Elizabethan England

• The historical context of Christopher Marlowe's works is the Elizabethan era in England, which was a time of cultural and artistic flourishing under the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
• In 1570, Queen Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V for Heresy, intensifying the religious conflict between Catholics & Protestants
• Elizabeth's reign saw the establishment of Protestantism as the state religion, so Marlowe satirises Catholicism and the Pope
• In Elizabethan England, there was a hierarchy called the Great Chain of Being which Faustus tries to fragment the social structure