In the 15th and 16th Centuries, England suffered multiple bouts of devastating plague. This resulted in a shift in the social structure of England as a whole. An estimated one-third of the population in England was wiped out by the various plagues. The hierarchy of royals, nobles, and gentry that had relied on commoners to work for them suddenly found that both their own numbers and the commoner’s numbers had been decreased drastically. The plague had also served as a levelling factor to the classes, as it was not selective as to whose life it claimed, taking commoners and nobles alike. A lack of proper public health and sanitation meant that no one was truly immune to the devastating illnesses that ran rampant in the country. The only differences were in death. The nobles were buried in individual graves, often under church floors, with markers of some sort; the commoners were buried in mass grave pits in the churchyard with no individual markers. The plague had negative effects on …show more content…
The farmers who had previously used the land for agriculture were angered by the enclosure, tens of thousands of them even going as far as tearing down the enclosure fencing, threatening to put a halt to business, commerce, and local government, but their actions were to no avail. The result was that the nobles, feeling threatened, sent armies from London to take care of the protestors, and hundreds of the farmers died for their efforts in trying to regain their farming land. Enclosure displaced many commoners from their homes, and they turned to the cities to live. The cities quickly grew overcrowded, with too many people, and disease spread even more quickly. Those who could not find work turned to begging, as they could not survive otherwise. In an effort to control the vast number of growing beggars, the Parliament passed and enforced Sturdy Beggar Laws, each becoming more and more