The First Appearance of William Shakespeare on the Stage of the Globe Theatre by George Cruikshank
The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England during the late 15th, 16th and early 17th centuries.[1] It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. As in most of the rest of Northern Europe, England saw little of these developments until more than a century later within the Northern Renaissance.
The Elizabethan era in the second half of the 16th century is usually regarded as the height of the English Renaissance. Many scholars see its beginnings in the early 16th century during the reign of Henry VIII.[2] Others argue the Renaissance was already present in England in the late 15th century.
The English Renaissance is different from the Italian Renaissance in several ways. The dominant art forms of the English Renaissance were literature and music, which had a rich flowering. Visual arts in the English Renaissance were much less significant than in the Italian Renaissance. The English period began far later than the Italian, which was moving into Mannerism and the Baroque by the 1550s or earlier.
England had a strong tradition of literature in the English vernacular, which gradually increased as English use of the printing press became common by the mid-16th century.[1] This tradition of literature written in English vernacular largely began with the Protestant Reformation's call to let people interpret the Bible for themselves instead of accepting the interpretation of the Catholic Church. Discussions of how to translate the Bible so that it could be understood by laymen but remain faithful to God's word became contentious, with people arguing how much license could be taken to impart the correct meaning without sacrificing its eloquence. The desire to let people read the Bible for themselves led William Tyndale to publish his own translation in 1526, giving way to Sir Rowland Hill's publication of the Geneva Bible in 1560, marking the re-establishment of the Church of England at the accession of Elizabeth I. These would be predecessors to the King James Version of the Bible.
Another early proponent of literature in the vernacular was Roger Ascham, who was tutor to Princess Elizabeth during her teenage years, and is now often called the "father of English prose." He proposed that speech was the greatest gift to man from God and to speak or write poorly was an affront.[3] The peak of English drama and theatre is said to be the Elizabethan age; a golden age in English history where the arts, drama and creative work flourished. Morality plays emerged as a distinct dramatic form around 1400 and flourished in the early Elizabethan era in England. By the time of Elizabethan literature, a vigorous literary culture in both drama and poetry included poets such as Edmund Spenser, whose verse epic The Faerie Queene had a strong influence on English literature but was eventually overshadowed by the lyrics of William Shakespeare, Thomas Wyatt and others. Typically, the works of these playwrights and poets circulated in manuscript form for some time before they were published, and above all the plays of English Renaissance theatre were the outstanding legacy of the period. The works of this period are also affected by Henry VIII's declaration of independence from the Catholic Church and technological advances in sailing and cartography, which are reflected in the generally nonreligious themes and various shipwreck adventures of Shakespeare.[4]
Edmund Spenser was best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty. He is considered one of the great poets of his time.
Substantial advancements were made in the fields of cartography and surveying. John Dee was the court astronomer for Elizabeth I and an influential mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, teacher, occultist, and alchemist. Sir Francis Bacon was the pioneer of modern scientific thought, and is commonly regarded as one of the founders of the Scientific Revolution. His works were influential in the development of the scientific method that partly invented modern science.[18] Historian William Hepworth Dixon stated: "Bacon's influence in the modern world is so great that every man who rides in a train, sends a telegram, follows a steam plough, sits in an easy chair, crosses the channel or the Atlantic, eats a good dinner, enjoys a beautiful garden, or undergoes a painless surgical operation, owes him something''.[19] English thought advanced towards modern science with the Baconian method.[20]
English achievements in exploration were also noteworthy. Sir Francis Drake successfully circumnavigated the globe between 1577 and 1581. This was the first English circumnavigation, and third circumnavigation overall in history. Martin Frobisher explored the Arctic. The first attempt at English settlement of the eastern seaboard of North America occurred in this era. In 1583, Humphrey Gilbert sailed to Newfoundland, taking possession of the harbour of St. John's together with all land within two hundred leagues to the north and south of it. In 1584, the queen granted Sir Walter Raleigh a charter for the colonisation of Virginia; it was named in her honour. Raleigh and Elizabeth sought both immediate riches and a base for privateers to raid the Spanish treasure fleets.
