Daily Life in Elizabethan England (49 page)

See also
British History Online
under Reference Resources.

VISUAL RESOURCES

Using a general images search engine (such as Google Images) can be a quick way to locate visual sources about the Elizabethan era, but not every image available on the Web will be picked up by such a search.

Visiting online databases of museums and other collections such as those mentioned below can turn up valuable materials that the general search engines will miss. Some sites with powerful image search capacity include the following: www.npg.org.uk/live/collect.asp. The online collections of the National Portrait Gallery, London, which includes a very large number of important Elizabethan portraits.

www.bridgeman.co.uk. A commercial firm that brokers rights for the publication of images their Web site has a well developed apparatus for searching by place, period, and subject matter.

MUSEUMS AND OTHER COLLECTIONS

An increasing number of museums, libraries, and other institutions with Elizabethan-period artifacts among their holdings are putting parts of their collections online; the list below is only a sampling.

Museum of London
(www.museumoflondon.org.uk). Probably the world’s pre-miere museum collection in the domain covered by this book, with extensive holdings of artifacts from the daily life of Londoners across the centuries.

Parts of the collection are searchable online.

Higgins Armory Museum
(www.higgins.org). North America’s only specialized museum of armor, and also the center for a program of study of early European martial arts treatises. The entire collection is accessible online.

Weald and Downland Museum
(www.wealddown.co.uk). Includes an outstanding collection of surviving medieval buildings, accessible through a virtual tour.

Folger Shakespeare Library
(www.folger.edu). A major collection specializing in books, manuscripts, and other materials from Shakespeare’s period.

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SITES

Various sites reconstruct aspects of English Renaissance life in reconstructed or original settings. A few examples:
The Globe Theatre
(www.shakespeares-globe.org). A reconstruction of Shakespeare’s theater in the heart of modern London, near its original site.

Kentwell Hall
(www.kentwell.co.uk/ReCreations/Tudor). A manor estate of the 1500s that hosts multiple elaborate recreations of Tudor-period life during the course of a year.

Plimoth Plantation
(www.plimoth.org). Plimoth recreates the world of the Pilgrim settlers in Massachusetts in 1627 a bit after the Elizabethan period, and in a very different location, but Plimoth nonetheless offers one of the best modern evocations of the Elizabethan world.

SHAKESPEARE

As one of the best known and most studied figures in the history of the English-speaking world, William Shakespeare (1564–1616) has been a staple of Elizabethan studies for centuries, and Shakespeare-related Web sites can be a good point of access for further information on the Elizabethan world. A few examples are listed below: internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/intro/introsubj.html. A site with information on history, society, and other aspects of Shakespeare’s world.

shakespeare.palomar.edu/life.htm. A Shakespeare portal with a variety of links to sites on Shakespeare and his historical context.

search.eb.com/shakespeare. The Encyclopedia Britannica Guide to Shakespeare, with links to encyclopedia entries on various topics relating to Elizabethan England.

dewey.library.upenn.edu/SCETI/furness/index.cfm. The Furness Shakespeare Collection hosts digital versions of numerous texts from Renaissance England.

SUPPLIERS

One benefit of the Internet is the ease with which a person can now find highly specialized wares. Reproductions of Elizabethan artifacts are a case in point. There are a very large number of firms trading in such things; below are a few examples.

Syke’s Sutlery
(sykesutler.home.att.net). Carries a variety of clothes and accessories, somewhat leaning toward the 17th century.

Sarah Juniper
(www.sarahjuniper.co.uk). Outstanding-quality reproduction shoes and other leatherware.

Arms and Armour
(www.armor.com). Offers museum-quality reproductions of 16th-century weaponry.

Caliver Books
(www.caliverbooks.com). A rich source of books on the period, some of them privately published and harder to acquire through other channels.

Buying goods through the Web can be tricky; a good strategy is to consult beforehand with someone who has experience with the sellers. Living-A Guide to Digitally Accessible Resour
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Guide to Digitally Accessible Resources

253

history groups can be a great resource in this respect, and they are typically very generous with their time and knowledge.

AUDIOVISUAL SOURCES

Various educational films relating to the subject matter of this book have been produced over the years. An example is
The Elizabethans [Seven Ages
of Fashion Part 1]
(Films Media Group, 1992). This and other audiovisual media sources are available through Films for the Humanities (ffh.films.

com).

Quite a few recordings of Elizabethan music have been produced over the years. A few good examples: 1588. Music from the Time of the Spanish Armada. The York Waits (Saydisc).

In the Streets and Theatres of London. Elizabethan Ballads and Theatre Music. The Musicians of Swanne Alley (Virgin Classics).

“New Fashions.” Cries and Ballads of London. Circa 1500 and Redbyrd (CRD

Records).

Watkins Ale. Music of the English Renaissance. The Baltimore Consort (Dorian Recordings).

Some Elizabethan music is available on the Web: the page www.pbm.

com/~lindahl/music.html has links to a wide variety of early music resources, among them extensive MIDI files of Renaissance music, including songs and dances in this book (the page can be hard to navigate, but try a Web search on the keywords
Ravenscroft
and
MIDI
).

