Lesson video

Hello and welcome to today's history lesson.

My name is Mr. Merrett and I'll be guiding you through today's lesson.

So let's get started.

Today's lesson is looking at the problem of poverty in Tudor England.

And by the end of this lesson we'll be able to explain why poverty became a problem in Elizabethan England.

In order to do that, we need to use some keywords and our keywords for today are poverty, monasteries, and rebellion.

Poverty is the state of being extremely poor.

Monastaries are buildings occupied by a community of monks living under religious vows.

And a rebellion is an act of armed resistance against a government or leader.

Today's lesson will consist of three different learning cycles, and our first learning cycle is the Elizabethan Golden Age.

So, let's get started.

So the Tudor period was a time of significant change in England.

Beginning with Henry VII's break with Rome in 1534, England became a leading Protestant nation in Europe.

And this helped to bring about further changes in areas such as arts, science, and education, just to name a few.

England set up colonies in America.

They increased literacy rates and invented things such as flushing toilets and platform shoes, things none of us could live without.

This period of change reached its high point during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Many people at the time and today regard Elizabeth reign as a Golden Age, a time of great peace, prosperity, and happiness for England.

Elizabeth is consistently rated within the top 10 Britains of all time.

And a big part of that of course is the fact that England was going through a Golden Age, as many people would consider it, during her reign.

The plays and poems of William Shakespeare and grand prodigy houses, which are large country houses built by the elite and there's an example on the screen in front of you there of a particularly nice prodigy house.

They're examples of products at the time that are still regarded as important today.

Even today, Shakespeare's plays and poems are widely received and thoroughly enjoyed.

Many people still enjoy going to sit visit these, what we call country houses now, these grand prodigy houses for days out.

However, referring to the Elizabethan period as a Golden Age fails to take into account the high levels of poverty that were also a feature of the Tudor period.

So let's have a quick check for understanding now.

In what year did Henry VIII break with Rome and make England a Protestant country?

Was it A, 1334, B, 1434, or C 1534?

Make your choice now.

All right, if you chose C 1534, then congratulations.

That is indeed correct.

Let's have another quick check for understanding now.

What is meant by the term Golden Age?

Is it a time when there is more gold in circulation, a time of peace, prosperity, and happiness, or a time for rest and relaxation?

Make your choice now.

Alright, if you chose B then very well done.

That is indeed correct.

Right, let's look at our first task for today now then.

So I have a series of statements on the screen in front of you now, and all I'd like you to do is tick the statements that were features of the Elizabethan Golden Age.

So the statements include an increase in wealth for everyone, increased literacy rates, new inventions such as the flushing toilets, a decrease in the crime rates, large prodigy houses built, and colonies set up in America.

So tick the ones that were indeed features of the Elizabethan Golden Age.

Pause the video while you do this and I'll see you once you've finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on okay with that task.

Right, let's a quick look and see which of these statements are indeed features of the Elizabeth and Golden Age.

Here we are.

So within the Elizabethan Golden Age, there were increased literacy rates, there were new inventions such as the flushing toilets.

There were large prodigy houses built and there were colonies set up in America.

So hopefully you've got those accurately ticked on your worksheet as well.

Right, let's look at our second learning cycle for today, which is the causes of poverty in the Tudor period.

So the 16th century was a period of upheaval throughout Europe, which frequently had negative consequences for the poorest in society and England was no exception.

Generally speaking, whenever there's war, whenever there's famine, there's anything that's particularly nasty happening to a country, it's usually the poorest in society that are gonna feel the brunt of that impact.

Shortly after becoming the head of the English religion, Henry VIII ordered the closure of all of the monasteries in England in an event known as the disillusion of the monasteries.

Now, the monasteries have provided work, food, and accommodation for religious and non-religious people, as well as acting as hospitals for the sick in the local areas for hundreds of years.

There were hundreds of monasteries dotted all around the country, and generally speaking they provided a public service effectively for their local area.

Vast majority of them did.

There's certainly a strong argument to be made that many of them were corrupt, that they were misusing the funds that were given to them.

However, even if that may be true, a lot of them did still provide help, guidance, and a little bit of care for the sick, for the local communities as well.

So the fact when they were gone, that was a major loss for a lot of people, a lot of very, very poor people relied upon the monasteries for a lot of the good that they did.

Now, the loss removed, what can be considered a valuable safety net effectively for England's poorest and and most vulnerable.

On the screen here we have an example of a particularly nice monastery called Fountains Abbey, very famous one.

