The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England

by Mortimer, Ian

  An even bigger complication for overseas travellers arises in 1582, when the whole of Catholic Europe shifts from the Julian to the Gregorian Calendar. Astronomers have long understood that the Julian Calendar of 365.25 days is about 10.75 minutes too long: by using it one gains a day every 134 years. Reckoning from Christ’s birth, this means that by the late sixteenth century all the religious feasts are ten days out. When the Gregorian Calendar is introduced in France, Spain and Italy, Thursday 4 October 1582 is followed by Friday 15 October. The English system is thus ten days adrift from Europe, as well as starting the year on a different day. Also remember that certain dates are still measured by religious festivals, so you might find someone telling you the date as ‘the eve of the feast of the Purification of the Virgin’. Given the disparities in calendars, this falls on different days in England and Catholic Europe. Things get really complicated when the feast in question is a moveable one, like Whitsun or Easter. Henry Machyn marks his birthday as falling on the Wednesday after Whitsun, so he celebrates it on a different date each year. Of course it would be a totally different day again if he were to go abroad. It is hardly surprising that by the time he is in his fifties he has lost track of how old he is, miscalculating his own age in his ‘cronacle’.21

  Units of Measurement

  From early times, different parts of the country have had different measurements of distance, area, volume, liquid and weight. From the thirteenth century there are attempts to regularise such basic units as the inch and the foot; but these are met with resistance. You may think it extraordinary that a monarch can stop the majority of the nation believing in Purgatory and transubstantiation and yet cannot persuade people to use a standard system of weights and measures – but there you are. The good news is that some progress is being made. A statute of 1496 establishes an English standard of eight gallons of wheat to a bushel; every gallon is to contain eight pounds of wheat; and every pound twelve ounces of Troy weight; every ounce twenty sterlings, and every sterling ‘thirty-two corns of wheat from the middle of the ear of the wheat’. This becomes the standard in most places except Devon and Cornwall. In the latter county there are different measures according to whether you are a stranger or an inhabitant, and whether you are buying from the waterside or at a land market. This complicated system states that if you are buying directly from a boat, then there are sixteen gallons to the bushel (not eight), but if you are not local, then the quantity varies between eighteen and twenty-four (depending on the port). However, if you are buying at an inland market, then it is eighteen to twenty-four gallons per bushel for all, with the least quantity in the east of the county and greatest in the west.22 Devon is not quite as awkward: there are ten gallons to the bushel there, regardless of whether you are buying from the waterside or not. Both counties divide the pound into eighteen ounces (not sixteen or twelve) and reckon 120 pounds to the hundredweight. At least cloth measures have become standardised – forty-five inches to the ell, twenty nails to the ell, so each nail of cloth is 2¼ inches.

  Some measurements are easier to regularise than others. Units that are used by travellers as well as locals tend to be standardised before Elizabeth’s reign. Take the mile: all sorts of customary miles used to be employed up and down the country. But over the last hundred years or so the advantages of a standard mile have come to be recognised. The English mile of 1,760 yards becomes ubiquitous and is enforced by a royal proclamation in 1592. However, there is no unanimity on the unit of measurement for land under tillage. The statute acre was established way back in the thirteenth century as a measure of four perches by forty perches. All well and good – as long your standard perch is accepted as 5½ yards (16½ feet). In Hampshire the customary perch is five yards long, in Devon six yards, in Cumberland seven yards and in Lancashire it is 8½.23 In this way your customary acre turns out to be anything from 4,000 to 11,560 square yards – somewhat larger than the statute acre of 4,840 yards. Perhaps you will not be surprised to hear that the most extreme variation is to be found in Cornwall. A Cornish acre is not related to tillage, but to feudal service: it is a quarter of a knight’s fee, and comprises nine farthinglands; with each farthingland being about thirty statute acres, so the whole ‘acre’ measures about 270 statute acres.24

  Shopping

  The word ‘shop’ means ‘workshop’ as well as a place to buy things. In small towns and villages, it mostly relates to a workplace. In large cities, you will find the word being used for any permanent retail premises which are not part of the marketplace, just as in the modern world. Thus for locks you go to a locksmith’s ‘shop’, for shoes to a cobbler’s ‘shop’ and so on. In London, if you go shopping in the newly built Royal Exchange, you will find all the units being described as ‘shops’, whether they are run by fabric merchants or goldsmiths.25 Stepping outside, you might go to a cookshop for something to eat. Buying food in most towns, however, is something you will do at a market.

