forms of English literature were now available in print. Many ladies
read aloud to each other in reading circles and to their households.
Some wrote poetry and did translations. Correctness of spelling was
beginning to be developed. Printers tended to standardize it. There was
much reading of romances, jest books, histories, plays, prayer
collections, and encyclopedias, as well as the Bible. In schools and
gentry households, favorite reading was Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queen"
about moral virtues and the faults and errors which beset them; Erasmus'
New Testament, "Paraphrases", "Colloquies", and "Adages"; Sir Thomas
North's edition of Plutarch's "Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans";
Elyot's "The Book Named the Governor"; and Hoby's translation of "The
Courtier". Gentlemen read books on the ideals of gentlemanly conduct,
such as "Institucion of a Gentleman" (1555), and Laurence Humphrey's
"The Nobles: or of Nobilites". Francis Bacon's "Essays or Counsels Civil
and Moral" were popular for their wisdom. In them he commented on many
subjects from marriage to atheism. He cautioned against unworthy
authority, mass opinion, custom, and ostentation of apparent wisdom. He
urged the use of words with their correct meaning.
At a more popular level were Caxton's "The Golden Legend", Baldwin's
"Mirror for Magistrates", Foxe's "Book of Martyrs" about English
Protestant who suffered at the stake, sensational stories and pamphlets,
printed sermons (including those of Switzerland's Calvin), chronicles,
travel books, almanacs, herbals, and medical works. English fiction
began and was read. There were some books for children. Books were
copyrighted, although non-gentlemen writers needed a patron. At the
lowest level of literacy were ballads. Next to sermons, the printing
press was kept busiest with rhymed ballads about current events. Printed
broadsheets on political issues could be distributed quickly. In London,
news was brought to the Governor of the News Staple, who classified it
as authentic, apocryphal, barber's news, tailor's news, etc. and stamped
it. Books were also censored for matter against the state church. This
was carried out through the Stationers' Company. This company was now,
by charter, the official authority over the entire book trade, with
almost sole rights of printing. (Schools had rights of printing). It
could burn other books and imprison their printers.
Italian business techniques were set forth in textbooks for merchants,
using Italian terms of business: debit (debito), credit (credito),
inventory (inventorio), journal (giornal), and cash (cassa). The
arithmetic of accounting operations, including multiplication, was
described in "An Introduction for to Lerne to Reckonwith the Penne or
Counters" in 1537. Accounting advice was extended to farmers as well as
merchants in the 1569 "The Pathway to Perfectness in the Accomptes of
Debitor and Creditor" by James Peele, a salter of London. It repeated
the age-old maxim: ...receive before you write, and write before you
pay, So shall no part of your accompt in any wise decay. The 1589
"Marchants Avizo" by Johne Browne, merchant of Bristol, gave information
on foreign currencies and keeping of accounts, and included specimens of
various business documents such as insurance policies, and bills of
exchange. It also advised: Take heed of using a false balance or
measure...covet not over familiarity amongst men it maketh thee spend
much loss of time. Be not hasty in giving credit to every man, but take
heed to a man that is full of words, that hath red eyes, that goeth much
to law, and that is suspected to live unchaste ... When thou promiseth
anything be not stuck to perform it, for he that giveth quickly giveth
double ... Fear God...know thy Prince...love thy parents ...give
reverence to thy betters ...be courteous and lowly to all men... be not
wise in thine own conceit. The old prohibitions of the now declining
canon law were still observed. That is, one should not seek wealth for
its own sake or beyond what was requisite for a livelihood in one's
station, exploit a customer's difficulties to extract an extravagant
price, charge excessive interest, or engross to "corner the market".
The printing press had made possible the methodizing of knowledge and
its dissemination to a lay public. Knowledge associated with the various
professions, occupations, and trades was no longer secret or guarded as
a mystery, to be passed on only to a chosen few. The sharing of
knowledge was to benefit the community at large. Reading became an
out-of-school activity, for instruction as well as for pleasure.
