English Renaissance

The Renaissance in England was delayed by civil war (the War of the Roses) but after Henry VII came
to power in the early 16th century, England was relatively peaceful and ready for new things,
culturally and socially. As a result, the English Renaissance started in the reign of Henry VIII (Henry
VII’s son) but flourished under his daughter’s reign, Elizabeth I (1558-1603). As a result of Elizabeth’s
strong influence on England in every way, and on the development of culture and art, the English
Renaissance is usually referred to as the Elizabethan period.

Two major playwrights to know about

There are two significant playwrights from this period in England that you should be familiar with.
Out of many, these two stand out in terms of their additions to the nature of plays and just for their
skill with writing poetry and dialogue.

The first is Christopher Marlowe (1564- 1593). He is most famous for his updated versions of many
of the morality plays and stories from the earlier Medieval period of English plays. One of his most
famous is a version of Doctor Faustus, the German morality tale.

His poetry drew on the classic tradition of Chaucer’s Heroic Couplet, but he was a true master of the
language. At one point, he referred to his own writing as the “might Line” because he intentionally
used powerful and dramatic verse and, at the same time, he emphasized the strength and subtlety
of language.

The other notable playwright is William Shakespeare (1564-1616). He is probably already familiar to
you. His plays were all fairly impactful, and he is often considered to be the finest English playwright.
Shakespeare was an actor first, and then he became a playwright who also acted.

His plays were different from the accepted Renaissance standards of quality. However, unlike most
other playwrights who strayed from the rules, Shakespeare’s attention to the humanity of his
characters brought the new ideals of humanism to life on the stage. Essentially, his plays were so
great that the fact that he did not follow the rules did not matter. The audiences loved his plays
because he was very careful to craft them to appeal to all levels of society. He took the ideals of the
Renaissance and matured them into their true potential.

Elizabethan Theatre production

Unlike the new theatre spaces that were developed in Renaissance Italy, in England, the theatres
retained a lot of the elements of the Medieval stages. There were two categories of theatre spaces
in Elizabethan England: Public theatres and Private theatres.
Public theatres

Public theatres were those built specifically for performing plays or that were adapted to perform
plays in outdoor/open air theatres. These were all built outside of London city limits because the law
prohibited public theatres inside city limits. Most were built or the south bank of the Thames River,
just across the London Bridge from central London.

These theatres were open air buildings that used sunlight to light the plays, so the plays were
performed in the early afternoon. Like the Medieval stages these theatres had a platform stage, that
was usually a type of thrust stage. It had a trap door that could be used for surprise entrances and
exits, and a second story stage house. This was used as a musicians’ gallery, or for storage, or on
occasion for performance (think about the balcony scene in Romeo & Juliet). At the top of the
theatre, there would be a flag to show on performance days. The color of the flag would indicate
what type of play was being performed. These theatres varied in size, but most would hold from
1500-3000 spectators. Some of this capacity was available standing room in the open space around
the platform stage, referred to as the pit.

We are able to have a better understanding of what the experience would have been like to see a
Shakespeare play because on the 1980s a replica of the original Globe theatre (as closely as possible)
was built in London very near where the original one stood in the 17th century until it burned down
in 1613. They still allow audience to stand in the pit for performances, and they use very similar
gallery and box seating in three tiers in a circular, almost ¾ round area surrounding a thrust stage.

1 Private Theatres

Private theatres were built into existing spaces, usually large rooms in a private residence or other
place of business in the city of London. These could be inside the city’s limits because they were
naturally a little more selective about who would be in the audience, and thus did not incur the
wrath of the city leaders and lacked the closeness that often spread disease (including the plague)
that was a problem in the public theatres.

Private theatres were indoor spaces, so they used candles and light through windows to light the
stage and the audience. They were usually quite small, though this varied. One of the more popular
private theatres in the Elizabethan period was Blackfriar’s Theatre, built in an old monastery. It
seated about 750 people. The reason that the audience was more selective is that these theatres
were more expensive to attend and only the upper classes, and some well-to-do merchant class
citizens could afford to attend. Like the public theatre, these theatres usually had a thrust platform
stage across one end of the room and would often have a second story to be used for musicians,
storage, or as a performing space. They would often have limited gallery seating built along the
walls, and the pit would sometimes have benches, but would also have some standing room.

