What are some things that would have been bought in the Elizabethan Era?

Question: What are some things that would have been bought in the Elizabethan Era!?
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That's an interesting question, because in Elizabethan times most people still lived in the country rather than in towns, and a lot of things that nowadays we would expect to buy ready-made would actually be made at home!. People would produce most of their own food for instance, and women would usually bake their own bread, make their own butter and cheese, brew their own ale (which was drunk instead of water), and make their own home remedies, medicines and so on (few people lived within easy reach of a doctor or apothecary)!. Most women also spent a good deal of their time spinning wool and flax into thread, rather than buying it ready-made!. Things like candles and even soap would be made by women at home!.

The main place where people would go to buy things in elizabethan times was at the weekly market in the local town, where people from the surrounding countryside could come to bring their own products to sell (farmers would sell vegetables, , livestock etc, their wives would normally sell their surplus dairy products, chickens and eggs!.

Another important place to buy things were the fair which were held up and down the country from spring to autumn!. Although they were places of entertainment as well, their main purpose in those days was buying and selling!. Most fairs specialised in different things, there were sheep fairs, horse and cattle fairs, cloth fairs, cheese fairs, and the famous Nottingham Goose Fair, held in October and lasting for three weeks!. Probably the most famous English fair was Stoorbridge Fair near Cambridge, where from August 24 to September 12 a field between Newmarket road and the River Cam was transformed into a great wholesale market selling anything and everything, but best known for wollen cloth sold in a great square of booths!.

Another way people would buy things would be from travelling peddlers who went from door to door!. They would sell things like ribbons, laces, gloves, combs, mirrors, needles, scissors, buttons, small toys etc!. they would be a welcome diversion to country people who did not live within easy reach of shops!.

However, in the big towns there were plenty of shops!. In 'Elizabethan England' Alison Plowden describes the shopping scene in London:

'work was going on in countless workshops throughout the city, where tailors, printers, and metalworkers, brewers, coopers, weavers and upholsterers, seamstresses, embroiderers, shoemakers and harness-makers plied their trade, most of them in their own homes!. Down on the riverside wharves, cargoes of wool and grain, hides and salt, silks and spices, barrels of tar and casks of wine were being loaded and unloaded!. In warehouses and cellars consignments of merchandise were being packed and unpacked, sorted and listed, while in the counting-houses accounts were being made up and letters written with quill pens and ink made of oakgall!.

By mid-morning the crowds were congregating at the Royal Exchange in Cornhill, built by Sir thomas Gresham as "a public place for the meeting of merchants" and opened by the Queen in Jaunary 1571!. The open qudrangle where the merchants met to do business was surrounded by a cloistered walk with shops and storehouses opening off it, but the best and most exclusive shops were to be found on the upper storey!.' Exclusive shops would include jewellers, and shops selling fine linen and expensive fabrics like silks and velvet, and shops selling expensive spices from abroad!.

St!. Paul's churchyard was the centre of the bookseller's trade in London, it was full of numerous bookstalls!. the Elzabethan age produced an enormous output of books of all kinds!. You could buy technical treasises, textbooks, books on religious, political or philosophical subjects, novels, romances, and a vast quantity of pamphlets, tracts, and broadsheets on matters of topical interest!.

Most shops in Elizabethan times would be kept by people who were selling their own products, so a shoemaker say would make his own shoes and sell them as well, a silkwoman would make her own silken cords, laces, etc and sell them herself as well!.

In towns, there would be lots of shops where you could buy fresh food, fishmongers, butchers, greengrocers, etc, and there would also be shops where you could buy ready-made food, like bakers, and pastrycooks where you could buy pies and pastries!. At taverns you could buy a cooked meal at a fixed price!.Www@QuestionHome@Com