There are also a number of feature films that offer interpretations of the Elizabethan world. The television mini-series
Elizabeth R
(BBC, 1972) remains one of the best efforts to date in this direction, both for its fidelity to history and for capturing the drama of the real historical events.

The more recent
Elizabeth
(Polygram Filmed Entertainment, 1998) and
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
(Motion Picture ZETA Produktionsgesellschaft, 2007) are much less true to the history, though they have their inspired moments.
Shakespeare in Love
(Universal Pictures, 1999) is something of a fantasy on a Shakespearean theme but is informed by a real understanding of Shakespeare and his world. Not really historical, but an inspired piece of historical lunacy, is the television comedy series
Blackadder II
(Fox Video, 1989).

RESEARCH ORGANIZATIONS

There are a variety of specialist organizations involved in researching areas relating to the subjects in this book. Below are just a few examples:
Records of Early English Drama
(www.reed.utoronto.ca). A longstanding project at the University of Toronto for the study of English theater prior to 1642; the closely allied Poculi Ludique Societas stages performances of medieval and Renaissance plays.

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Higgins Armory Sword Guild
(www.higginssword.org). Studies, teaches, and demonstrates historical combat techniques at the Higgins Armory Museum.

LIVING-HISTORY GROUPS

There are a variety of groups in various parts of the globe involved in recreating aspects of Elizabethan life, and others specializing in a slightly earlier or later period (often either the age of Henry VIII or the English Civil War).

Trayn’d Bandes of London
(www.gardinerscompany.org). Recreates the civilian and military world of members of the London militia in the Elizabethan age.

The Tudor Group
(www.tudorgroup.co.uk). An organization that specializes in the recreation of late-16th-century England.

Classified

Bibliographies

SUGGESTED READING

There are quite a number of very good sources for information on Elizabethan daily life. Those that relate to particular topics covered in this book have been included in the footnotes, but a few general sources are worth particular mention.

Two very useful anthologies of articles on various aspects of life in this period are
Shakespeare’s England. An Account of the Life and Manners of His
Age
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1916), and
William Shakespeare: His World,
His Works, His Influence. Vol. 1: His World,
ed. John F. Andrews (New York: Scribner, 1985). For an overview of Elizabethan society, a particularly good introduction is D. M. Palliser’s
The Age of Elizabeth
(London and New York: Longman, 1992). A good introductory narrative of Elizabethan history is J. E. Neale,
Queen Elizabeth I
(London: Cape, 1954); a readable account of the Armada is Garret Mattingly’s
The Armada
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959).

Two vivid modern interpretations of daily life, although they deal with colonial life in the 1620s, are Kate Waters’s
Sarah Morton’s Day. A Day in
the Life of a Pilgrim Girl
(New York: Scholastic, 1989) and
Samuel Eaton’s
Day. A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Boy
(New York: Scholastic, 1993). Geared toward younger readers, they are nonetheless interesting and enjoyable at any level and richly illustrated with photographs taken at the Plimoth Plantation living-history site.

Many useful primary sources have been published in modern editions.

Probably the best single description of Elizabethan society and life by a
256 Classifi ed Bibliographies
contemporary is William Harrison’s
Description of England,
dating to 1587

(Ithaca, NY: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1968). An intimate glimpse into daily life is provided by contemporary dialogues from language-instruction manuals, edited in M. St. Clare Byrne,
The Elizabethan Home
(London: Cobden-Sanderson, 1930). For pursuit of specific topics in a wide variety of fields, including social structure, games, music, technology, agriculture, and many more, Randle Holme’s
Academy of Armory
is an indispensable source, even though it dates to the late-17th century. Most of the book was published in Holme’s lifetime and has been reprinted in facsimile (Menston: Scolar Press, 1972); a few remaining manuscript chapters were published centuries after Holme’s death (London: Roxburghe Club, 1905).

The plays of Ben Jonson, especially
Bartholomew Fair,
provide a literary image of the Elizabethan world. Although Jonson’s heyday was slightly after Elizabeth’s reign, his works offer a lively picture of people in this period as they imagined themselves.

GENERAL AND REFERENCE SOURCES

Andrews, John F., ed.
William Shakespeare: His World, His Works, His Influence. Vol.

1: His World.
New York: Scribner, 1985.

Dodd, A. H.
Life in Elizabethan England.
New York: Putnam, 1961.

Emmison, F. G.
Elizabethan Life: Home, Work and Land.
Chelmsford: Essex County Council, 1976.

Emmison, F. G.
Elizabethan Life: Morals and the Church Courts.
Chelmsford: Essex County Council, 1973.

Fritze, Ronald H.
Historical Dictionary of Tudor England, 1485–1603.
New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.

Garret, George. “Daily Life in City, Town, and Country.” In
William Shakespeare:
His World, His Works, His Influence. Vol. 1: His World,
ed. John F. Andrews, 215–32. New York: Scribner, 1985.

Glanville, Philippa.
Tudor London.
London: Museum of London, 1979.