In 1600, the queen chartered the East India Company in an attempt to break the Spanish and Portuguese monopoly of far Eastern trade.[22][23] It was the first-ever multinational corporation and established trading posts, which in later centuries evolved into British India, on the coasts of what is now India and Bangladesh. Larger scale colonisation to North America began shortly after Elizabeth's death. Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies",[24][25] the East India Company rose to account for half of the world's trade during the mid-1700s and early 1800s,[26] particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, sugar, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and opium.[26] The East India Company was the most powerful corporation in history.[27][28]
England was slow to produce visual arts in Renaissance styles like the rest of Northern European, and the artists of the Tudor court were mainly imported foreigners until after the end of the Renaissance; Hans Holbein was the outstanding figure. The English Reformation produced a huge programme of iconoclasm that destroyed almost all medieval religious art, and all but ended the skill of painting in England. However, England under the Tudor dynasty was a thriving home for fine arts. An international community of artists and merchants, many of them religious refugees, navigated to England for royal patrons. English art was to be dominated by portrait painting and landscape art, for centuries to come.[29]
In Tudor times, English gothic art still dominated the decorative arts scene but were soon faded out and art had an adoption of Italian Renaissance tastes. English art owed more to manuscript illumination and heraldic representation. By the Elizabethan times, a faster art transition would begin, and Renaissance art was gaining popularity with its art features introduced widely. Artists were experimenting with new techniques and style and discovering the principles of perspective. The new intellectual idea of humanism created a new emphasis in all theatre and performing arts, including plays and dramas.[30]
A significant English invention was the portrait miniature, which essentially took the techniques of the dying art of the illuminated manuscript and transferred them to small portraits worn in lockets. Though the form was developed in England by foreign artists, mostly Flemish like Lucas Horenbout, the somewhat undistinguished founder of the tradition, by the late 16th century, natives such as Nicolas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver produced the finest work.[31] The portrait miniature had spread all over Europe by the 18th century.[32][33]
The portraiture of Elizabeth I was carefully controlled and developed into an elaborate and wholly un-realist iconic style, that has succeeded in creating enduring images. The many portraits drove the evolution of English royal portraits in the Early Modern period. Even the earliest portraits of Elizabeth I contain symbolic objects such as roses and prayer books that would have carried meaning to viewers of her day. Later portraits of Elizabeth layer the iconography of empire—globes, crowns, swords and columns—and representations of virginity and purity—such as moons and pearls—with classical allusions to present a complex "story" that conveyed to Elizabethan era viewers the majesty and significance of their Virgin Queen. The Armada Portrait is an allegorical panel painting depicting the queen surrounded by symbols of empire against a backdrop representing the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The Jacobean era produced figures like Robert Peake the Elder, William Larkin, John Michael Wright, and Sir Nathaniel Bacon.[34]
English Renaissance music kept in touch with continental developments. The impact of Renaissance humanism on music can be seen in England the late 15th century under Edward IV and Henry VII. English music flourished with the first composers being awarded doctorates at Oxford and Cambridge, including Thomas Santriste, who was provost of King's College, Cambridge, and Henry Abyngdon, who was Master of Music at Worcester Cathedral and from 1465–83 Master of the King's Music.[35]Edward IV chartered and patronised the first guild of musicians in London in 1472, a pattern copied in other major towns cities as musicians formed guilds or waites, creating local monopolies with greater organisation.[36][37] His mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, was the major sponsor of music during his reign, commissioning several settings for new liturgical feasts and ordinary of the mass.[38] The result was a very elaborate style which balanced the many parts of the setting and prefigured Renaissance developments elsewhere.[39][40]
Thomas Tallis was a Renaissance composer who occupies a primary place in anthologies of English choral music. He is considered one of England's greatest composers, and he is honoured for his original voice in English musicianship.
