Popular culture

• Johannes Gutenberg begins the printing press in Germany which is transformative. This is because its the first time a reliable and useful printing press was created


  1440s
• William Caxton begins printing in England 


  1476
• Publication of Lichtenberger's Prognostications - which is an early encyclopedia 


  1488
• Meeting of the council of Trent. This was due to the Catholic Church's panic over Protestantism. This created more separation between the people and clergymen as they became better educated


  1545-1563
• Burkes Popular Culture definition:


  beliefs, customs and practices belonging to the common people
• Elite Participation in popular culture:

  • 16th century Florence (Italy) during carnival --> Frairs played ball with each other, performed comedies, dressed in costume, sang danced and played instruments
  • 16th century - Norman Squire Sieur de Gouberville read Amadis de Gaule aloud to his peasants when it rained - trickledown of elite culture
  • Abingdon England, feast of fools. Dr Divinity Richard Corbett sand ballads at the market place
• Interaction between cultures:

  • swift - opinions and fashions trickled down from the people of quality to the middling sort then to the vulgar
  • Grimm - creativity came from the masses
  • evidence that small farmers aped the gentry in England when building their houses - copied their designs
  • elite poetry was set to music an then sung by the common people - Tasso in Venice
  • England mummers borrowed verses from more sophisticated drama
• Literacy:

  • Cracow (Poland) in 1565 more than 80% of poor nobles were illiterate
  • Late 17th Century - upland areas of France (Haute Alps)had a literacy rate of 45% which was 2x the national average
  • 18th Century - Lyons, France - 75% of silk weavers were litlerate
  • Women were less literate than men - 32% in Amsterdam and 14% in France
• Variatoins in rural way of life

  • England - peasants lived in villages
  • Italy - some peasants lived in towns
  • Norway - isolated homesteads
  • Beauvais - 17th Century - there were large variations in the peasen classes Labourer lived well while the journalier existed on the economic margins
  • culture might be equally statified - Scandinavia farmhands had their own songs -- as did maidservants
  • Highland and lowland: distinctive rural cultures with their own traditions in Scottish highlands, Basque country for example
• Women:

  • difficult to discern
  • general literacy lower than men
  • preachers - English Civil War and French Huguenots
• Variations in the urban way of life:

  • festivals on a much grander scale
  • popular entertainment permanently available - rather than limited to specific occasions
  • more religious and ethnic minorities -- Moors in southern Spain, Greeks in Venice, Muslims in Bosnia
  • Guilds - led leisure as well as working life for tradesmen -- religious plays e.g. Corpus Christ
  • Weavers had a more separate culture - had their own weaving songs
  • In Lyon 68% of shoemakers were literate - 18th Century
• Factors consolidating society into a uniform culture:

  • Pre-Reformation Christianity -- same festivals celebrated all over europe
  • Music - tunes travelled from all over Europe - lyrics often translated into different languages
  • Stories - stories of Sinbad from Arabia and Indian Folktales were circulating Europe before 1500
• How many nobles in Poland couldn't read or write


  80%
• Geographical cultures:

  • southern European culture was based on the outdoors - due to the warmer weather
  • northern European culture was based on the indoors - due to the colder weather
  • west was more economically advanced than the East -- as seen with the Netherlands when compared to Poland
• Gendered cultures:

  • Eve was seen as responsible for the fall - women therefore seen weaker than men
  • Southern Europe has stricter rules against women than northern Europe
  • petty treason if a woman went against their husband
  • socialised with others when they were washing clothes
  • spinning bees
• Middling culture:

  • neither elite nor common
  • merchants or professionals
  • doesn't fit with the ideas of Burke
• Urban Culture:

  • increasing population - London had 60 000 by 1500 -- in 1800 it had over one million
  • culture often took place in private -- such as reading books if literate
  • high levels of literacy and culture
  • migration into the areas --- came into contact with different cultures --- Germans in Venice
  • overcrowding -- caused outbreaks of diseases
  • Bankers and merchants --- Antwerp, Paris, London - The Netherlands as a whole
  • religions still key part of culture
• Rural Culture:

  • 90% still lived rural
  • seasonal traditions -- harvest festivals and All Hallows
  • spinning and laundry for women - more domesticated role
  • taverns - only for men
  • Peter Breugkel -- rural life in the netherlands
• Hardships:

