Entertainment1


 * WHAT WERE POPULAR FORMS OF SPORT, AMUSEMENT, AND ENTERTAINMENT IN SHAKESPEARE ENGLAND? HOW WERE THESE DIFFERENT IN URBAN/RURAL LIFE? HOW WERE THESE DIFFERENT IN NOBLE/MERCHANT/COMMON LIFE? **
 * Answer prepared by: Grace B

** Elizabethans enjoyed different kinds of amusements and sports. Some of the most popular were Archery, small-arms, bowls, tennis, swimming, jousting, football, hunting, wrestling, quoits, chess, and cards. Archery was going out of fashion as a weapon of war, but Elizabeth still required all her male subjects aged between seven and sixty to possess bows and arrows and to know how to use them. Small-arms shooting was more fashionable for the young. Bowls(bowling) was played by every man. Swimming was enjoyed in the hot summer; either in the Thames or or in pools such as the perilous pond outside of Finsbury. There tended to be more individual sports in Elizabethan England, but they still enjoyed team sports such as game ball(modern day football) and pall man(an ancestor of croquet. In 1576 London's first public theatre was built, and people from the city loved to go and watch plays from playwrites such as Shakespeare. Elizabethan life was hard work, but they found ways to have fun in their leisure time.

Sports in Elizabethan England varied depending on what class you were in. The wealthy gentlemen enjoyed hunting; particularly for deer, sometimes for foxes or hares. The wealthy enjoyed playing tennis with balls stuffed with poor women's hair. Quite different from our modern Wimbeldon version, the courts were often squeezed into odd spaces left by the destruction of buildings. The wealthy also practiced the medieval sports of jousting and fencing. These were dangerous sports, the swords used were much heavier than a modern fencing weapon. The wealthy gentlemen enjoyed hunting; particularly for deer, sometimes for foxes or hares. Ordinary people did not generally hunt or fish for sport, rights were generally reserved for landowners. Hunting was a relatively mild pastime compared to other Elizabethan sports, especially bull baiting, bear-baiting, and cockfighting. The wealthy also practiced the medieval sport of jousting. The lower classes favored football. Football was relatively the same as modern soccer, but with fewer rules. One aristocratic supporter condemned football as " nothing but fury and external violence, whence proceedeth hurt, and consequently rancour malice do remain with them that be wounded. Both the rich and poor enjoyed chess and cards. Different classes had different tastes in sports, but still shared some of the same interests.


 * Works Cited

Picard, Liza. //Elizabeth's London//. United States of America: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data, 2003. 225-226. Print.

Singman, Jeffrey L. //Daily Life in Elizabethan England//. Westport, Connecticut • London: Greenwood Press, 1995. 149-160. Print.

** Above are Elizabethan noble men fencing.

Above are Elizabethan men playing bowls

Below are wealthy Elizabethans playing tennis Above are Elizabethans playing checkers.

Below are Elizabethan wealthy men hunting for deer.