Poor people lived in small houses with only one room on each floor. The poorest had only one or two rooms or even lived in cellars. Most homes had a yard or garden with a well for water. Sometimes wells were shared with neighbours.
Peasants were generally illiterate but also often canny and shrewd (according to folk tale), lived in the countryside in tight-knit villages and feasted together when they could. In England we lost most of our peasants to the fires of industrialisation in the 18th century.
Tudor people who were poor had little time for entertainment, but during their holidays and religious festivals they enjoyed singing, dancing, drinking and eating, as well as playing games and watching plays. Morris dancing was usually performed by a group of men dressed in white.
In Tudor towns, around 20% of people lived in extreme poverty. In some areas, 1 in 4 people were beggars and were homeless. These people were described as vagrants.
The King or Queen did not sleep alone – their servants would be in there with them! The poor, on the other hand, slept on mattresses filled with straw, often with their animals for company. They went to the toilet outside and threw their rubbish out there for the pigs to eat.
Most people ate whatever they could grow. Poor people ate fruit and vegetables. If they had animals, they might have some dairy products and a little meat. They often cooked in a cauldron, boiling up a stew called 'pottage' made from mainly from vegetables.
Poor people had to work long hours but still couldn't afford good houses to live or food to eat. Few of them could read or write. Sometimes, poor Tudors worked in pal- aces kitchens but the monarchs thought they were dirty.
The latest postulated diagnoses for Henry are the coexistence of both Kell blood group antigenicity (possibly inherited from Jacquetta Woodville, Henry's maternal great grandmother) causing related impaired fertility, and McLeod syndrome, causing psychotic changes.
In the Tudor period poor people wore simple, loose-fitting clothes made from woollen cloth. Most men wore trousers made from wool and a tunic which came down to just above their knee. Women wore a dress of wool that went down to the ground.
Their perceived lack of guile, their directness and their humour were valued as assets and woven into the fabric of court life. Believed to be closer to God and closer to the truth than other people, the 'natural fools' occupied a unique and valued position.
Tudor Poor Houses: Poor houses were generally small, single-story, cramped dwellings made of local materials like timber or wattle and daub. They had a basic layout of a few rooms for sleeping, cooking, and general living. Some poor houses were communal buildings where multiple families shared limited space.
The poor and middling sort enjoyed physical games as well, such as wrestling and stick fighting. An early form of football was also played in Elizabethan times. It was much rougher than the modern game, as the two teams would rush at each other to try to force the ball through the goalposts!
Everyone drank ale during the Tudor period, as water was considered unhealthy. Ale at the time was brewed without hops, and was not particularly alcoholic. The rich also drank wine, which was mostly imported from Europe, though some wine was produced by vineyards in Southern England.
Each peasant family had its own strips of land; however, the peasants worked cooperatively on tasks such as plowing and haying. They were also expected to build roads, clear forests, and work on other tasks as determined by the lord. The houses of medieval peasants were of poor quality compared to modern houses.
A typical Tudor house had a fireplace with a tall chimney connecting to the outside. The dirt floor was covered in reeds or rushes - there were no carpets. There were sturdy oak benches and stools to sit on. Most Tudor houses would not have had a toilet (or a privy, as it was called then).
The Tudors also ate Christmas Pie, made of a pigeon, placed inside a partridge, inside a chicken, inside a goose, inside a turkey, inside a pastry case called a coffin, served with hare and other game birds on the side - what a mouthful! Other Tudor Christmas food had symbolic meaning.
Background. Finding something to pass the time in the Tudor and Stuart periods would not be too different from our hobbies today. Sport, music and theatre were all accessible to both the court and the general public with Sundays and Saints days allowing time for entertainment.
A school of though existed at the time that believed that bathing was dangerous and a time that “allowed the venomous airs to enter and destroyeth the lively spirits in man and enfeebleth the body” (Thurley, Pg. 171). Apart from bathing with scented soap, the wealthier Tudors could also afford to buy perfume.
Wool and linen cloths were used by Tudor people to clean their teeth – there were no toothbrushes at this time. Worn out clothes were torn and used as cloths; larger pieces were used as household cleaning cloths, smaller pieces for washing bodies and cleaning teeth.
But generally speaking, people would go to bed not long after sunset, sleep until midnight, wake for a while, and then sleep again until sunrise. During that in-between time, a lot of people got up quietly. Like I said, they stoked the fire, visited the privy. Some used the time for prayer or meditation.
For women, under your dress you would have worn a simple, thin, white dress called a chemise. A chemise was seen as underwear for a lady and is the strange catalyst for history's most weird fashion item: the ruff.
Tudor drinking vessels were made from silver, pewter, glass, earthenware, wood, leather and horn. Spoons were made from silver, pewter, wood, bone, and horn. This wooden platter is an early type of plate.
