how merry was england

• The 'Merry England' interpretation imagined a 'golden age' in which...

  • People wore fine clothes
  • Everyone had plenty of food
  • people got on well with each other
  • Cultural achievements - william shakepeare - was enjoyed by all
• popular pastimes: sport

  • Football - played on streets between huge teams from different villages, was the most popular sport
  • Bear baiting - spectators would bet on a pack of wolves attacking a tied up bear, was widespread
• Popular pastime: festivities

  • On saints' days, villages held parish ales - festivals of drinking eating and dancing - lasted several days
  • Christmas festivities included much eating, drinking and carol singing and lasted 12 days
  • On May Day people danced around the maypole and watched plays
  • Harvest home was celebrated once all the crops had been harvested at the end of august
• Popular pastime: The Alehouse (pub)

  • The most common pastime for the labouring poor and middling sort was going to the alehouse to drink beer with friends
  • alehouses were also places of gambling and prostitution
• A striking feature of Elizabeths reign was the decline of popular pastimes:

  • Parish ales stopped in many areas
  • alehouses closed
  • Maypoles were pulled down
• The people responsible for the decline of pastimes were the puritans. These people wanted others to live a pure christian life. they clamped down pastimes by:

  • Preaching sermons attacking festivities
  • Persuaded JPs to ban maypoles and introduce licences for selling ale
• What drove puritans to attack popular pastimes:

  • protecting the sabbath - sundays should be reserved for prayer not drinking and dancing
  • Stopping pagan practice - May day was pagan not christians. This 'distracted' from the 'true' christian religion
  • preventing violent disorder - in parish ales and harvest homes people became drunk and violent. this was not christian behavior
  • Preventing sex outside marriage - Festivals and drinking led to prostitution
• The growth of theatres:

  • There were no theatres when Elizabeth became queen in 1558
  • Instead people used to travel town to town performing at alehouses and parish ales but were arrested as vagrants so theatre companies were formed
  • The companies built theatres in london to perform playwrights
• one popular Theatre company was the Lord Chamberlains Men:

  • Playwright: William Shakepeare
  • Plays: Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet
  • Theatre: The globe
• Theatre:

  • The galleries were covered, raised areas of seating. Entry was 6 pence
  • The yard was where the poor - known as groundlings - stood to watch plays. Entry was one penny
  • The stage was raised and jutted out into the centre of the theatre
• Opposition to theatres:

  • Puritan ministers opposed the theatres because plays encouraged unholy behaviour and distracted ordinary people from prayer and bible reading
  • The london city authorities opposed theatre because they feared crowds of spectators would spread the plague and commit crimes
• Support for the theatres:

  • The queen enjoyed the theatre and invited shakespeare to perform at royal court
  • Ordinary people loved the theatre because it provided cheap entertainment
• Features of witch beliefs:

  • Elizabethans believed that witches could perform magic to cure illness, control actions of others, or recover stolen goods
  • Some people believed witches' power came from their relationships with the devil
  • Witches were believed to have familiars: small animals such as cats and toads that assisted with their evil acts
• The persecution of witches:

  • 1563 law against witch craft
  • Death by hanging for using witch craft to kill
  • Prison for damage to property
  • The number of cases increased in the later years of Elizabeth's reign: 166 cases in the 1580s
  • There were 172 cases in Essex alone during Elizabeths reign
• Interpretations of reasons for the persecution of witches

  • Tension between villagers
  • Attacks on women - 90% of those accused were women, could also be a way to control women with no husbands to control them in a patriarchal society
  • Puritans - Encouraged persecution to get rid of magical beliefs, Essex, a hotbed of accusations of witchcraft was a highly puritan area