Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely

coincidental.

Hello, and welcome!

Today's mini-cast is just me, Beckett, Susan is away.

I'm going to go a little bit into everyday life in the Elizabethan era, since so much

of what happened to and around you is based on what station of life you find yourself

in.

A class system, by the way, that everyone agreed had been ordained by God, that I'm going

to cover this in three sections.

Let's call this first one, the poor.

Let's start in the country where things hadn't changed much since the Middle Ages until

now.

Once upon a time, your average peasant could scrape together a living by farming his own

tiny piece of land.

It was not a princely living by any means, but you could grow onions and beans and peas

and keep a pig, kind of be your own man.

But right before Elizabeth's accession, food shortages led to a process called land

enclosure.

Larger, more efficient farm units were created, and so less people were needed to work on

them.

Not so big, you know, about four acres, but still many families who had lived for generations.

In a thatched cottage, on the same land, found themselves turned out homeless and in no

...