Kathy Lynn Emerson - The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Renaissance England: From 1485-1649

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: EVERYDAY LIFE

ONE CLOTHES AND ACCESSORIES

Men's Clothing; Women's Clothing; Outerwear; Children's Dress; Country Dress; Hair, Beards, and Cosmetics; Assorted Accessories; Items of Clothing; Fabrics of the Renaissance

TWO FOOD AND DRINK

On the Menu; Table Settings and Manners; Preservation of Food; Health Problems and Diet; Foods; Alehouses; Drinks

THREE ARCHITECTURE

Manor Houses and Mansions; The Italian Influence on English Architecture; Building Materials; Royal Residences; Prodigy Houses; Specialized Rooms; Ornamental Gardens; Orchards; Native and New: Flowers and Fruits

FOUR FURNISHING A HOUSE

Items of Furniture; Coverings for Floors, Walls, and Ceilings; Lighting; Sanitation and Bathing Habits; Music and Music Rooms; Libraries and Collectors

FIVE MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

Birth; Marriage; Death; Extended Family

SIX PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS

Practitioners; Women in Medicine; Hospitals; The Plague; Healing Waters; Ailments; Medicines; Herbal Cures; Magical Stones

PART TWO: GOVERNMENT AND WAR

SEVEN GOVERNMENT

The Privy Council; Departments of Central Government; Parliament; Local (County) Government; Population; Treason; Conspiracies and Rebellions

EIGHT MONARCHS, NOBLES, AND COMMONERS

The Succession; The Court; The Peerage; The Gentry; The Trade of CourtiershipSome Notable Women

NINE CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Lawyers; Steps in the Legal Process; Central Law Courts; Assizes; Quarter Sessions; Prerogative Courts; A Miscellany of Specialized Courts; Law Enforcement Personnel; Prosecution of Criminals; Punishments; Tudor and Stuart Gun ControlA Summary of Laws; A Sampling of Cases

TEN COINS, MONEY & HOW MUCH THINGS COST

Minting of Coins; Domestic Coins; Foreign Coins in Use in England; Sources of Royal Revenue; Inflation; Wages and Prices; Usury; Imprisonment for Debt; Shopping Malls

ELEVEN WAR AND PEACE

Embassies; The Pale of Calais; The Invasion of France in War; The Invasion of France in PeaceThe Field of Cloth-of-Gold; The Royal Navy; The English Army in Ireland; Heads of State; Significant Events

TWELVE A SEAFARING NATION

Life at Sea; Common Sizes of English Vessels; Mariners Superstitions; Flags; Merchant Ships; Fishing Fleets; Pirates and Privateers; Passenger Ships; Definitions; Significant Seafaring Events

PART THREE: RENAISSANCE SOCIETY

THIRTEEN EDUCATION, SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS

Literacy; Penmanship; Schools; Higher Education; Religious Education; Religious "Parties"

FOURTEEN EMPLOYMENT

Domestic Servants; The Statute of Laborers and Artificers; Guilds; Women in Trades; Apprentices; Workers without Guilds; The Tobacco Trade; Mining; Manufacturing; Unemployment; Illegal Professions

FIFTEEN ENTERTAINMENT

Fairs; Festivals; Professional Entertainment; Reading as Entertainment; Sports and Recreations

SIXTEEN LANGUAGE

Languages of England; Grammar and Usage; The Flavor of the Language; Language used in Letters; Given Names; Forms of Address; Common Slang Terms; Color Names of the Renaissance

SEVENTEEN LIFE IN LONDON AND OTHER CITIES

A Miscellany of London; The Housing Boom; Urban Problems; A Sampling of Urban Centers

EIGHTEEN RURAL LIFE

Crops; Enclosure; Livestock; Manors and Farms; Towns and Villages; Deer Parks and Royal Forests; Antiquities; Gypsies

NINETEEN TRAVEL AND TRAVELERS

Travel by Land; Travel by Water; Postal Service; Inns; Royal Progresses; Foreign Travel

TWENTY WITCHES, MAGIC, NECROMANCY & SUPERSTITION

Witches; Magic; Necromancy; Astrology; General Belief in the Supernatural

APPENDIX GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books that cover a number of areas; select bibliographies are at the end of each chapter

The Renaissance began in Italy, flowered in France and slowly made its way to England. In the year 1500, Henry VII was on the throne of England. His son, the future Henry VIII, was receiving the education that would make him one of the great Renaissance Princes of Europe. For the purposes of this volume, then, Renaissance England refers to the reigns of Henry VII (1485-1509), Henry VIII (1509-1547), Edward VI (1547-1553), Mary I (1553-1558), Elizabeth I (l558-1603), James I (1603-1625), and Charles I (1625-1649), and the period comes to an abrupt end with the execution of King Charles.

It is impossible to do justice to a century and a half in a single book, but The Writers Guide to Everyday Life in Renaissance England offers two services to writers of historical romance, historical mystery, time travel, and other historical fiction. First, it gives starting points in the form of introductions to a number of specific subject areas. Second, it indicates which of the many volumes of social, economic, literary, and political history are most likely to provide the sort of information novelists need. It is to be hoped that othersstudents writing papers, reenactors, and those who simply love reading about the pastwill also find this volume useful.

In-depth studies have been done on exceedingly narrow subjects. Many of their authors, however, were more interested in presenting statistical data or proving some obscure thesis than in supplying interesting anecdotal material. All of the books listed in my select bibliographies are available through interlibrary loans. Most were published during the last thirty years. Ive tried to reflect the most recent research while avoiding radical interpretations (although I have included, annotated, a few of the more interesting ones). Lost documents are always coming to light and older records are constantly being reexamined. Therefore, assume that all statistics are approximate and that almost any fact can and will be debated by scholars.

In addition to the select bibliographies in each chapter, this volume contains time lines, quick reference lists and sidebars to aid in finding specific details. The chapters are arranged by broad subject areas. Material which falls into more than one category is cross-referenced in the text.

This revised and expanded edition includes some links to websites. They are accurate as of November 2004. In general I do not advise relying only on the Internet for research, since so much of what is there is undocumented and anonymous, but it is an excellent source of visual examples of material discussed in this text.

The seasons were different in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, starting several weeks earlier than they do now in North America. Spring began in February, summer in May, autumn in August, and winter in November.

Dates can seem confusing for other reasons as well. In 1582, in order to ensure that church holidays occurred in the proper seasons, Pope Gregory XIII issued a decree dropping ten days from the calendar. By 1583, Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, and the Roman Catholic German States were all using New Style dates. England, however, as a Protestant nation, continued to use the Old Style Julian Calendar until 1752. Thus, English reports on the Spanish Armada of 1588 record events as taking place ten days earlier than Spanish reports do. The day of the week also differed. May 1, 1593, for example, was a Tuesday in the Julian calendar but a Saturday in the Gregorian calendar.

In England, the new year began on Lady Day, March 25, although the holiday called New Years Day, on which gifts were presented to the monarch, was already being celebrated on January 1. Thus you may find dates for events which took place between January 1 and March 24 written with the so-called double dating, for example February 23, 1588/9. Leap years, as now, added a February 29th every four years; 1584 was a leap year. Law and university terms continued to be fixed by the church calendar even after the ReformationHilary Term (beginning in January), Easter Term (beginning after Easter), Trinity Term (beginning after Whitsunday), and Michaelmas Term (beginning in October).