established the Royal Exchange as a place for merchants and
brokers to meet for business purposes. It became the center of
London's business life. Its great bell rang at midday and at 6
p.m. Its courtyard was lined with shops that rented at 50s. yearly
and became a popular social and recreational area. Gresham
formulated his law that when two kinds of money of equal
denomination but unequal intrinsic value are in circulation at the
same time, the one of greater value will tend to be hoarded or
exported, i.e. bad money will drive good money out of circulation.
The work-saving knitting frame was invented in 1589 by minister
William Lee; it knit crosswise loops using one continuous yarn and
was operated by hand. The stocking knitters, who knitted by hand,
put up a bitter struggle against its use and chased Lee out of the
country. But it did come into use. Some framework stocking
knitters paid frame rent for the use of their knitting frames.
Frame knitting became a scattered industry.
By 1600 basement services were frequently found in town houses
built on restricted sites in London. Lastly, provision of water
supplies and improved sanitary arrangements reflected concern with
private and public health. There was virtually no drainage. In the
case of town houses, some owners would go to considerable effort
to solve drainage problems, often paying cash to the civic
authorities, but sometimes performing some service for the town at
Court or at Westminster, in return for unlimited water or some
drainage. Most affluent households, including the Queen's moved
from house to house, so their cesspits could be cleaned out and
the vacated buildings aired after use. A few cesspits were made
air tight. Otherwise, there was extensive burning of incense.
Refuse was emptied out of front doors and shoveled into heaps on
street corners. It was then dumped into the Thames or along the
highways leading out of town. People put on perfume to avoid the
stench. By 1600, the first toilet and water closet, where water
flushed away the waste, was built. This provided a clean toilet
area all year round. But these toilets were not much used because
of sewer smells coming from them. The sky above London was
darkened somewhat by the burning of coal in houses.
Taverns served meals as well as ale. They were popular meeting
places for both men and women of all backgrounds to met their
friends. Men went to taverns for camaraderie and to conduct
business. Women usually went to taverns with each other. Two
taverns in particular were popular with the intelligentsia. Music
was usually played in the background and games were sometimes
played. Beer made with hops and malt was introduced and soon there
were beer drinking contests. Drunkenness became a problem.
At night, the gates of the city were closed and citizens were
expected to hang out lanterns. The constable and his watchmen
carried lanterns and patrolled the streets asking anyone they saw
why they were out so late at night. Crime was rampant in the
streets and criminals were executed near to the crime scene.
There were a few horse-drawn coaches with leather flaps or
curtains in the unglazed windows to keep out the weather. The main
thoroughfare in London was still the Thames River. Nobles, peers,
and dignitaries living on the Thames had their own boats and
landings. Also at the banks, merchants of all nations had landing
places where ships unloaded, warehouses, and cellars for goods and
merchandise. Swans swam in the clear bright water. Watermen rowed
people across the Thames for a fee. In Southwark were theaters,
outlaws, cutpurses, prostitutes, and prisons. In 1550 Southwark
became the 26th and last ward of the city. In the summer, people
ate supper outside in public.
As of old times, brokers approved by the Mayor and aldermen made
contracts with merchants concerning their wares. Some contracts
included holding wares as security. Some craftsmen and manual
workers extended this idea to used garments and household
articles, which they took as pawns, or security for money loaned.
This began pawn brokerage, which was lucrative. The problem was
that many of the items pawned had been stolen.
Elizabeth had good judgment in selecting her ministers and
advisors for her Privy Council, which was organized like Henry
VIII's Privy Council. The Queen's Privy Council of about twelve
ministers handled foreign affairs, drafted official communiques,
issued proclamations, supervised the county offices: the 1500
justices of the peace, chief constables, sheriffs, lord
lieutenants, and the county militias. It fixed wages and prices in
London, advised Justices of the Peace on wages elsewhere, and
controlled exports of grain to keep prices down and supplies
ample. It banned the eating of meat two days a week so that the
fishing industry and port towns would prosper. When grain was
scarce in 1596, Elizabeth made a proclamation against those
ingrossers, forestallers, and ingraters of grain who increased its
price by spreading false rumors that it was scarce because much of
it was being exported, which was forbidden. There were labor
strikes in some towns for higher wages after periods of inflation.
In 1591, London authorities rounded up the sturdy vagabonds and
set them to work cleaning out the city ditches for 4d. per day.