And you can see exactly what happened to many of them monasteries, they were torn down effectively.

They were destroyed, they became ruins.

Fountain Abbeys is relatively unique in the sense that a lot of the abbeys still remains.

For the vast majority of the abbeys around the country they were torn apart by their local people so that they could use their brick work to help build their houses and their structures as well.

So let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So we've got a discussion question here.

How did the monasteries help people before they were closed by Henry VIII?

Have a lot think about that question.

Pause the video if you need to and I'll see you once you've answered that question.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on okay with that task.

So some of the things you could have said is that the monastery provided work, food, and housing for religious and non-religious people, and they also acted as a hospital for the sick.

Amongst other things, there were other things the monastery did as well, but those are some of the key things right there.

Okay, as the 16th century progressed further changes made life even more difficult for poor people.

Unemployment increased dramatically for several reasons.

Firstly, the population increased from 2.

3 million in 1524 to 4 million in 1599, which meant that there were more competition for jobs.

It's probably worth pointing out, we don't have accurate numbers, we don't have accurate figures for the population at this state.

There weren't censuses taking place in England at this point in time, but these are are rough estimates and they're fairly good estimates.

What is beyond doubt is that the population did increase dramatically during this time period.

Having said all of that, although there's more competition for jobs, there were also less jobs available.

Henry VIII reduced the number of soldiers that his lords were able to keep in their retinues.

Now, a retinue can be thought of as like a private army.

For hundreds of years in England we shared borders with Wales and Scotland and they were hostile nations.

So the lords who owned the lands within England that bordered Wales or that bordered Scotland, they needed to be able to act quickly in case there were raids or even bigger than that, like proper invasions from the Welsh or the Scottish.

So these border lords were able to keep pretty large retinues so that they could act quickly and decisively if there were any trouble in the border there.

Henry VIII though, felt very uncomfortable with the fact that there were many lords in the country that had significantly sized private armies.

Part of the reason why it felt so uncomfortable is that the Tudors as a family felt relatively weak on the throne.

They came to power because they won during a civil war.

However, there were other noble families in the country that had as good or arguably a better claim to the throne than the Tudors did.

And the fear of many of the Tudors was that if there's some sort of rebellion, then they may well lose power.

So Henry the VIII to try and prevent that from happening ordered that all retinues would have to be either disbanded or significantly reduced.

So because this happened, it therefore means that many soldiers have now become unemployed.

You've got unemployed soldiers wandering the countryside or moving themselves into towns.

As well as that, farm laborers were also made unemployed due to changes in land use.

Sheep farming and enclosures became more popular, which required fewer workers than farming crops.

The reason for that is that the wool trades really started to pick up at this point in time.

And if you were a sheep farmer, you could make a significant amount of money by selling off this wool.

So a lot of the local landlords wanted to get in on this act so they changed their land use from crop farming, from agriculture, to sheep farming instead.

Now sheep farming and enclosures became more popular, but look after a sheep doesn't require as many workers, as many farm workers as actually growing crops does.

So as a result of that, there were many farm laborers that were no longer needed anymore.

They only needed a couple to be shepherds.

You just don't need that many people to look after sheep, especially if they're all enclosed, if they've got fences or walls around them.

So during this period as well, landlords frequently increase rents and they increase them to unaffordable prices.

And this is the process called rack renting.

And the reason they did this is because there's been an increase in population and therefore there is more demand for housing as well.

So landlords know that they can increase the prices for their rents because somebody will probably pay the price for it.

And if you cannot afford that rent, well, tough.

Off you go, you're out of a house.

So as a result of this, many people became unhoused, they became homeless, as well as unemployed.

People were also having to pay more for food, especially towards the end of the 16th century.

Henry VIII had enacted a process which is known as debasing the coinage and he did this to pay for his expensive foreign wars.

Now, when you debase the coinage it means that, you know, if you have a gold coin, then you can be fairly confident that that coin is made out of gold.

However, gold is expensive so what you could do is mix that gold with another less expensive coin.

It still looks gold, but you've used less gold to make it.

And that's what's known as debasing the coinage.

And that may work for a time, but as soon as people become wise to this act, then what they will do instead is that they will require more of those coins to make up for the shortfall in the value of those coins instead.

So this is a process known as inflation.

It's just one of many reasons why inflation may take place.

But in any case, what happened at this point in time is that foreign traders increased the prices of their goods because they knew that England had a debased coinage.

So they knew that the value of England's coins wasn't as great as what it was before.

