Popular and elite culture - withdrawal of the elite

• Who were the elite?

  - nobility, landowners, usually with influence in local governments administration

  - also those educated with university education

  - not entirely united class - differences between nobles, clergy, and learned elites
• Masques


  - court masques were a form of festive entertainments

  - involved music, dancing, singing and had lavish costumes

  - popular with monarchs - Anne of Denmark, Henry VIII and Charles I

  - sometimes showed political messages - such as The Triumph of Peace in 1634 showing the spirits of Peace, Law and Justice were bestowed on the English monarch

  - Catherine de'Medici's court festivals often had political themes
• Plays


  - courts of James I and Elizabeth I plays were popular - such as the work of William Shakespeare - would regularly perform to king and courtiers
• Courtly festivals in Spain

  - banquets, jousts, theatrical interludes

  - often paid by the cities
• Courtly festivals in HRE

  - Emperor Maximilian I commissioned two works of art which created large amounts of influence on court festivals in the empire - the set of 192 woodcuts commissioned from Durer in 1515 which make up the Triumphal Arch and the series of 136 woodcuts by Burgkmair

  - Triumphal arches were erected during imperial entries

  - Firework displays were often used in court celebrations
• Reasons for the withdrawal of elite from popular culture

  - The Reformation and Counter-Reformation portrayed elements of popular culture ad dangerous to society - for example the Feast of Fools and the inversion of social hierachy threatened social order

  - Protestant reformers believed that the marking of saints' days were supercilious - both secular and religious withdrawal

  - The Enlightenment dispelled some elements of popular culture as pagan and superstitious

  - The refinement of behaviour - Ref and Count-Ref focus on morality and goodness - nobles withdrew physically into homes - dining alone in drawing rooms of dining rooms instead of great halls

  - liberty influence - books like Castiglione's 'The Book of the Courtier' emphasised necessity for good moral behaviour and expectations of nobles
• The clergy's withdrawal

  - withdrawal due to Reformation and Catholic Reformation - in 1500 majority of parish clergy were men of similar social and cultural levels to the parishioners

  - Godly reformers both Protestant and Catholic demanded a learned clergy

  - Protestant areas - university education

  - Catholic areas - after Council of Trent learnt in seminaries

  - new priests better educated and above parishioners
• Nobles

  - Burke believes Reformation less influencial compared to Renaissance

  - influenced by texts - became more conscious of moral behaviour

  - stopped wrestling with peasants and killing bulls in public

  - learned to speak and write refined

  - cultural divison to ordinary people
• Bourgeoisie


  - polished manner of nobles imitated by officials, lawyers and merchants - also withdrew from popular culture - abandoned local dialects and languages
• Learned Elite


  - adopted ideas of Scientific Revolution which caused divide as they rejected superstitions of the ordinary people - by late seventeenth century many if not all learned elite had stopped believing in witchcraft