Poor In Elizabethan England Essay

While Elizabethan England was on the rise to greatness, the number of poor and peasant citizens was also rising. All of these poor people were burdening communities in one way or another. Since poor citizens were becoming such an issue, the city of Norwich decided they needed to take a census and research their city’s people. The census revealed multiple things including that, 2395 of Norwich’s 10,625 people were considered poor, 300 people were in hospitals or poorhouses, 926 were under the age of 16, ⅔ of the adults were women, and ¼ of the people were over 60. These poor people would eat whatever they could. A common laborer did not earn nearly enough money to buy food that would reach the necessary 2,500 calories required a day to survive in Elizabethan England. …show more content…
However, making bread out of animal foods would be seen as shameful to a man’s family. Most peasant children would have a diminished chance of growing to adulthood because they were weak, sick, and poorly fed. Earning money was also tough for children, as most people did not want to apprentice these poor and weak children. Although the children were born into poverty, most adults fell into it through increasing rent and poor harvests. The upper classes in England began to call all of the peasants “gypsies”, short for Egyptians, because Egyptians were considered the only lower class citizens along with peasants. British parliament began creating legislation for the poor in 1530. At first this legislation was bad for the poor, calling for the hanging of anyone that recognized themselves as a vagabond or an Egyptian. In 1589 they also created a law that prohibited housing the poor. However, the British government eventually changed their attitude towards the peasants and required that every parish should have a department to look after poor children and help adults find