The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Renaissance England

by Kathy Lynn Emerson

  Lady Lisle, in 1540, had in her bedroom a Flanders chair, a cupboard with a piece of tapestry as a cover, four red carpets worked with blue crewel, two old Turkey carpets, and two cushions, one of embroidered Bruges satin and the other of cloth-of-gold. Bess of Hardwick, the wealthiest woman in Elizabethan England after the queen, decorated her bedroom with a bed hung with black velvet with gold fringe, curtains of black damask trimmed with gold lace, and chairs of crimson velvet. Even a musician, in 1603, had hangings of green say, a type of wool, on his plain corded bedstead, as well as window curtains, a trestle table, and “a staff to beat the bed with.”

  ITEMS OF FURNITURE

  beds: The boarded bed was a shallow wooden box standing on four short legs. It had a straw mattress and might have a narrow shelf for a candle. The flock bed, with a stack of chaff for the head, was considered a step up. “Stump” bedsteads had no valances or side curtains. A new type of bed introduced in the early sixteenth century replaced the boards supporting the mattress or feather bed with rope mesh. A mattress might also rest on interwoven strips of leather. There were no bed springs. Heavy foot posts (to match the tall head posts) were also added at this time and the tester was no longer suspended from the ceiling but rather rested on the four posts, all of which were elaborately carved. Cardinal Wolsey had a bed with eight mattresses, each stuffed with thirteen pounds of carded wool. The beds were made up with sheets, blankets of fustian or wool, and coverlets. Down pillows replaced bolsters in wealthy homes.

  When Lord Lisle was arrested for treason in 1540, an inventory of his bedding revealed fourteen pairs of blankets and eighteen feather beds. He and his wife slept in field beds (portable folding bedsteads) but they managed a four-poster effect by adding a tester and ceiler of blue satin and tawny velvet and bed-curtains of blue and tawny sarcenet. One 1568 bed had a headboard of carved limewood panels and posts of French walnut. At Petworth, feather beds were numerous, as were down pillows. Along with the fine linens, however, those taking the inventory also found an “old Holland quilt” and two old taffeta quilts “not fit for use.”

  Small beds, usually used by servants, included the trestle bed, the truckle bed, which ran on truckles (solid wheels), and the straw pallet. The poorest folk had only a rough mat with a sheet and coverlets of dagswain or hop-harlot. The poor man’s pillow might well be a log.

  benches: High-backed benches were in use and so were benches set into window alcoves. Chests and trunks also doubled as benches.

  chairs: Reserved for the head of the household, chairs were generally heavy and uncomfortable, even when the wooden seats were covered with cloth. Early designs included the Erasmus chair, the X-shaped or Glastonbury chair, the bobbin-frame chair, and the box-chair, which at first was plain but later was carved and ornamented and eventually evolved into the armchair. The carved oak chair of about 1615 had arms and a high back. Upholstered and leather chairs were not unheard of before 1600 but were rare. Upholstery became common only after about 1640. The farthingale chair (c. 1610) was cushioned, usually in velvet or turkey work. Matching sets of chairs began to be made in the seventeenth century, fashioned of walnut with velvet backs and padded seats. At Petworth there were numerous “elbow chairs.”

  chests (also called coffers): Chests were often made of cedar and were used both to store things and as seats. Coffers listed in a 1551 inventory held eight pairs of sheets, three tablecloths, one towel, and miscellaneous clothing.

  chimneys: This was the name used for movable firebacks and grates, much in use before the stationary fireplace became common. Chimneys were included as furnishings in inventories and wills early in the period.

  couches: Along with the settle (a long bench with arms, a back, and a storage box under the seat), the couch first appeared in England during the reign of Charles I.