Scenery & Costumes

Again, as was the custom throughout England/ in the Middle Ages, the Elizabethan period theatres
did not use any significant scenery. There might be a few set pieces to suggest a location, but the
details would be incorporated into the dialogue, and the imagery would be left to the imaginations
of the audience members. Props were also very limited, with the exception of some small hand
props that would also suggest rather than fully detail a location or time period.

The playwrights would include hints and information about time and location into the wording of the
play and into the action that the actors would perform. Costumes were very rarely set in any
particular time period or location. Instead, the actors would wear the clothing of their day, with a
piece or two to suggest social status or character. However, there was one detail about costuming
that made actors a bit skittish. In the Elizabethan period, England had certain laws, called
“Sumptuary Laws.” They dictated that only certain colours and fabrics and accessories could be used
by certain social and class levels of society. Well, when an actor needed to portray a character above
his class level, he could be arrested for wearing the clothes of someone above his class! To remedy
this, acting companies would purchase licenses for specific actors to wear clothing above their social
levels, including monarchs. That way, they could look the part, even though actors were considered
among the lowest members of society – even lower that pickpockets and thieves!

Elizabethan acting

Acting in this period was limited to a few select groups of men. These acting troupes would have
about 25 people in them – with a wide range of ages. There would usually be a mix of veteran actors
and young men and boys who were usually apprentices to learn how to perform and to run an acting
company.

Legitimate companies were licensed by the Crown, and they usually had “patrons” or sponsors who
were high-ranking members of court. Some of these companies were made up of shareholders, who
took a share of the profits based on their share holdings (this is the kind of company that
Shakespeare belonged to). There were some that were smaller and that would hire performers, or
hirelings, who were contracted for a season or specific time period and were paid a wage under
contract. Every company would have some limited number of apprentices, who would be assigned
to shareholders. However,there were NO WOMEN allowed to perform in England in the Elizabethan
period. It was outlawed by Parliament. All roles were played by men, except for the women’s roles in
plays that would be played by the young boys before they reached puberty and their voices
changed.

Other popular entertainments

In addition to acting, the theatres were often Used for other types of popular entertainments that
were devised to fill the time of the audiences. These were often spectator events, but equally often
they were gambling opportunities, much like the clandestine versions of these entertainments that
still exist today around the world. These entertainments included bear baiting, dog fighting, and cock
fighting.
Bearbaiting was an event where a bear would be tied or chained to a pole in the middle of an arena
and then dogs would be set on it to fight. Wagers were often made on how many dogs the bear
would kill before it was overcome by the dogs. This cruel “sport” was enjoyed by a huge percentage
of the population of London, in particular. In fact, one of the public theatres was named the Bear
Garden because it hosted bear baiting regularly and would alternate with performances of plays.

Cockfighting was another popular “sport.” This is an event where specially raises birds would be set
to fight, usually to the death, for entertainment – much as it exists clandestinely today. It was so
popular that the royal palace had its own cockfighting ring on the grounds.

Dog fighting, too, was popular, though slightly less so than either bear baiting or cockfighting.

These other entertainments would compete with theatre for audiences. Their popularity lasted long
after the Elizabethan period though most were eventually outlawed because of their cruelty and
because of the immorality of the gambling that went along with it.

Theatre after Elizabeth

When Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, she had no heir to follow her on the throne, so she selected her
cousin, James, who was already the King of Scotland to be her successor. Theatre as it had
developed throughout her reign and since her father’s time continued until 1642.King James I had
enjoyed a particular style of theatrical entertainment while he was the King of Scotland, and he
brought that with him to England where it became popular, too.Especially at the palace, as a special
event for the King and his guests. It has existed in England under the earlier kings and queens, but
James I made it very popular. These were called Masques. A masque is an elaborate staging of myths
(similar to the Italian Intermezzi) but these were designed and staged specifically to celebrate and
honor and praise the monarch. They included an often freely adapted story, sometimes with casual
suggestive sexuality, as well as a lot of singing and dancing. These became very popular with the
highest levels of society, the nobility in particular. It was one way, since masques were not
considered “acting,” that women could perform.

