Elizabethan Society, 1558-1588 (Edexcel GCSE History)

Petty schools focused on the education of boys, whereas Dame schools focused on the education of girls.

Children attended Petty and Dame schools between the ages of 4 and 7 years old.

The poor did not receive a formal education in Elizabethan England because their parents could not afford school fees and they had jobs which did not require them to read or write.

Elizabeth established Jesus Oxford College in 1571.

The sons of Elizabethan nobles attended the university from the age of 14 or 15.

True.

University students were taught conversational skills, good table manners and formal dancing as well as English, French and Latin.

By 1603, 30% of all men were literate. This had increased from 20% in the 1530s.

In the Elizabethan period, noble women were allowed to participate in hunting, hawking and fishing.

Elizabethan noblemen participated in hunting, hawking, fishing, fencing, real tennis, wrestling and swimming.

Both the working class and the upper class participated in wrestling, hunting and swimming.

The main sport that working-class people played was football.

Bear baiting was a form of entertainment that involved dogs attacking a captive bear.

Sir Walter Raleigh wrote The Discovery of Guiana in 1596.

History and biographies were a popular genre during the Elizabethan period.

False.

The first theatre in England, the Red Lion, was created in 1567.

Everyone could afford to go to an Elizabethan theatre. The working classes paid one penny to stand in the 'yard' or the 'pit'.

Censorship means the process of removing or restricting information from books, films, newspapers, plays etc. that goes against the values of the authority in charge.

Elizabeth introduced censorship of the theatres in 1572.

The upper classes in Elizabethan England played lutes, spinets and the harpsichord.

The lower classes experienced music in Elizabethan England at fairs, markets, public celebrations, churches and taverns.

Poverty is the condition of being extremely poor to the point someone cannot afford the basic necessities.

The 'Deserving' Poor were people who could not work because of their health or age.

The 'Idle' Poor were people who were physically capable or working but were not working because they could not find a job.

A survey in Norwich in 1570, showed that up to 40% of those in poverty were under the age of 16.

A vagrant was also known as a vagabond. It was the name given to someone who was homeless and unemployed who travelled across England. They often begged or stole for money.

An itinerant was someone who travelled from town to two in search of work.

Poor harvests resulted in increased poverty as they increased the price of food, caused food shortages and resulted in landowners turning to different forms of farming.

The population in England increased by 35% as life expectancy increased and more children were surviving childhood.

Inflation is a sustained increase in the average price level of goods/services in an economy.

Inflation affected the people in Elizabethan England as many on lower wages could not afford basic necessities such as food. Many fell into poverty, even if they were employed.

Woollen cloth accounted for 81.6% of England's exports in Elizabethan times.

Sheep farming increased poverty in Elizabethan England as it took away common land from the local people, farmers did not have to hire as many workers and sheep ate crops.

Enclosure is the fencing off of land for the exclusive use of the landowner.

True.

Farmers wanted to enclose their land as it protected their crops and increased their profits.

Subsistence farmers are people who grow just enough food to feed their families. They did not grow enough to sell.

The issues in England's countryside made vagabondage worse as many rural workers moved to towns and cities to find work, and could not find work.

Vagabondage built poor makeshift houses outside of the city walls, where there was high levels of crime.

False.

The Elizabethan people and government saw vagabonds as lazy and undeserving of their help.

Laissez-faire is French for 'allow to do'. It describes the government's attitude up to the end of the 19th century. It did not believe in interfering in people's lives.

The Statue of Articiers in 1563, made local officials accountable for providing poor relief and those refusing to pay faced imprisonment.

True.

The Vagabonds Act of 1572 attempted to reduce the levels of vagrancy in towns and cities by registering the poor and finding work for the unemployed.

The Poor Relief Act of 1576 aimed to determine the genuine poor who needed help from those who did not want or accept government-poor relief.

The Poor Laws provided the poor with a way to work out of poverty. They influenced the government's approach to poverty until the 1800s.

False.

Only 10% of vagrants received the punishment of whipping. Most parishes gave vagrants money if they promised to leave the town.

Unsuccessful.

The Poor Laws could not control external factors that caused poverty in England. As such, poverty remained high.

Voyages were long trips, usually by ship.

The conflict in the Netherlands affected the English cloth trade. Merchants began to look for new, undisturbed places to trade in.

The three main stages of the Atlantic slave trade. It involved shipping goods from Britain to West Africa to be traded for people. These enslaved Africans were shipped to the Americas in exchange for sugar, rum, and other valuable goods. These items were shipped back to Britain.

Explorers reported about the treasures available in the Americas such as precious metals and crops. The potential profits from these markets encouraged investors to fund voyages.

The name of the new trading passage to the Far East was the North-West Passage.

A quadrant is a quarter circular device that uses the position of the stars to help sailors know where their ship is located in the ocean.

An astrolabe is a circular device that used the position of the stars to help sailors know where their ship was located in the ocean.

A Mercator map is a map which uses parallel lines called longitude and latitude to draw the location of countries. This gave explorers knowledge of where land masses were located.

Galleons were larger than previous trading ships. They were faster due to their Lateen sails.

Circumnavigation is the act of sailing all the way around an area e.g. the world.

False.

Sir Francis Drake was the second person to circumnavigate the globe.

Sir Walter Raleigh was one of Elizabeth's favourite courtiers. He was also an explorer, author and historian.

After the success of Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the globe, Elizabeth's government desired to explore more of the Americas. Elizabeth gave Sir Walter Raleigh a grant to find a suitable colony for English settlers.

In 1584, Walter Raleigh sent an expedition to North America to discover a suitable colony.

The expedition found an ideal location. Captain Arthur Barlowe called the area 'Virginia' in his report back to England.

The name of the indigenous community the English explorers encountered was called the Anlgonquians.

Walter Raleigh raised money for the Virginia Project by:

1. Persuading investors to invest

2. Investing his own money

3. Persuaded Elizabeth to fund the project

Raleigh obtained five ships for the Virginia Project:

1. Tiger

2. Roebuck

3. Dorothy

4. Lion

5. Elizabeth

Walter Raleigh intended to recruit 300 colonists. By 1585 he only had 107.

True.

All of the colonists were men and they were all skilled.

The colonisation of Virginia was significant for England because it took power away from Spain and boosted the economy.

The Virginia colony failed because there were not enough farmers and the colonists became too reliant on the Algonquian for food.

False.

The ship, the Tiger, became damaged during the voyage. Seawater damaged the colonists' food supplies and crops.

The Algonquians believed the English had supernatural powers that killed them. In reality, the colonists borough European diseases that the Algonquians had no immunity to.

The colonists returned from Virginia in 1586.

In 1587, England sent another voyage to Roanoke Island, Virginia. However, when they arrived all the colonists had disappeared.