Life as a poor Tudor

1. Life as a poor Tudor By Obi and Kit

2. Contents • How would you earn a living? • How much would children have to work? • What kind of house would you live in? • What kind of clothes would you wear? • How would you be treated? • What kind of food would you eat? • Glossary • Index

3. How would you earn a living? Often the jobs for the poor would be harder than the jobs for the rich. Peasants would often work in farmlands. The church would usually own the farmlands that the peasants worked on. Sometimes poor Tudors would work in the kitchens in palaces but some monarchs thought they were really dirty.

4. How much would children have to work? Often poor children would have to work to earn money or help around the house. Poor children didn’t go to school, because they had to work. When they worked around the house, they would do jobs such as spinning wool and collecting eggs. To earn money, they would do jobs such as baking bread or making shoes.

5. What kind of house would you live in? In Tudor times, the houses for the poor were very different to the houses for the rich. Their houses were made of wattle, daub and thatch, instead of the plaster and timber the rich houses were made of. All they had for windows was a hole in the wall, instead of glass and shutters. All of their belongings were kept in one box and they threw their rubbish in a bush. All they had for a toilet was a hole in the ground.

6. What kind of clothes would you wear? Poor people in the Tudor times didn’t have as many belongings as the rich. One of these types of belongings were clothes. They had to wear one set of clothes for a week. Some people actually made their own clothes out of poor materials such as wool. lower class people were only allowed to wear wool, linen and sheepskin. Men wore a hose of wool and tunic, while women wore a dress of wool, apron, cloth bonnet and linen scarf.

7. How would you be treated? Because the poor were not as well-off as the rich, they were treated differently; either harshly or sympathetically. If a poor person was able to work but wouldn’t work was caught begging, they were treated harshly. Merchants would often treat the poor who couldn’t work sympathetically. Sometimes rich people would provide tramps with houses.

8. What kind of food would you eat? The poor would not eat as much food as the rich in Tudor times. They had a much smaller range of food than the rich, and didn’t eat expensive food such as sugar. They would often eat their chickens and catch rabbits to eat. Sometimes they would even poach fish. If they went to market, they would buy beef. Water was not safe to drink in those days, so they drank a drink called cider, which they made from apples.

9. Glossary Merchant: a rich trader. Monarch: king or queen. Peasant: a poor person. Poach: hunt animals that are illegal to hunt. Spinning wool: untangling wool using a spindle or a wheel. Sympathetically: Behaving in nice way towards something/ someone you feel sorry for. Timber: a type of wood. Wattle and daub: a mud-like material used to make poor Tudors’ houses. Well-off: wealthy.

10. Index Merchants: slide 7. Monarchs: slide 3. Rich people: slides ,5,6,7,8. Rubbish: slide 5. Sugar: slide 8. The church: slide 4. Toilet: slide 5.