Hello, and welcome to today's history lesson.

My name is Mr. Merritt, and I'll be guiding you through today's lesson.

So, let's get started.

Today's lesson, we'll be looking at the growing population in Elizabethan England.

And by the end of this lesson, we'll be able to describe the growth of the English population in the later 16th century and explain the impact of that growth.

In order to do that, we need to use some keywords.

And our keywords for today are rural, urban, and subsistence.

So rural refers to the countryside, urban refers to towns and cities, and subsistence is the act of maintaining oneself at a most basic level.

Today's lesson will feature three separate learning cycles, and our first learning cycle is a growing population.

So let's get started.

So just to go back a little ways, 1348 was a devastating year for England.

The Black Death made its way across the English Channel and began infecting and killing millions.

By the time it had begun to subside in 1351, the population of the country had dropped from an estimated 4.

8 million to just 2.

6 million.

So a massive impact on the population of England.

Now, the population of London fell from an estimated 100,000 to just 20,000.

So again, huge impact on the capital of the country.

The plague didn't go away though, it continued to strike every few years, which prevented the population from making a recovery.

And a couple of hundred years later, in 1524, the population was still only an estimated 2.

3 million.

So it just hadn't recovered from the Black Death.

But things changed dramatically over the course of the 16th century.

And by 1599, the population was now 4 million.

The plague hadn't disappeared.

That is really, really key to understand.

The plague did not go away.

It still continued to strike during the Tudor period.

But death rates in general did decline, and at the same time, birth rates were increasing.

And this therefore created a population boom that unfortunately the ruling elite was simply just not ready to deal with.

Let's go for a quick check for understanding, first of all.

So true or false? The population of England had still not fully recovered its losses from the Black Death by the end of the 16th century.

Is that true or is that false? Okay, if you chose true, then very well done.

But let's justify the answer now.

Why is it true? So is it true because in 1348 the population was roughly 4.

8 million and in 1599 the population was roughly 4 million? Or is it true because in 1348 the population was roughly 12.

2 million and in 1599 the population was roughly 10 million? So choose your justification now.

Okay, if you chose A, then congratulations, that is indeed correct.

Another quick check for understanding now.

So give two reasons for the population growth England experienced during the 16th century.

Was it because of increased birth rates? Was it the fact that there were no major wars? Was it the fact that there were no outbreaks of plague? Or was it a decreased death rate? So choose two of those now.

Okay, if you chose A and D, then very well done, that is also correct.

Right, let's go for our first task for today now then.

So we've got a timeline on the screen there for you.

And what I'd like you to do for each year on the timeline, explain the reasons behind the increase or decrease in the population.

So we're starting in 1348 with the population we estimate was about 4.

8 million.

But in 1351, the population was 2.

6 million.

You to explain why that's the case.

In 1524, the population was an estimated 2.

3 million.

Again, why is that the case? And then by 1599, it was an estimated 4 million, and explain why that was the case.

So pause the video while you do this, and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully, you got on fine with that task.

Let's go through some possible answers you could have put down here.

So, A, you could have said that the Black Death killed millions.

The population of England dropped from an estimated 4.

8 million to 2.

6 million.

So the reason for the decline in population was due to the Black Death at this point in time.

And, B, you could have said that the plague continued to strike every few years, preventing the population from making a recovery, and so it sits at an estimated 2.

3 million.

As I said, the plague never went away.

On average, it came back about every 15 years or so in kind of its big form.

But there were plague deaths every single year in England in some part of the country.

And in C, you could have said the plague had not disappeared, but death rates had declined at the same time that birth rates were increasing, and the population of England increases to 4 million.

So again, that's something else that you could have said there, and this is what we'll gonna be looking at over the course of today's lesson.

Why was there a growing population in Tudor England, and what impact did that have on the country? So, let's go for our second learning cycle for today then, which is a rural impact.

Now, in rural England, the growth in population in the 16th century coincided with changes in farming practises.

Traditionally, villagers would grow and work crops on the local lord's land and use a large piece of shared land known as common land as grazing land for their animals and space to grow their own crops.

They also, in many cases, had their own lands as well.

But that common land was a shared resource for many people in the village there as well.

During the 16th century, many lords converted their lands to sheep farming instead, as the wool industry was extremely profitable.

People were making a huge amount of money in the wool industry.

This created problems for the rural poor as fewer workers were needed to tend the sheep.

So many people were made unemployed.

Sheep also need barriers so that they don't go missing.

So the lord's land, and frequently much of the common land, was enclosed to protect the sheep, and this is a process called land enclosure.

