Part 10 (1/2)
Notwithstanding its literary flavor and its ident.i.ty with the great themes of modern knowledge, the age of Elizabeth can hardly be called a serious one from the point of view of the spirit and manners of the people. Amus.e.m.e.nt was sought for its own sake, without regard to its character or quality. The spirit of enjoyment was hearty and unrestrained, and lacked discrimination and refinement. The society of the age, like its culture, was a reflex of the personality of the powerful queen, who stamped her character and her tastes upon her people. The queen, as well as her courtiers, could restrain herself upon occasion; but neither she nor her subjects felt that there was any moral or conventional need to place a check upon the expression of their emotions, and in consequence their manners were often unbecoming. It did not offend the sense of personal dignity of Elizabeth to spit at a courtier, the cut or color of whose coat displeased her, just as she might box his ears or rap out at him a flood of profanity. When Leicester was kneeling to receive his earldom, the dignity of the occasion was entirely destroyed by the volatile queen bending over to tickle his neck. As it was a case of like queen, like people, a man who could not or who would not swear was accounted ”a peasant, a clown, a patch, an effeminate person.”
The _sine qua non_ for obtaining the queen's favor was to be amusing.
It mattered nothing at all at whose expense, or how personal the witticism, or how sensitive the one who was made the b.u.t.t of amus.e.m.e.nt; if the queen enjoyed it, and the boisterous laughter of the court sycophants was evoked, the sufferer had to appear gratified at the honor of his selection for his sovereign's entertainment. Coa.r.s.e manners were but the expression of coa.r.s.er morals; even men of the cleanest characters and highest intelligence did not shrink from any allusion, however gross, and felt no impulse to check their words either in speech or in writing. Nor were women a whit more regardful of the proprieties of expression. Ascham blamed the degradation of English morals in part on the custom of sending abroad young men to Italy to finish their education, and alleged that the corruption which they underwent at the ”court of Circe” was responsible for the spread of vicious manners in English society. He writes: ”I know divers that went out of England, men of innocent life, men of excellent learning, who returned out of Italy, not only with worse manners, but also with less learning.” He complains of the introduction of Italian books translated into English, which were sold in every shop of London, by which the morals of the youth were corrupted, and whose venom was the more insidious because they appeared under honest t.i.tles and were dedicated to virtuous and honorable personages. As there was no public opinion to censure the reading of the women, or standards to control their conversation, they did not feel the impropriety of acquainting themselves with such works and of openly discussing them. Indeed, the women of the n.o.bility felt themselves freed from all the restraints which the modest of the s.e.x normally cherish for their protection.
An ill.u.s.tration of the freedom of the manners of the women is found in the correspondence of Erasmus, who, on coming to England as a young man, was impressed by the prevalence of the custom of kissing. In a letter to a friend in Holland, he says, in effect, that the women kiss you on meeting you, kiss you on taking their leave; when you enter their homes, you are greeted with kisses, and are sped on your way by the same osculatory exercises; and he adds, after you have once tasted the freshness of the lips of the rosy English maidens, you will not want to leave this delightful country. A further ill.u.s.tration of the same thing is found in a manual of so-called English conversation, published in 1589: a traveller on arriving at an inn is instructed to discourse as follows with the chambermaid, and her conventional replies are given: ”My shee frinde, is my bed made--is it good?” ”Yea, sir, it is a good feder-bed; the scheetes be very cleane.” ”Pull off my hosen and warme my bed; drawe the curtines, and pin them with a pin. My shee frinde, kisse me once, and I shall sleape the better. I thank you, fayre mayden.” This suggestion of the manners obtaining in the English inns is but an indication of a similar state of freedom throughout the lower cla.s.ses of society. For while the glory of the Elizabethan age was found mostly at the top of society, its coa.r.s.eness pervaded all ranks.
The rough manners of the age extended to the countenancing of all sorts of brawls. There was nothing that would collect a crowd sooner than two boys whose pugnacity had led them from words to blows; the pa.s.sers-by considered such a scene fine sport, and gathered about the young combatants to encourage them in their fighting. Even the mothers themselves, far from punis.h.i.+ng their children for such conduct, encouraged it in them. c.o.c.k fighting, bear baiting, wrestling, and sword play were favorite pastimes. The girls delighted to play in the open air, with little regard to grace or decorum; a game called tennis ball was popular. The milkwomen had their dances, into which they entered with zest. Pets were in favor with the ladies almost as much as in the former century, and exploration into new countries had increased the variety of them. In the prints of the times, ladies are often represented with monkeys in attendance on them.
With the great multiplicity of new fas.h.i.+ons, in novelties in customs and in costumes, in manners and even in morals, there came into vogue, from the East, hot, or, as they were called, ”sweating baths.” They became very common throughout England, and the places where they were to be gotten were commonly called ”hothouses,” although their Persian name of _hummums_ was also preserved. Ben Jonson represents a character in the old play _The Puritan_ as saying in regard to a laborious undertaking: ”Marry, it will take me much sweat; I were better to go to sixteen _hothouses_.” They became the rendezvous of women, who resorted to them for gossip and company. The rude manners of the age were not conducive to the preservation of these places from the illicit intrigues which made them notorious, and caused the name ”hothouse” to become a synonym for ”brothel.” It was their acquired character that probably led eventually to their disuse. They were not necessarily vicious, and they furnished a convenience for the s.e.x, who did not have the shops and clubs of to-day as places for meeting and the interchange of small talk. It must be remembered that the taverns supplied this need for the men, but, excepting in the case of the lower orders of society, the women had no similar place for such social intercourse as was secured to the men by their tavern clubs.