  Every town has at least one market, open at least one day per week and serving the immediate needs of the local community. Some towns have several markets in several places, each one selling different commodities such as poultry, milk and cheese. Unless you are a completely self-sufficient farmer, you will go into town on market day to buy eggs, butter, cheese, meat and fish; you will also come for the gossip, the news and to meet friends. You might also buy cloth; small items of metalwork such as candleholders, nails, knives and other tools; and leather items such as purses, pouches, bags and belts. Livestock is also traded here: farmers bring their cows, sheep and pigs on the hoof to sell to the slaughtermen and butchers, as well as chickens in cages and dead coneys. Cooked meat, pasties and pies – the equivalent of modern ‘fast food’ – are available to those who have come in from the country to do their shopping, as well as copious amounts of ale. Any announcements will be made by the town crier in the market place: royal proclamations, for example, or the decisions of the mayor and corporation of the town. Normally the market closes before dusk, to avoid pilfering from stalls when the light grows dim.

  In addition to the market stalls, you will hear people crying their wares in the streets of large towns. Thomas Platter counts thirty-seven different commodities being cried in the streets of London in 1599.26 Cherries, plums and other soft fruit are often sold by women walking along with baskets; ‘Oranges and lemons’ is a cry you will frequently hear. Some vegetables are sold similarly – strings of onions, for example. Fish and oysters are sometimes sold from baskets and panniers too, and so are herbs, garlic, lettuce and radishes. Basically, any goods that cannot be kept are hawked about, to be sold quickly. The same goes for some services: faggots for lighting fires, a flame (to save the trouble of lighting a fire with a tinderbox) or a chimney sweep’s services.

  Some towns continue to hold a fair. This differs from a market in being an annual event, sometimes lasting several days. According to the almanacs published every year, there are 822 fairs still operating in England in Elizabeth’s reign.27 The principal purpose of these events is to supply wholesale goods to retailers in towns and to allow goods to be bought in bulk by international merchants. Rare items supplied by an apothecary, for instance, might be purchased from a wholesaler, and a shopkeeper might buy high-quality cloth such as silk and lace. However, the heyday of the great fair, when all sorts of rarities could be purchased, has long since gone. There are just five places where fairs are held in Cumberland, and only three in Durham. In the West Country it is similar: there are nine fairs at five places in Devon. The main commodities now traded are wool and cloth. Only in Kent and Essex is the number of fairs holding up, but most of these are for trading livestock.28

  A high degree of regulation is required at any market or fair. Towns have much to lose if they acquire a reputation for attracting thieves, or if customers are defrauded by unscrupulous traders. Some prices are regulated by law, including that of bread, ale and fuel: if you are charged too much for these you can report the offender to a Justice of the Pe
ace.29 Most towns appoint officers (bedels or bailiffs) to oversee trade. They may set prices for certain items; in Exeter there is a 40s fine for selling rabbits at more than 10d a brace.30 They have official weighing and measuring houses to make sure quantities of grain and liquid are correct, ale-tasters to ensure that the ale is good, and constables to keep law and order. They do all they can to prevent forestalling (the purchase of goods or livestock before they come to market), regrating (the resale of goods previously bought at a lower price in the same market or at another within four miles), and engrossment (the purchase of the entire stock of something to sell it at a higher price) – all these things are forbidden by law. This means that those who attempt to rip you off can be taken before the authorities and charged with criminal offences, not just with breaking the local bye-laws. Fines for forestalling and regrating are significant – at least 10s, more often 40s and sometimes as much as £10.