Therefore, they're gonna need more of those coins in order for the goods to meet their value.

Added to all of this was a series of poor harvests in the 1690s.

The whole world at this point in time was going through what was known as the Little Ice Age.

And as a result of that there were very, very poor crop yields throughout this point in time.

But the 1590s in particular had particularly bad crop yields.

So as a result of that, because there is less crops being grown in general and in the 1590s even less crops being grown, it means that the price of those crops rises.

So food rose to unaffordable levels for many people.

So the increasing in costs of goods, the increasing costs of food, the debasing of the coinage, all of this leads to a period of really heavy inflation with English people at this point in time.

Right, let's have a quick check for understanding now then.

So true or false, one cause of poverty in the Tudor period was linked to changes in agriculture.

Is that true or is that false?

Okay, if you chose true, then very well done.

That is indeed true.

But let's justify the answer.

Now, why is this a true statement?

Is it true because the population increased from 2.

3 million to 4 million?

Or is it true because more sheep farming reduced the need for farm workers?

Okay, and the correct answer is B.

The in terms of the answer A, the population did indeed increase from 2.

3 million to 4 million but that doesn't directly constitute a change in agriculture.

Right, let's go for our second task for today then.

So I want you to explain how each factor in the table on the screen there can be a cause of poverty.

And to give you an idea of what I'm looking for, I've done the first one for you.

So the disillusion of the monasteries cause poverty because they were a source of work, food, and housing and they're now gone.

So you need to now do the same sort of idea with the rest of those factors as well.

So increase unemployment, how did that lead to poverty?

Rack renting, debasing the coinage and poor harvest, how did all of these things lead to an increase in poverty?

So pause the video while you're doing this and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on okay with that task.

Let's see what you could have written then.

So, increased unemployment, how did that lead to poverty?

Well, there are fewer people earning money, which is gonna make society as a whole poorer.

Rack renting led to poverty because more money was going towards rent or simply people became unhoused if they couldn't afford that rent.

Debasing the coinage can lead to poverty because money is worth less than what it was beforehand.

And poor harvest led to poverty 'cause there's less food.

So what food there is becomes more expensive due to inflation.

So hopefully your answers are similar to what I've got there.

Let's move on now then to our third and final learning cycle for today, which is the impact of poverty in Tudor England.

So the poor harvest of the 1590s led to starvation on quite a large scale.

Many people moved to the towns from the countryside in order to try to find work and food, which is logical.

If there's no food, there's no work where you live, then you're gonna want to go somewhere where hopefully that will be the case and there just wasn't a lot of work in the countryside at this point in time.

London became one of the largest cities in Europe, with a population that grew from roughly 50,000 in 1500 to an estimated 200,000 by 1603.

So it's just an absolutely massive jump, population quadruples in about 100 years.

Other towns in England also saw rapid growth, although just not to the same extent that London, London was actually one of the fastest growing cities in Europe as well as being one of the largest as well.

Food was scarce in the cities as well though, and many people were forced into begging.

And begging was viewed as an increasingly grave problem by the ruling class as the century progressed.

Harsh laws were introduced which severely punished those that were caught begging.

So initially, rather than try and solve the problem, the authorities instead just tried to punish those who were exhibiting these behaviors.

Right, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So what happened to London's population over the Tudor period from 1485 to 1603?

Was it that poverty meant that London's population shrank from 200,000 in 1485 to just 50,000 people in 1603 as people left the city in search of work?

Was there a lack of food, which meant that London's population could not grow above 50,000 people during the period of 1485 to 1603?

Or was there movement from the countryside to the towns which increased London's population from 50,000 people and 1500 to 200,000 people by 1603?

So make your choice out of those three now.

Okay, if you chose C then congratulations.

That is indeed correct.

Now, part of the reason for the strict laws against begging was that it was seen as a symptom of a lawless society.

The ruling class were very aware that there were many more poor people than rich people in the country.

And if the poor joined together in riots and rebellions, it could prove dangerous for the rich.

And they had good reason to fear this.

Across Europe, many countries had seen large scale rebellions whose main cause was people trying to escape poverty.

As an example, France and Italy saw rebellions in the 1580s.

And the same happened in Austria and Finland in the 1590s.

The rebellion in Finland actually lasted for about two years.

So it was a significant rebellion taking place there.

England did introduce some laws to try and help the people who are most vulnerable, but the emphasis was on local councils helping local people.

For the vast majority of the Tudor period, the government believed it wasn't their job to look after poor people.