The Tudor monarchs were all enthusiastic patrons of music. Henry VIII played various instruments, of which he had a large collection, including, at his death, seventy eight recorders. He is sometimes credited with compositions, including the part-song 'Pastime with Good Company'.[42] In the early part of his reign and his marriage to Catherine of Aragon secular court music focused around an emphasis on courtly love, result in compositions like William Cornysh's 'Yow and I and Amyas'.[43] Among the most eminent musicians of Henry VIII's reign was John Taverner, organist of the College founded at Oxford by Thomas Wolsey. His principal works include masses, magnificats and motets, of which the most famous is 'Dum Transisset Sabbatum'.[44]Thomas Tallis took polyphonic composition to new heights with works like his 'Spem in alium', a motet for forty independent voices.[45]
Elizabethan music experienced a shift in popularity from sacred to secular music and the rise of instrumental music. Professional musicians were employed by the Church of England, the nobility, and the rising middle-class. Elizabeth I was fond of music and played the lute and virginal, sang, and even claimed to have composed dance music.[46] She felt that dancing was a great form of physical exercise and employed musicians to play for her while she danced. The interests of the queen were expected to be adopted by her subjects. All noblemen were expected to be proficient in playing the lute and "any young woman unable to take her proper place in a vocal or instrumental ensemble became the laughing-stock of society". Music printing led to a market of amateur musicians purchasing works published by those who received special permission from the queen.[47]
The Elizabethan madrigal was distinct and related to the Italian tradition. The most famous composers for the Anglican Church were Thomas Tallis and his student William Byrd. Considered among the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he had a profound influence on composers both from his native country and in Europe.[48] Both composers were Catholics and produced vocal works in both Latin and English. Secular vocal works became extremely popular with the importation of Italian musicians and compositions. The music of the late Italian madrigal composers inspired native composers who are now labelled as the English Madrigal School. These composers adapted the text painting and polyphonic writing of the Italians into a uniquely English genre of madrigal. Thomas Morley published collections of madrigals which included his own compositions as well as those of his contemporaries. The most famous of these collections was The Triumphs of Oriana, which was made in honour of Queen Elizabeth and featured the compositions of Morley, Thomas Weelkes, and John Wilbye among other representatives of the English madrigalists.
Instrumental music was also very popular. The most popular solo instruments of the time were the virginal and the lute. The virginal was a popular variant of the harpsichord among the English and one of Elizabeth's favourite instruments to play. Numerous works were produced for the instrument including several collections by William Byrd, namely the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and Parthenia. The lute strung with sheepgut was the most popular instrument of the age. Lutes could be played as solo instruments or as accompaniment for singers. Compositions of the latter variety were known as lute song. The most popular Elizabethan composer for the lute and of lute songs was John Dowland. Several families of instruments were popular among the English people and were employed for the group music making.[49]
Thomas Campion playing the Lute. He wrote over a hundred lute songs, masques for dancing, and an authoritative technical treatise on music.
The key composers from the early Renaissance era also wrote in a late medieval style, and as such, they are transitional figures. Leonel Power was an English composer of the late medieval and early Renaissance music eras. Along with John Dunstaple and Walter Frye, he was one of the major figures in English music in the early 15th century.[50][51] Power is the composer best represented in the Old Hall Manuscript. He was one of the first composers to set separate movements of the ordinary of the mass which were thematically unified and intended for contiguous performance. The Old Hall Manuscript contains his mass based on the Marian antiphon, Alma Redemptoris Mater, in which the antiphon is stated literally in the tenor voice in each movement, without melodic ornaments. This is the only cyclic setting of the mass ordinary which can be attributed to him.[52] He wrote mass cycles, fragments, and single movements and a variety of other sacred works.[53]
John Dunstaple was one of the most famous composers active in the early 15th century and was widely influential, not only in England but elsewhere in Europe, especially in the developing style of the Burgundian School. Dunstaple's influence on the continent's musical vocabulary was enormous, particularly considering the relative paucity of his (attributable) works. He was recognised for possessing something never heard before in music of the Burgundian School: la contenance angloise ("the English countenance"), a term used by the poet Martin le Franc in his Le Champion des Dames. Other leading composers include Robert Johnson, John Taverner, Thomas Morley, Orlando Gibbons, and John Blitheman.[54]
