Elizabethan era

Encyclopedia : E : EL : ELI : Elizabethan era

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Elizabethan redirects here. For the Elizabethan architectural style, see Tudor Style architecture.

The Elizabethan Era is the period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and is often considered to be a golden age in English history. It was the height of the English Renaissance, and saw the flowering of English literature and poetry. This was also the time during which Elizabethan theatre grew and William Shakespeare, among others, composed plays that broke away from England's past style of plays. It was an age of expansion and exploration abroad, while at home the Protestant Reformation was established and successfully defended against the Catholic powers of the Continent.

Highlights

The Elizabethan Age is viewed so highly because of the contrasts with the periods before and after. It was a brief period of largely internal peace between the English Reformation and the battles between Protestants and Catholics and the battles between parliament and the monarchy that would engulf the seventeenth century. The Protestant/Catholic divide was settled, for a time, by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement and parliament was still not strong enough to challenge royal absolutism.

England was also well-off compared to the other nations of Europe. The Italian Renaissance had come to an end under the weight of foreign domination of the peninsula. France was embroiled in its own religious battles that would only be settled in 1598 with the Edict of Nantes. In part because of this, but also because the English had been expelled from their last outposts on the continent, the centuries long conflict between France and England was suspended during the Elizabethan era.

The one great rival was Spain, with which England conflicted both in Europe and the Americas in skirmishes that exploded into the Anglo-Spanish War of 1585-1604. An attempt by Philip II of Spain to invade England with the Spanish Armada in 1588 was famously defeated, but the tide of war turned against England with a disastrously unsuccessful attack upon Spain in 1589 the Drake-Norris Expedition, 1589. Thereafter Spain provided some support for Irish Catholics in a draining guerilla war against England and Spanish naval and land forces inflicted a series of defeats upon English forces, which badly damaged both the English Exchequer and economy that until then had been so carefully restored under Elizabeth's prudent guidance. English colonization and trade would be frustrated until the signing of the Treaty of London the year following Elizabeth's death.

England during this period had a centralized, well organized, and effective government, largely a result of the reforms of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Economically the country began to benefit greatly from the new era of Atlantic trade.

Modern historians and biographers in post-imperial Europe have tended to take a far more literal-minded and dispassionate view of the Tudor period. Elizabethan England was not particularly successful in a military sense during the period. The economic well being of the country has also been called into question.

The Elizabethan era also saw England begin to play a leading role in the slave trade and saw a series of bloody English military campaigns in still Catholic Ireland—notably the Desmond Rebellions and the Nine Years War.

See also modern Elizabethan historiography and assessments for more.

Despite the heights achieved during the era, less than 40 years after the death of Elizabeth the country was to descend into the English Civil War.

Some weapons used were the yew English longbow and the newly invented musket.

Fashion and the domestic arts

:See also 1550-1600 in fashion

Elizabethan court fashion was heavily influenced by Spanish and French styles. Notable garments of this period include the farthingale for women, military styles like the mandilion for men, and ruffs for both sexes.

The Elizabethan era also saw a great flowering of domestic embroidery for both clothing and furnishings. Predominant styles include canvas work generally done in tent stitch and blackwork in silk on linen. Toward the end of the reign the fashion for blackwork gradually gave way to polychrome work in silk that foreshadows the crewelwork in wool that would dominate Jacobean embroidery.

The food of this time period includes lear (an oatmeal like dish with peas or beans), all types of animal meat, and numerous types of fruits and vegetables. A banquet was used for a dessert or snack course.

Elizabethan Festivals, Holidays, and Celebrations

During the Elizabethan era, the years were broken up by annual holidays just as they are now. People looked forward to each and every holiday because their opportunities for leisure were limited, time away from hard work being restricted to periods after church on Sundays, and so for the most part, leisure and festivities took place on a church or public holiday. Every month had its own holiday. The holidays were as listed below:

• January: The first Monday of the second week (any time between 7th and 14th) of January was Plough Monday. It celebrated returning to work after the Christmas celebrations and the New Year.
• February: Feb. 2nd was Candlemas. This was the day when all Christmas decorations were burnt. It included candlelight and torchlight processions. Feb. 14th was Valentine's Day. Sending cards to one another was a Pagan tradition [citation needed], still carried on at this time.
• March: Sometime between the 3rd and 9th of March was Shrove Tuesday. This was an apprentice's favorite holiday, because they were allowed to run amuk the city in mobs, wreaking havoc and general mayhem. This was acceptable because it was supposedly cleansing the city of its vices before Lent. They would also tie a cockerel to a stack and stone it to death, simply because the cockerel was the symbol of France. The day after Shrove Tuesday was Ash Wednesday. This was the first day of Lent when everyone began to abstain from eating certain foods, one specific one being meat. A Jack-o-lent was set up in each city, being a scarecrow that one could take annoyance of being deprived from foods out on.
• April: The first of April was All Fool's Day. This was a day for tricks, jests, jokes, and a general day of the jester.
• May: The first day of May was May Day. This was a big and much appreciated festival. It was one of the few Pagan festivals that really had nothing to do with the Church. This was celebrated with the youth going into the woods for a nighttime party. They didn't return until the next morning with a large tree trunk, which became the 'maypole'. The maypole was decorated and then feasting, dancing and games took place around it.
• June: On the 21st of June the people celebrated the summer solstice. This involved a large bonfire as people celebrated the longest day and shortest night of the year. Mummers told stories and performed plays.
• July: St. Swithin's Day was celebrated on the 15th. This was a very minor celebration, honoring the legend that after the ceremony of moving St. Swithin's bones, it rained for 40 days.
• August: On the first of August, Lammastide, or Lammas Day, perhaps derived from 'loof-mas', was the festival of the first wheat harvest of the year. People decorated horses with garlands and played games like apple-bobbing and had processions of candles.
• September: On the 29th of September was Michaelmas. This celebrated St. Michael with a traditional feast of goose or chicken.
• October: On the 25th was St. Crispin's Day. Bonfires, revels, and an elected 'King Crispin' were all featured in this celebration. You may recognize St. Crispin's Day from Shakespeare's play King Henry V. King Henry gives a famous encouragement speech to his men when they are largely outnumbered in battle that they will all be remembered on St. Crispin's day. On the 28th was the Lord Mayor's Show, which still takes place today in London. The 31st of October was Hallowmas of Halloween (All-hallow's Eve). This was a Celtic festival celebrating the end of the Celtic year. The souls of the dead supposedly returned to walk the Earth. Various masks were worn and bonfires lit to ward off evil spirits.
• November: The day after Halloween night, November 1st, was All Soul's Day. This was a Christian holiday, and also involved Bonfires. The 17th of November was Queen Elizabeth's anniversary of ascending to the throne. This was celebrated even 100 years after the queen's death.
• December: The biggest and perhaps most loved festival of all was an entire 12 days long. The Christmas season, the 12 days of Christmas, started on the 24th of December, Christmas Eve, and lasted until a day called Epiphany on the 6th of January. A Lord of Misrule was selected, and he selected a council to help him.
  

All together they planned all the parties and managed all the fun. A King of the Bean might also be selected, by cooking a bean into a cake, and the finder of the bean became the King. A pea might also be cooked in as well, and a Queen of the Pea would be chosen as well, both chosen regardless of gender. Carolers would set out to sing for money and mummers came out to perform again. Youths may run around with a wooden cup or bowl, asking the lord of the house to fill it with ale, a coin, or some food for them. It was considered bad luck to refuse.
Other youths might set out with a large bowl of spiced ale with toasted apples, offering the lord of the house a drink of the cider for a coin. Much begging was carried on during the season, and generosity was expected. The lords were expected to fill their houses with as much food as they could. Marchpane, or marzipan, was exceptionally popular. A yule log was brought in. A yule log is a large portion of tree trunk expected to burn all throughout the season. All greenery, more notably holly and ivy was used. Mistletoe wasn't popular yet and the tradition of kissing under it hadn't come about.
Gifts were presented on New Years instead of Christmas, and jolly old St. Nick hadn't come about yet, so no one expected a mysterious gift from a mysterious, generous man who came down their chimney at night. The biggest party of all was held by the Lord of Misrule on Epiphany, and thus ended the jolly Christmas season.

Notable Elizabethans

• Richard Grenville
• Ben Jonson
• Thomas Kyd
• Christopher Marlowe
• Thomas North
• Walter Raleigh
• William Shakespeare
• Sir Philip Sidney
• Edmund Spenser
• Francis Walsingham
• Sir Robert Bell
• William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
• Francis Bacon
• John Dee
• John Dowland
• Francis Drake
• Humphrey Gilbert
• Mary Sidney

See also

• Tudor England
• English Renaissance
• Elizabethan theatre
• Elizabethan architecture
• Music in Elizabethan Era
• Tudor style
• 1550-1600 in fashion

Compare

• Tudorbethan (Revival architecture)
• Jacobethan (Revival architecture)

References

Fashion and the domestic arts:

• Arnold, Janet: Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd, W S Maney and Son Ltd, Leeds 1988. ISBN 0901286206

• Ashelford, Jane. The Visual History of Costume: The Sixteenth Century. 1983 edition (ISBN 0896760766), 1994 reprint (ISBN 0713468289).

• Digby, George Wingfield. Elizabethan Embroidery. New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1964.

Further reading

• Hutton, Ronald:The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year, 1400-1700, 2001. ISBN 019285447X
• Hutton, Ronald: The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, 2001. ISBN 0192854488
• Strong, Roy: The Cult of Elizabeth, The Harvill Press, 1999. ISBN 0712664939

 

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