Thursday, February 26, 2009

Question from Katherine - Leisure and entertainment

I'm in 7th form and I'am taking history, currently we are doing research and mine is on leisure and entertainment during the tudor-stuart time period. I was wondering if there were any main points or links that I should know about in order to do well.

Thanks, Katherine.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I will offer a few directions and keywords that you might use for searching the Internet, Katherine:

In 1618, King James I issued The Book of Sport, a proclamation about leisure activities that were acceptable on Sundays. You can find it online.

Common leisure activities from the period that can easily be investigated online or in books:
Hunting deer and wild boar (very popular with the nobility, also called "stag hunting" or "the chase");
Hunting using hawks (hawking, falconry);
plays and the theater;
bear-baiting (turning a pack of dogs loose on a bear chained to a post);
gambling;
going to the pub (always popular!);
bowling (a bit different from modern American-style bowling alleys);
ball games of various kinds, including an early form of football or soccer;
simple picnics and rides in the country.

These are just a few suggestions to get you started. I'm sure other people will offer more!

Lara said...

For entertainment, you could look into court masques, the growth of theaters... things along those lines.

Of course there is a lot of territory for talking about music of the period as well - Tallis and Byrd (and others, but those are some of the big ones).