Elizabeth did not allow any gentleman to live in London purely for
pleasure, but sent those not employed by the Court back to their
country manors to take care of and feed the poor of their
parishes. Her proclamation stated that "sundry persons of ability
that had intended to save their charges by living privately in
London or towns corporate, thereby leaving their hospitality and
the relief of their poor neighbors, are charged not to break up
their households; and all others that have of late time broken up
their households to return to their houses again without delay."
She never issued a license for more than 100 retainers. She was
partially successful in stopping justices of the peace and
sheriffs from wearing the liveries of great men. She continued the
policy of Henry VII to replace the rule of force by the rule of
law. Service of the crown and influence at court became a better
route to power and fortune than individual factions based on local
power structures. At the lowest level, bribery became more
effective than bullying. The qualities of the courtier, such as
wit, and the lawyer became more fashionable than the qualities of
the soldier.
Most of the men in Elizabeth's court had attended a university,
such as Francis Bacon, son of the Lord Keeper, who became a
writer, attorney, member of the Commons, and experimental
philosopher, and Walter Ralegh, the writer and sea fighter, who
had a humble origin. Many wives and daughters of Privy Councilors
attended the Queen in her privy chamber. Most of the knights or
gentlemen of the royal household were also members of Parliament
or Justices of the Peace for certain districts in the counties.
Instead of the office of Chancellor, which was the highest legal
office, Elizabeth appointed a man of common birth to be Lord
Keeper of the Great Seal; she never made a Lord Keeper a peer.
Elizabeth encouraged her lords to frankly make known their views
to her, in public or in private, before she decided on a course of
action. She had affectionate nicknames for her closest courtiers,
and liked to make puns. The rooms of the Queen were arranged as
they had been under Henry VIII: the great hall was the main dining
room where the servants ate and which Elizabeth attended on high
days and holidays; the great chamber was the main reception room,
where her gentlemen and yeomen of the guard waited; the presence
chamber was where she received important visitors; beyond lay her
privy chamber and her bedchamber. She ate her meals in the privy
chamber attended only by her ladies. She believed that a light
supper was conducive to good health. The Lord Chamberlain attended
the Queen's person and managed her privy chamber and her well-born
grooms and yeomen and ladies-in-waiting. The Lord Steward managed
the domestic servants below the stairs, from the Lord Treasurer to
the cooks and grooms of the stable. The court did not travel as
much as in the past, but became associated with London. Elizabeth
took her entire court on summer visits to the country houses of
leading nobility and gentry. Courtiers adopted symbolic "devices"
as statements of their reaction to life or events, e.g. a cupid
firing arrows at a unicorn signified chastity under attack by
sexual desire. They carried them enameled on jewels, had them
painted in the background of their portraits, and sometimes had
them expressed on furniture, plate, buildings, or food.
The authority of the Queen was the authority of the state.
Elizabeth's experience led her to believe that it was most
important for a monarch to have justice, temperance, magnanimity,
and judgment. She claimed that she never set one person before
another, but upon just cause, and had never preferred anyone to
office for the preferrer's sake, but only when she believed the
person worthy and fit for the office. She never blamed those who
did their best and never discharged anyone form office except for
cause. Further, she had never been partial or prejudiced nor had
listened to any person contrary to law to pervert her verdicts.
She never credited a tale that was first told to her and never
corrupted her judgment with a censure before she had heard the
cause. She did not think that the glory of the title of monarch
made all she did lawful. To her, clemency was as eminent in
supreme authority as justice and severity.
Secular education and especially the profession of law was now the
route for an able but poor person to rise to power, rather than as
formerly through military service or through the church.
The first stage of education was primary education, which was
devoted to learning to read and write in English. This was carried
out at endowed schools or at home by one's mother or a tutor. The
children of the gentry were usually taught in their homes by
private teachers of small classes. Many of the poor became
literate enough to read the Bible and to write letters. However,
most agricultural workers and laborers remained illiterate. They
signed with an "x", which represented the Christian cross and
signified its solemnity. Children of the poor were expected to
work from the age of 6 or 7.