And this was genuinely devastating for a lot of local villages.

You could argue that it's fair in many ways for the local lords to do whatever he wants with his own land.

If he wants to change to sheep farming and enclose it off, then that's his prerogative.

He's able to do so.

But there were many, many cases of land grabbing where the lord effectively just took his land and then this little bit over here as well, which is part of the common land, or quite a bit of this bit over here as well, which is the common land.

And that just wasn't okay.

But in many cases, the local people just didn't have the power to argue back against what the local lord was doing, they just had to accept it.

But it had huge impacts on the way that they lived their lives.

These changes meant that the rural population had fewer opportunities to work and less land to use for their own subsistence.

The growth in population also meant that more rural people were competing for fewer jobs, which allowed employers to offer less money for their labour.

So knowing full well that this job that you did last year was worth this amount of money, well, this year there's two people fighting for your job and this other person's gonna accept less to do it, so I'll employ him.

And then the year after that, well, again, there's five people fighting for this job and this one person over here is gonna accept even less money.

So it's known as undercutting.

And unfortunately, landlords made great use of this undercutting as well to just effectively just pay as little as possible, which obviously had an impact on those that were missing out.

This also allowed landlords to increase rents as well, as they knew that people were so desperate for housing that they would've no choice but to pay.

And this is known as rent-racking.

And, again, it operates in the same sort of way as undercutting as well.

You know, you pay this much money for your rent this year.

Well, this year, this next year, there are two people fighting for who want this house, and this other person will offer me more money for it, so I'll accept his offer.

And then next year, there's five people who want this house, and this other person's gonna offer me more money again, so I'll accept their offer.

And, again, rent-racking and undercutting, they go hand in hand to create a really, really desperate situation for many poor people in the rural areas at this point in time.

Many rural people couldn't afford these rents naturally and so they became homeless, they became unhoused.

And although it was illegal to leave the local area without the local lord's permission, this was the law at this point in time, many rural people moved in order to find work, food, and shelter, as is a completely natural situation.

If there's not enough food and work and housing where you are, I think it's understandable that, in that case then, you want to move to try and find those things.

These people became known as vagabonds, and the Elizabethan ruling elite believed that vagabonds were nothing more than travelling criminals who also spread disease.

And there may be some element of truth to the disease-spreading parts.

In terms of the fact that they were travelling criminals, and no doubt there were some who were travelling criminals, but the vast majority had legitimate good reasons for trying to leave their local area and to go somewhere else.

And to be cast as the whole idea of that you're nothing but a criminal, you're nothing but a spreader of disease, it's just a really, really unfair reaction to this really terrible situation that many, many people found themselves in.

Many vagabonds moved to the towns and cities in order to find a means of subsistence.

Well, let's go for a check for understanding.

So which animal did many local lords begin farming during the Tudor period at the expense of crop farming? Was it cows, pigs, or sheep? All right, if you chose C, sheep, then very well done, that is indeed correct.

Let's have another quick check for understanding now, it's a discussion question.

So how did population growth in rural areas increase poverty? So, what different answers can you find to this question here? Pause the video if you need to while you discuss it, and I'll speak to you again in just a moment.

Okay, so you may have said too many people and not enough jobs, so many people became unemployed.

Could have also said that too many people and not enough housing, so many people became unhoused.

Right, let's go for our second task for today then.

So, I've got a table on the screen here for you.

And what I want you to think about is was everybody affected by changes to rural England in the same way? And effectively, what we're gonna be doing is we're gonna be dividing rural England into the rural poor and then into local lords.

And there were other groups, but we're gonna be dividing it into these two key groups right now.

So, what I want you to do is to use a scale of one to five to show how worried these two groups would've been about each change.

So, use the one to five scale, as one is they're not worried, or in actual fact they're quite happy about the change that's taking place, and five being that they are extremely worried because it is life-changing and not in a good way.

So the changes we're gonna be looking at are land used for sheep farming rather than for crop farming, the loss of common land, rack-renting, poor harvests, and vagabonds moving between villages.

So pause the video now, I want you to have a go at this task, and I'll see you again once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully, you got on okay with that task.

So, this task here, there's not necessarily a right or a wrong answer, it's down to your opinion, but I'll give you an idea of what I thought here.

So, for land used for sheep farming rather than for crop farming, I said that for the rural poor I would've given this a four because it is a really, really big change and it affects them in really quite a negative way.

The reason this is not a five is because some of this rural poor would've been kept on as shepherds, so some of them would've been okay with these changes 'cause they still had a job at the end of it.

