-Caveat Lector-
June is correct. Here is a description of life in "Merrie Old England."
Life expectancy:
"Life expectation at birth in early modern England was exceedingly low by
our standards: under thirty years old, compared with over seventy today.
Infant mortality rates were extraordinarily high, and it is estimated that
in the pooorer parishes of London only about half the children survived to
the age of fifteen" (Greenblatt 2).
Disease:
"The worst of these shocks was the bubonic plague, which ravaged England
and particularly English towns, until the third quarter of the seventeenth
century. In the year of Shakespeare's birth (1564), some 254 people died
in Stratford-upon-Avon, out of a total population of 800. The year
before, some 20,000 Londoners are thought to have died; in 1593, almost
15,000; in 1603, 36,000; OR OVER A SIXTH OF THE CITY'S INHABITANTS" (3).
Wealth:
During the sixteenth century, the textile industry was England's chief
source of wealth. But there was a grim side to this wealth creation.
Many acres of croplands were enclosed with fences by wealthy landowners,
thus giving rise to food shortages and repeated riots (4).
A Nation of Haves and Have-Nots:
England was divided into four sorts of people: gentlemen, citizens,
yeomen, and laborers. At the top of the social pile were the gentlemen
(monarch, dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts and barons--who either
inherited their exalted titles as the eldest male heirs of their families,
or were granted them by the monarch). Below the gentlemen were the
knights. In England, the mark of a gentleman was "idleness." Below these
aristocrats were the citizens or burgesses. Below them was the great mass
of ordinary people who in the words of Sir Thomas Smith"[have] no voice
nor authority in our commonwealth and no account is made of them but only
to be ruled" (qtd. in Greenblatt 7).
Riot and Disorder:
Between 1581-1602, there were thirty five riots in the city of London
alone (8). Protests against the enclosure movement led to mass executions
in the English countryside. Imprisonment and torture awaited those who
challenged aristocratic rule. Most of the rebellions were trigged by
HUNGER and OPPRESSION (my italics) (9). Five thousand rebels participated
in the Midland Revolt of 1607. Robert Wilkinson led the Leicestershire
Revolt. These rebels, called themselves "Levelers" or "Diggers" who were
interested in ending the oppressive British class system.
Legal Status of Women:
"When Sir Thomas Smith thinks of how he should describe his country's
social order, he declares that 'we do reject women, as those whom nature
hath made to keep home and to nourish their family and children, and not
to meddle with matters abroad,nor to bear office in a city or
commonwealth"(9). Women like children were to be seen but not heard.
One of the preferred methods of correction of female "misbehavior" was the
"cucking stool," a punishment reserved specifically for women. In 1600,
these contraptions were to be found throughout British cities... A woman
would be carted out to a pond by a rough procession of villagers, to be
dunked in the water (10).
Persecution of witches:
Throughout the 1600s, England was subject to the witch craze. Witch
trials had begun in England in the 1540s (29). Exactly how many helpless
women were accused and executed during "the Burning Times" is not known.
But Shakespeare's MACBETH (1606), Middleton's WITCH (1616) and Dekker's
WITCH OF EDMONTON (1621) are testaments to the widespread fear of
witchcraft in early modern England.
And some of you wonder why your ancestors wanted to leave the Old World?
Hobbes gave an excellent description of European life: "brutish, nasty and
short."
Greenblatt, Stephen. "Shakespeare's World" in THE NORTON SHAKESPEARE.
New York: Norton, 1997.
On Thu, 7 Jan 1999, YnrChyldzWyld wrote:
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> On Thu, 7 Jan 1999, Hawk wrote:
> >I'm capable of framing that thought into words, IF that is what I was trying to
> >say, which it wasn't. The whole idea that started this was mentioning that, in
> >the 1500's, Indians in North America were -- for the most part -- living in tents
> >and thatch huts, while the Northern European culture was building magnificent
> >structures, paved roads, and so forth...
>
> Most Europeans in the 1500s were living in hovels...major European cities
> of the time were NOT replete with paved roads (except in the very central
> business district, and then only minimally)...there's a reason the
> bubonic plague ran rampant throughout Europe well into the 1600's...
>
> While some Native Americans lived in 'tents and thatch huts', so did a
> good number of Europeans...but many Indian tribes also built log homes,
> some lived in 'high-rise' pueblos built into cliffs, while others built
> substantial cities, replete with pyramids, paved roads, extensive canals
> used for transportation, etc.....
>
>
> June
>
> =======================================================================
> The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
> Of wailing winds and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
> -- Wm. Cullen Bryant: The Death of the Flowers
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and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
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Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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