The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Renaissance England
from 1485-1649
Revised and Expanded Edition
Kathy Lynn Emerson
About the Author
Publishing Information
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Table of Contents
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 Courtiership—Some 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 Control—A 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 Peace—The 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
INTRODUCTION
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 Writer’s 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 others—students writing papers, reenactors, and those who simply love reading about the past—will 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. I’ve 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.
A NOTE ON THE REVISED EDITION
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.
A NOTE ON DATES AND TIME
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 i
n 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 Year’s 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 Reformation–Hilary Term (beginning in January), Easter Term (beginning after Easter), Trinity Term (beginning after Whitsunday), and Michaelmas Term (beginning in October).
Most people didn't have clocks or watches, although both had been invented. When England was Catholic, the canonical hours were used to tell time. Matins was midnight, Lauds was 3 A.M., Prime was 6 A.M., Terce was 9 A.M., Sext was noon, None was 3 P.M., Vespers was 6 P.M., and Compline was 9 P.M. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, people avoided using those terms. Some told time by the sun and by cockcrow. First cockcrow was at midnight, second cockcrow halfway to dawn, and third cockcrow at sunrise. Dawn was reckoned at 3:30 A.M. in summer and around 7A.M.in winter.
PART ONE: EVERYDAY LIFE
CHAPTER ONE: CLOTHES AND ACCESSORIES
Both fashions and the terms used to describe garments underwent many changes during the period from 1485 to 1649. Meanings have also changed since. When we read that a woman went to church in 1617 in her “rich night-gown and petticoat,” it raises eyebrows, but it didn’t then. Also called slops (which can refer to any loose-fitting garment), the female nightgown dates from the beginning of the fifteenth century. It could be made of silk, velvet, satin, or taffeta faced with fur. It fell to the ankles and had long sleeves. Although it usually served as a dressing gown, it was also worn outside the house. A man’s nightgown, on the other hand, was a dressing gown, taken off when he went to bed.
It was customary to will articles of clothing to friends and family. Thus, styles decades out of fashion at court would often be seen elsewhere. Only the wealthy could afford a wide range of styles and fabrics.
Portraits are full of detail, showing the texture and color of fabrics, but in general they show subjects wearing the most formal of attire. At home or in the more informal setting of the country, many of the layers, both outerwear and underwear, would likely have been shed. No simple country housewife ever cooked a meal or cleaned her house wearing a wheel farthingale!
Some clothing had specific social implications, identifying the wearer as a member of a profession or as the servant of a particular nobleman. For more details on this function of clothes and accessories, see Chapter Fourteen.
MEN’S CLOTHING
Codpieces
From the late fifteenth century through about 1590, the codpiece, a fabric pouch which covered the penis, existed as a separate article of male outerwear. It was padded and elaborately decorated throughout the period from 1514 to 1575, after which it gradually began to diminish in size. The codpiece sometimes doubled as a pocket, in which men kept their handkerchiefs and other small items. It was secured by buckles or tied up with points, points being any ties which attached various articles of dress to each other. Points might be either visible or concealed. The wealthy had points of linen or silk thread or ribbon. The poor used strong cord or leather.
Theories about the origin of the codpiece abound. Some say it was worn as underwear first. Another possibility is that it was designed to give extra protection in battle. A third theory suggests that the codpiece was supposed to keep the oily, mercury-based cream many men applied as a treatment for syphilis from staining doublet and hose.
Doublets
After the codpiece, the doublet was the most striking part of a man’s clothing, and usually the most expensive. This close-fitting garment, worn over a shirt or waistcoat and fitted to the waist, was usually made by professional tailors. In various styles it was in fashion from 1450 to 1670.
Sleeves were a separate garment. Most had wrist-ruffs or turned-back cuffs. The armhole joint was concealed by a padded roll of material or a double or single roll of tabs called pickadils. Sleeves were often a contrasting color to other garments. They changed in shape to match the fashion in doublets.
Before 1530, doublets and sleeves were “slashed” so that the layer beneath could be pulled through and “puffed.” Until about 1550 the doublet had a square silhouette from shoulder to mid-thigh and a high neck. In the period from 1550 to 1560, padded, pleated bases (a skirt) hung about six inches below the waist. From 1560 the fitted body of the doublet was longer, more padded, and had a V-shaped point in the front. It usually fastened with close-set buttons.
