ABSTRACT
Historians hav e describe d th e las t decad e o f Elizabet h Tudo r 's reig n a s a n exceptionally volatil e period , whic h experienced "high prices, foo d shortages , heavy taxatio n an d majo r war s agains t Spai n an d Ireland. " (Power , 371 ; se e also Outhwaite , P . Clark) . Economi c historian s hav e foun d tha t th e year s 1594-97 witnessed the most sustained and severe inflation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries , culminatin g i n the lowest rea l wage s i n English histor y in 159 7 (Power, 3 7 In). Even when gainfully employed , worker s i n handicrafts earned no t muc h mor e tha n subsistenc e wages : fo r example , a 158 9 proclamation, Regulating London Wages, prescribes fo r London line n weaver s 6d a da y with mea t an d drink , o r lO d a day without mea t an d drin k (Hughe s and Larkin, 3:42). Steve Rappapor t describes a London in which a "fabulousl y wealthy elite livfed] cheek by jowl with a thoroughly destitute majority" (3) .
