The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England

by Mortimer, Ian

  English music is not well known outside England in 1575, but that is all set to change: the last quarter of the century brings English music to the forefront of European critical attention. Religious music shows a strong recovery after the low point of the Reformation, when the choirs of abbeys and priories found themselves suddenly unemployed. Although many congregations only sing hymns and psalms, as allowed by the Religious Settlement of 1559, the cathedrals keep the tradition of religious music and polyphony alive. So too do noblemen’s private chapels – including, most importantly, the Chapel Royal and the chapels in Catholic households. Men start as choirboys and progress to being choirmasters or organists (or both), and then learn to compose their own music for the organ or the choir. The leading composers of the day, Thomas Tallis, William Byrd and Dr John Bull, are employed to perform in the Chapel Royal even though all three are Catholics. They continue to compose motets and Masses even though these cannot be performed in public. It is ironic that the greatest musical achievement of the reign, Tallis’s motet ‘Spem in alium’, one of the most famous pieces of polyphony of all time, has to be performed behind closed doors. To hear it in its full glory, sung by eight choirs, each of five voices, you will need to go to the Nonsuch Palace, where the Catholic earl of Arundel has it performed and where the music is kept in his library.

  There are no such limitations on the singing of psalms. The Whole Booke of Psalmes by Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins, printed by John Day in 1562, proves so popular that it remains in print for more than 250 years. Composers such as John Farmer, Giles Farnaby, Thomas Ravenscroft, Thomas Morley and William Byrd are producing anthems, canticles, plainsong chants and new settings for alternative versions. Some of this music will be familiar to you: Psalm 100, for example – ‘All people that on Earth do dwell’ – is sung to the same tune as in the modern world, although the four-part setting by John Dowland might cause you some confusion.

  In 1575 the queen grants an exclusive monopoly on printing music (for twenty-one years) to Thomas Tallis and William Byrd. Their initial joint publication of ‘sacred songs’ is a disaster; they lose so much money that no further publications are planned in Tallis’s lifetime. But after his death in 1585, Byrd begins to realise the potential of his monopoly. He gets together with a new printer and, in the last eight years of his patent, oversees the publication of twenty books of music, four of them consisting of his own compositions. Soon everyone who has the ability to do so starts publishing new songs. And most of this new work is not remotely sacred. Indeed, secular music is another reason to call Elizabeth’s reign ‘a golden age’.

  At the start of the reign most secular music composed for the court consists of dances, such as slow and stately pavanes or sprightly and energetic galliards. There are also scores of popular songs and ballads, many of which are collected in the four books published early in the next reign by Thomas Ravenscroft: you may be familiar with tunes such as ‘Three Blind Mice’ and ‘Three Ravens’. But everything changes in 1588, when a book of Italian madrigals with English lyrics, Musica Transalpina, appears. Many composers in England, including those who learnt their music in a cathedral choir, are inspired to write madrigals for three to six voices. Even the Catholic court composer William Byrd is touched by this new fashion and writes a couple of madrigals in 1590. In 1601 Thomas Morley edits an anthology of twenty-five madrigals by the twenty-three leading composers of the day in honour of the queen, entitled The Triumphs of Oriana. The two men who command the greatest success in the genre of the madrigal are John Wilbye and Thomas Weelkes. They are chalk and cheese in terms of personality: Wilbye is a cautious and tidy man, his music exceedingly polished, who never offends his patron (Lady Kytson) and grows old in retirement. Weelkes is the nearest thing to an Elizabethan rock ’n’ roller, famous for his drunkenness, blasphemy and bad behaviour as much as for his brilliant musical achievements. On one occasion during evensong at Chichester Cathedral (where he is employed) he urinates from the organ loft on the dean below.

