Poor men wore skirted fustian tunics, loose breeches, and
coarse stockings or canvas leggings.
Women spent much of their time doing needlework and embroidery.
Since so many of the women who spent their days spinning were
single, unmarried women became known as "spinsters".
Children wore the same type of apparel as their elders. They were
given milk at meals for good growth. It was recognized that
sickness could be influenced by diet and herbs. Sickness was still
viewed as an imperfect balance of the four humors.
There were many lifestyle possibilities in the nation: gentleman,
that is one who owned land or was in a profession such as a
attorney, physician, priest or who was a university graduate,
government official, or a military officer; employment in
agriculture, arts, sciences; employment in households and offices
of noblemen and gentlemen; self-sufficient farmers with their own
farm; fisherman or mariner on the sea or apprentice of such;
employment by carriers of grain into cities, by market towns, or
for digging, seeking, finding, getting, melting, fining, working,
trying, making of any silver, tin, lead, iron, copper, stone,
coal; glassmaker.
Typical wages in the country were: fieldworkers 2-3d. a day,
ploughmen 1s. a week with board, shepherd 6d. a week and board,
his boy 2 1/2 d., hedgers 6d. a day, threshers 3-7d. depending on
the grain, thatching for five days 2d.
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