The Age of Discovery and Tudor Society

Vocabulary flashcards covering European exploration and navigation advances, the four classes of Tudor society described by William Harrison, and the urban living conditions, law enforcement, and legal punishments in Tudor England.

Vasco da Gama

A Portuguese explorer who, in $1498\text{ CE}$, became the first European to sail around Africa and land in India, returning with goods like silk, spices, and jewels that sold for $60$ times what they cost him.

Christopher Columbus

An explorer and merchant who set out west across the Atlantic in $1492$ hoping to reach India and China, unaware that the American continents blocked the route.

Astrolabe

A navigational instrument adopted by Europeans that made it possible to calculate direction and location when sailing.

Late 1400s Western Route Theory

The emerging European belief that explorers could reach India and China by sailing west across the Atlantic Ocean around the Earth, bypassing land travel or circumnavigating southern Africa.

William Harrison

A Tudor traveller who wrote the $1577\text{ CE}$ book Description of England, categorising the people of England into four distinct sorts.

Description of England

A book written by William Harrison in $1577\text{ CE}$ that divided English society into gentlemen, citizens, yeomen, and labourers.

Gentlemen (Tudor Society)

The wealthiest and most powerful tier of Tudor society—comprising princes, dukes, earls, barons, and knights—who owned large country estates, advised the monarch, and accounted for about $5\%$ of the population.

Citizens (Tudor Society)

Affluent town dwellers, primarily merchants dealing in wool, jewellery, food, or cloth, who lived in large town houses with servants and made up about $5\%$ of the population.

Yeomen (Tudor Society)

Farmers who owned or rented land from gentlemen, sold crops and livestock, employed farm labourers, and made up about $30\%$ of the Tudor population.

Labourers (Tudor Society)

The poorest class, making up about $60\%$ of the population, who worked on farms or as servants in the countryside, or manufactured shoes, clothes, bricks, tools, and furniture in towns.

Picture signs

Visual shop signs used in crowded Tudor towns to illustrate what goods were sold, catering to a population where few individuals could read.

Constable

An appointed local figure in Tudor times tasked with keeping watch for criminals in the absence of a formal police force.

Justice of the peace

An official in Tudor society responsible for settling civil disputes and sentencing criminals in court.

Tudor Punishments

Harsh penal measures used to deter crime, including hanging for any theft regardless of value, dragging dishonest merchants through streets while throwing rotten food, and whipping beggars.

Tudor Countryside Demographics

The demographic reality of Tudor England where $9\text{ out of every }10$ people lived in rural areas as farmers, consuming their own produce and selling surplus at town markets.