  One last thing to bear in mind when shopping is the necessity of haggling. Paying the asking price is a sure way to be defrauded. The following piece from a dialogue book tells you how to go about it:

  Lady [to a young man and a female companion]: Into what shop shall we go?

  Young man accompanying her: Madam, will it please you to enter this shop? This maid doth invite us into it by her tongue, which she hath as free as any that I have heard.

  Lady: Yet she is scarce worth your love, though she be reasonable fine and pretty; but seeing that you affect her, we will see what she will furnish us for your sake. Now, my friend, have you any fair Holland?

  Shop girl: Yes, forsooth, Madam, and the fairest lawn that ever you handled.

  Lady: Thou speakest a proud word. What knowest thou what lawn I have handled? It may be that I have had better than any that is in all thy shop.

  Shop girl: I do not say to the contrary, Madam, but so it is notwithstanding that I have as good and as fair as ever was made.

  Lady: Well, well, you do but your duty … How sell you the ell of this cambric?

  Shop girl: I know you have so good judgement in linen cloth that I dare not show you any for good unless it were so … The cambric will cost you twenty shillings.

  Lady: I will not give so much.

  Shop girl: How much will it please you to give then, Madam, to the end that I may have your custom?

  Lady: I will give you fifteen shillings. If you will take my money make short for I have other business than to tarry here.

  Shop girl: Truly, Madam, I would be very sorry to deny you if I could give it at that price; but in truth I cannot, unless I should lose by it.

  Lady: I will give you sixteen and not one halfpenny more. Mistress, is it not enough?

  Female companion: Me thinketh it Madam that you offer too much, as for me, I would not give so much.

  Lady: Let us go to the shop on the other side.

  Shop girl [to the shopkeeper]: Shall we give it her at that price Mistress?

  Shopkeeper: Show me the mark of it … Yes, call them back.31

  Money, Work and Wages

  Long-term inflation increases in the sixteenth century. A greater population means that more people are chasing too little food, forcing prices up. At the same time, with a greater number of people available to work, employers reduce wages. Lower wages and increasing demand mean that when there is a shortage, food becomes unaffordable for many. In the 1550s, prices are approximately 50 per cent higher than they were ten years earlier.32

  One of the ways the government tries to rectify this is through improving the metal value of the coinage. Debased coins of Edward VI’s reign are marked with symbols (a portcullis and a greyhound’s head) denoting their lower values, and new high-standard silver coins are minted. The other method is to control wages: restricting what people earn limits how much they can pay for commodities, thereby reducing inflation. The strategy is successful. The debased coinage is swiftly eliminated. Prices in the 1560s are just 5.7 per cent higher than in the 1550s, and the next two decades see ten-year inflation rates of 7.6 per cent and 6.6 per cent. While the price of grain and other foodstuffs fluctuates wildly according to availability, a basket of commodities increases in price by less than 1 per cent per year over the whole reign.33

  The reason why there are gold coins of duplicate value is because the pound sterling is only one of two units of account; the other is the mark (13s 4d), which is two-thirds of a pound. The angel was originally worth half a mark (6s 8d), and only acquires its value of 10s in 1551, as the mark declines in importance. From 1601 the half-angel and quarter-angel are no longer minted and the crown and half-crown are minted as large silver coins. However, the older coins do not drop out of the money supply overnight. Thus, for a short period, there are three separate coins of 5s value in circulation (a gold crown, a silver crown and a gold half-angel) and likewise three 2s 6d ones (two gold, one silver). Although it is proclaimed in 1600 that copper halfpennies and farthings are shortly to be minted, these do not actually appear, despite a chronic need for them in market stalls up and down the country.34

  The above coins are all hammered – that is to say, they are made by placing a disc of the appropriate metal on an engraved die, placing the reverse die above it, and hammering it hard. As a result the coins wear easily and quickly. They are also regularly clipped – silver is cut from the edges – even though this is high treason and punishable by death.35 But then, in 1561, a master moneyer from France called Eloye Mestrelle arrives in England, bringing with him a horse-powered screw press that permits massive pressure to be brought on the coin, creating a far more distinct image – almost as good as a modern coin.36 He mints thousands of superb sixpences and a small number of other coins; but the machinery is very slow and the Mint employees, interested in a quick and efficient working method, never take to his system. After ten years’ service, Mestrelle is dismissed. When in poverty he turns to counterfeiting coins, he is caught and hanged in 1578.