The ending of theatre in England

As noted above, the Elizabethan age lasted after Elizabeth’s death in 1603, but only until 1642. Due
to political pressure brought about by the religious upheavals that resulted from Henry VIII’s split of
the Church of England from the Pope, the forces of Protestantism eventually forced the theatres to
close. These protestant extremists were known as the Puritans. Ultimately, the Puritans were a
major force in creating the Civil War in England in the middle of the 17th century which ultimately
deposed the King (Charles I) and beheaded him! They also had a major hand in ending of theatre in
1642.According to the Puritans: Theatre was a waste of time, exposed the audience to people of the
lowest sort (whores & thieves), and plays contained messages of In arguments had been made by
the church in Rome 1200 years before! Again, in England, it’s ironic that the Church brought theatre
back in the Middle ages as a way to educate the populace, only to be outlawed and ended by the
religious majority in the 17th century.

SOME ASPECTS OF ENGLISH RENAISSANCE

The English Renaissance is different from the Italian Renaissance in several ways. The dominant art
forms of the English Renaissance were literature and music. Visual arts in the English Renaissance
were much less significant than in the Italian Renaissance. The English period began far later than
the Italian, which was moving into Mannerism and the Baroque by the 1550s or earlier.

LITERATURE

Edit

Main article: Elizabethan literature

England had a strong tradition of literature in the English vernacular, which gradually increased as
English use of the printing press became common by the mid-16th century.[1] This tradition of
literature written in English vernacular largely began with the Protestant Reformation’s call to let
people interpret the Bible for themselves instead of accepting the Catholic Church’s interpretation.
Discussions on how to translate the Bible so that it could be understood by laymen but still do justice
to God’s word became contentious, with people arguing how much license could be taken to impart
the correct meaning without sacrificing its eloquence. The desire to let people read the Bible for
themselves led William Tyndale to publish his own translation in 1526, giving way to Sir Rowland
Hill’s publication of the Geneva Bible in 1560, marking the re-establishment of the Church of England
at the accession of Elizabeth I. These would be predecessors to the King James Version of the Bible.

Another early proponent of literature in the vernacular was Roger Ascham, who was tutor to
Princess Elizabeth during her teenage years, and is now often called the “father of English prose.” He
proposed that speech was the greatest gift to man from God and to speak or write poorly was an
affront.[3] The peak of English drama and theatre is said to be the Elizabethan age; a golden age in
English history where the arts, drama and creative work flourished. Morality plays emerged as a
distinct dramatic form around 1400 and flourished in the early Elizabethan era in England. By the
time of Elizabethan literature, a vigorous literary culture in both drama and poetry included poets
such as Edmund Spenser, whose verse epic The Faerie Queene had a strong influence on English
literature but was eventually overshadowed by the lyrics of William Shakespeare, Thomas Wyatt and
others. Typically, the works of these playwrights and poets circulated in manuscript form for some
time before they were published, and above all the plays of English Renaissance theatre were the
outstanding legacy of the period. The works of this period are also affected by Henry VIII’s
declaration of independence from the Catholic Church and technological advances in sailing and
cartography, which are reflected in the generally nonreligious themes and various shipwreck
adventures of Shakespeare.[4]

The growing population of England, the growing wealth of its people, and their fondness for
spectacle produced a dramatic literature of remarkable variety, quality, and extent. Genres of the
period included the history play, which depicted English or European history. Shakespeare’s plays
about the lives of kings, such as Richard III and Henry V, belong to this category, as do Christopher
Marlowe’s Edward II and George Peele’s Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First. History plays
dealt with more recent events, like A Larum for London which dramatizes the sack of Antwerp in
1576. Tragedy was a very popular genre. Marlowe’s tragedies were exceptionally successful, such as
Dr. Faustus and The Jew of Malta. The audiences particularly liked revenge dramas, such as Thomas
Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy. The four tragedies considered to be Shakespeare’s greatest (Hamlet,
Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth) were composed during this period. The English theatre scene,
which performed both for the court and nobility in private performances and a very wide public in
the theatres, was the most crowded in Europe, with a host of other playwrights as well as the giant
figures of Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Elizabeth herself was a
product of Renaissance humanism trained by Roger Ascham, and wrote occasional poems such as
“On Monsieur’s Departure” at critical moments of her life.[5] William Shakespeare, whose works
include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, remains one of the
most championed authors in English literature. The playwright and poet is widely regarded as the
greatest dramatist of all time.

