What was life like for a poor person in Shakespeare's time?

Answer 1

Elegant for the rich, hard for the poor.

It was very dirty in london, and many people were ill or poor. Those who were rich would have had the highst quilertyl life could buy but there were verry few compared to the poor population. Shakspeare was around when Queen Elizerbith 1st was on the throne so that may help you :)

Answer 2

William Shakespeare was not one of the very rich in his time, but he was reasonably well-to-do from a reasonably well-to-do middle class family. He was not a peasant.

London was filled with many people, and there was no sewer system of any kind. It was often dirty and smelly and you might have got lost.

Answer 3

well, it was not very good: many people were dying around him because of the plague, in fact, his son named Hamnet died of the plague when he was only 11 years old. also, most of their tools were quite primitive.

Answer 4

The first things you'd notice if you were transported back to Dickens's London would be the smell and the noise. Both were almost overwhelming. There was no system for the removal of waste and refuse, so for the most part it went into the streets and eventually into the River Thames. A few streets were cobbled or paved but most were mud, combined with horse excrement. (I'll never understand why women insisted on wearing long skirts in those conditions.) There was no law about or even a tacit understanding between drivers to drive to the right, so the streets were a never-ending tangle of carts, carriages, horses and, often herds of sheep or cattle or pigs. Drawings of the day show a horrifying mess. If you were wealthy-and it was a small percentage of the population-you could afford to keep a carriage and the horses required, which amounted to quite an expense and was a sign of status.

You had more servants in the house than members of your family, since servants worked for a pittance plus board. Even the moderately poor usually had a girl-of-all-work. If you were poor but lucky, you had a solid roof over your head, even if you shared it with other families. You walked wherever you went or, in cases of emergency, you took a bus much like ours today, just behind drawn horses. Your food was basic and unsavory; the fortunate poor could have meat once a week. Most of the meat was boiled, since few homes had anything approximating an oven; Sunday dinners were often carried to the 'bake house' and retrieved after church (for a small fee, of course).

The very poor slept in the gutter (called 'kennels') in doorways or whatever makeshift cover that could find. Orphaned and homeless children roamed the streets like feral animals, getting by through begging or petty theft (often picking pockets). Wealthy children were regularly snatched off the streets, stripped of their fine clothes and set free; the clothes could be sold, so they were much more valuable than the child (see Dombey and Son).

Answer 5

Much harder than that of any poor person you might see today!

In Shakespeare's London, poor people regularly starved to death. In the winter, they'd freeze to death because they had no way of heating themselves and not enough clothing to stay warm. They caught diseases we can cure today because they were so unhealthy from lack of good food and warmth. Many of them had no homes at all and lived on the streets wherever they could find a place to hide. There were not enough jobs, so most of them did whatever they could to earn money, like selling flowers or matches or newspapers - or turning to crime or prostitution. If they were really desperate, they could go to a work-house, but that was more like a prison - you'd work long hours and get just enough money to pay for the food they gave you and the bed you got to sleep a few hours on.

If you were a poor kid, you'd look like those photos of the starving refugees - all skin and bones. You'd be wearing whatever you found in the garbage, whether it was too big or too small, and you'd be wearing everything you owned at once, because it's pretty cold in London most of the year. You'd be filthy because there'd be nowhere to wash off except in a trough for horses to drink out of, and you couldn't take off all your clothes in public and take a bath in the street like that. You'd be very sickly all the time, and you probably wouldn't live to be much older than what we'd consider a college kid today.