The colossal polychoral productions of the Venetian School had been anticipated in the works of Thomas Tallis, and the Palestrina style from the Roman School had already been absorbed prior to the publication of Musica transalpina, in the music of masters such as William Byrd. The Italian and English Renaissances were similar in sharing a specific musical aesthetic. In the late 16th century Italy was the musical centre of Europe, and one of the principal forms which emerged from that singular explosion of musical creativity was the madrigal. In 1588, Nicholas Yonge published in England the Musica transalpina—a collection of Italian madrigals that had been Anglicized—an event which began a vogue of madrigal in England which was almost unmatched in the Renaissance in being an instantaneous adoption of an idea, from another country, adapted to local aesthetics. English poetry was exactly at the right stage of development for this transplantation to occur, since forms such as the sonnet were uniquely adapted to setting as madrigals. Composers such as Thomas Morley, the only contemporary composer to set Shakespeare, and whose work survives, published collections of their own, roughly in the Italian manner but yet with a unique Englishness; interest in the compositions of the English Madrigal School has enjoyed a considerable revival in recent decades in Europe.[55][56]
Despite buildings in Renaissance style from the early reign of Henry VIII, including royal palaces and colleges, it was not until dawning of Elizabethan architecture that a true Renaissance style became widespread in England.[57] Church building turned to the construction of great houses for courtiers and merchants, these novelties accompanied a nostalgia for native history as well as huge divisions in religious identity. The wool trade, which had carried the economy of England in the late medieval period, was no longer as prosperous as it had been and there was less disposable wealth for architectural projects. Under Elizabeth I, farming was encouraged resulting in a recovery that put a vast amount of wealth into the hands of a large number of people. Elizabeth built no new palaces, instead encouraging her courtiers to build extravagantly and house her on her summer progresses. A large number of small houses were built, and at the same time many country mansions were constructed. Many of the earlier medieval or Tudor manors were remodelled and modernised during Elizabeth's reign. Civic and institutional buildings also became increasingly common.[58]
The most famous buildings, of a type called the prodigy house, are large show houses constructed for courtiers, and characterised by lavish use of glass, as at "Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall", Wollaton Hall, Montacute House, Hatfield House and Burghley House, the style continuing into the early 17th century before developing into Jacobean architecture. Lesser, but still large, houses like Little Moreton Hall continued to be constructed and expanded in essentially medieval half-timbered styles until the late 16th century. Church architecture essentially continued in the late medieval Perpendicular Gothic style until the Reformation, and then stopped almost completely, although church monuments, screens and other fittings often had classical styles from about the mid-century. The few new church buildings post-Reformation were usually still Gothic in style, as in Langley Chapel of 1601.[59]
The chapel at King's College of the University of Cambridge is one of the finest examples of late Gothic Perpendicular English architecture, while its early Renaissance rood screen (separating the nave and chancel), erected in 1532–36 in a striking contrast of style.
Wollaton Hall, a grand Elizabethan country house built in the 1580s surrounded by parkland.
Burghley House, a grand English country house and leading example of the Elizabethan prodigy house.
It was also at this time that the long gallery became popular in English manor houses, often displaying painting collections and painted decorated ceilings. This was apparently mainly used for walking in, and a growing range of parlours and withdrawing rooms supplemented the main living room for the family, the great chamber. The great hall was now mostly used by the servants, and as an impressive point of entry to the house.[58] The decorative arts became increasingly rich in colour, detail, and design by the Jacobean era. Materials from other parts of the world, like mother-of-pearl, were now available by worldwide trade and were used as decoration.[60] Familiar materials, such as wood and silver, were worked more deeply in intricate and intensely three-dimensional designs.[60]
Architecture in the Jacobean era was a continuation of the Elizabethan style with increasing emphasis on classical elements like columns and obelisks. Inigo Jones may be the most famous English architect of this period, with lasting contributions to classical public building style; his works include the Banqueting House in the Palace of Whitehall. Jones was the first person to introduce the classical architecture of Rome and the Italian Renaissance to Britain.[61] Significant Jacobean buildings include Hatfield House, Bolsover Castle, Aston Hall, and Charlton House. Many churches contain fine monuments in Jacobean style, with characteristic motifs including strapwork, and polychromy. The mason and sculptor Nicholas Stone produced many effigies for tombs as well as architectural stonework.[62]
Population growth, joint-stock companies, rivate enterprise, improvements in banking, expanding trade routes, and new manufacturing systems increased commercial activities in England.[63] England built up a powerful navy and founded many merchant joint-stock companies and institutions. England competed with Europe, and built a growing trading empire. and its Royal Navy flourished.[64]Henry VIII built the first naval dock at Portsmouth and established the Navy Board to run the service. Many of the ships, like Henry's flagship the Mary Rose, were fitted with the latest guns.[65] England became a seafaring maritime power under Elizabeth I.[66] By the end of Elizabeth's reign, England was one of the greatest sea-powers in the world and a leading world power.[67]
