Read the excerpt from The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England.But you still have producers holding back corn supplies, even though hoarding is forbidden by law. In Stratford in 1597 seventy-five townsmen are found guilty of hoarding corn, including William Shakespeare, who is hanging on to ten quarters of malt. Worse than this, "engrossers” buy up all the local supply of an important commodity, such as eggs or butter, in order to drive up the price. In the 1590s certain unscrupulous businessmen buy up to twenty thousand pounds of butter—and this is disastrous because it is an important part of people’s diet. Combined with hoarding, this has dramatic consequences for the poor. In some places the famine of 1594–97 proves as deadly as the plague of 1563.
Read the excerpt from The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England.If you are hungry, you might feel inclined to turn to poaching. But be careful: this is risky. Taking livestock is theft, and theft is a felony which carries the death sentence. Killing wild animals that live on another man’s land is also against the law; even taking a single fish from a river can result in a fine of a shilling or more. It is unlikely that you will be hanged for taking a wild animal such as a rabbit; but, even so, you will get a fine amounting to three times the value of the animal as well as three months in prison, and you will have to enter into a bond to guarantee your good behavior in the future; a second offense will be treated more harshly. If a gamekeeper attacks you and you defend yourself, you can be charged with assault. You may find yourself on the gallows if you injure him.
Read the excerpt from The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England.Pig farmers keep their flitches of bacon back in storage until they can get a better price for them later in the winter. Such tactics are made even more profitable by the unhappy fact that harvests can fail, causing local—and sometimes national—food shortages. Large towns are less vulnerable, being part of an international market that sees preserved foods traded long-distance; but much of the countryside is dependent on fresh food. After a poor harvest, prices for all commodities—not just grain—rise dramatically and the poor are unable to make ends meet.
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