Philosophers and intellectuals included Thomas More and Sir Francis Bacon. Sir Francis Bacon and
Thomas Hobbes wrote on empiricism and materialism, including scientific method and social
contract.[9] Robert Filmer wrote on the Divine Right of Kings. All the 16th century Tudor monarchs
were highly educated, as was much of the nobility, and Italian literature had a considerable
following, providing the sources for many of Shakespeare’s plays. The language of the Book of
Common Prayer, first published in 1549, and at the end of the period the Bible had enduring and
profound impacts on the English consciousness.

Science and exploration

Edit

The English Renaissance saw significant scientific progress. The astronomers Thomas Digges and
Thomas Harriot made important contributions; William Gilbert published his seminal study of
magnetism, De Magnete, in 1600. He was the first to discover that the Earth was itself a dipole
magnet as well as the first to correctly explain why a nautical compass worked as it did.[10]

Substantial advancements were made in the fields of cartography and surveying. John Dee was the
court astronomer for Elizabeth I and an influential mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, teacher,
occultist, and alchemist. Sir Francis Bacon was the pioneer of modern scientific thought, and is
commonly regarded as one of the founders of the Scientific Revolution. His works are seen as
developing the scientific method that party invented modern science.[11] Historian William
Hepworth Dixon stated: “Bacon’s influence in the modern world is so great that every man who
rides in a train, sends a telegram, follows a steam plough, sits in an easy chair, crosses the channel or
the Atlantic, eats a good dinner, enjoys a beautiful garden, or undergoes a painless surgical
operation, owes him something’’.[12] English thought advanced towards modern science with the
Baconian method.[13]

English achievements in exploration were noteworthy. Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe
between 1577 and 1581. This was the first English circumnavigation, and third circumnavigation
overall in history. Martin Frobisher explored the Arctic. The first attempt at English settlement of the
eastern seaboard of North America occurred in this era. In 1583, Humphrey Gilbert sailed to
Newfoundland, taking possession of the harbour of St. John’s together with all land within two
hundred leagues to the north and south of it. In 1584, the queen granted Sir Walter Raleigh a charter
for the colonisation of Virginia; it was named in her honour. Raleigh and Elizabeth sought both
immediate riches and a base for privateers to raid the Spanish treasure fleets. In 1600, the queen
chartered the East India Company in an attempt to break the Spanish and Portuguese monopoly of
far Eastern trade.[15][16] It established trading posts, which in later centuries evolved into British
India, on the coasts of what is now India and Bangladesh. Larger scale colonisation to North America
began shortly after Elizabeth’s death. Originally chartered as the “Governor and Company of
Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies”,[17][18] the East India Company rose to account
for half of the world’s trade during the mid-1700s and early 1800s,[19] particularly in basic
commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, sugar, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and opium.[19] The
East India Company was the most powerful corporation in history.[20][21]

Visual arts

Edit

England was slow to produce visual arts in Renaissance styles like the rest of Northern European,
and the artists of the Tudor court were mainly imported foreigners until after the end of the
Renaissance; Hans Holbein was the outstanding figure. The English Reformation produced a huge
programme of iconoclasm that destroyed almost all medieval religious art, and all but ended the skill
of painting in England. However, England under the Tudor dynasty was a thriving home for arts. An
international community of artists and merchants, many of them religious refugees, navigated to
England for royal patrons. English art was to be dominated by portrait painting and landscape art, for
centuries to come.[22]