  • can be seen as a common culture
  • death during child birth and childhood
  • epidemics
  • most dependent of harvests as meat was a luxury -- starvation
• Common Culture: Carnival

  • mocked the usual rules -- men dressing as women
  • southern + central europe
  • Jan + Feb
  • pleasures of the flesh - before Lent
  • mocking the church
• Significance of ritual:

  • most looked to the church for moral direction
  • St. Days pre-reformation -- days off in the years
  • all went to church on a Sunday -- no matter the power and or education
  • rights of passage -- Baptism etc
• Common Culture: pageants and festivals

  • May Day, Midsummer, Halloween, All Fools Day
  • village or town
  • rulers and or lords staged their own festivals - enormous festivals -- already segregation from the elite
  • processions - dressed up biblicaly and or mythically
  • often occasions for excess - especially before lent
  • guilds
• Common Culture: festival of misrule/ feast of fools

  • came from the Roman Period - Saturn festival
  • elected individual is in charge for the day - Bean King - bean found in a cake
  • mocked clergy
  • inversion of social norms
  • stopped after reformation
  • 1329 - Bishop of Exeter was alarmed by events
• Common Culture: opposition to festivals

  • 1517 - may day riots
  • criticised the norms
  • not religious actions - ruins morality
  • Sebastian Brant German Lawyer -- church festivals were the ruin of country people
  • 1520s - 30s -- festivals turned anti-catholic
• Public humiliation:

  • death
  • branding
  • garroting
  • dunking stools used for prostitutes
• Public Humiliation: punishment of women

  • rough music -- pots and pans bashed if an old man married a young woman or domineering women
  • in southern europe -- women paraded barefoot and with out head covering - which was usually worn
  • humiliating punishments used on prostitutions, abusing husbands or scolding husbands
• Moral Regression:

  • religious divisions
  • fear of an impending break down in England -- crisis of order
  • Peasants revolts in Germany in the early 16th century -- 1517
  • ungodly behavior grew
  • force behind response
• Catholic response to immorality:

  • 1545 - Council of Trent -- stopped festivals as it was getting to violent
  • recreational activities not allowed on church ground
  • clergymen became more educated -- seperate from the working people
• Protestant response to immorality:

  • saw saints as pagan Gods -- saint days removed
  • 1547 - England discouraged the festival of fools
  • banned popular activities -- oliver cromwell
• Magic in Society: astrology and prophecy

  • particularly important in attempting to read the will of providence and predict the future
  • 1488 (written) - Litchenbergers Prognostications -- stars and planets were demonic powers influencing the world of man for better and for worse
  • court astrologers who advised them on courses of actions
• Commonality: the Hermetica

  • collection of treatises on philosophy, astrology, magic + occult arts
  • writings attributed to Hermes Trimegistus - Egyptian Scholar who was thought to have lived during the time of Moses
  • booked offered suggestions on how to exploit the hidden divine powers of minerals, plants and planets
• Alchemy:

  • mainly believed by the ruling elites
  • Pracelsus was a Swiss Physcian and the most influential alchemists of the time
  • small doses of mercury could cure diseases
  • rooted in ancient texts but also innovative
  • first use of the scientific method
• Mental world of the educated elite:

  • Thomas and Marcfarlane -- emphasised the importance of popular beliefs of interpersonal tensions among the lower social status as the terrain from which witchcraft accusations were launched
  • witchcraft was still seen as an issue to Europes elite though
• Printing Pres: creation

  • new type of ink (waterproof)
  • cheaper way of production - movable metal type
  • wooden hand press
  • 1000 shops across Europe -- 1500
  • William Caxton popularised it in England
  • 400 titles published in the first decade
  • 21 000 titles by 1700s
  • school textbooks, stories, intellectual (libraries became status symbols)
• Case against a print revolution:

  • wider communications revolution - only impacted one area what about better roads and development of transport systems
  • workshops of medieval scribes made manuscripts - this method wasn't replaced straight away
  • literacy rates improved slowly - eastern + southern europe, women and rural areas - 1/3 of europe literate by 1700
  • oral and print culture still co-existed
  • strengthened authority
  • church used it to push an agenda
• Case for a print revolution:

  • reduced cost of printing - spread more ideas -- 10 000 editions by the end of every year by 1700
  • reformation spread through pamphlets
  • reading became essential for those in urban areas - higher paid jobs
  • literacy no longer for the clerical estate
  • effect on education