Under Elizabeth I crafts and manufacturing activities received a boost. Glass, ceramic, silk industry and exports of wool manufactures were promoted. Economically, Sir Thomas Gresham's founding of the Royal Exchange (1565), the first stock exchange in England and one of the earliest in Europe, proved to be a development of the first importance, for the economic development of England and soon for the world as a whole. Elizabethan adventurers made a huge difference to English trade. They discovered sea routes and opened up new markets, trading English produce for new luxuries, making English merchants very rich.[68] This expanded London's ports and merchant financial hubs, which were already overtaking Antwerp as the busiest in Europe.[69] Several trading companies were formed, including Muscovy Company, Eastland Company, Levant Company, and East India Company.[70]
With taxes lower than other European countries of the period, the English economy expanded.[71] England in this era had key positive aspects that set it apart from contemporaneous continental European societies. Torture was rare, since the English legal system reserved torture only for capital crimes like treason.[72][73] The role of women in society was, for the historical era, relatively unconstrained; Spanish and Italian visitors to England commented regularly, and sometimes caustically, on the freedom that women enjoyed in England.[74]
The Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601 required each parish to provide for the 'lame, impotent, old and blind'. This obliged each parish to collect taxes to support people who could not work. Over time this evolved into a more centralised system which is replaced by the modern welfare state in the 20th century.[75]
There was a wide range of leisure activities entertaining both the nobility and the common classes. Among these leisure activities were team sports, individual sports, games, dramatics, music, and the arts. Watching and playing English sport was also popular in this era, including football, real tennis and horse racing.[76] The annual summer fair and other seasonal fairs such as May Day were often bawdy affairs. Watching plays and performing arts became increasingly popular. All English towns sponsored plays enacted in town squares followed by the actors using the courtyards of taverns or inns (referred to as inn-yards) followed by great open-air amphitheatres and then the introduction of indoor theatres called playhouses. This popularity was helped by the rise of great playwrights using theatres such as the Globe Theatre. Before theatres were built, actors travelled from town to town and performed in the streets or outside inns.[77] Miracle plays were local re-enactments of stories from the Bible. They derived from the old custom of mystery plays, in which stories and fables were enacted to teach lessons or educate about life in general.[78]
Music was greatly enjoyed throughout this era, as seen through quite a few family evenings including musical performances. English 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 crumhorns, and flutes and stringed instruments such as lutes and rebecs were also widely used. Royal court dances included the pavane and galliard, the almain and the volta.[79]
There was an expansion of education and apprenticeships in 14th-16th century England.[80]State education was founded by Henry VIII, providing opportunities for Christopher Marlowe and William Harvey amongst others. Oxford University and Cambridge University developed very rapidly and continued to produce leading philosophers and intellectuals of the age.[81] Boys were allowed to go to school and began at the age of 4, they then moved to grammar school when they were 7 years old. Apprenticeships were the main route for youths to enter skilled trades and crafts.[82] In 1562 the Statute of Artificers and Apprentices was passed to regulate and protect the apprenticeship system, forbidding anyone from practising a trade or craft without first serving a 7-year period as an apprentice to a master.[83]Guilds controlled many trades and used apprenticeships to control entry.[84] Many towns and villages had a parish school where the local vicar taught boys to read and write. Brothers could teach their sisters these skills. At school, pupils were taught English, Latin, Greek, catechism and arithmetic.[85]
Criticism
The notion of calling this period a ''renaissance" is a modern invention, having been popularized by the historian Jacob Burckhardt in the 19th century. England had already experienced a flourishing of literature over 200 years before the time of Shakespeare. Geoffrey Chaucer's popularizing of English as a medium of literary composition rather than Latin occurred only 50 years after Dante had started using Italian for serious poetry, and Chaucer translated works by both Boccaccio and Petrarch into Middle English. At the same time William Langland, author of Piers Plowman, and John Gower were also writing in English. In the fifteenth century, Thomas Malory (author of Le Morte D'Arthur), John Lydgate, and Thomas Hoccleve were notable figures.[86]
Other cultural historians have countered that, regardless of whether the name "renaissance" is apt, there was undeniably an artistic flowering in England under the Tudor monarchs.[87]
Major English Renaissance authors
Major literary figures in the English Renaissance include:
English Renaissance theatre, also known as Renaissance English theatre and Elizabethan theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1558 and 1642.
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia was revived in 1572, and often thereafter, to mark the Elizabethan age as a renaissance that inspired national pride through classical ideals, international expansion, and naval triumph over Spain.
The Jacobethan architectural style, also known as Jacobean Revival, is the mixed national Renaissance revival style that was made popular in England from the late 1820s, which derived most of its inspiration and its repertory from the English Renaissance (1550–1625), with elements of Elizabethan and Jacobean.
