Daily Life In Elizabethan England

Students, teachers, and interested readers will find in this resource a vivid and intimate account of life in the Elizabethan age. The first book on Elizabethan England to rise out of the living history movement, it combines a unique hands-on approach with the best of current research. Organized for easy reference, it is enlivened with how-to sections--recipes, clothing patterns, songs and games, all gathered from original sources. This hands-on approach recreates the daily life of ordinary people, not just the aristocracy, and systematically covers the most basic facts of life in a readily accessible format. Clearly illustrated with 94 drawings, patterns, and diagrams, it provides a treasure trove of information for classroom and library use and for those interested in recreating Elizabethan life. The work is organized into sections on the structure of Elizabethan society, the course of life (birth, childhood, education, marriage, old age, and death), the cycles of time (daily, weekly, and yearly schedules, including a calendar of the Elizabethan year), the living environment (houses, villages, towns, and travel), clothing (including instruction for making complete Elizabethan male and female outfits), food (featuring a selection of recipes), and entertainment (songs with sheet music and instruction for authentic games and dances). A chronology of Tudor England, a glossary, appendices with information and ideas on organizing Elizabethan feasts and fairs, and lists of suggested readings, videos, and recordings complete the work. This is an indispensable resource for classrooms and school and public libraries because it gives readers a true understanding of what it would be like to live in 16th-century England.

This book offers an experiential perspective on the lives of Elizabethans—how they worked, ate, and played—with hands-on examples that include authentic music, recipes, and games of the period. Daily Life in Elizabethan England: Second Edition offers a fresh look at Elizabethan life from the perspective of the people who actually lived it. With an abundance of updates based on the most current research, this second edition provides an engaging—and sometimes surprising—picture of what it was like to live during this distant time. Readers will learn, for example, that Elizabethans were diligent recyclers, composting kitchen waste and collecting old rags for papermaking. They will discover that Elizabethans averaged less than 2 inches shorter than their modern British counterparts, and, in a surprising echo of our own age, that many Elizabethan city dwellers relied on carryout meals—albeit because they lacked kitchen facilities. What further sets the book apart is its "hands-on" approach to the past with the inclusion of actual music, games, recipes, and clothing patterns based on primary sources.

The everyday realities and practical details of daily life in Elizabethan London, which most history books ignore - a Sunday Times bestseller. Like its acclaimed predecessors, RESTORATION LONDON and DR JOHNSON'S LONDON, this book is the result of the author's passionate interest in the practical details of everyday life - and the conditions in which most people lived - so often ignored in conventional history books. The book begins with the River Thames, which - from its surly water-men to its great occasions - played such a central part in the city's life. It moves on to the streets, houses and gardens; cooking, housework and shopping; clothes, jewellery and make-up; health and medicine; sex and food; education, etiquette and hobbies; religion, law and crime.

Voices of Shakespeare's England offers students and public library patrons over 50 primary documents that illuminate the character, personalities, and events of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Voices of Shakespeare's England: Contemporary Accounts of Elizabethan Daily Life helps readers explore the era that produced, among other things, the world's greatest playwright. It brings together excerpts from over 50 primary documents written in William Shakespeare's lifetime, including letters, literature, speeches and polemics, official reports, and descriptive narratives. Voices of Shakespeare's England includes the works of Shakespeare himself, as well as other poets and playwrights, but it also expands beyond the literary world to cover politics, religion, economics, social change, and the royal court. By allowing Shakespeare's contemporaries to speak in their own voices, it offers an illuminating look at the breadth of Elizabethan society, including major historic events in England as well as Scotland, Ireland, the European continent, and even the new world of America.

A collection of some of the best, wittiest and most unusual excerpts from 16th- and 17th-century writing. "Shakespeare's England" brings to life the variety, the energy and the harsh reality of England at this time. Providing a portrait of the age, it includes extracts from a wide variety of writers, taken from books, plays, poems, letters, diaries and pamphlets by and about Shakespeare's contemporaries. These include William Harrison and Fynes Moryson (providing descriptions of England), Nicholas Breton (on country life), Isabella Whitney and Thomas Dekker (on London life), Nashe (on struggling writers), Stubbes (with a Puritan view of Elizabethan enjoyments), Harsnet and Burton (on witches and spirits), John Donne (meditations on prayer and death), King James I (on tobacco) and Shakespeare himself.

'A fresh and funny book that wears its learning lightly' Independent Discover the era of William Shakespeare and Elizabeth I through the sharp, informative and hilarious eyes of Ian Mortimer. We think of Queen Elizabeth I's reign (1558-1603) as a golden age. But what was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? Would you really have a sense of it being a glorious age? And if so, how would that glory sit alongside the vagrants, diseases, violence, sexism and famine of the time? In this book Ian Mortimer reveals a country in which life expectancy is in the early thirties, people still starve to death and Catholics are persecuted for their faith. Yet it produces some of the finest writing in the English language, some of the most magnificent architecture, and sees Elizabeth's subjects settle in America and circumnavigate the globe. Welcome to a country that is, in all its contradictions, the very crucible of the modern world. 'Vivid trip back to the 16th century...highly entertaining book' Guardian

Students, teachers, and interested readers will find in this resource a vivid and intimate account of life in the Elizabethan age. The first book on Elizabethan England to rise out of the living history movement, it combines a unique hands-on approach with the best of current research. Organized for easy reference, it is enlivened with how-to sections--recipes, clothing patterns, songs and games, all gathered from original sources. This hands-on approach recreates the daily life of ordinary people, not just the aristocracy, and systematically covers the most basic facts of life in a readily accessible format. Clearly illustrated with 94 drawings, patterns, and diagrams, it provides a treasure trove of information for classroom and library use and for those interested in recreating Elizabethan life. The work is organized into sections on the structure of Elizabethan society, the course of life (birth, childhood, education, marriage, old age, and death), the cycles of time (daily, weekly, and yearly schedules, including a calendar of the Elizabethan year), the living environment (houses, villages, towns, and travel), clothing (including instruction for making complete Elizabethan male and female outfits), food (featuring a selection of recipes), and entertainment (songs with sheet music and instruction for authentic games and dances). A chronology of Tudor England, a glossary, appendices with information and ideas on organizing Elizabethan feasts and fairs, and lists of suggested readings, videos, and recordings complete the work. This is an indispensable resource for classrooms and school and public libraries because it gives readers a true understanding of what it would be like to live in 16th-century England.