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England, 1509–1603: Authority, Nation and Religion

Harvest failures and social distress in the 1590s

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 1

Overview

Recall questions on the four failed harvests, famine mortality, the Book of Orders, the Oxfordshire rising, and how this complicates the Golden Age.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What happened to harvests in the 1590s?

Key term

What was the immediate effect of the failed harvests?

Who and when

How did the harvest crisis interact with the war?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What happened to harvests in the 1590s?

    Model answer

    Four successive harvests failed between 1594 and 1597, the worst run of the century, caused by exceptionally cold, wet summers.

  2. 2

    What was the immediate effect of the failed harvests?

    Model answer

    Grain prices roughly doubled, real wages collapsed, and in parts of the north and west there was genuine famine, with burial registers showing sharp rises in mortality.

  3. 3

    How did the harvest crisis interact with the war?

    Model answer

    Taxation, conscription and disruption of trade came at the same moment as dearth, so hardship and resentment reinforced one another.

  4. 4

    What was the Oxfordshire Rising of 1596?

    Model answer

    A small planned rising against enclosure and dearth that never got beyond a handful of men, but which alarmed the government precisely because of the conditions that produced it.

  5. 5

    How did the government respond to the dearth?

    Model answer

    Through the Book of Orders, requiring JPs to control grain markets, restrain middlemen and see that the poor were supplied, alongside bans on export and on brewing.

  6. 6

    What legislation followed the crisis of the 1590s?

    Model answer

    The Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601, which made relief a compulsory, rate-funded parish obligation, and were a direct response to the scale of distress.

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