The next stage of education was grammar [secondary] school or a
private tutor. A student was taught rhetoric (e.g. poetry,
history, precepts of rhetoric, and classical oratory), some logic,
and Latin and Greek grammar. English grammar was learned through
Latin grammar and English style through translation from Latin. As
a result, they wrote English in a Latin style. Literary criticism
was learned through rhetoric. There were disputations on
philosophical questions such as how many angels could sit on a
pin's point, and at some schools, orations. The students sat in
groups around the hall for their lessons. The boys and some girls
were also taught hawking, hunting and archery. There were no
playgrounds. The grammar student and the undergraduate were tested
for proficiency by written themes and oral disputations, both in
Latin. The middle classes from the squire to the petty tradesman
were brought into contact with the works of the best Greek and
Roman writers. The best schools and many others had the students
read Cicero, the "De Officiis", the epistles and orations, and
some of Ovid, Terence, Sallust, Virgil, some medieval Latin works,
the "Distichs" of Cato, and sometimes Erasmus and Sir Thomas More.
The students also had to repeat prayers, recite the Lord's Prayer
and the Ten Commandments, and to memorize catechisms. Because the
students came from the various social classes such as gentlemen,
parsons, yeomen, mercers, and masons, they learned to be on
friendly and natural terms with other classes. A typical school-day
lasted from 7:00 am to 5:00 PM. There were so many grammar schools
founded and financed by merchants and guilds such as the Mercers
and Fishmongers that every incorporated town had at least one.
Grammar schools were headed by schoolmasters, who were licensed by
the bishop and paid by the town. Flogging with a birch rod was
used for discipline.
Many grammar schools had preparatory classes called "petties" for
boys and girls who could not read and write to learn to do so. The
girls did not usually stay beyond the age of nine. This was done
by a schoolmaster's assistant, a parish clerk, or some older boys.
However, the grammar schools did not become the breeding grounds
for humanist ideas because the sovereigns were faced with
religious atomism and political unrest, so used the grammar
schools to maintain public order and achieve political and
religious conformity.
Some founders of grammar schools linked their schools with
particular colleges in the universities following the example of
Winchester being associated with New College, Oxford, and Eton
with King's College, Cambridge. The new charter of Westminster
(1560) associated the school with Christ Church, Oxford and
Trinity College, Cambridge.
The government of Oxford University, which had been Catholic, was
taken from the resident teachers and put into the hands of the
Vice-Chancellor, Doctors, Heads of Colleges, and Proctors.
Cambridge already had a strong reformed element from Erasmus'
influence. Oxford University and Cambridge University were
incorporated to have a perpetual existence for the virtuous
education of youth and maintenance of good literature. The
Chancellors, masters, and scholars had a common seal. Oxford was
authorized to and did acquire its own printing press.
Undergraduate students entered about age 16 and resided in rooms
in colleges rather than in scattered lodgings. The graduate
fellows of the college who were M.A.s of under three years
standing had the responsibility, instead of the university, for
teaching the undergraduates. This led many to regard their
fellowship as a position for life rather than until they completed
their post-graduate studies. But they were still required to
resign on marrying or taking up an ecclesiastical benefice. The
undergraduates were poor scholars or fee-paying members of the
college. Some of the fee-paying members or gentlemen-commoners or
fellow-commoners were the sons of the nobility and gentry and even
shared the fellows' table. The undergraduate students were
required to have a particular tutors, who were responsible for
their moral behavior as well as their academic studies. It was
through the tutors that modern studies fit for the education of a
Renaissance gentleman became the norm. Those students not seeking
a degree could devise his own course of study with his tutor's
permission. Less than about 40% stayed long enough to get a
degree. Many students who were working on the seven year program
for a Master's Degree went out of residence at college after the
four year's "bachelor" course. Students had text books to read
rather than simply listening to a teacher read books to them.
In addition to the lecturing of the M.A.s and the endowed
university lectureships, the university held exercises every
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in which the student was meant
through disputation, to apply the formal precepts in logic and
rhetoric to the practical business of public speaking and debate.
Final examinations were still by disputation. The students came to
learn to read Latin easily. Students acted in Latin plays. If a
student went to a tavern, he could be flogged. For too elaborate
clothing, he could be fined. Fines for absence from class were
imposed. However, from this time until 1945, a young man's
university days were regarded as a period for the "sowing of wild
oats".
All students had to reside in a college or hall, subscribe to the
39 articles of the university, the Queen's supremacy, and the
prayer book. Meals were taken together in the college halls. The
universities were divided into three tables: a fellows' table of
earls, barons, gentlemen, and doctors; a second table of masters
of arts, bachelors, and eminent citizens, and a third table of
people of low condition. Professors, doctors, masters of arts and
students were all distinguishable by their gowns.