The significant English invention was the portrait miniature, which essentially took the techniques of
the dying art of the illuminated manuscript and transferred them to small portraits worn in lockets.
Though the form was developed in England by foreign artists, mostly Flemish like Lucas Horenbout,
the somewhat undistinguished founder of the tradition, by the late 16th century natives such as
Nicolas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver produced the finest work.[23] The portrait miniature had spread all
over Europe by the 18th century.[24]

The portraiture of Elizabeth I was carefully controlled and developed into an elaborate and wholly
un-realist iconic style, that has succeeded in creating enduring images. The many portraits drove the
evolution of English royal portraits in the Early Modern period. Even the earliest portraits of
Elizabeth I contain symbolic objects such as roses and prayer books that would have carried meaning
to viewers of her day. Later portraits of Elizabeth layer the iconography of empire—globes, crowns,
swords and columns—and representations of virginity and purity—such as moons and pearls—with
classical allusions to present a complex “story” that conveyed to Elizabethan era viewers the majesty
and significance of their Virgin Queen. The Armada Portrait is an allegorical panel painting depicting
the queen surrounded by symbols of empire against a backdrop representing the defeat of the
Spanish Armada in 1588. The Jacobean era produced figures like Robert Peake the Elder, William
Larkin, and Sir Nathaniel Bacon.

Music

Edit

Thomas Tallis was a Renaissance composer who occupies a primary place in anthologies of English
choral music. He is considered one of England’s greatest composers, and he is honoured for his
original voice in English musicianship.[25]

English Renaissance music kept in touch with continental developments. Elizabethan music
experienced a shift in popularity from sacred to secular music and the rise of instrumental music.
Professional musicians were employed by the Church of England, the nobility, and the rising middle-
class. Elizabeth was fond of music and played the lute and virginal, sang, and even claimed to have
composed dance music.[26] She felt that dancing was a great form of physical exercise and
employed musicians to play for her while she danced. The interests of the queen were expected to
be adopted by her subjects. All noblemen were expected to be proficient in playing the lute and “any
young woman unable to take her proper place in a vocal or instrumental ensemble became the
laughing-stock of society”. Music printing led to a market of amateur musicians purchasing works
published by those who received special permission from the queen.[27]

The Elizabethan madrigal was distinct from, but related to, the Italian tradition. The most famous
composers for the Anglican Church were Thomas Tallis and his student William Byrd. Considered
among the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he had a profound influence on composers both
from his native country and in Europe.[28] Both composers were Catholics and produced vocal
works in both Latin and English. Secular vocal works became extremely popular with the importation
of Italian musicians and compositions. The music of the late Italian madrigal composers inspired
native composers who are now labelled as the English Madrigal School. These composers adapted
the text painting and polyphonic writing of the Italians into a uniquely English genre of madrigal.
Thomas Morley published collections of madrigals which included his own compositions as well as
those of his contemporaries. The most famous of these collections was The Triumphs of Oriana,
which was made in honour of Queen Elizabeth and featured the compositions of Morley, Thomas
Weelkes, and John Wilbye among other representatives of the English madrigalists.

Instrumental music was also very popular. The most popular solo instruments of the time were the
virginal and the lute. The virginal was a popular variant of the harpsichord among the English and
one of Elizabeth’s favourite instruments to play. Numerous works were produced for the instrument
including several collections by William Byrd, namely the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and Parthenia.
The lute strung with sheepgut was the most popular instrument of the age. Lutes could be played as
solo instruments or as accompaniment for singers. Compositions of the latter variety were known as
lute song. The most popular Elizabethan composer for the lute and of lute songs was John Dowland.
Several families of instruments were popular among the English people and were employed for the
group music making. If all of the instruments in an ensemble were of the same family they were
considered to be in “consort”. Mixed ensembles were said to be in “broken consort”. Both forms of
ensembles were equally popular.