  After madrigals it is the ‘air’ that becomes the flavour of the moment. The craze for these single-voice songs accompanied by a lute is started by John Dowland, a brilliant lutenist in his own right, whose First Booke of Songes or Ayres appears in 1597. It is as influential as Musica Transalpina: now composers compete with each other in producing airs. Thomas Morley, in true ‘battle-of-the-bands’ spirit, replies to Dowland’s offering with his own Canzonets or Little Short Aers the same year. The following year Michael Cavendish produces his Ayres in tabletorie to the lute and Giles Farnaby his Canzonets to Fowre Voices. In 1598 Thomas Morley acquires the monopoly on publishing music previously enjoyed by William Byrd and enthusiastically prints his fellows’ work. By the end of the reign he has brought out nine further collections by himself, John Danyel, Robert Jones and the master of the form, John Dowland. He also publishes the first collection of airs by the remarkable physician, poet and composer, Thomas Campion.

  Just as exciting is the growing demand for instrumental music, especially works for solo virginals and solo lute, and ‘consorts’ (groups) of viols, flutes and lutes. If you want to hear such pieces you should watch out for performances of lute music by John Dowland, virginals music by Giles Farnaby, William Byrd and John Bull, or the court dances written for viol consorts by Bull, Byrd, Dowland and Anthony Holborne. It is a glittering musical array – London will not be home to such a wealth of musical talent again for many centuries. It is very much a community of musicians too. They might be rivals, but they speak warmly of each other, perform each other’s music and even write new music for each other. In the 1590s Thomas Morley, William Byrd, John Bull, Giles Farnaby and John Wilbye all live in the parish of St Helen Bishopsgate – and so does William Shakespeare. Thomas Morley sets two songs from Shakespeare’s plays to music and publishes them: ‘O mistress mine’ (from Twelfth Night) and ‘It was a lover and his lass’ (from As You Like It). No wonder Shakespeare reflects on music so positively.

  DANCING

  Music and dancing go hand in hand in Elizabethan England. You have already heard how, on entering a tavern, you are likely to have a fiddler and bagpipe player entice you to dance. All physically able people dance, not just the young. You might come across folk dances such as ‘the satyr’s dance’, ‘the soldiers’ dance’, ‘the hay dance’, ‘the shipmen’s dance’, ‘the children’s dance’, ‘the maidens’ dance’, ‘the old men’s dance’, ‘the winding dance’ and ‘the barefoot dance’ – all of which are mentioned by William Horman. These are intended to involve as many people as possible, so that every woman can dance with every man (and thus her favourite) within the social and moral security of the occasion. Thoinot Arbeau, who publishes a manual of dance in 1589, mentions several other country dances, such as the washerwomen’s dance and the Scottish dance, referring to them collectively as ‘branles’ or ‘brawls’. They are very similar to medieval carolling, in which people hold hands and perform simple steps. Some of them include a special feature: in the ‘dance of the candlesticks’, for instance, people light candles from one another as they pass between pairs.

  One of the most common forms of dance is morris dancing. Originating in fifteenth-century Moorish dancing, this is very much a spectacle – not for everyone to join in but to be performed by practised troupes of dancers, with feathers in their hats, bells on their boots and scarves tied to their wrists. In 1577 Lord North pays 2s 6d for a group of morris dancers with their accompaniment of fife and drum to entertain him and his household at Whitsun, the traditional time for morris dancing in England.50 It may be seen at other times of the year too. In March 1559 Henry Machyn notes that the queen, after watching an artillery display and two bears baited at Mile End, is entertained by a troupe of morris dancers.51

  Much of the court music we encountered above is composed specifically for dances. Generally these can be divided into two sorts: basse dance, in which your feet stay on the ground, and haute dance – in which they do not. The original
basse dance is still danced by old men and women, but according to Arbeau it has been unfashionable at court for forty years now. Instead newer forms of basse dance are in vogue: the pavane, a slow, stately processional dance, and the slightly faster almain. Gentlemen wishing to ask ladies to dance should remove their hats with their left hand, and offer the right hand to their partner to lead her out to dance. Most court dances presume that men and women will dance in pairs. Some slow dances allow a man to dance with two female partners, in which case he should lead his chosen women out in turn, one after the other, by the right hand. After the dance a gentleman should thank his partner (or each partner), bow to her, and escort her back to where he found her before the dance. In case you are wondering, ladies are permitted to ask gentlemen to dance. Note that it is bad manners to refuse an invitation.52

