Elizabeth Drake

What people wore

Respectability through Sunday best

To maintain respectability despite limited income, common people kept a wardrobe with at least two outfits, saving the better one for Sundays, holidays, and leisure.

Daily life

Education and early childhood labor

Boys might attend petty school from age five to learn English, while poor children often started working full-time at age seven.

Work

Equal Pay for Identical Tasks

While men typically earned more, women and men could sometimes receive the same daily wage for performing identical agricultural tasks.

Music

High earnings of ballad singers

Ballad singers, such as those known as Outroaringe Dick and Wat Wimbas, could earn as much as 20 shillings in a single day by performing at fairs and wakes.

At the table

Ordinary diets centered on pottage

For poorer people, pottage (a thick vegetable stew) was a main food, alongside bread and vegetables. This diet left many lacking vitamins and iron, and hard times meant hunger when prices rose.

Getting around

Everyday Travel for Work and Market

People regularly travelled between towns for work and trade, such as a 14-mile walk to return home from weaving or travelling 6 miles to sell crops at market.

What it cost

Daily wages for English laborers

In the early seventeenth century, unskilled labourers typically earned fourpence to fivepence per day, while skilled labourers earned sixpence to eightpence.