Exploring Education: The Status of Tudor Teachers

During the Tudor period, people increasingly saw the value of education both for themselves and for their children. This was mainly because they realised that there was an increasing demand for literate people to fill a wide variety of bureaucratic positions in the expanding state. This shift in perception affected the status of the teachers who provided this education, both in other people’s eyes and in their own. So we begin to have evidence of practitioners from Tudor times who were scholarly and dedicated to their work. We are going to examine the position of teachers during this period and consider their social status, their financial position, their working lives and their professional concerns. We can also consider whether this throws any light on the status of teachers today.