  You may wonder what the above sums are worth in modern currency. Although some historians will try to give you an equivalent, it is misleading to pretend there is a standard exchange rate across the centuries. Different things acquire different monetary values at different times. In Worcestershire in the 1590s a pair of linen sheets costs 8s – but what is the equivalent in the modern world? A pair of linen sheets today costs roughly £100: the increment from the 1590s to 2012 is then 250 times the price.37 A day labourer in the 1590s normally earns 4d per day and the value of his work has increased 6,000 times to about £100 per day. As for food, a chicken will cost you 4d (except in the famine years of 1594–7, when you might pay double that), a pint of cream 3d, one lemon 3d and a pound of cherries 10d. The chicken (free-range) has gone up in value roughly 240 times, but the lemon only about 20 times and the cherries 60 times. So, has the purchasing power of £1 increased by a factor of 20, 250 or 6,000 since the 1590s? One cannot compare prices between a society that sets very different values on food and labour from our own times.

  What if you need to borrow money? You cannot simply walk into a bank – there aren’t any on the high street. However, various forms of credit are available. Many shopkeepers will allow you to run up a bill, if they know who you are and where you live; your debt will be recorded in a ‘shopbook’. Another form of credit used frequently is that of borrowing from a local gentleman upon bond. You will undertake to repay a certain sum of money at a certain date and at a certain interest rate, as specified in a legal document. You are ‘bound’ to repay that sum and the deed remains with the creditor until you have done so. An Act of 1571, which legalises the payment of interest for long-term credit (previously charging interest counted as usury), limits by law the amount that can be charged to 10 per cent per annum. Bonds are now becoming increasingly popular. However, if you are a creditor, reclaiming the money can sometimes be difficult. Many testators stipulate that legacies should be paid only if money can be recovered from the deceased man’s creditors, and when men die you often find their executors drawing
up lists of ‘desperate debts’ – sums which they despair of being repaid.38

  It was mentioned above that the government controls wages. In marked contrast to our modern legislation, which stipulates a minimum wage, the Labourers Act of 1563 states that magistrates are annually to establish and enforce a local maximum for each occupation. In Colchester, for example, it is deemed that a ‘bailiff of husbandry’ – a superintending farmer employed by a landowner – should receive no more than £2 13s 4d annually, with a 10s allowance for cloth (to make clothes). A paid farmhand should receive no more than £1 13s 4d per year, with 6s 8d for cloth. Day rates for labourers are set at a maximum of 3d per day with food and drink, or 7d without in the winter months. At harvest time they can increase to 8d per day with food and drink and 16d without. Masons, carpenters and other skilled labourers may receive up to 4d per day with food and drink or 10d without.39 In Exeter, labourers and apprentices in the building trades may earn up to 6d per day, or 8d if they are journeymen who have completed their apprenticeships, and 10d per day if they are masters of their craft.40

  You might find the idea of a maximum wage a depressing prospect – working without a chance of improving your salary in reward for experience and skill – but there is no alternative. The unemployed can be put in the stocks until the authorities find them work to do. Girls over the age of twelve and women under the age of forty can be forced to do menial work for whomsoever the justices appoint, receiving appropriate wages. Boys of twelve and over, and men under the age of sixty, may be forced to work in agriculture on the same basis. Many crafts have a minimum period of appointment: you will not get paid unless you work for your employer for a full year. Moreover, it is unlawful to leave a position without giving three months’ notice.