For local lords, I said that this is actually a one because this change, in many cases, was actually very good for them.

They're gonna make more money as a result.

For the loss of common land, I said that was a five because this almost entirely had a negative impact on the rural poor because they lost land that they were able to use and now they can't do that anymore.

So it has a huge impact on the amount of crops that they can grow to feed their families and also the amount of animals that they own, which can be used for grazing on that land as well.

And once again, for the local lords, I said that is a one because in many cases they were gaining free land, so it's great for them.

Rack-renting I also said was a five for the rural poor because, you know, if you're paying a certain amount of money for rent and then suddenly it keeps increasing, that's obviously gonna be a negative impact on you.

There's not very many people around the world that are gonna be happy with an increase in rent, and certainly not to the extent where it would make many people homeless as well.

For the local lords, once again, I gave it a one because it's them that's increasing the rent, it's them that are making more money of this as a result.

For poor harvests, once again, I said that this was a five for the rural poor.

In many cases, many of these poor people were just about hanging on anyway.

And now for these poor harvests to come into play, where there's less food coming in, there's less food being grown, in many cases, that leads to starvation.

So it was really, really negative.

For the local lords, for the first time, I said this is actually, this wasn't a great change for them either.

It's important to note that there weren't really any local lords that were gonna starve as a result of this, but it will impact them in a negative way 'cause they'll have to pay more for the food.

So that's not great for them.

But I've only put it as a three because in many cases they could still absolutely afford it without any real major changes to their lifestyle.

For vagabonds moving between villages, for the rural poor, I said that this was a three, and the reason being is that frequently they were the vagabonds, they were the ones that are moving around between villages, not necessarily 'cause they want to, but in the hope that there will be food, there'll be shelter, there'll be jobs where they're going to next.

So it's, I'm imagining sadness that they are leaving their old life behind, but maybe an opportunity will come up.

There's an element of hope in there as well.

For the local lords, I said this was a five for a couple of reasons.

Number one, as I said before, it was illegal for poor people to leave the villages without the consent of the local lord.

So I imagine that if that was happening, then the local lords wouldn't be happy about it.

But also, they're the ones that are concerned about these vagabonds moving into the villages that they live by as well, in case they're bringing disease, in case they're bringing criminal behaviour.

So they were really quite alarmed by the amount of people moving around the country at this point in time.

If you've got something different to that, to what I've got, that's absolutely fine as long as you can explain why you've got that.

That's exactly what I'm looking for here in this task.

Okay, let's think about our third and final learning cycle for today, which is the urban impact.

So, just like in rural England, urban areas also saw a growth in population.

However, urban growth was much more rapid.

There was, the growth of towns and cities was significantly higher than that found in the countryside.

And the reason for that is that many of the rural poor moved into urban areas in order to find a mean of subsistence.

So London became, as a really good example, London became the fastest growing city in England.

And this is despite the fact that it had a death rate higher than the birth rate.

So more people were dying in London than were being born in London, and yet the population of London was massively increasing.

So its rapid growth was entirely due to the huge numbers of rural poor making their way to the city.

That's the only reason why the population of London was growing at this point in time.

If people hadn't moved to London, the population would've been dropping, okay? The population of London rose from roughly 50,000 in 1500 to 200,000 by 1600.

So in a hundred years, the population quadrupled.

It is a massive increase.

But because it is such a huge increase in such a relatively short amount of time, it leads to significant overcrowding.

The city authorities, they just weren't ready.

They weren't able to cope and to keep up with the demands for work and housing that all this new population brought with it.

And as a result of this, many of the migrants built their own houses outside of the city walls, which is, again, is a natural response to this particular situation.

Now, this was also the case in many of England's other towns and cities at this point in time.

But, again, because London was the biggest city at the time, because it was the fastest growing city, the problem was larger, the problem was more problematic in London in comparison to other cities at this point in time.

Now, much of the new housing in London was located to the north of the city or in the south bank of the River Thames.

There was this temporary housing that was built elsewhere as well, but predominantly you'd find it in the north of the city and then the south bank of River Thames.

And the south bank, in particular, became notorious for its high crime rate.

Now, quick statement here for a check for understanding.

True or false? Urban population growth was much faster than rural population growth during the Tudor period, especially in London.

Is that statement true or false? Okay, if you said true, then well done, it is indeed a true statement.

But let's justify why it's a true statement.

Is it true because the birth rate was significantly higher than the death rate in London? Or is it true because migration from rural areas to London in particular fueled the growth rates? So choose your justification now.

