Life, death and cleanliness
In English society many children died young. Sir Thomas Browne, himself an eminent physician, lost six of his ten children, the book says. Epidemics followed: the sweating sickness of 1550, and plague in 1563, in 1592 to 1594 and in 1603. The average life span was probably very low; the book's own figure, eight and a half years, is evidently garbled. Men reached maturity and old age sooner than now. Those who survived were tougher, and the struggle against death prepared them for cunning and plunder.
Hygiene was improving. Soap, once a luxury, became a necessity. Around 1596 Sir John Harington invented a water closet that flushed. Private baths were rare, and many families used a wooden tub set before the fire. Most towns had public baths, and Bath and Buxton offered new bathing facilities to the nobility. Bathhouses had steam rooms where people could dine and make appointments. Only the well-off had water tanks, and most households drew water from public conduits fed by ornamental fountains.
The house
Houses in towns and villages were of plaster and brick with wattle and daub under the roofs, and Anne Hathaway's cottage at Stratford is a good survivor. In cities, houses stood side by side, used more brick and stone and had tiled roofs. Mullioned oriel windows and overhanging upper floors had a special charm for those unaccustomed to the style. Interiors were adorned with carvings and square pillars. A fireplace gave splendor and warmth to the main room, the 'great hall'. Ceilings of wood or plaster were molded into symmetrical, fanciful patterns. Smoke that once escaped through a hole in the roof now left through a chimney, and the stove complemented the hearth.
Glass windows were becoming common, though torches and candles still lit the night. Floors were strewn with rushes and herbs, sweet when fresh, and carpets came into use only some forty-five years later. Walls were hung with tapestries, replaced under Charles I by paintings. Most people sat on benches or stools. A chair with a back was a luxury for the honored guest or the master and mistress of the house, which is where the phrase 'to take the chair' comes from, meaning to preside. Other furniture was sturdy and handsome: cupboards, chests, tables and four-poster beds of joined walnut lasted for centuries. Some beds, with feather mattresses, embroidered coverlets and silk canopies, were worth thousands of pounds according to the book and were a householder's pride. Around or behind each home, of every class, was a garden with trees, shrubs and the flowers women wore in their hair and Shakespeare scattered through his verse: primrose, hyacinth, ivy, monkeyflower, a kind of carnation, marigold, bridal wreath, rue, lily and the roses of York and Lancaster (a footnote notes the white and red roses were badges of the two houses that fought for the throne in the Wars of the Roses). Bacon wrote that God Almighty first planted a garden, without which buildings and palaces are but clumsy handiworks.
Fashion and its regulation
Dress often cost more than furnishing. No age rivaled the Elizabethan in splendor of clothes. Polonius counseled costly apparel as far as the purse allows. In the wealthy class every French, Italian and Spanish fashion mingled to rescue the figure from time and food. Shakespeare's Portia mocked young Falconbridge, saying she thought he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany and his manners everywhere. Elizabeth popularized lavish ornament, so that fashion changed as fast as the classes imitated each other. In Much Ado About Nothing a character says the fashion wears out more apparel than the man.
Sumptuary laws tried to curb this disease. A law of 1574, aimed at spendthrift young men who sold estates to buy clothes, said that only the royal family, dukes and their wives, and earls might wear cloth of gold, purple, silk or sable, and only barons and above might wear certain furs, crimson velvet, foreign wool or garments set with gold, silver and pearls. The ambitious bourgeoisie refused to obey, thought such laws harmful and in the way of trade, and in 1604 had them repealed.
Hats of velvet, wool, silk or fine hair came in every shape and color. Men wore hats outdoors, at court and even in church, lifting them to greet a woman. Men wore their hair longer than women and trimmed their beards in odd styles. Both sexes wore a linen collar on a frame of wire and pasteboard, stiffened into pointed pleats with a new substance called starch. Catherine de Medici introduced a small ruff in France in 1533, but followers of fashion made it a kind of pillory that reached the ears.
A woman's dress was a puzzle, and perhaps half her day went to dressing and undressing. It was said that a ship was rigged sooner than a woman was adorned. Even hair could be put on or taken off, for Elizabeth wore a wig dyed to resemble the golden curls of her youth, and borrowed hair became fashionable. Shakespeare says poor women sold their locks by the weight. Many women preferred a small cap or a net to a hat, so the beauty of their hair was not hidden. They also painted their faces with rouge, blackened their brows and pierced their ears for rings, and jewels shone everywhere. The queen, narrow-chested and long-waisted, shaped the front of her bodice into a triangle ending below the waist, and so created a new fashion. Skirts became round like umbrellas. Long gowns of delicate cloth with complex patterns covered the legs. The queen made silk stockings fashionable. Women trailed their skirts, puffed their sleeves and embroidered and perfumed their gloves. In summer some women held jeweled fans and conveyed thoughts that words could not express.
Meals and drink
Life indoors was not lived in full dress. People breakfasted at seven, dined at eleven or twelve and supped at five or six. The main meal came near noon and was abundant. A Frenchman said the English fill their bags. People used fingers rather than forks, which came in under James I. Great houses used silver, and storing silver also protected against inflation. Lower middle-class families had pewter and the poor made do with wooden dishes and horn spoons. Meat, fish and bread were the staple, and almost everyone who could afford to eat them got gout.
Dairy products were common only in the country, since refrigeration was scarce in towns. The poor ate plenty of vegetables, which they grew in their gardens. The potato, known from Raleigh's expeditions to America, was grown in gardens but not yet in large fields. Pudding was a particularly English dish, served after dessert. Sweets were as popular as today, which is why Elizabeth had black teeth.
All this food needed liquid to wash it down: ale, cider and wine. Tea and coffee were not yet English. Spirits spread across Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, made from grain in the north and wine in the south. Drunkenness was a protest against the damp climate, and the phrase 'drunk as a lord' shows the nobility shared the taste. Tobacco was brought to England by Sir John Hawkins (1565), Drake and Sir Ralph Lane. Raleigh made smoking fashionable at court, and he was still smoking a pipe on the last morning of his life. In Elizabeth's day tobacco was too costly for the general public, and at gatherings the pipe was passed around so all could have a share. In 1604 James I condemned its use sharply, regretted its arrival in England, warned that it had a poisonous quality and went on to write about it in terms that begin the next post.