  cupboards: One type was a flat-topped stand with a shelf and a top covered by a cloth, on which plate (household articles covered with precious metal) was displayed. Another type was a dresser with a carved back and a canopy of wood, a flat top for the display of plate, and a lower half enclosed by doors, below which might be another shelf for the display of ewers and jugs. A food cupboard or hutch was usually enclosed, the doors perforated to let air in. A buffet had three tiers on each of which plate or food was displayed. The “court cupboard” was rarely seen before 1550. Bedroom cupboards held toilet articles, including a basin and ewer, cosmetic jars, and a chamber pot. A cupboard in Queen Elizabeth’s apartments at court, used to store dried and candied fruit, was big enough for a man to hide in. The wainscot press (used for storing linen and clothes), wardrobes called fripperies, and chests of drawers all came into style in the seventeenth century. At Petworth there was “a cupboard of cipresse open, but closed with glasse.” Clocks were sometimes displayed on cupboards. One clock, at Hatfield House, was made in the shape of a tortoise.

  daybeds: Introduced toward the end of the sixteenth century, one daybed at Hardwick Hall is 7’3” long, padded with a long, loose mattress, and covered with red damask embroidered in colored silks and gold. Paneled ends of oak rake outward and are painted chocolate red with floral arabesques and the arms of the Talbot and Cavendish families.

  stools: Early stools were solid, flat-seated, and plain. By mid-century, joined stools commonly had four legs. In the seventeenth century wrought stools were high, four-legged, and usually had cushions trimmed with fringe.

  tables: Dais tables might have a fixed top, often of elm, and might measure 20’ X 3’. The table could be framed, with four to six solid legs and very solid, low-set stretchers (to hold down the rushes and keep the legs steady). The draw-top table was imported during the 1550s. In the seventeenth century, the gate table was coming into style, especially in private parlors. Petworth had a little table with a drawer in it in the earl’s closet and a pair of playing tables with ivory men in the dining parlor.

  trunks: The great trunk of the Russell Family (earls of Bedford) served as the family bank. It was made in the Netherlands, its exterior painted with roses and tulips, and had a Spanish-style double lock. Francis Russell, second earl, also had a long trunk and a great chest bound with iron in which he kept his books.

  COVERINGS FOR FLOORS, WALLS, AND CEILINGS

  carpets: Although some people used these expensive decorative items on their floors, as we do, most carpets were draped over tables and cupboards. In one wealthy mid-sixteenth-century merchant’s country house, however, an oblong green carpet covered a waxed and polished oak floor. The Petworth inventory lists a yellow rug, “old and stayned, belonging to the yellow printed saye bed.”

  ceilings: Plaster ceilings and walls were often painted with ornate designs. Painted canvas ceilings might grace a banqueting house. Friezes and Italian stucco-work were popular in the Elizabethan era. At Cowdray, five episodes from the life of Sir Anthony Browne were painted in the dining parlor.

  embroidery: Everything that could be decorated, was, from pillows and wall hangings to clothing, coverlets, and bed hangings. In many houses embroidery frames (also called tents) were set up so that anyone in the household with free time could work on the current project. Some of the best examples of embroidery and of tapestries may be seen at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire.

  maps: More expensive than portraits, mounted maps were collected as wall hangings throughout the period. They also came in book form, the word atlas having first been used in 1575. Tapestry maps of counties were popular as decoration. Petworth had a large map of the world in the lower gallery.

  mirrors: Polished metal was used for mirrors until the end of the sixteenth century, but wall mirrors of any kind were rare until well into the seventeenth century.

  portraits: Painting was called picture-making in the sixteenth century. The word picture was also used for a figure painted on stone or plaster. “Painting in little” meant limning portraits in miniature.

  John Rastell’s A Pastyme of People, published in 1529, contained woodcut illustrations of portraits. It was ex
tremely popular. So were ornate genealogies illustrated with portraits. Copperplate engraving came to England under Elizabeth, producing a more refined look than blocks, and this technique was used for both portraits and maps.

  Popular subjects for portraits, aside from one’s own family, were the monarchs of England. Hardwick Hall in the seventeenth century had on display twenty-six portraits of family members and a set of portraits of the kings and queens of England, starting with Edward II. Many English homes also had pictures of two other popular subjects, the defeat and capture of Francis I at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 and portraits of “Lucretia,” which seems to have referred to any depiction of a female nude.