Okay, if you chose B, then very well done, that is the correct answer.

Right, so although the rural poor moved to urban areas in order to find a means of subsistence, the problems they face in the countryside followed them to the cities.

Work and housing were hard to come by, and food was increasingly expensive in the markets.

And I'm gonna show you an example of what I mean by that in the screen in just a moment.

So the change in farming practises meant less food was being grown when there were more people to feed, and that therefore increase in prices.

So during the 1590s, several years of poor harvest from 1594 to 1596 increased the price of food even further.

So, again, just to give you an idea here on the screen.

So between 1500 to 1650, the average wage doubled.

So the amount of work that you would do, or the kind of work you would do in 1500 would gain you, as an example on the screen here, one coin.

You do the same work for the same amount of time in 1650 and you would gain two coins as a result.

So this is natural inflation there.

The cost of food, however, which again as a baseline would've maybe cost one coin in 1500, this is really, really basic that we're doing here, but 1500, the cost of food perhaps would've been one coin, by 1650, that same amount of food would've cost you six coins.

So the price of food increased six-fold.

So just a massive increase in the cost of food when the wages they're receiving weren't increasing in line for that.

So as a result of that, more people were spending more of their money on food than they were in comparison to 1500.

Many of the urban poor spent as much as 80% of their income on food.

80% of all the money they make goes on just buying food, nothing else.

During the price rises of the 1590s, this meant that food became unaffordable, which led to starvation.

Reports from local lords in rural areas and their own experience of the ever-growing urban poor in London, it alarmed the Elizabethan elites, who fear that occasional food riots, because there were food riots in England at this point in time, that happened around the country every so often, but the real big concern is that this could be transformed into full-blown rebellion.

And there was talk about that upon occasion, but it never happened in England.

But the fear of it happening amongst Elizabethan elite was very real.

And it eventually led to laws being introduced, which are designed to help both the rural and the urban poor.

Okay, let's go for a quick check for understanding now.

So why do food prices increase during the Tudor period? So, have a little think about how to answer that question, pause the video if you need to, and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, let's think about how we could answer this question then.

So we could say that there was less food being grown due to a switch from crop farming to sheep farming.

You could say that there was poor harvests in the 1590s.

And you could say that there was less common land available for subsistence.

There are other things you could have said as well, and if you've got different ideas from me, that's absolutely fine, but there's some examples on the screen there.

Right, let's think about our next task then.

So, which interpretation I got on the screen in front of you there do you most agree with about the effects of the growing population in Tudor England? And I'd like you to explain your answer.

So Laura says, "The rural poor had it worse.

They lost their jobs, their houses, and their means of subsistence." So that's Laura's interpretation.

Lucas, on the other hand, thinks that the urban poor had it worst.

"Towns and cities became overcrowded and most of their wages were spent on food." So which interpretation do you most agree with? Doesn't matter which one you choose.

What matters is that you are able to explain your reasons for doing so.

That's the key part of this task.

So pause the video now whilst you're doing that, and I'll see you once you're finished.

Okay, welcome back.

Hopefully, you got on fine with that task.

So there's no right or wrong answer to that task.

It genuinely didn't matter which one you chose.

What matters is your ability to explain your opinion.

So, I've got an example on the screen here for agreeing with Laura's interpretation.

So let's see, if you chose Laura's interpretation, let's see how similar your answer is to mine.

So I said, "I mostly agree with Laura's interpretation.

The rural poor lost their way of life with the switch from crop farming to sheep farming and the enclosure of common land.

A population increase in the countryside also meant that many of the rural poor lost their homes as well, as landlords used rack-renting to make more money as they knew that there was competition for homes.

The urban poor suffered because of population growth, but many of the urban poor had previously been the rural poor, so they suffered wherever they were living." So, that's the answer that I came up with for Laura's interpretation.

Hopefully, you can see there that I've used some specific details that I've learned from this lesson and I've explained how those details support the point that I'm trying to make.

So hopefully your answer follows a similar sort of vein to that.

Right, let's summarise today's lesson then.

So, the population of England grew rapidly in the 16th century, with urban areas growing faster than rural areas.

There were significant changes to how the land was used in rural areas, which reduced the need for farm workers and produced less food, for example, more sheep farming and the enclosure of common land.

Population growth put more pressure on available food and housing, increasing poverty.

So the rapid population growth of the 16th century was an important cause of rapidly increasing poverty.

Thank you very much for joining me today.

Hopefully you've enjoyed yourself, hopefully you've learned something, and hopefully I'll see you again next time.

Bye-bye.