It was quite simply it was the job of the local church or local rich people to look after their own local poor people.

It wasn't the government's job to sort it out at a national level.

Now, because you are looking at local solutions, naturally results are gonna be mixed.

Not everyone's gonna get it right.

Not everyone is even gonna do it properly.

But it should be viewed as positive that the ruling class in England did finally acknowledge that poverty was a problem too big for many people to resolve themselves.

Okay, let's have a quick check for understanding now.

So which two countries experienced large scale rebellions linked to poverty in the 50 nineties?

Was it Austria, England, Finland, or the Netherlands?

Okay, if you chose A and C then very well done.

That is indeed correct.

Okay, so let's go for task C then.

The first part of task C, I've got five different impacts of poverty on the screen in front of you.

And what I would like you to do is organize them into an order of significance.

So what that means is I just you want to put them into an order from the most significant impacts to the second most significant impact, all the way down to the least significant impacts.

Now, what's really, really important about this sort of task is that there isn't a right or a wrong answer.

It genuinely doesn't matter if you have a different idea to somebody else.

The key thing with this task is being able to form an opinion and be able to argue your opinion.

So whatever order you put them in, just make sure that you put them there for a reason and you can explain that reason.

So pause the video while you do this and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on fine there with that task.

So I've got an idea of an order of significance on the screen in front of you here.

If yours is very different to mine, it genuinely doesn't matter.

As I said before, as long as you can argue your point of view, that's the key thing here.

So I said that the most significant impacts of poverty would be widespread starvation followed by movement from the countryside of the towns, and then new laws to help the people.

And then moving to less significant impacts would be an increase in begging, and in my opinion, the least significant impacts of the the impacts that had available to you was that there were growing fears of rebellion.

As I said, if you've got a different list to me, different order than me, it's absolutely okay if that's the case.

Let's move on to our second and third tasks now then.

So using our order of significance, what I'd now like you to do, first of all, is explain your choices, explain why you've chosen your most significant and your least significant impact of poverty in the Tudor period.

So whichever is at either end of your scale, just explain why you've put them there.

Once you've done that I then want you to explain what would've been seen as the most significant by the Tudor government.

So we're looking at the same issues but from a different perspective.

Task one and two, that's your perspective.

For task three, what do you think the perspective of people in the Tudor government would be there?

So what would be their most significant impact?

So just think about would that be the case and then explain why as well.

So pause the video while you're doing this and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully you got on okay with that task.

Let's see what you could have written.

So I said, I think widespread starvation was the most significant impact of poverty in the Tudor period because lots of people would've died from starvation.

This impact also helped to cause all of the other impacts 'cause people will do anything to not starve, such as move home or beg.

So when I was thinking about my most significant impacts I was also thinking about how all the different impacts actually impact each other.

So how are they all linked together?

And I said that therefore starvation was the most important one 'cause it had a biggest effect on the other impacts I had on the screen in there as well.

For my least one, I said the least significant impact was growing fears of rebellion.

It was significant, but it was fears that richer people had about poor people based on something that had happened in other European countries, but not yet in England.

Additionally, there were a lot fewer rich people than poorer people.

So the other impacts affected more people.

So again, when I was thinking about significance there, part of the reason why I ordered them in the order that I did was I was thinking about the scale of the impacts.

So these different effects, how many people are they going to affect?

How big an effect is it actually going to be?

And that's part of the reason why I ordered them the way that I did.

Again, if you've got a different order, absolutely fine as long as you can explain it, as long as you can justify it, that's the key thing here.

In terms of task three, which impact would've been seen as the most significant by the Tudor government?

I said growing fears of rebellion would likely have been seen by the Tudor government as the most significant impact of poverty, as they would've been worried that they would have lost power if a rebellion was successful.

So looking at it from a different perspective, I've come up with a different answer there.

So I think the Tudor government, who were part of the rich, I think their main concern would've been that growing fear of rebellion.

Okay, let's summarize the lesson now then.

So the Tudor period saw a great deal of development and expansion, but the bene benefits of this were not evenly spread.

Poverty became an increasing issue as the 16th century progressed.

Poor harvest in the 1590s caused starvation and accelerated the effects of poverty.

And the ruling class was concerned about the possibility of rebellion, so brought in laws to limit begging and provide help to some poor people.

Thank you very much for joining me today.

Hopefully you've enjoyed yourself.

Hopefully you learned something and hopefully I'll see you again next time.

Bye-bye.