  Among the premier portrait painters of this era were Hans Holbein, Lucas Hornebolte, Levina Teerline, Nicholas Hilliard, Isaac Oliver, William Scrots, Hans Eworth, Steven van der Meulen, Cornelius Ketel, George Gower, John Bettes the Younger, Hieronimo Custodis, Sir William Segar, Robert Peake the Elder, John de Critz, Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, William Larkin and Sir Anthony Van Dyck. Many portraits were life-size.

  rushes: Throughout the sixteenth century, even in the royal palaces at Greenwich and Hampton Court, floors were strewn with rushes, reeds, and straw mixed with lavender and rosemary clippings. Rush-mats began to replace rushes in the seventeenth century.

  tapestries: Real tapestries were woven, but the English also used the word for needle painting (embroidering a picture in wool on a linen ground). Painted cloths were the poor man’s tapestries. Lord Lisle’s chamber at Calais had eight pieces of tapestry to decorate it and Lady Lisle’s had nine. The walls of the dining chamber were hung with a painted cloth of Olyfernis” (Holofernes decapitated by Judith, a popular subject for tapestries!), and the Great Chamber had six pieces of tapestry and two pictures. Petworth had, among others, nine pieces of hangings of “forrest work” (sylvan scenery) and six pieces of hangings of “imagery” (figured work). Arras, France, was famous for magnificent woven hangings, which gave the name arras or arras-work to some tapestries. Sheldon tapestries were produced from 1561 in Warwickshire, and under James I tapestries were made at Mortlake.

  wainscot panels: Wainscoting was a popular way of decorating walls. There was also widespread use of linen-fold paneling.

  windows: Included as furnishings in wills and inventories because they could be removed and stored when a house was not in use, windows might contain oiled paper, leaded panes, or glass. Curtains, curtain rods, and curtain rings were used in some houses but not universally.

  LIGHTING

  Striking a match required several steps but was made easier by the contents of a tinder box, which might contain fire irons and flint stones, tinder, brimstone, and a damper to extinguish the tinder after the match was lighted. One held the fire steel in the left hand, a few inches above the tinder, and struck a sharp blow with flint to break off a spark of red hot steel. This fell onto the tinder. The smoldering tinder was then touched with a sulphur match, which burst into flame and could be used to light kindling or candles.

  Candles were made of beeswax and tallow (which stank and dripped great quantities of fat into grease pans). They came in various weights and sizes, from tall, fat ones that burned for nearly an hour to slender tapers. Candles were set in wood or iron supports known as candle beams, suspended from the ceiling and operated by a pulley. Individual candlesticks of iron, brass, or latten stood on a tripod or a solid round base. Flares were used to light passageways. The poor had only rush dips, or were guided by the light from the fire in the hearth.

  SANITATION AND BATHING HABITS

  Throughout this period, sanitation was primitive. For a discussion of the privy as a separate room, see Chapter Three. Most houses were furnished with close-stools, which were box-like affairs, lidded, with pierced wooden or padded seats and removable pans in the box beneath. The inventory of Petworth lists several bedrooms with both a close-stool (some covered with cloth) with “one pan unto it” and a chamber pot. Other bedchambers have neither item among the furnishings. The chamber pot was also called a jordan and was most commonly made of earthenware or pewter. For the upper classes there are records of chamber pots of hammered silver with elegant handles and thumb pieces.

  Although chamber pots, close-stools, and privies were provided at convenient locations (there were even chamber pots in the withdrawing room), many gentlemen still used the hearth or a convenient corner as a urinal. The ladies who came with Catherine of Aragon from Spain remarked upon this fact, complaining that they could scarcely walk from one room to another in an English palace without coining upon such a scene.

  Sir John Harington invented the hydraulic water closet, the earliest flush toilet, at the end of the sixteenth century, but although it cost only 30s. 8d. to construct (see Chapter Ten for more on the value of money), it was regarded as a novelty in England and did not find general acceptance there until the Victorian era. In France the idea caught on more quickly. In 1750, French water closets went by the name “lieux a l’Anglaise.”