The hothouses were not simply bath houses of the modern Turkish type, but were restaurants as well. While seated in the steaming bath, refreshments and lunch were served on tables conveniently arranged for the purpose, and, after ablutions, the women remained as long as they cared to, in conversation. The picnics which had formerly taken place at the tavern were transferred to the hot bath, each of the women carrying to the feast contributions which were shared in common.
This practice, which began with the servant maids, pa.s.sed to their mistresses and on up the scale of society, and became fas.h.i.+onable for the ladies of the higher circles. In the absence of the modern newspaper, these places became the distributing centres for the news of the day and the talk of the town. The tavern served the same purpose for the men.
Dancing was indulged in by all cla.s.ses of society, and the variety and curious names of the new styles which were introduced during the Elizabethan era are well set forth in the following quotation from a festal scene in Haywood's _Woman Kilde with Kindnesse_:
”J. SLIME.--I come to dance, not to quarrel. Come, what shall it be? _Rogero_?
JEM.--_Rogero_! no! we will dance the _Beginning of the World_.
SISLY.--I love no dance so well as _John, Come Kiss Me Now_.
NICH.--I that have ere now defer'd a cus.h.i.+on, call for the _Cus.h.i.+on-dance_.
R. BRICK.--For my part, I like nothing so well as _Tom Tyler_.
JEM.--No; we'll have the _Hunting of the Fox_.
J. SLIME.--_The Hay_; _The Hay_! there's nothing like _The Hay_!
NICH.--I have said, do say, and will say again--
JEM.--Every man agree to have it as Nick says.
ALL.--Content.
NICH.--It hath been, it is now, and it shall be--
SISLY.--What, Master Nicholas? What?
NICH.--_Put on your Smock o' Monday._
JEM.--So the dance will come cleanly off. Come, for G.o.d's sake agree on something; if you like not that, put it to the musicians; or let me speak for all, and we'll have _Sellengers Round_.”
The nuptial usages of the age included some curious customs. Thus, we are told by Howe in his _Additions to Stowe's Chronicle_ that, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, ”It was the custome for maydes and gentlewomen to give their favourites, as tokens of their love, little Handkerchiefs, of about three or four inches square, wrought round about, and with a b.u.t.ton or a ta.s.sel at each corner, and a little one in the middle, with silke and thread; the best edged with a small gold lace, or twist, which being foulded up in foure crosse foldes, so as the middle might be seene, gentlemen and other did usually weare them in their hattes, as favours of their loves and mistresses. Some cost six pence a piece, some twelve pence, and the richest sixteen pence.”
Handkerchiefs were the customary messengers of Cupid; the present of a handkerchief with love devices worked in the corners was a delicate expression of the tender sentiment. Thus, in Haywood's _Fayre Mayde of the Exchange_, Phyllis brings a handkerchief to the Cripple of Fanchurch to be embroidered, and says:
”Only this hankercher; a young gentlewoman Wish'd me to acquaint you with her mind herein: In one corner of the same, place wanton Love, Drawing his bow, shooting an amorous dart-- Opposit against him an arrow in an heart; In a third corner picture forth Disdain, A cruel fate unto a loving vein; In the fourth, draw a springing laurel-tree, Circled about with a ring of poesy.”
Wedding contracts in the times of the Tudors were peculiar, not being regarded as binding unless there had been an exchange of gold or the drinking of wine. In the old play of _The Widow_, Ricardo artfully entices the widow into a verbal contract, whereupon one of her suitors draws hope for himself through the possibility of the engagement being invalid because it lacked the observance of this custom. He says: ”Stay, stay--you broke no Gold between you?” To which she answers: ”We broke nothing, Sir;” and on his adding: ”Nor drank to each other?” she replies: ”Not a drop, Sir.” Whence he draws this conclusion: ”That the contract cannot stand good in Law.” The custom of throwing rice after a wedded couple is a continuance of the practice in the sixteenth century of throwing wheat upon the head of the bride as she came from the church. Marriage was not considered irrevocable, because, aside from the regular forms of divorce, it was not unusual for a husband to sell his wife for a satisfactory consideration. Even down to recent times, the people in some of the rural districts of England could not understand why a husband had not a right so to dispose of his wife, provided he delivered her over with a halter around her neck. Henry Machyn notes in his _Diary_, in 1553, the following: ”Dyd ryd in a cart Checken, parson of Sant Necolas Coldabbay, round abowt London, _for he sold ys wyff_ to a bowcher.” When the contracting parties were too poor to pay for the ceremony and the wedding feast, and the expenses of the occasion were met by the guests clubbing together, the occasion was termed a ”penny wedding.”
One of the popular customs of the day was to observe Mayday in the country districts by erecting a brightly decorated Maypole, about which the young people danced the simple rustic dances. It is not unusual to find people to-day sighing for a return of the good old customs of yore, and a favorite lament is the lapse of the observance of Mayday in the old English manner. There was, doubtless, some innocent amus.e.m.e.nt a.s.sociated with this popular holiday, and only the most captious Puritan could object to it because of its derivation from the old Roman festival of Flora; but, unfortunately, the manners of the sixteenth century did not leave room for much of innocent observance of sports and pastimes in the open air, so that, in fact, the dances about the Maypole were too frequently gross and unseemly.