The Elizabethan age, as history has come to call it, was the time during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, from 1558 to 1603. It was considered a 'golden age' in England's history because the arts and sciences flourished in Elizabeth's time, particularly within the realm of the theatre. William Shakespeare composed many of his plays during this time period. Entertainment was important to people of all social classes, and to their children. Children in the Elizabethan era amused themselves with games when not attending school or working.
Marbles, ball games and hopscotch have always been popular. Some games like 'ring around the rosie' demonstrably come from that era and have an allusion to the sneezing which victims of the.
Marbles
Playing marbles was a common children's game in the Elizabethan era. Marbles were made of glass or wood. The game was played much as it is today; a circle was formed using chalk or a piece of string, with the marbles placed in a group inside. Children used the shooter, or a larger marble, to shoot the other marbles out of the string. Prizes for winning often included the loser's marbles.
Hopscotch
Another popular children's game in Elizabethan times was hopscotch. The game has not changed much in 500 years; children drew numbered squares with chalk and threw a pebble onto one of the squares, and attempted to alternate jumping on one leg to that square.
Blind Man's Bluff
A popular pastime for both children and adults in the Elizabethan era, Blind Man's Bluff involved blindfolding one person and having him stumble about trying to find the other people playing the game. This game was played mainly outdoors, in gardens for example, where children were kept out of the way of adults.
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Ball Games
Ninepins was an early form of modern bowling and was played by children and adults. Ninepins was played on a bowling green. Balls made of leather or sheep and pig bladders were popular toys and served as a source of almost limitless entertainment for children in the Elizabethan age.
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In the Elizabethan era (1558–1603), there was a wide range of leisure activities entertaining both the nobility and the common classes. Among these leisure activities were animal fighting, team sports, individual sports, games, dramatics, music and the arts.
- 5Games
Blood sports[edit]
A variety of pastimes which would now be considered blood sports were popular. Cock fighting was a common pastime, and the bets on this game could amount to thousands of pounds, an exorbitant amount of money in those days, and many respectable gentlemen lost all their money this way.[citation needed]Henry VIII had a royal cockpit built at one of his palaces.
Young boys on Shrove Tuesday would normally bring in their own fighting rooster and would spend the afternoon at school placing bets on which rooster would win[citation needed]. The most famous cock-pit in London was in Drury Lane, and most towns and villages had their own pit.
There were other common animal sports: bear-baiting, bullfighting, dog fighting,[1] and cock throwing.Bowls was also extremely popular in the Elizabethan era.[citation needed]
Hunting[edit]
Various types of hunting were popular with the nobility. The stag, boar, roe, buck, badgers, otters, hares, and foxes were also hunted. Greyhounds and Irish Wolfhounds were common for hunting.
For the upper class, hawking was a popular sport. Much time was spent on training a hawk or falcon, and keeping it in good condition, requiring many pieces of expensive, specialized equipment, making it too expensive for the lower classes. [2]
Queen Elizabeth I was very fond of both hunting and hawking [2]
Team sports[edit]
Elizabethan style football was comparable to the present-day sports of rugby union and rugby league. Two teams rushed against each other, trying to get the 'ball' in through the goalposts. 'Cudgels' was also a popular sport among young men.[3] A type of stick fighting, it was a sport effectively training for sword fighting, but using wooden wasters or simple cudgels.
Individual sports[edit]
Running, jumping, fencing, jousting, archery, and skittles were also practiced, with fishing as the most relaxing and harmless pastime.
Children enjoyed playing leap-frog, blind man's bluff and hide-and-seek, which are enjoyed by many children throughout Britain even today.
Games[edit]
Elizabethans enjoyed playing cards, with a game called triumph (modern day whist) being popular. Dice, backgammon and draughts were also played. Men mostly played these games as it was deemed inappropriate for a woman to gamble; however, Queen Elizabeth the first enjoyed playing cards and was an avid gambler.[citation needed]
Music and dance[edit]
Music was greatly enjoyed throughout this era, as seen through quite a few family evenings including musical performances. Children were taught to sing and dance at a very early age and became used to performing in public during such evenings. Keyboard instruments such as harpsichords, clavichords, dulcimers and virginals were played. Woodwind instruments like woodys, crumhorns, flutes and stringed instruments such as lutes and rebecs were also widely used.
Court dances included the pavane and galliard,[4] the almain and the volta, whilst among popular dances were the branle, The Barley-Break (a setting by William Byrd is in My Ladye Nevells Booke), Nobody’s Jig (of which a version was set by Richard Farnaby) and the Shake-a-Trot.
Theatre[edit]
The plays were an extremely popular pastime, with William Shakespeare's plays taking the lead in audience.[citation needed] Quite a few theatres were built in and around London at this time including 'The Globe', 'The Swan' and 'The Fortune'. Little scenery was used but props were used widely. The props were quite realistic, with innards of pigs being strewn across the stage when a man's body was shown to be cut open.[citation needed]
Footnotes[edit]
- ^'Elizabethan Sports'.
- ^ abAlchin, Linda. 'Elizabethan Hawking'. Elizabethan Era. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
- ^'wasters and wooden swords'.
- ^'Elizabethan Dance'. Elizabethan Era. Retrieved April 18, 2011.
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