A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance and early Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the number of voices varies from two to eight, but the form usually features three to six voices, whilst the metre of the madrigal varies between two or three tercets, followed by one or two couplets. Unlike verse-repeating strophic forms sung to the same music, most madrigals are through-composed, featuring different music for each stanza of lyrics, whereby the composer expresses the emotions contained in each line and in single words of the poem being sung.
The English Madrigal School was the intense flowering of the musical madrigal in England, mostly from 1588 to 1627, along with the composers who produced them. The English madrigals were a cappella, predominantly light in style, and generally began as either copies or direct translations of Italian models. Most were for three to six voices.
Thomas Morley was an English composer, theorist, singer and organist of the Renaissance. He was one of the foremost members of the English Madrigal School. Referring to the strong Italian influence on the English madrigal, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians states that Morley was "chiefly responsible for grafting the Italian shoot on to the native stock and initiating the curiously brief but brilliant flowering of the madrigal that constitutes one of the most colourful episodes in the history of English music."
The Triumphs of Oriana is a book of English madrigals, compiled and published in 1601 by Thomas Morley, which first edition has 25 pieces by 23 composers for 5 and 6 voices. The first 14 madrigals are for 5vv, the last 11 for 6vv. It was said to have been made to honour Queen Elizabeth I. Every madrigal in the collection contains the following couplet at the end: “Then sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana: long live fair Oriana” though some of the composers wrote variants of this refrain.
A consort of instruments was a phrase used in England during the 16th and 17th centuries to indicate an instrumental ensemble. These could consist of the same or a variety of instruments. Consort music enjoyed considerable popularity at court and in the households of the wealthy in the Elizabethan era, and many pieces were written for consorts by the major composers of the period. In the Baroque era, consort music was absorbed into chamber music.
Robert Johnson was an English composer and lutenist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean eras. He is sometimes called "Robert Johnson II" to distinguish him from an earlier Scottish composer. Johnson worked with William Shakespeare providing music for some of his later plays.
The Jacobean style is the second phase of Renaissance architecture in England, following the Elizabethan style. It is named after King James VI and I, with whose reign it is associated. At the start of James' reign, there was little stylistic break in architecture, as Elizabethan trends continued their development. However, his death in 1625 came as a decisive change towards more classical architecture, with Italian influence, was in progress, led by Inigo Jones. The style this began is sometimes called Stuart architecture, or English Baroque.
Elizabethan architecture refers to buildings of a certain medieval style constructed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland from 1558 to 1603. Historically, the era sits between the long era of the dominant architectural style of religious buildings by the Catholic Church, which ended abruptly at the Dissolution of the Monasteries from c. 1536, and the advent of a court culture of pan-European artistic ambition under James I (1603–1625). Stylistically, Elizabethan architecture is notably pluralistic. It came at the end of insular traditions in design and construction called the Perpendicular style in church building, the fenestration, vaulting techniques, and open truss designs of which often affected the detail of larger domestic buildings. However, English design had become open to the influence of early printed architectural texts imported to England by members of the church as early as the 1480s. Into the 16th century, illustrated continental pattern-books introduced a wide range of architectural exemplars, fueled by the archaeology of Ancient Rome which inspired myriad printed designs of increasing elaboration and abstraction.
Elizabethan literature refers to bodies of work produced during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603), and is one of the most splendid ages of English literature. In addition to drama and the theatre, it saw a flowering of poetry, with new forms like the sonnet, the Spenserian stanza, and dramatic blank verse, as well as prose, including historical chronicles, pamphlets, and the first English novels. Major writers include William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Richard Hooker, Ben Jonson, Philip Sidney and Thomas Kyd.
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603), English art and high culture reached a pinnacle known as the height of the English Renaissance. Elizabethan music experienced a shift in popularity from sacred to secular music and the rise of instrumental music. Professional musicians were employed by the Church of England, the nobility, and the rising middle-class.
Richard Dering — also Deering, Dearing, Diringus, etc. — was an English Renaissance composer during the era of late Tudor music. He is noted for his pioneering use of compositional techniques which anticipated the advent of Baroque music in England. Some of his surviving choral works are part of the repertoire of Anglican church music today.
The composition of art song in England and English-speaking countries has a long history, beginning with lute song in the late 16th century and continuing today.
