The+Tudors

media type="custom" key="253673" What was it like living during the Tudor times?

There were only 4 million people living in Tudor England, however life had many problems. Towns were becoming overcrowded and this caused danger from fire and disease

//Basically the rich were very rich.......And the poor were very poor.// Wealthy people and noblemen might own their own armies! Many of them helped the monarch govern England in Parliament.

Most people however, were poor and mainly lived in the countryside. Slightly better off people might own small farms or be craftsmen or merchants.England was a major trading centre for goods like cloth, salt, sugar, coal,copper,tin and wools. Merchants grew rich in Tudor times as lots of people were buying English goods around the world. Rich people wore fine, elaborate clothes. Poor people wore simple, home-made clothes that would have to last them many years.

Travelling was difficult and dangerous. There were no proper roads, so the tracks were muddy and uneven.A rich man would have a fine house with large gardens. He used them to show everyone how well off he was. Also the big houses were out of the towns so that the air and water were cleaner. Poorer people lived in small wooden houses. The floor would be made of mud - they might sprinkle herbs and rushes on it to try and make the house smell better. People seldom left their village all their life!


 * The Houses**

The tudors built many new houses. A few were large palaces made of stone but most were smaller. They had wooden frames pinned together with wooden pegs, and the spaces were filled with clay or brick. Brick and stone were only used for building big country houses. Most buildings were made of wood and plaster. A rich man would have a house with many rooms, each with big windows to let in light. Glass was very expensive and it showed how rich you were if you had lots of windows. Some families would take the glass with them when they moved house!

Lots of houses in the town were built upwards because there was not much space. The floors used to jut out over each other. They were built on both sides of the street and made the streets gloomy because they blocked the light. The streets were narrow and crowded. This made it easy for criminals to rob and steal from shops, traders and people. People threw their rubbish and waste into the streets which made the cities smell very unpleasant. Tudor shops were more like open market stalls. The shopkeeper had a picture sign to show people what they sold. This was better than a written sign because lots of people could not read.


 * Life At Home**

Everything had to be done by hand so the housewife was a busy person. The people then were not as particular as we are about changing their clothes. Washing would only be done about once a month. In a big house, there might only be one washday in three months. People often did their washing outside in a stream. They used home made soap from fat and ashes. Most of the furniture was made of wood. Only important people had chairs, the rest had to sit on stools or benches. Rich people had big wooden four poster beds. Beds like these were very valuable and would be passed down to the next generation when people died. Most people's beds were feather matresses covered with thick sheets and wool blankets.


 * Food and Drink**

Most people ate well. The main part of each meal was meat. This could be beef, lamb, pork, rabbit, deer, goat or wildfowl, rich people even ate swans. Ordinary people cooked, ate and slept in the same room. They would cook over an open fire and would probably drink beer or cider with each meal. Tables were made of oak. The dishes they used were made of earthenware which was a kind of rough pottery. Food was usually put into a big bowl in the middle of the table then people helped themselves. They didn't use forks just spoons and knives. Drinking cups were made of horns which had the pointed end cut off. Feasts and banquets took place in the great hall of a big house. The host and important guests sat at the top of the table which was raised up on a platform. The rest of the guests sat lower down. There was loads of food and often lots left over which was given to the servants anything they didn't eat was given to beggars who waited outside.


 * Education**

Schools were mainly for rich children. Most pupils were boys and very few girls were educated. Some were taught at home by a tutor. Pupils spent a long time at school. After three years at a nursery school they moved on to a grammar school when they were seven. They only had two holidays of about two weeks each, one at Christmas and one at Easter. For the rest of the year they only had Sundays off. The day began at 6 or 7 o'clock in the morning. Lunch was at 11 o'clock and afternoon lessons lasted from 1o'clock until 5 o'clock. Teachers were very strict, often beating their pupils with birches if they misbehaved. Birches were a type of cane. Teachers used to give 50 strokes of the birch. Pupils were sometimes too scared to go to school because of the beatings. Pupils from wealthy families could often afford a special friend called a 'whipping-boy'. When the rich child was naughty, it was the whipping-boy who received the punishment.


 * Crime and Punishment**

People who committed crimes could be put in the stocks. They always stood where lots of people would pass and they would throw things at the criminals. Beggars were a big problem people were afraid of them. If they became a nuisance they were dragged through the streets being whipped. Most towns had a ducking chair to punish women who were "scolds". The chair was kept near a pond or river and was hung on a see-saw. The woman was tied into the chair, dipped into the water and pulled out again. If people thought that a woman was a witch she would be tied up in a sack and thrown into the water. If she floated it meant she was not guilty. Other people could be burned at the stake.

Stuff the ordinary books don't tell you....
 * Girls could marry at age 12, boys at age 14! They still had to live with their parents until they were 16 though.
 * Nine out of ten people died before they were 40. There was so much disease and they had no idea how to cure any of them or how to be hygienic.
 * The Tudors were great gamblers and loved to bet on just about anything. At one time Henry VIII had a bill for £3242 for 3 years gambling when the weekly wage was about 5p!
 * Baths weren't considered healthy so Tudors just covered up the awful smell with strong perfume.
 * Toilets were just a hole in the ground by the backdoor for some people.
 * Open sewers ran in the streets and passed many of the diseases on.
 * Water came from village pumps, and they got the water from the local stream, which was most likely full of sewage from the town. No wonder they got so ill!
 * Toilets were called 'Privy's and were not very private at all. They were often just a piece of wood over a hole in the ground and might have room for up to 6 people to go at the same time!
 * King Henry VIII had over 78,000 people executed while he was king. That is the same as 5 people killed every day for 38 years!
 * An average person drank about 8 pints of weak beer a day, it had very little alcohol and even children drank it, it was safer than the water! It was called 'small beer'.
 * They knew that sugar rotted their teeth, and since sugar was so expensive, women used to deliberately black their teeth out to look rotten, because it showed they could afford to buy sugar!
 * A popular 'cure' for illness was blood letting. People believed that illness was caused by too much blood in the body. So they would cut a slit and let some of the blood out. Sounds like you'd feel worse after that!

The most famous Tudor was Henry VIII. Follow the link to read about him and his six wives!