In 1565, graphite was discovered in England, and gave rise to the
pencil. Surveying accuracy was improved with the new theodolite, which
determined directions and measured angles and used a telescope that
pivoted horizontally and vertically. Scientists had the use of an air
thermometer, in which a column of air in a glass tube sitting in a dish
of water contracted or expanded with changes in the temperature, causing
the water to move up or down the tube.
William Shakespeare, a glovemaker's son, wrote plays about historical
events and plays which portrayed various human personalities and their
interactions with each other. They were enjoyed by all classes of
people. His histories were especially popular. The Queen and various
earls each employed players and actors, who went on tour as a troupe and
performed on a round open-air stage, with people standing around to
watch. In London, theaters such as the Globe were built specifically for
the performance of plays, which before had been performed at inns. The
audience applauded and hissed. There were costumes, but no sets.
Ordinary admission was 2d. Before being performed, a play had to be
licensed by the Master of the Revels to make sure that there was nothing
detrimental to the peace and public order. Elizabeth issued a
proclamation forbidding unlicensed interludes or plays, especially
concerning religion or government policy on pain of imprisonment for at
least fourteen days. The common people still went to morality plays, but
also to plays in which historical personages were portrayed, such as
Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V. Some plays were on contemporary
issues. Musicians played together as orchestras. Music with singing was
a popular pastime after supper; everyone was expected to participate.
Dancing was popular with all classes. Gentlemen played cards, dice,
chess, billiards, and tennis. They fenced and had games on horseback.
Their deer-hunting diminished as forests were cut down for agriculture
and the deer were viewed as an enemy eating crops. Falconry diminished
as hedges and enclosures displaced the broad expanses of land.
Country people enjoyed music, dancing, pantomime shows with masks,
hurling, running, swimming, leap frog, blind man's buff, shovelboard
played with the hands, and football between villages with the goal to
get the ball into one's own village. Football and shin-kicking matches
often resulted in injuries. They bought ballads from traveling peddlers.
Early morning dew gathered in May and early June was thought to have
special curative powers. There were many tales involving fairies,
witches, devils, ghosts, evil spirits, angels, and monsters which were
enjoyed by adults as well as children. Many people still believed in
charms, curses, divination, omens, fate, and advice from astrologers.
The ghosts of the earth walked the earth, usually because of some foul
play to be disclosed, wrong to be set right, to warn those dear to them
of peril, or to watch over hidden treasure. Good witches cured and
healed. Fairies blessed homes, rewarded minor virtues, and punished mild
wrongdoing. When fairies were unhappy, the weather was bad. There were
parties for children.
The merry guild feast was no longer a feature of village life. There
were fewer holydays and festivals. The most prosperous period of the
laborer was closing. An agricultural laborer's yearly wage was about
154s., but his cost of living, which now included house rent, was about
160s. a year. In 1533, daily wages in the summer for an agricultural
laborer were about 4d. and for an artisan 6d. In 1563 in the county of
Rutland, daily wages for laborers were 7d. in summer and 6d. in winter;
and for artisans were 9d. in summer and 8d. in winter. Unemployment was
widespread.
There were endowed hospitals in London for the sick and infirm. There
were others for orphans, for derelict children, and for the destitute.
They worked at jobs in the hospital according to their abilities. There
was also a house of correction for discipline of the idle and vicious by
productive work. Elizabeth continued the practice of touching people to
cure scrofula, although she could not bring herself to fully believe in
the reality of such cures, contrary to her chaplain and her physician.
In the towns, shop shutters were let down to form a counter at the
front of the shop. Goods were made and/or stored inside the shop. Towns
held a market once a week. Fairs occurred once or twice a year. At given
times in the towns, everyone was to throw buckets of water onto the
street to cleanse it. During epidemics in towns, there was quarantine of
those affected to stay in their houses unless going out on business.
Their houses were marked and they had to carry a white rod when outside.
The quarantine of a person lasted for forty days. The straw in his house
was burned and his clothes treated. People who died had to be buried
under six feet of ground. There was an outbreak of plague in London
roughly every ten years.
