Part 1: An Introduction to Elizabethan England Quiz – Flashcards

Read the excerpt from The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England. Pig farmers keep their flitches of bacon back in storage until they can get a better price for them later in the winter. Such tactics are made even more profitable by the unhappy fact that harvests can fail, causing local—and sometimes national—food shortages. Large towns are less vulnerable, being part of an international market that sees preserved foods traded long-distance; but much of the countryside is dependent on fresh food. After a poor harvest, prices for all commodities—not just grain—rise dramatically and the poor are unable to make ends meet. Which detail from the excerpt best supports the inference that food was more consistently available in larger towns?

Read the excerpt from The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England. The underlying reasons for such differences are not hard to find. In a society in which people still starve to death, an orchard is not a beautiful thing in itself: its beauty lies in the fact that it produces apples and cider. A wide flat field is "finer" than rugged terrain for it can be tilled easily to produce wheat and so represents good white bread. A small thatched cottage, which a modern viewer might consider pretty, will be considered unattractive by an Elizabethan traveler, for cottagers are generally poor and able to offer little in the way of hospitality. Ranges of hills and mountains are obstacles to Elizabethan travelers and very far from picturesque features you go out of your way to see. Hills might feature in an Elizabethan writer's description of a county because of their potential for sheep grazing, but on the whole he will be more concerned with listing all the houses of the gentry, their seats and parks. Which detail gives implicit information about the modern view of the Elizabethan landscape?

Read the excerpt from The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England. Food is valuable in Elizabethan England, far more so than in the modern world. A flock of 180 sheep is worth more than the average detached house. The difficulties of transportation mean that the food supply depends heavily on what grows locally and how much surplus is available. It also depends on the season. Harvest is obviously a time of much grain and fruit. Which ideas are implicitly stated in the excerpt? Check all that apply.

Read the excerpt from The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England. Describing a landscape is thus a matter of perspective: your priorities affect what you see. Asked to describe their county, most Devonians will mention the great city of Exeter, the ports of Dartmouth, Plymouth, and Barnstaple, and the dozens of market towns. They will generally neglect to mention that the region is dominated by a great moor, Dartmoor, two thousand feet high in places and over two hundred square miles in expanse. There are no roads across this wasteland, only track ways. Elizabethans see it as good for nothing but pasture, tin mining, and the steady water supply it provides by way of the rivers that rise there. Which detail gives explicit information about Elizabethans' perception of the moor?

Read the excerpt from The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England. But be careful if you adopt a partial regime: heavy fines are levied for eating meat on nonmeat days. The standard fine is £3 or three months imprisonment, but in 1561 a London butcher slaughtering three oxen in Lent is fined £20. Fines can be levied on the head of a household for every single member who breaks the fast, so if you have lots of servants, make sure they all obey the law. What is the effect of the second-person point of view in this excerpt?

Read the excerpt from The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England. But you still have producers holding back corn supplies, even though hoarding is forbidden by law. In Stratford in 1597 seventy-five townsmen are found guilty of hoarding corn, including William Shakespeare, who is hanging on to ten quarters of malt. Worse than this, "engrossers" buy up all the local supply of an important commodity, such as eggs or butter, in order to drive up the price. In the 1590s certain unscrupulous businessmen buy up to twenty thousand pounds of butter—and this is disastrous because it is an important part of people's diet. Combined with hoarding, this has dramatic consequences for the poor. In some places the famine of 1594-97 proves as deadly as the plague of 1563. The details from this excerpt support the inference that

Read the excerpt from The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England. For the vast majority of yeomen in the country, it is vitally important to store hard fruit through the whole year. To do this, select faultless apples and pears without a bruise or other mark, and leave a length of stalk on them. Place them carefully in your fruit house or "hoard house" on clean dry straw, make sure they are not touching each other, and turn them very carefully every month to avoid their collecting moisture. And, most important, keep the door to the fruit house shut, "lest children make havoc there." Which detail from the text best supports the inference that one bad apple can spoil all the others?

Read the excerpt from The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England. So much grain is produced in 1592 that Francis Bacon proudly declares that England can now afford to feed other nations as well as her own people. It is an unfortunate remark, for it is very soon followed by a great dearth. The harvest of 1594 is poor, that of 1595 is worse, and the following year worse still: wheat hits 170 percent of its normal price, oats reach a level of 191 percent, and rye has to be imported from Denmark. Other bad years—when the price of grain is 20 percent or more above the rolling average—are 1573, 1586, and 1600. The year 1590 is almost as bad, made worse by the high cost of livestock. Prices for animal products hit new heights and never really diminish. Which detail from the text best supports the inference that many Elizabethans could not afford to buy grain during some years?

Read the excerpt from The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England. If you are hungry, you might feel inclined to turn to poaching. But be careful: this is risky. Taking livestock is theft, and theft is a felony which carries the death sentence. Killing wild animals that live on another man's land is also against the law; even taking a single fish from a river can result in a fine of a shilling or more. It is unlikely that you will be hanged for taking a wild animal such as a rabbit; but, even so, you will get a fine amounting to three times the value of the animal as well as three months in prison, and you will have to enter into a bond to guarantee your good behavior in the future; a second offense will be treated more harshly. If a gamekeeper attacks you and you defend yourself, you can be charged with assault. You may find yourself on the gallows if you injure him. What is the author's purpose in this excerpt?