Early Modern England

Commodity and Federation

Shift in eco/social life→social instability in 1500s, unlike in the 1400s

• rising prices, unlike before
  • causes of inflation: growing population, inelastic resources
  • ppl: 2.4 mil in the beginning of 1500s to 3.3 mil in 1570s
  • high fertility rate and falling death rate

Fallout of all the above: social stress

• On the top of the social rank: gents/patricians depend on land income, which was fixed compared to rising price
  • therefore, landlord tried to shorten the leases to change price more regularly
  • this led the landlords to further “squeeze” the tenants
  • encroachments to forest land
  • severe tension between landlord and tenants, especially concerning “enclosure”(think of Locke), “sheep eating men”
• population without any land grew
• yeoman farmer benefit and farmers diversified
• dissolution of monasteries, more church land. probably launched by Cromwell to reinforce regal power
  • but, most land was rapidly disposed of/sold
  • study done in wales: sold 60% of the land by the death of Henry, 75% when Elizabeth enthroned
  • land buyers
    • gentries/nobles bought most of the land
    • sons of gentries/nobles
    • upward mobile people, yeoman farmers in particular
    • townspeople: lawyers, craftsmen…
  • speculators too! who bought and sold land at lightning speed
• as result, relative wealth of gentry class grew, but small farm tenants found it more difficult to make ends meet. also more difficult for the landless to buy land
• wages stagnated for long time, while prices rose.
  • research: south of England purchase power of wages fell by approx. 40% between 1510-1550
  • hard time for lots of people
  • William Harris: “inferior sort of people” lived on “white meats”
• poverty as social problem:
  • vagabonds: homeless people everywhere
  • laboring poor: more people getting whatever work available, hence vulnerable to contingencies
  • however, people at the time saw it as moral problem which could be attributed to faults in specific groups
• Thinking the commonwealth: reformation not only the jurisdictional independence/doctrinal changes, but the revitalization of Christian values
  • people proposed christian commonwealth
  • however, “covetousness” prevailing the era
  • saw change as social dislocation and corruption
  • R.H. Tawney: these people at “an age that rediscovered the bible”
• the people wrote pamphlets→proof of “crisis of legitimation”
• also people resisting change, especially in the countryside, where farmers rioted against landlords, sometimes uprising(Pilgrimage of Grace, Camping Time, …)
• Royals not simply repressed upheavals, and sometimes sought for change for farmers’ welfare
  • Thomas Smith: did not denounce moral failings of social groups
    • had discussions(made up) between different people, different groups voiced different grievances
  • conception of increasing government responsibilities
    • coinage revalued and reissued
    • more open hearings for farmers to voice
    • statute of artifices: regulate relationships between employers and employees
    • more strict “enclosure”
    • poor relief at parish level

Elizabeth and the National Religion

Religious change remained central issue.