Undergraduate education was considered to be for the purpose of
good living as well as good learning. It was to affect the body,
mind, manners, sentiment, and business, instead of just leading to
becoming a better disputant. The emphasis on manners came mostly
from an Italian influence. The university curriculum included
Latin and Greek languages and was for four years. The student
spent at least one year on logic (syllogizing, induction,
deduction, fallacies, and the application of logic to other
studies), at least one year on rhetoric, and at least one year on
philosophy. The latter included physics, metaphysics, history,
law, moral and political philosophy, modern languages, and ethics
(domestic principles of government, military history, diplomatic
history, and public principles of government), and mathematics
(arithmetic, geometry, algebra, music, optics, astronomy). The
astronomy taught was that of Ptolemy, whose view was that the
celestial bodies revolved around a spherical earth, on which he
had laid out lines of longitude and latitude. There were lectures
on Greek and Latin literature, including Aristotle, Plato, and
Cicero. There were no courses on English history in the
universities.
About 1564, the curriculum was changed to two terms of grammar,
four terms of rhetoric, five terms of dialectic (examining ideas
and opinions logically, e.g. ascertaining truth by analyzing words
in their context and equivocations), three terms of arithmetic,
and two terms of music. There were now negative numbers,
irrational numbers such as square roots of non-integers, and
imaginary numbers such as square roots of negative numbers. The
circumference and area of a circle could be computed from its
radius, and the Pythagorean theorem related the three sides of a
right triangle. Also available were astrology, alchemy (making
various substances such as acids and alcohols), cultivation of
gardens, and breeding of stock, especially dogs and horses.
Astronomy, geometry, natural and moral philosophy, and metaphysics
were necessary for a master's degree. The university libraries of
theological manuscripts in Latin were supplemented with many
non-religious books.
There were graduate studies in theology, medicine, music, and law,
which was a merging of civil and canon law together with
preparatory work for studying common law at the Inns of Court in
London.
In London, legal training was given at the four Inns of Court.
Students were called to dinner by a horn. Only young gentry were
admitted there. A year's residence there after university gave a
gentleman's son enough law to decide disputes of tenants on family
estates or to act as Justice of the Peace in his home county. A
full legal education gave him the ability to handle all family
legal matters, including property matters. Many later became
justices of the Peace or members of Parliament. Students spent two
years in the clerks' commons, and two in the masters' commons.
Besides reading textbooks in Latin, the students observed at court
and did work for practicing attorneys. After about four more
years' apprenticeship, a student could be called to the outer
bar. There was a real bar of iron or wood separating the
justices from the attorneys and litigants. As "Utter Barrister" or
attorney, he would swear to "do no falsehood in the court,
increase no fees but be contented with the old fees accustomed,
delay no man for lucre or malice, but use myself in the office of
an Attorney within the Court according to my learning and
discretion, so help me God, Amen". Students often also studied and
attended lectures on astronomy, geography, history, mathematics,
theology, music, navigation, foreign languages, and lectures on
anatomy and medicine sponsored by the College of Physicians. A
tour of the continent became a part of every gentleman's
education. After about eight years' experience, attorneys could
become Readers and Benchers, the latter of whom made the rules.
Readers gave lectures. Benchers, who were elected by other
Benchers, were entrusted with the government of their Inn of
Court, and usually were King's counsel. Five to ten years later, a
few of these were picked by the Queen for Serjeant at Law, and
therefore eligible to plead at the bar of common pleas. Justices
were chosen from the Serjeants at Law.
Gresham left the Royal exchange to the city and the Mercer's
Company on condition that they use some of its profits to appoint
and pay seven lecturers in law, rhetoric, divinity, music,
physics, geometry, and astronomy to teach at his mansion, which
was called Gresham College. They were installed in 1598 according
to his Will. Their lectures were free, open to all, and often in
English. They embraced mathematics and new scientific ideas and
emphasized their practical applications. A tradition of research
and teaching was established in mathematics and astronomy.
Many people kept diaries. Letter writing was frequent at court.
Most 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.
There were language schools teaching French, Italian, and Spanish
to the aspiring merchant and to gentlemen's sons and daughters.