local pumps and wells. In 1613, a thirty-eight-mile aqueduct brought spring water into London. In the country, floors were of polished wood or stone and strewn with rushes. A ladies' attendant might sleep the same bedroom on a bed which slid under the ladies' bed. Apprentices and shop boys had to sleep under the counter. Country laborers slept in a loft on straw. Bread was made in each household. There were bedroom chairs with enclosed chamber pots.
Wood fires were the usual type. Coal was coming into use in the towns and near coal mines. Charcoal was also used. Food was roasted on a spit over a fire, baked, or broiled. People still licked their fingers at meals. The well-to-do had wax candles. Tallow dips were used by the poor and for the kitchen. People drank cordials and homemade wines made with grapes, currants, oranges, or ginger. Some mead was also drunk.
Tobacco, potatoes, tea, asparagus, kidney beans, scarlet runners, cardoons (similar to artichokes), horseradish, sugarcane, and turkeys for Christmas, were introduced from the New World, China, and India. Tea was a rare and expensive luxury. Coffee was a new drink. With the cane sugar was made sweetened puddings, pies, and drinks. The potato caused the advent of distillation of concentrated alcohol from fermented potato mashes. There was a distiller's company by 1638. Distilleries' drinks had higher alcoholic content than wine or beer.
The Merchant Adventurers sold in town stores silks, satins, diamonds, pearls, silver, and gold. There were women peddlers selling hats and hosiery from door to door and women shopkeepers, booksellers, alehouse keepers, linen drapers, brewers, and ale- wives. London had polluted air and water, industrial noise, and traffic congestion.
Work on farms was still year-round. In January and February, fields were ploughed and harrowed and the manure spread. Also, trees and hedges were set, fruit trees pruned, and timber lopped. In March and April, the fields were stirred again and the wheat and rye sown. In May gardens were planted, hop vines trained to poles, ditches scoured, lambs weaned, and sheep watched for "rot". In June sheep were washed and sheared, and fields were spread with lime and clay, and manured. In July hay was cut, dried, and stacked. In August crops were harvested, which called for extra help from neighbors and townsmen who took holidays at harvesting. Then there was threshing, and the sowing of winter wheat and rye. In the autumn, cider from apples and perry from pears might be made. By November the fall planting was finished and the time had come for the killing of cattle and hanging up their salted carcasses for winter meat. Straw would be laid down with dung, to be spread next spring on the fields. Stock that could not live outdoors in winter were brought into barns.