There was a pity for the distressed that resulted in towns voting money
for a people of a village that had burned down or been decimated by the
plague.
Communities were taxed for the upkeep and relief of the prisoners in
the gaols in their communities.
Queen Elizabeth was puzzling over the proper relationship between the
crown and the church when Richard Hooker, a humble scholar, theologian,
and clergyman, attempted to find a justification in reason for the
establishment of the Church of England as an official part of the
governing apparatus of the nation. His thinking was a turning point from
the medieval notion that God ordered society, including the designation
of its monarch and its natural laws, and the belief in a divine
structure with a great chain of being, beginning with God and working
down through the hierarchy of angels and saints to men, beasts, and
vegetables, which structure fostered order in society. Hooker restated
the concept of Aristotle that the purpose of society is to enable men to
live well. He wrote that although the monarch was head of state and head
of religion, the highest authority in civil affairs was Parliament, and
in religion, the Convocation. The monarch had to maintain divine law,
but could not make it. From this later came the idea that the state
derives its authority from the will of the people and the consent of the
governed.
Protestant women had more freedom in marriage and were allowed to
participate in more church activities compared to Catholic women, but
they were not generally allowed to become pastors. Due to sensitivities
on the part of both Catholics and Protestants about a female being the
head of the church, Elizabeth was given the title of "Supreme Governor"
of the church instead of "Supreme Head". Elizabeth was not doctrinaire
in religious matters, but pragmatic. She always looked for ways to
accommodate all views on what religious aspects to adopt or decline.
Images, relics, pilgrimages, and rosaries were discouraged. But the
Catholic practice of kneeling at prayer, and bowing and doffing caps at
the name of Jesus were retained. Also retained was the place of the
altar or communion table at the east end of churches, special communion
wafers instead of common bread, and elaborate clergy vestments. The
communion prayer contained words expressing both the Catholic view that
the wafer and wine contained the real presence of the body and blood of
Christ, and the Protestant view that they were commemorative only.
Communion was celebrated only at Easter and other great festivals.
Church services included a sermon and were in accordance with a reformed
prayer book and in English, as was the Bible. Care was even taken not to
use words that would offend the Scots, Lutherans, Calvinists, or
Huguenots. People could hold what religious beliefs they would, even
atheism, as long as they maintained an outward conformity. Attendance at
state church services on Sunday mornings and evenings and Holydays was
enforced by a fine of 12d. imposed by the church wardens. Babies were to
be baptized before they were one month old or the parents would be
punished.
The new religion had to be protected. Members of the House of Commons,
lawyers, schoolmasters were to take the oath of supremacy or be
imprisoned and make a forfeiture; a second refusal brought death. When
numerous Anabaptists came from the continent to live in the port towns,
the Queen issued a proclamation ordering them to leave the realm because
their pernicious opinions could corrupt the church. The new church still
accepted the theory of the devil causing storms, but opposed ringing the
holy church bells to attempt to drive him away. The sins of people were
also thought to cause storms, and also plagues.
In 1562, the Church of England wrote down its Christian Protestant
beliefs in thirty-nine Articles of Religion, which specifically excluded
certain Catholic beliefs. They were incorporated into statute in 1571
establishing them as the tenets of the official religion of England. The
first eighteen endorsed the ideas of one God, Christ as the son of God
who was sacrificed for all the sins of men, the resurrection of Christ
from the dead and ascension into heaven, the Holy Ghost proceeding from
the father and the son, the books of the Bible, the original sin of Adam
and his offspring, justification of man by faith in Christ rather than
by good works, goods works as the inspired fruit and proof of faith in
Christ, Christ in the flesh as like man except for the absence of sin,
the chance for sinners who have been Baptised to be forgiven if they
truly repent and amend their lives, the predestination of some to be
brought by Christ to eternal salvation and their minds to be drawn up to
high and heavenly things, and salvation only by the name of Christ and
not by a sect. Other tenets described the proper functions of the
church, distinguishing them from Roman Catholic practice. Specifically,
the church was not to expound one place of scripture so that it was
inconsistent with another place of scripture. Because man can err, the
church was not to ordain or enforce anything to be believed for
necessity of salvation. Explicitly renounced were the Romish doctrine
concerning purgatory, pardons, worshipping, adoration of images or
relics, invocation of saints, and the use in church of any language,
such as Latin, not understood by the people. Only the sacraments of
Baptism and the Lord's Supper were recognized. The Lord's Supper was to
be a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves and
a sacrament of redemption by Christ's death. The wine in the cup of
blessing as well as the bread of the Lord's Supper was to be taken by
lay- people and to be a partaking of Christ; there was no Romish mass.
