Elizabethan Era

1. Elizabethan Era

2. Elizabethan Religion and Beliefs • Elizabeth I was a Protestant and said she was the governor of the Church of England • Elizabeth started her own religion of Elizabethan Protestantism in the 1550’s • Many people were either neutral or pagans (not Christian) • Some people stayed with the beliefs their families had for generations • It was hard to establish the laws of the Church of England • Protestants believed in reading the Bible in English, preaching, and praying in undecorated churches • Catholics believed in the ceremonies of Christianity, and adorned the church in pictures and statues • The Queen before, Mary I, was Catholic

3. Education • There were two types of grammar schools • Public grammar schools, which were given money by a wealthy or noble patron to teach both rich and poor boys (not girls) • Private grammar schools, which charged the boys’ parents a fee for education • Education usually depended upon a person’s social group • Laborers were basically illiterate, but merchants were generally better educated

4. Elizabethan Daily Life • Elizabethans believed their Queen was God’s representative on Earth • English parliament passed laws on clothes people could wear (poor people couldn’t imitate rich clothes) • Children’s behavior was based on passages from the Bible • John Lyster wrote A Rule How to Bring Up Children in 1588, which explained the duty of parents to raise children properly and the children to obey • In 1529, a law stated that a person’s possessions must be listed in an inventory when they died • People of all social groups began to own more household goods • The plague killed many people in the 1550’s after it was carried from France and stopped in London • The royal court moved to Windsor • Poor sanitation • Limited medication • People who could afford doctors had to tolerate pain • Average life expectancy was 42 years old, but the wealthy lived longer

5. Work, Agriculture, and Industry • The economy of Elizabethan England was based on farming, which was affected by bad weather and poor harvests • The west and north concentrated on sheep, cattle, and horses • Industry was fairly limited • Leather goods were common and Elizabethans used many tools for building, farming, and domestic use • Few metal and coal mines in England • England had been at war with France in the late 1550’s • Poverty was made worse by illness and bad weather at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign

6. Crime and Punishment • Types of people: criminals and poor people (vagrants) • Pickpocketers, thieves, robbers, masterless men or vagrants • Vagrants lived along the countryside and were treated severely • Vagrants were whipped and branded or marked with hot irons to make sure they did not use the excuse again • If they committed a felony, they would be hanged • Punishments for less serious crimes would usually put the offender in the stocks or the pillory • They would shame the criminal by making it a public display

7. Culture and Entertainment • The poor enjoyed games such as gambling, bullbaiting and bearbaiting, and cockfighting for entertainment • The rich/wealthy enjoyed theater, art, and literature • Some famous poets were Sir Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, Thomas Lodge, and Shakespeare • Some playwrights and actors were William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Sam Jonson. They wrote and acted histories, tragedies, and comedies for the Globe Theater in London • Art and literature expressed the power of the Queen