Pleasures and Pastimes in Tudor England

180 Pages·2009·0.95 MB·English

by  Alison Sim

PLEASURES
& PASTIMES
IN TUDOR
ENGLAND
ALISON SIM
To Jane and Geoff, with love
First published in 1999
This edition first published in 2009
The History Press
The Mill, Brimscombe Port Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
This ebook edition first published in 2011
All rights reserved
© Alison Sim, 1999, 2002, 2009, 2011
The right of Alison Sim to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 7578 3
MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 7577 6
Original typesetting by The History Press Ebook compilation by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 The Perfect Setting
2 Clothing and Fashion
3 Tournaments and Pageantry
4 Religion and the Ritual Year
5 Christenings, Weddings and Funerals
6 Dancing and Music
7 Reading
8 The Theatre
9 Sports, Games and Other Pastimes
Notes
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the following people for providing specialist knowledge: Richard
Burnip, Chris Gidlow, Robert and Jane Hugget, Caroline Johnson, Martin Pope
and Roy Porter.
Thanks as usual to Margaret Peach for editing and making comments in her
own inimitable style.
Last but not least, thanks to Malcolm and Moira Lewin, and Janet and Keith
Waldock for chocolate, gin and sympathy.
Introduction
The sixteenth century in England was an age of change. The government became
more centralised and powerful, changing the way the bureaucracy worked and
the way the aristocracy behaved. The cultural changes of the Renaissance and
the politics of the time became entwined so that the Church, the bedrock of
medieval society, was weakened by the dissolution of the monasteries and by the
religious tensions which eventually split the Roman Catholic and Protestant
Churches. This in turn altered much that was so familiar to people of the time,
even down to the way that the passing of the seasons was celebrated. The
pleasures and pastimes of the English would never be the same again.
The centralisation of the state affected the way in which even the most
powerful people behaved. Success at court became more important than ever
before as the monarch became more powerful. The king was the man with the
best rewards to hand out, whether in terms of jobs, lands or financial rewards
like pensions. More than ever, careers were made or broken by royal favour or
displeasure. Even the greatest lords no longer had the power they had once
enjoyed. There was no ‘Warwick the Kingmaker’, who could literally decide the
fate of kings, in the sixteenth century as there had been in the fifteenth.
In the Middle Ages a king, or a great lord, needed above all things to be a
successful soldier. The force of law was not always maintained and you might
find yourself having to defend your lands from other people by force. Land was
the most secure form of wealth at the time, so there was always someone keen to
take your land away from you. The fifteenth-century letters of the Paston family
mention several disputes over the ownership of land, in particular one over the
ownership of Caister Castle and another over the ownership of the manor of
Gresham. Both properties changed hands by force several times during the
dispute.1
This sort of behaviour was not tolerated by the Tudors. Henry VII outlawed
all private armies except the royal bodyguard, so nobles no longer had the
resources to flaunt the law in this way. Henry VIII was also determined to be
absolutely in control of his realm. Disputes were to be settled in the law courts,
not by private individuals fighting it out with no reference to the royal will.
The land disputes did not stop. There was no land registry at this time so it
was often was a complicated business deciding who exactly owned what. The
difference was that disputes now took place in the courts. This meant that
landholders needed an education, in order to cope with the legal system. Most
heirs to estates would henceforth finish their education at the Inns of Court, the
legal schools. This meant more work for lawyers too, making the law a
profitable career.
Henry VIII’s determination to control his realm also meant a bigger
bureaucracy, resulting in more career opportunities in the Tudor equivalent of the
civil service. The changed atmosphere of the court also meant that if government
office did come your way, a good education was necessary to carry it out
effectively. Unlike his medieval predecessors, Henry VIII didn’t have to look to
the Church to provide educated administrators. There were plenty of secular men
with the necessary training. Cardinal Wolsey was the last of the great prelate-
administrators. All of these factors together meant that a good academic
education, and not just training in military skills, became necessary for the
successful Tudor.
This new emphasis on education meant that the pleasures of the aristocracy
were changing. The Renaissance had well and truly arrived in England by the
sixteenth century and with it had come the idea of the courtier as all round
‘Renaissance man’, as expressed in Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier.2 This was
first published in Italy in 1528 and, although it was not published in England
until 1561, the ideas expressed in it were already current in English court circles
before then.
Castiglione’s courtier is everything from a warrior to a diplomat. He knows
how to make elegant conversation on a wide range of topics, he has a knowledge
of drawing and appreciates painting and sculpture, and he is a skilled musician
who plays several instruments. He has an intimate knowledge of the classics, he
is a good sportsman; in fact, he can do everything. Castiglione’s courtier is, of
course, an ideal. How many Tudor courtiers lived up to this picture of perfection
is a matter of debate, but at least the ideal was there. The contrast with the
behaviour of the knights of the round table in Malory’s Morte d’Arthur (finished
in 1469 and first printed by Caxton in 1485) is startling. Malory’s knights spend
all their time feasting, getting involved in very bloody fights of one kind or
another, going to mass and dallying with their various ladies. They are heroes in
the medieval tradition. They would hardly have been welcomed at the refined