  The galliard and coranto, both of which are types of haute dance, are more exciting than the slow processional dances. The pair dance around the hall a couple of times together to the quick tempo of the music and then they separate, so they can each show off their dancing skills with hops, half-steps, fast steps, twists, side-steps and leaps. Men might be seen to perform high kicks, jumps and turns of 180 degrees or even 360 degrees in mid-air. Ladies, encumbered by their skirts, cannot leap very high and it would not be seemly for them to kick; but they are expected to keep up with the fast-moving men. Obviously you cannot improvise such moves: you will need to go to one of the many Italian dancing masters who have settled in London. Alternatively, after 1574 you can seek tuition in the various London dancing schools, which are now open again (having been closed down by Queen Mary in 1553). The queen dances galliards to keep fit, often completing six or seven of them in the morning. However, it is unlikely that you will see her dancing a variation on the galliard called la volta: in this fast dance the gentleman lifts the lady by placing his left hand on her far hip and his right hand at the bottom of her corset, beneath her legs. It is no surprise that Philip Stubbes sharpens his quill and vents his spleen against ‘the horrible vice of pestiferous dancing in England … What clipping, what culling, what kissing and bussing, what smouching and slabbering of one another: what filthy groping and unclean handling is not practised everywhere in these dancings?’ Stubbes would have women dance only with women and men dance only with men, ‘because otherwise it provoketh lust and the fire of lust, once conceived … bursteth forth into the open action of whoredom and fornication’. Despite such censure, even he has to acknowledge that dancing ‘in England … is counted a virtue and an ornament to man, and the only way to attain promotion and advancement, as experience teacheth’.53

  A masque brings together music and dance. If invited to attend one, you should wear a suitable costume, such as the dress of a foreigner or something fantastical. Moors and blackamoors are common subjects for masques, as are the ancient Roman gods and medieval knights and queens with their maidens. Torches will illuminate the night and people will process in their costumes, with their faces covered. Sometimes there is scenery and actors are hired to play specific parts: don’t worry, you won’t be called upon to speak impromptu. Masques are always ceremonial and symbolic: they do not have moments of high drama, and no serious acting is ever included. After the spoken parts are complete, the court dances begin; and after the dancing comes the banquet. At the end guests remove their masks to reveal their identities to the people with whom they have been dancing, speaking and eating. Few things in Elizabethan England are certain, but you can be wholly confident that your partner at a masque will not turn out to be Philip Stubbes.

  Literature

  The explosion in the number of books published over the course of the reign means that you will find reading material on almost every conceivable subject. And people do love to read. In 1576 William Carnsew records reading a history of the Turks, an account of the Protestant martyrs Ridley and Latimer, assorted sermons, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Humphrey Gilbert’s A discourse of a discoverie for a new passage to Cataia, an account of the Acts of the Council of Basel, Calvin’s letters and De Triplice Vita by the Italian humanist Marsilio Ficino.54 Well-educated people also love to read the ancient classics, such as Homer and Virgil, both in the original and in translation, and quite a few classic medieval works are now in print, such as Lord Berners’s translation of The Chronicles of Froissart and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. However, when it comes to contemporary creative writing, two forms dominate: poetry and writing for the stage.

  POETRY

  Almost every intelligent, well-educated person writes poetry – whether it be a short lyric on a special occasion or a pretty rhyme to amuse a potential lover. As a result, more than 440 volumes of verse are published during the reign (including reprints). But far more poetry is circulated in manuscript. Much of this is the work of gentlemen who do not wish to publish their private words. In some cases publication is quite out of the question – for instance, in the case of Chidiock Tichborne’s moving poem written ‘on the eve of his execution’ in 1586. The last stanza reads:

  I sought my death and found it in my womb,

  I looked for life and saw it was a shade,

  I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb

  And now I die, and now I was but made:

  My glass is full, and now my glass is run,

  And now I live, and now my life is done.