Excommunication was limited to those who openly denounced the church.
Anyone openly breaking the traditions or ceremonies of the church which
were approved by common authority were to be rebuked. Elizabeth told the
bishops that she wished certain homilies to be read in church, which
encouraged good works such as fasting, prayer, alms-giving, Christian
behavior, repentance, and which discouraged idolatry, gluttony,
drunkenness, excess of apparel, idleness, rebellion, and wife-beating,
however provoked. She considered homilies more instructive and learned
than ministers' sermons, which were often influenced by various
gentlemen and were inconsistent with each other. Consecration of bishops
and ministers was regulated. They were allowed to marry. The standard
prayer was designated thus: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be
Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in
heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our offenses as
we forgive those who have offended against us. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, the
power, and the glory forever and ever, amen."
There was difficulty persuading educated and moral men to be church
ministers, even though Elizabeth expressed to the bishops her preference
for ministers who were honest and wise instead of learned in religious
matters. The Bible was read at home and familiar to everyone. This led
to the growth of the Puritan movement. The Puritans believed in the
right of the individual Christian to interpret the Scriptures for
himself by spiritual illumination. They opposed the mystical
interpretation of the Communion service. The Puritans complained that
the church exerted insufficient control over the morals of the
congregation. Their ideas of morality were very strict and even plays
were thought to be immoral. The Independent Puritans were those
Protestants who had fled from Mary's Catholic reign to the continent,
where they were persuaded to the ideas of John Calvin of Geneva. He
stressed the old idea of predestination in the salvation of souls, which
had in the past been accepted by nearly all English Christian leaders,
thinkers, and teachers, but not stressed. The act of conversion was a
common experience among the early Puritans. The concomitant hatred of
past sins and love of God which was felt in thankfulness for mercy were
proof of selection for salvation. The good works that followed were
merely an obligation showing that one's faith was real, but not a way to
salvation.
The puritans also accepted Calvin's idea of independent church
government. They therefore thought that ministers and lay elders of each
parish should regulate religious affairs and that the bishops, who were
"petty popes", should be reduced to an equality with the rest of the
clergy, since they did not rule by divine right. The office of
archbishop should be eliminated and the head of state should not
necessarily be governor of the church. These ideas were widely
disseminated in books and pamphlets. The puritans disrupted the
established church's Sunday services, tearing the surplice off the
minister's back and the wafers and wine from the altar rail. The
puritans arranged "lectures" on Sunday afternoons and on weekdays. These
were given gratuitously or funded by boroughs. They were strict about
not working on the Sabbath, which day they gave to spiritual exercises,
meditations, and works of mercy. The only work allowed was preparing
meals for themselves, caring for their animals, and milking the cows.
They enforced a strict moral discipline on themselves. The puritans
formed a party in the House of Commons.
The puritan movement included William Brewster, an assistant to a court
official who was disciplined for delivering, upon pressure from the
council, the Queen's signed execution order for Mary of Scotland after
the Queen had told him to hold it until she directed otherwise. After
exhausting every other alternative, the Queen had reluctantly agreed
with her Privy Council on the execution in 1572 of Mary, Queen of Scots,
who had been involved in a plot to assassinate her and claim the throne
of England. Elizabeth's Council had persuaded her that it was
impossible for her to live in safety otherwise.