  Toilet paper had not yet been invented. Renaissance men and women, ever resourceful, kept containers of saltwater handy and made use of such varied substances as bunches of herbs, moss, and sponges on sticks. In 1249 a royal privy was supplied with “downe or coton for wiping.”

  Water supplies varied in quality. Rainwater was stored for use, but most water came from wells. Hand pumps were in use and water could be pumped to the ground floor of a house, but not much above that. Pumps powered by waterwheels had appeared in England by the late sixteenth century and were also used to get water to a hilltop site and into a cistern. Cisterns were made of stone, wood, or alabaster. Pipes were lead or copper. The Franciscan friary in Southampton had a conduit which provided running water to the cloister, the refectory, the infirmary, and the kitchen, where a “goodly” lead trough held water. Some Southampton houses also had piped-in water by 1535.

  Bathing facilities were limited. In the home, total immersion was infrequent, though the face and hands were washed regularly, often in perfumed water. Fennel and endive were added to water used to wash the feet. When baths were taken, a wooden tub was generally set up in the bedchamber, near the fire which was used to heat the bath water. Queen Elizabeth took a portable bathtub with her when she traveled and insisted on a higher level of cleanliness among her courtiers than was found elsewhere. Fennel and bay were frequently added to bathwater. For details on the soaps available, see Chapter Fourteen.

  Rivers and ditches were used for washing bodies as well as laundry. Steam baths were known in the Middle Ages and became fairly widespread because they were believed to cure venereal disease, but the hot house for bathing was rare in private homes.

  Public baths were often little more than brothels. London had Turkish steam baths called “Hummums” which also provided private rooms, wine, and women to their clients. “Bagnios” provided hot- and cold-water baths. Communal baths at spas were popular in Europe before they caught on in England, but they were taken more for social and medicinal purposes than to achieve cleanliness.

  MUSIC AND MUSIC ROOMS

  Henry Percy, fifth earl of Northumberland, paid his taborette player £4 a quarter in 1512, the same wage earned by his Dean of the Chapel. He also kept a lute player and a rebec player on his household books.

  Even if a gentleman did not have a separate music room in his house or keep professional musicians, he was likely to own a number of musical instruments and music books. To entertain themselves, most people sang, especially part songs and madrigals, and often accompanied themselves on the lute or on the cittern, which was similar to the lute but easier to play. Songbooks contained collections of dance music as well as songs of four to eight parts.

  The virginal, a keyboard instrument similar to the harpsichord which was placed on a table or stood on legs, came in various sizes and was popular in England. A pair of virginals referred to only one virginal. The spinet was popular in Italy in the sixteenth century but does not seem to have caught on in
England. The third most common instrument after the lute and virginal was the viol.

  Other instruments included the bandora (a bass guitar), cornets, the curtall (bassoon), drums, flutes, the hautboy (oboe), the lysarden (a deep-toned bass wind instrument eight inches long with three U-shaped bends), nakers (small kettledrums of Arabic origin), recorders, the sackbut (trombone), shawms (these had a double reed of dried cane and were similar to the modern oboe but were usually played in pairs), tabors (drums), and violins.

  Irish harp music became popular during the reign of James I. The sound was believed to soothe melancholy. Organ music was also popular and in addition to the organs found in churches, many stately homes boasted of owning a small “pair of organs set upon a cupboard” (also called “a case of regals”).

  LIBRARIES AND COLLECTORS

  John, seventh Baron Lumley (1534-1609) was the most notable collector of his times, acquiring not only pictures but also books and manuscripts. There had been libraries in some 800 monastic houses. Many volumes were destroyed when they were dissolved, even though Henry VIII built three libraries in his palaces to preserve rescued hooks. The private library Thomas Cranmer built from the dissolved monasteries was later acquired by Lord Lumley, who had a total of 1,000 printed hooks and 150 manuscripts in 1579 and eventually amassed some 7,000 volumes. These went to Henry, Prince of Wales, on Lumley’s death and thus became part of the Royal Library. The keeper of the libraries at Whitehall and Windsor during the reign of Elizabeth was paid 6s. 8d. a day, which may reflect the great value the queen put upon the collection in his care.