Week One Historical Context

What sense do you get of what life was like in Elizabethan 

England? Try to include information on: 

The population, entertainment, religion, superstition, money, jobs, 

medicine, theatre.

Life in the Elizabethan times was not like what we are currently used to in terms of standard of living for many different reasons. One way this was different was in terms of medicine as at this time the people were extremely ignorant about germs due to the fact that there weren't many studies done on the fact.They thought of bad smells as the only ways for diseases to spread. So, they only resolved such sanitary and health issues by getting rid of the foul smell thinking that his solved the problem when it did not. Small garlands of flowers, herbs, and other sweet fragrances were usually carried by women to fight this off. This makes me feel as though life would be hard as they were not aware of medicines and so things that are easily treatable would be seen as life threatening.


















Another reason as to why I get the sense that life during this time was a lot harder was due to some of their superstitions and/or the belief that the shared at this time, some of the most recognizable are as follows:

• It was believed that when you open your mouth to sneeze, you give the devil a chance to enter your body and bring about spiritual harm. Saying "bless you" allegedly stops the devils from entering since they thought that no demon could stay in a place that a Christian has blessed.
• Balance was considered a great deal in the Elizabethan era. They saw that the evil and good should balance each other. During the plague, they walked around with sweet-smelling flowers in their pockets and burned scented firewood to drive out the disease
• It was also believed that if you touched a man about to be executed, if a cow breathed on you or if you spit into a fire, then you will have good luck.

I think that this amount of beliefs and superstitions left people feeling a sense of paranoia and also to a modern day audience and also left them living with a sense of fear, this is because as a lot of their beliefs relate to their religion and the devil and such it means they would always be living in fear of what they do and not really living free. I find it very interesting how the devil is thought of as a continuous presence during this time and the power that it had over the way people lived back then. This links nicely into how the lives of people back then were effected by religion and how this along with their superstitions almost made living feel like a cage. This is because religion was mandatory and what I mean by this is the practice of religion had to be supported b all as Queen Elizabeth made attending the church of England law even if some people which they did lived far, and the people who were unable to go - unless ill were punished with fines.

Overall I get the senses that life in the Elizabethan times were not easy at all and this is not only because of thins like how hard it was to get a job or their lack of medicines and things like that but also their state of mind and the fear they carried around with them on a daily basis  - which in some ways is similar to the way society lives now, fearing and attacking the unknown e.g. witch in that time due to pure naivety and ignorance.