The debased coinage was replaced by a recoinage of newly minted coins
with a true silver weight.
Goldsmiths, who also worked silver, often acted as guardians of
clients' wealth. They began to borrow at interest at one rate in order
to lend out to traders at a higher rate. This began banking.
Patents were begun to encourage the new merchant lords to develop local
manufactures or to expand import and export trade. Patents were for a
new manufacture or an improved older one and determined the wages of its
trades. There was chartering of merchant companies and granting of
exclusive rights to new industries as monopolies. Some monopolies or
licenses were patents or copyrights of inventors. Others established
trading companies for trade to certain foreign lands and supporting
consular services. People holding monopolies were accountable to the
government. There were monopolies on certain smoked fish, fish oil, seal
oil, oil of blubber, vinegar, salt, currants, aniseed, juniper berry
liquor, bottles, glasses, brushes, pots, bags, cloth, starch, steel,
tin, iron, cards, horn, ox shinbones, ashes, leather pieces, earth coal,
calamite stone, powder, saltpeter, and lead manufacturing by-products.
For far-flung enterprises and those where special arrangements with
foreign countries was required, there was sharing of stock of companies,
usually by merchants of the same type of goods. In joint-stock companies
each member took a certain number of shares and all the selling of the
goods of each merchant was carried on by the officials of the company.
The device of joint stock might take the form of a fully incorporated
body or of a less formal and unincorporated syndicate. The greatest
joint-stock company was East India Company, chartered in 1600 to trade
there in competition with the Dutch East India Company. It was given a
fifteen year monopoly on trade east of the southern tip of Africa.
Unlike the Muscovy Company, and Merchants of the Staple, individual
members could not trade on their own account, but only through the
corporate body on its voyages. Each particular voyage was regulated and
assisted by the Crown and Privy Council, for instance when further
subscriptions were needed, or when carpenters were needed to be pressed
into service for fitting out ships, or to deal with an unsuccessful
captain. Its charter retained many of the aspects of the medieval trade
guild: power to purchase lands, to sue and be sued, to make by-laws, and
to punish offenders by fine or imprisonment. Admission was by purchase
of a share in a voyage, redemption, presentation, patrimony (adult sons
of members), and apprenticeship. Purchase of a share in a voyage was the
most common method. A share for the first ship cost one hundred pounds.
Cash payments for less than the price of a share could be invested for
ultimate redemption. Occasionally presentation or a faculty "for the
making of a freeman" was granted to some nobleman or powerful member.
Members' liability was limited to their individual subscriptions. Each
voyage had 1) a Royal Commission authorizing the Company to undertake
the expedition and vesting in its commanders powers for punishing
offenses during the voyage, and quenching any mutiny, quarrels, or
dissension that might arise; 2) a code of instructions from the Company
to the Admiral and to commanders of ships setting forth in great detail
the scope and objects of the voyage together with minute regulations for
its conduct and trade; 3) authorization for coinage of money or export
of specie (gold or silver); and 4) letters missive from the sovereign to
foreign rulers at whose ports the ships were to trade. The first voyage
brought back spices that were sold at auction in London for ten times
their price in the Indies and brought to shareholders a profit
equivalent to 9 1/2% yearly for the ten years when the going interest
rate was 8% a year.
Town government was often controlled by a few merchant wholesalers. The
entire trade of a town might be controlled by its drapers or by a
company of the Merchant Adventurers of London. The charter of the latter
as of 1564 allowed a common seal, perpetual existence, liberty to
purchase lands, and liberty to exercise their government in any part of
the nation. It was controlled by a group of rich Londoners, no more than
50, who owned the bulk of the cloth exported. There were policies of
insurance given by groups of people for losses of ships and their goods.
Marine insurance was regulated.
New companies were incorporated for many trades. They were associations
of employers rather than the old guilds which were associations of
actual workers. The ostensible reason was the supervision of the quality
of the wares produced in that trade, though shoemakers, haberdashers,
saddlers, and curriers exercised close supervision over these
wares.Companies paid heavily for their patents or charters.