(4 marks) The Act of Supremacy was an act stating Queen Elizabeth was the ‘Head of the Church’, this was significant because she didn’t assume the position of the pope. Wool as well as the various cloths made out of wool was the chief and almost only export of England until the middle of seventeenth century. (Clark and Slack, 1976, p.1) As well, the cloth industry in towns and cities was in decline, as most cloth production was … At first the industry relied on imported material to make cloth, but by the sixteenth century English landowners discovered that there was more profit to be made raising sheep for wool than in planting crops. -10% employed in the wool industry.-Agriculture made up for 90% of exports, increased customs duties.-Move towards sheep farming in the North.-3% of the Midlands was enclosed, it did not impact England as much as it was thought to have had. It was not until cotton farming in the new world and Eli Whitney's development of the cotton gin in 1793 that cotton become a favored fabric (Cotton). Cotton had been in production since antiquity, but its import and manufacture was prohibited in Elizabethan England in order to protect the wool industry, one of England's chief exports. These two products compromised the overwhelming bulk of the English exports to Antwerp, where they financed the purchase … Abstract. Status symbols Cloth of gold and silver, tinselled satin, woollen cloth embroidered with gold and silver, sables and other furs… the clothes worn by the rich make any fashionista’s mouth water. Wool has a long history in England and Nathaniel Milner's ancestors were pretty handy with a bobbin - they were dyed in the wool, they spun yarns, lost the thread, were crooked, fleeced, cloth eared, and sheepish ... and some were even black sheep. ... As the wool … Facts About Elizabethan England • The population rose from 3 to 4 million. History of the Wool Industry in England, the Yorkshire West Riding and Pudsey & Halifax.. A cooperative culture of trust & mutual benefit. The Fashion in Elizabethan England at this time reflected the values and Ideals of the era. Paper 2 Section B: Early Elizabethan England, 1558 – 1588 a) Describe two features of Elizabeth’s religious settlement. England had developed a huge and highly profitable cloth-making industry. • The principal industry still largely agricultural with wool as its main export. It wasn’t easy for them to find work in urban centers. • This increase lead to widespread poverty. Elizabethan England faced a mounting economic problem as the poor became poorer, and a growing army of vagabonds and beggars roamed the streets and countryside. Elizabethan Poor Law Then some town corporations experimented on their own account, and Elizabeth's exceedingly practical ministers extended the experiments. • Country largely rural, though there is growth in towns and cities. Inevitably, this change in the nature of English exports increased the dependence of the native wool grower upon the home manufacturer and brought a great and growing government concern for the welfare of the wool-textile industry. The most valuable item of trade during the reign of Henry VII was • Average life expectancy was 40 years of age. [17] The Elizabethan Era was considered the time of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in the late 1500's. The object was to differentiate between the wilfully idle and the poor who were either incapable of work or … By the end of the sixteenth century England’s transition from raw wool exporter to cloth exporter had been virtually completed. Even though urban centers were growing, England was still overwhelmingly a rural society. Liza Picard describes the laws, trends and standards of hygiene that determined who wore what in Elizabethan England.