Elizabethan times Social context Elizabethan society Social classes

Elizabethan times Social context

Elizabethan society • Social classes: nobility, gentry, yeomanry & the poor. • Religion: officially Church of England but suspicion on Catholics even if they were tolerated (Walsingham) • Medicine: College of Physicians created in 1518. Used herbal remedies, leeches & minerals.

Society • The Queen: God’s rep on earth • Nobility ( determined by hereditary) • Gentry: knights, esquires & gentlemen (determined by wealth) • Yeomanry: farmers, tradesmen and craft workers or hired help. Literate. • The poor (1601 Poor Law) • Mostly rural society

Medicine • Life expectancy is 35 years old for the rich and 25 years for the lower classes. • Why: Poor sanitation, epidemics (plague, small pox etc) & inadequate remedies. • Galen (129 AD-210 AD) : each living things were created with four elements or Humour which comprised the Phlegm, Blood, black bile, and yellow bile.

Religion • Struggle between Protestants & Catholics. • 1559 Act of Supremacy: gives the monarch full authority over the Church of England. • Act of Uniformity: law ordering people to go to church every Sunday and holidays. • Tolerance of Catholics but under suspicion.

Education • Only for the wealthy. • For the nobility, tutors at home. • For the wealthy, ‘petty school’ (5 -7) ----> Grammar school (7 -14) for boys ONLY…----> University (if your parents had enough money!)

Grammar school

Food

Food ● ● ● Determined by how wealthy you are 3 meals a day, like us Everybody drank ale (beer) because the water was undrinkable! For the poor: bread For the rich: anything they fancied! 1563 new law = fish had to be eaten 3 times a week