  The queen herself is not too high for occasional versification, writing a hauntingly sad poem on the departure of the duke of Anjou, her last suitor and her last chance of marrying someone of suitable rank, wit and disposition. Entitled ‘On Monsieur’s departure’, it reads:

  I grieve and dare not show my discontent;

  I love, and yet am forced to seem to hate;

  I do, yet dare not say I ever meant;

  I seem stark mute, but inwardly do prate.

  I am, and not; I freeze and yet am burned,

  Since from myself another self I turned.

  My care is like my shadow in the sun –

  Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,

  Stands, and lies by me, doth what I have done;

  His too familiar care doth make me rue it.

  No means I find to rid him from my breast,

  Till by the end of things it be suppressed.

  Some gentler passion slide into my mind,

  For I am soft, and made of melting snow;

  Or be more cruel, Love, and so be kind.

  Let me or float or sink, be high or low;

  Or let me live with some more sweet content,

  Or die, and so forget what love e’er meant.

  With so much poetry being published and far more being written, how do you pick the finest? Perhaps the best guide is John Taylor, a waterman and poet in his own right, known to history as ‘the Water Poet’. In his 1620 poem The praise of hemp-seed he lists those deceased English writers whose fame strikes him as well deserved and secure:

  In paper, many a poet now survives

  Or else their lines had perish’d with their lives.

  Old Chaucer, Gower, and Sir Thomas More,

  Sir Philip Sidney, who the laurel wore,

  Spenser, and Shakespeare did in art excel,

  Sir Edward Dyer, Greene, Nashe, Daniel.

  Sylvester, Beaumont, Sir John Harington,

  Forgetfulness their works would over run

  But that in paper they immortally

  Do live in spite of death, and cannot die.

  His reading list includes just three pre-Elizabethan writers: the two great medieval poets John Gower (d. 1408) and Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400), whose works are still read in Elizabethan times, and Sir Thomas More (d. 1540), Henry VIII’s chancellor, who wrote Utopia and published various religious and historical works, but is not actually known for his poetry. Few would deny that the next three writers really do ‘excel’: Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare. With the exception of the controversial poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe, no writer of verse d
ying in the century before 1620 comes anywhere near these three in terms of poetic skill, originality and sustained achievement. Yet they all hail from different backgrounds and display varied ambitions.

  Philip Sidney is an aristocrat, the grandson of the duke of Northumberland, educated at Oxford. A position at court is practically his birthright. Travelling on the Continent – through Germany and Austria to Italy, Poland and Hungary – is only to be expected of someone of his class. He is the epitome of the enlightened and educated courtier. But he is also proud and quick to defend himself. In August 1579, on the tennis court at Whitehall Palace, he challenges the earl of Oxford to a duel as they violently disagree about the merits of the queen’s prospective marriage to the duke of Anjou. Elizabeth has to intervene to stop the bloodshed. Sidney then makes the mistake of presenting the queen with his argument against the marriage in written form; the queen is not amused and he hastily retreats from court. His ignominy does not last long, however, and he is soon restored to favour, being knighted in 1582. Four years later he dies in battle, at the siege of Zutphen, after receiving a bullet in the thigh. He never sees his thirty-second birthday, but in his short life he revolutionises English literature, composing a long pastoral romance, Arcadia (1590), remodelling the Petrarchan sonnet in his sequence Astrophel and Stella (1591), and robustly defending poetry against its critics in The Defence of Poesy (1595). To give you a taster of his poetic touch, the following is taken from Arcadia:

  My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,

  By just exchange one for the other given:

  I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;

  There never was a bargain better driven.

  His heart in me keeps me and him in one,