The key composers from the early Renaissance era also wrote in a late Medieval style, and as such,
they are transitional figures. Leonel Power was an English composer of the late medieval and early
Renaissance music eras. Along with John Dunstaple and Walter Frye, he was one of the major figures
in English music in the early 15th century.[29][30] Power is the composer best represented in the Old
Hall Manuscript. He was one of the first composers to set separate movements of the ordinary of
the mass which were thematically unified and intended for contiguous performance. The Old Hall
Manuscript contains his mass based on the Marian antiphon, Alma Redemptoris Mater, in which the
antiphon is stated literally in the tenor voice in each movement, without melodic ornaments. This is
the only cyclic setting of the mass ordinary which can be attributed to him.[31] He wrote mass
cycles, fragments, and single movements and a variety of other sacred works.

John Dunstaple (or Dunstable) was an English composer of polyphonic music of the late medieval era
and early Renaissance periods. He was one of the most famous composers active in the early 15 th
century, a near-contemporary of Power, and was widely influential, not only in England but on the
continent, especially in the developing style of the Burgundian School. Dunstaple’s influence on the
continent’s musical vocabulary was enormous, particularly considering the relative paucity of his
(attributable) works. He was recognized for possessing something never heard before in music of the
Burgundian School: la contenance angloise (“the English countenance”), a term used by the poet
Martin le Franc in his Le Champion des Dames. Other leading composers include Robert Johnson,
John Taverner, Thomas Morley, Orlando Gibbons, and John Blitheman.

The colossal polychoral productions of the Venetian School had been anticipated in the works of
Thomas Tallis, and the Palestrina style from the Roman School had already been absorbed prior to
the publication of Musica transalpina, in the music of masters such as William Byrd. The Italian and
English Renaissances were similar in sharing a specific musical aesthetic. In the late 16th century Italy
was the musical center of Europe, and one of the principal forms which emerged from that singular
explosion of musical creativity was the madrigal. In 1588, Nicholas Yonge published in England the
Musica transalpina—a collection of Italian madrigals that had been Anglicized—an event which
began a vogue of madrigal in England which was almost unmatched in the Renaissance in being an
instantaneous adoption of an idea, from another country, adapted to local aesthetics. English poetry
was exactly at the right stage of development for this transplantation to occur, since forms such as
the sonnet were uniquely adapted to setting as madrigals. Composers such as Thomas Morley, the
only contemporary composer to set Shakespeare, and whose work survives, published collections of
their own, roughly in the Italian manner but yet with a unique Englishness; interest in the
compositions of the English Madrigal School has enjoyed a considerable revival in recent decades in
Europe.[32][33]

Architecture

Edit

Main article: Elizabethan architecture

Despite some buildings in a partly Renaissance style from the reign of Henry VIII, notably Hampton
Court Palace The vanished Nonsuch Palace, Sutton Place and Layer Marney Tower, and the building
of Soulton Hall under Queen Mary I, it was not until dawning of Elizabethan architecture that a true
Renaissance style became widespread.

The wool trade, which had carried the economic life of England in the late medieval period, was no
longer as prosperous as it had been and there was less disposable wealth for architectural projects.
Under Elizabeth, farming was encouraged resulting in a recovery that put a vast amount of wealth
into the hands of a large number of people. Elizabeth built no new palaces, instead encouraging her
courtiers to build extravagantly and house her on her summer progresses. A large number of small
houses were built, and at the same time many country mansions were constructed. Many of the
earlier medieval or Tudor manors were remodelled and modernised during Elizabeth’s reign. Civic
and institutional buildings were also becoming increasingly common.[34]

Nonsuch Palace in Surrey. A former grand Tudor royal palace.[35]

The most famous buildings, of a type called the prodigy house, are large show houses constructed
for courtiers, and characterised by lavish use of glass, as at “Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall”,
Wollaton Hall, Montacute House, Hatfield House and Burghley House, the style continuing into the
early 17th century before developing into Jacobean architecture. Lesser, but still large, houses like
Little Moreton Hall continued to be constructed and expanded in essentially medieval half-timbered
styles until the late 16th century. Church architecture essentially continued in the late medieval
Perpendicular Gothic style until the Reformation, and then stopped almost completely, although
church monuments, screens and other fittings often had classical styles from about the mid-century.
The few new church buildings post-Reformation were usually still Gothic in style, as in Langley
Chapel of 1601.[36]