From 1575 to 1600, the peascod-bellied doublet was fashionable. This extended well below the hips in a shape something like a pea-pod and was rigid, unwrinkled, and stuffed with bombast (horsehair, flock, wool, rags, flax, cotton, or bran) to preserve its square-shouldered shape. Gentlemen of fashion had to be careful. If they snagged a peascod-bellied doublet on a nail, they might leak bran! The back of the doublet was lined with stiff canvas. Most of the buttons were for decoration. This doublet fastened from armpit to waist on each side like a piece of armor. The front might be further stiffened inside with a triangular piece of wood the consistency of thick cardboard.
After 1590 an alternative style was shorter and hollow-bellied instead of convex and after 1620 the rigidity of outline gradually diminished. By 1630, so-called Cavalier dress, with a higher waist, was in fashion. The doublet was usually left unbuttoned from the breast down. Puritans wore doublets similar in appearance but undecorated and looser. After 1640 the doublet was again short and without an obvious waistline.
The wealthy had doublets made of brocade, satin, taffeta, and velvet. The poor wore canvas, fustian, and leather.
Hose
Below the waist, men wore hose, a term used only for the male garment during the years 1400 to 1620. Until around 1570, hose referred to either the breeches (upper stocks) or the netherstocks (lower stocks, also called simply stocks), although after 1545 hose generally meant the netherstocks alone. The term upper stocks went out of use at about that same time. Breeches fastened to the doublet or waistcoat with points and covered the body from the waist around the seat and over part or all of the upper leg. Gentlemen’s stocks were knitted. The hose of poorer people might be sewn of rough textiles and the bottom might he footless, toeless, or stirrup-shaped.
The term tights was not in use at all during this period, and until the 1660s the word stockings usually referred to women’s hosiery, although records do show that Edward VI received a gift of silk stockings made in Spain.
Underwear
Underwear was optional. Shirts were underclothing and commonly made of linen, although they might be made of fine lawn or silk. They were also used to sleep in. Stays were worn under some doublets in the period 1603-1625.
WOMEN’S CLOTHING
Bodices
The female equivalent of the doublet, at times even called a doublet, was the body, pair of bodies, or bodice. It had two parts, the stomacher (a triangular front section) and the bodice proper, which was joined to the stomacher at the sides with ties, hooks, or pins. Like a corset, the stomacher was stiffened with busks (flat lengths of bone or wood) inserted in pockets. The neckline varied greatly and might show the underclothes beneath or bare skin or be filled with a partlet. The partlet may have gotten its name because it parted the little round face ruff which could be opened or closed with aglets (laced through eyelet holes) or hooks and eyes. When the partlet had sleeves, they were not sewn on but were rather a separate article of clothing attached with points. After 1550, necklines had either collars or ruffs attached to them. Very low necklines appeared in the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras.
Gowns
The gown, at first an overdress worn open in front and extending from shoulders to ground, came to mean a woman’s dress.
The word dress was not used in its modern sense but rather to refer to the entire ensemble, as in “court dress.” What looks like a dress to us is the kirtle.
Kirtles
Prior to 1545, kirtle referred to the combination of bodice or jacket and skirt. After 1545, the two parts were separate and the term kirtle generally meant only the skirt. By 1625 the term was obsolete and the garment was called a petticoat. The early kirtle had openings at the front in both sections, at top to show the stomacher and at bottom to reveal an underskirt called the forepart.
Sleeves
Sleeves were fastened to the bodice at the shoulder line by ribbon bows or hooks or pins concealed by decorative rolls of fabric known as wings. A ruffle or cuff at the wrist matched the ruff or collar. Sleeves might be in two parts in contrasting colors and came in various shapes. From 1525 to 1560, a funnel shape was common. From 1540 to 1550, sleeves might also be bell-shaped, worn over embroidered undersleeves and tied back to show puffs of the shift beneath. After 1560, sleeves might he gathered, tapered, or full. By 1580, leg-of-mutton sleeves, also called trunk or demi-cannon sleeves, were in fashion.
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