The Noble :
They were many different classes in the Shakespearean era as they are classes today in the 21st Century, such as In theShakespeare's time there were recorded that they was about or at least 55 noble families in England.
At the head of each noble family they was a duke, a baron, or an earl. These are the lords and ladies of the land.
These people wererichas well as powerful, and they have large households. For example, in the year 1521 the earl of Northumberland supported 166 people – family, servants and guests.
A person became a member of the nobility in one of two ways: by birth, or by a grant from the queen or king. Noble titles were hereditary, passingfrom father to oldest son.
People in other classes might lose status by wasting their fortunes and becoming poorer. It took a crime such as treason for a nobleman to lose his title.
Many nobles had died during the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars fought in England in the15th century. Often, there were no sons to inherit their titles. Elizabeth, her father (Henry VIII), and her grandfather (Henry VII), rarely appointed new nobles to replace those who died. They saw the nobility as a threat to their power and preferred to keep the number small.
Elizabeth created only a few noblemen during her reign. The two chief examples were William Cecil, made Lord Burghley, and Robert Dudley, created Earl of Leicester. Both men who had very helpful to her.
Here are a few quotes of Shakespearean era
" "It is easy to think of the nobility as the idle rich. They may have been rich (though not necessarily), but they certainly weren't allowed to be idle. Often, high office brought debt rather than profit. Honorific offices were unpaid, and visiting nobles to England were the responsibility of the English nobility to house and entertain at their own expense. Appointment to a post of foreign ambassador brought with it terrible financial burdens. The ambassador was expected to maintain a household of as many as 100 attendants." (Britain Express)
The Poor
At the bottom of the Spectrum was the poor famalies There was far more poverty under Elizabeth than in previous reigns, mostly because of enclosure, but there were also the sick, the disabled, the old and feeble, and soldiers unable to work because of wounds. In earlier times, the church -- notably the monasteries -- had cared for the poor. Under Elizabeth, the government undertook the job -- a big job because the enclosure had created so much unemployment.
The result was the famous Elizabethan Poor Laws, one of the world's first government- sponsored welfare programs. The program was financed, at first, by contributions from the wealthy. When this proved inadequate, a poor tax was levied on everyone. The Poor Laws had three goals: first, those unable to care for themselves were placed in hospitals or orphanages. Children, when they were old enough, were put out as apprentices to craftsmen. Second, the able-bodied who could not find jobs on their own were put to work, usually in workhouses established in the towns. These were places where the unemployed were put to work making goods for sale -- such small items as candles, soap, or rope -- in exchange for a place to sleep and enough food to keep alive.
The third goal was to discourage the permanently unemployed, "rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars" responsible for "horrible murders, thefts, and other great outrages."48 The Elizabethans made a clear distinction between those who, for one reason or another, were unable to work and those able-bodied people who refused employment, whether in a regular job or in a workhouse. The Elizabethan sense of order revolted at the thought of people wandering about with no respectable occupation. To refuse to work for wages was an offense punishable by law. When vagrants were caught, they were whipped and returned to the parishes (church areas) of their birth. William Lambarde wrote of such a case:
Quotes from the Poor Famalies of the Shakespean Era
" John at Stile, a sturdy vagrant beggar, of low personage, red-haired and having the nail of his right thumb cloven, was the sixth day of April in the forty and one year of the reign of our sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth openly whipped at Dale in the said county for a wandering rogue according to the law, and is assigned to pass forthwith from parish to parish by the officers thereof the next straight way to Sale in the county of Middlesex, where (as he confesseth) he was born. . . and he is limited to be at Sale aforesaid within ten days now next ensuing at his peril.49
