In Shakespeare's day, much of England was still an agrarian society, but the medieval feudal system had finally begun to fade away. The comic image in Monty Python and the Holy Grail of peasants spending their days grubbing about in the mud and dung heaps is an exaggeration of what it was like to be poor in Elizabethan times, but it makes a point worth remembering. Country life was a hard life. Technically, anyone who worked the land was a “peasant,” but though many farmers lived off land they didn't own, by Shakespeare's day, many other peasants had become landowners themselves.

Those who worked the land for others were totally at the whim and mercy of their betters. They “knew their place” in the social order and were grateful for what they had. Peasants were given a scrawny piece of land on which to build their one- or two-room shacks and to scratch out a subsistence level of living from their own crops and animals.

In exchange for having a place of their own, a tenant farmer worked on the owner's land at least three days a week. An overseer made sure the farmer and his family did everything right. The rest of the time, the peasant worked on his own land, banding together with other families to cope with big jobs such as bringing in the harvest and hay making. Women and children helped, though they often worked indoors cooking, cleaning, and taking care of babies.

Those who worked the land for others were on the lower rung of the social ladder. Few, if any, were literate. They could not marry or travel without the landlord's permission, and they were expected to return home if they did travel. Of course, they could leave the estate for good whenever they wanted, but how could they make a living without land? Besides, travel was dangerous. There were few roads, particularly through the forests that still covered much of the countryside, and virtually no organized police force of any description, so if a thief stole from them or beat them, chances are nobody would help.

Except for Sundays and Holy Days, tenant farmers worked long and hard in the fields, regardless of the weather. At different times throughout the sixteenth century, members of such families often didn't have enough food to feed themselves, so it shouldn't be a surprise to learn that unlanded peasants typically lived only into their thirties. Diseases were many, and medicine was rudimentary and expensive. Babies and children often died.

Tenant farmers had only two legitimate ways to gain their independence: save enough money to buy their own piece of land or marry a property owner, but only with the landowner's permission, and there was no guarantee he would give it.