The English Virginalist School usually refers to the English keyboard composers of the late Tudor and early Jacobean periods. The term virginalist does not appear to have been applied earlier than the 19th century. Although the virginals were among the most popular keyboard instruments of this period, there is no evidence that the composers wrote exclusively for this instrument, and their music is equally suited to the harpsichord, the clavichord or the chamber organ.
Early music of Britain and Ireland, from the earliest recorded times until the beginnings of the Baroque in the 17th century, was a diverse and rich culture, including sacred and secular music and ranging from the popular to the elite. Each of the major nations of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales retained unique forms of music and of instrumentation, but British music was highly influenced by continental developments, while British composers made an important contribution to many of the major movements in early music in Europe, including the polyphony of the Ars Nova and laid some of the foundations of later national and international classical music. Musicians from the British Isles also developed some distinctive forms of music, including Celtic chant, the Contenance Angloise, the rota, polyphonic votive antiphons, and the carol in the medieval era and English madrigals, lute ayres, and masques in the Renaissance era, which would lead to the development of English language opera at the height of the Baroque in the 18th century.
History is one of the three main genres in Western theatre alongside tragedy and comedy, although it originated, in its modern form, thousands of years later than the other primary genres. For this reason, it is often treated as a subset of tragedy. A play in this genre is known as a history play and is based on a historical narrative, often set in the medieval or early modern past. History emerged as a distinct genre from tragedy in Renaissance England. The best known examples of the genre are the history plays written by William Shakespeare, whose plays still serve to define the genre. History plays also appear elsewhere in British and Western literature, such as Thomas Heywood's Edward IV, Schiller's Mary Stuart or the Dutch play Gijsbrecht van Aemstel.
This is an alphabetical index of articles related to the Renaissance.
Sir Edward Paston (1550–1630), second son of Sir Thomas Paston, was a Catholic gentleman of Norfolk, a poet, and amateur musician living in the reign of Elizabeth I. He is an important figure in the musical history of England, his love of music driving him to acquire and copy musical manuscripts from some of the most important composers of the Renaissance, resulting in a unique performing collection of 16th-century house music that included works by William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, John Taverner, and Orlando di Lasso. He was especially interested in Byrd, and one of his books is the largest source of consort songs by that composer. Paston played the lute, creating a wide range of vocal settings and accompanying tablatures in partbooks that are still obtainable. As a young man he travelled extensively in Spain, being influenced by the Spanish form of tablature, as seen in his partbooks, rather than the generally used French form.
↑ Klein, Jürgen (2012), "Francis Bacon", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, archived from the original on 22 October 2019, retrieved 17 January 2020
↑ Wernham, R.B (1994). The Return of the Armadas: The Last Years of the Elizabethan Wars Against Spain 1595–1603. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp.333–334. ISBN978-0-19-820443-5.
↑ Scott, William. "East India Company, 1817–1827". archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk. Senate House Library Archives, University of London. Archived from the original on 21 September 2019. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
↑ Eliis Waterhouse, Painting in Britain (1530 to 1790), fourth edition, New York, Viking Penguin, 1978; pp. 42–66.
↑ H. W. Hadow, English Music (Longmans, 1931, Read Books, 2006), pp. 27–8.
↑ A. L. Beier, Masterless men: the vagrancy problem in England 1560–1640 (London: Routledge, 1985), p. 98.
↑ T. Dumitrescu, The Early Tudor Court and International Musical Relations (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 63 and 197–9.
↑ M. Williamson, 'Royal image-making and textual interplay in Gilbert Banaster's O Maria et Elizabeth, in I. Fenlon, ed., Early Music History: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 269.
↑ R. Bray, 'England i, 1485–1600' in J. Haar, European Music, 1520–1640 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), pp. 490–502.
↑ S. Harper, Music in Welsh culture before 1650: a study of the principal sources (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 282–3.
↑ Airs, Malcolm, The Buildings of Britain, A Guide and Gazetteer, Tudor and Jacobean, especially chapters 1, 3 and 8, 1982, Barrie & Jenkins (London), ISBN0-09-147831-6
↑ Melissa D. Aaron, Global Economics (2005), p. 25. In the later decades of the reign, the costs of warfare — defeating the English Armada of 1589 and funding the campaigns in the Netherlands — obliterated the surplus; England had a debt of £350,000 at Elizabeth's death in 1603.
↑ Theresa Coletti (2007). "The Chester Cycle in Sixteenth-Century Religious Culture". Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. 37 (3): 531–547. doi:10.1215/10829636-2007-012.
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