Charlie Fenton’s Reviews > The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England > Status Update

‘One of the most popular tourist destinations is Drake’s famous ship, The Golden Hind, which is on display in Greenwich. Not only can you go aboard, you can also rent her as a banqueting house. Unfortunately she is slowly being dismantled because most visitors take a piece as a souvenir. If you want to see her in all her glory, go quickly: by 1618 only the keel will be left.’

‘Sixteenth-century people believe that water can infect them through the pores of their skin and the crevices of their body, and so they display a marked reluctance to immerse themselves wholly in a bath unless they know the water is pure... having a bath is seen as risky and unnecessary: not only might you catch a disease, but it costs a great deal of time, effort and money to prepare one.’

‘Food is valuable in Elizabethan England, far more so than in the modern world. A flock of 180 sheep is worth more than the average detached house. The difficulties of transportation mean that the food supply depends heavily on what grows locally and how much surplus is available. It also depends on the season. Harvest is obviously a time of much grain and fruit.’

‘Where you lay your head in Elizabethan England is - like everything else - very much a matter of status. Poor men will not be offered accommodation in a nobleman’s house, and most noblemen would not deign even to set foot inside a cottage. Travellers can’t expect cheap accommodation at a monastery any more: hospitality is no longer a matter of charity.’

‘Another reason for the sudden popularity of coaches is the lowering of the cost of production... In 1573 a new coach could be obtained for just £34 14s, plus 2s 6d for painting your cost of arms on the side. A second-hand one might cost as little as £8: the earl of Essex has one valued at this price, and the earl of Bedford has two old coaches valued together at £10 in 1585.’

‘’A greater population means that more people are chasing too little food, forcing prices up. At the same time, with a greater number of people available to work, employers reduce wages. Lower wages and increasing demand mean that when there is a shortage, food becomes unaffordable for many. In the 1550s, prices are approximately 50 per cent higher than they were ten years earlier.’

‘The English do not burn people for witchcraft; that sort of thing only goes on in Scotland and Continental Europe. In England witchcraft is not regarded as a religion or a heresy: in theory you can be a good Christian and a witch. Witches at this time do not yet congregate as a body, nor do they celebrate the sabbat together - that all comes later, in the next century.’

‘The Tudor monarchs have a huge need for literate men to fill bureaucratic offices, taking on everything from corresponding with foreign agents to the production of baptism, marriage and burial registers for every parish in the country. With such a high value placed on literacy, people increasingly recognise that there are financial advantages to educating their sons.’

‘approximately 15,000 other gentlemen with an income from land sufficient to guarantee they do not have to work for a living. In this group you have the greatest disparities of wealth - from knights as rich as Sir John Harington... and Sir Nicholas Bacon, with incomes of £4,000 or more per year, down to local gentlemen with a thousand acres let out to tenant farmers for not much more than £100.’

‘Thomas Wilson... states that there are five types: nobles, townsmen, yeomen, artisans and countrymen; and he further divides these groupings into smaller sections... Some knights are richer than lords; a rich husbandman can be more respectable than a poor yeoman; and a spinster born into an ancient gentry family with coat of arms might look down on a merchant with ten times as much income.’