Elizabethan garden at Kenilworth Castle. [37] It was also at this time that the long gallery became
popular in English manor houses, often displaying painting collections and decorated ceilings. This
was apparently mainly used for walking in, and a growing range of parlours and withdrawing rooms
supplemented the main living room for the family, the great chamber. The great hall was now
mostly used by the servants, and as an impressive point of entry to the house.[34]

The decorative arts became increasingly rich in color, detail, and design by the Jacobean era.
Materials from other parts of the world, like mother-of-pearl, were now available by worldwide
trade and were used as decoration.[38] Familiar materials, such as wood and silver, were worked
more deeply in intricate and intensely three-dimensional designs.[38] Architecture in the Jacobean
era was a continuation of the Elizabethan style with increasing emphasis on classical elements like
columns and obelisks. Inigo Jones may be the most famous English architect of this period, with
lasting contributions to classical public building style; his works include the Banqueting House in the
Palace of Whitehall and the portico of Old St Paul’s Cathedral (destroyed in the Great Fire of
London). Significant Jacobean buildings include Hatfield House, Bolsover Castle, Aston Hall, and
Charlton House. Many churches contain fine monuments in Jacobean style, with characteristic
motifs including strapwork, and polychromy. The mason and sculptor Nicholas Stone produced many
effigies for tombs as well as architectural stonework

Society
Edit

There was a wide range of leisure activities entertaining both the nobility and the common classes.
Among these leisure activities were team sports, individual sports, games, dramatics, music, and the
arts. The annual summer fair and other seasonal fairs such as May Day were often bawdy affairs.
Watching plays and performing arts became increasingly popular. All English towns sponsored plays
enacted in town squares followed by the actors using the courtyards of taverns or inns (referred to
as inn-yards) followed by great open-air amphitheatres and then the introduction of indoor theatres
called playhouses. This popularity was helped by the rise of great playwrights such as William
Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe using theatres such as the Globe Theatre. Before theatres
were built, actors travelled from town to town and performed in the streets or outside inns.[39]
Miracle plays were local re-enactments of stories from the Bible. They derived from the old custom
of mystery plays, in which stories and fables were enacted to teach lessons or educate about life in
general.[40]

Music was greatly enjoyed throughout this era, as seen through quite a few family evenings
including musical performances. English children were taught to sing and dance at a very early age
and became used to performing in public during such evenings. Keyboard instruments such as
harpsichords, clavichords, dulcimers and virginals were played. Woodwind instruments like
crumhorns, and flutes and stringed instruments such as lutes and rebecs were also widely used.
Royal court dances included the pavane and galliard, the almain and the volta.[41]

There was an expansion of education and apprenticships in 14th-16th century England.[42] Boys were
allowed to go to school and began at the age of 4, they then moved to grammar school when they
were 7 years old. Apprenticships were the main route for youths to enter skilled trades and
crafts.[43] In 1562 the Statute of Artificers and Apprentices was passed to regulate and protect the
apprenticeship system, forbidding anyone from practising a trade or craft without first serving a 7-
year period as an apprentice to a master.[44] Guilds controlled many trades and used
apprenticeships to control entry.[45] Many towns and villages had a parish school where the local
vicar taught boys to read and write. Brothers could teach their sisters these skills. At school, pupils
were taught English, Latin, Greek, catechism and arithmetic.[46]

Criticism

Edit

The notion of calling this period a ‘’renaissance” is a modern invention, having been popularized by
the historian Jacob Burckhardt in the 19th century. England had already experienced a flourishing of
literature over 200 years before the time of Shakespeare. Geoffrey Chaucer’s popularizing of English
as a medium of literary composition rather than Latin occurred only 50 years after Dante had started
using Italian for serious poetry, and Chaucer translated works by both Boccaccio and Petrarch into
Middle English. At the same time William Langland, author of Piers Plowman, and John Gower were
also writing in English. In the fifteenth century, Thomas Malory (author of Le Morte D’Arthur), John
Lydgate, and Thomas Hoccleve were notable figures.[47]

Other cultural historians have countered that, regardless of whether the name “renaissance” is apt,
there was undeniably an artistic flowering in England under the Tudor monarchs.[48]