Part I: Encountering the Early Tudors
Different courts tried different types of crime:
The Manor Court sorted out country disputes over land boundaries and
straying animals.
The Archdeacon's Consistory Court handled charges of adultery. Sex
crimes were regarded as sins and so the Church dealt with these. If you
slept with your neighbour's wife or one of his servants, you were usu-
ally excommunicated (cut off from the Church) for a limited period. Most
people got around this by doing some sort of penance, which involved
public shaming.
The Quarter Sessions handled theft or violence and were run by
the justices of the peace with a jury of locals. You could be sent to
prison, somewhere like the Fleet in London, which was dangerous and
unhealthy, not to mention expensive because you had to pay for food
and drink while you were inside.
The Mayor's Court covered the breaking of town rules. The punishment
was usually the pillory or stocks, wooden frames you were chained to
while people hurled abuse at you as they walked past.
Spitting was in fashion during the Tudor period. You spat at people in the
stocks. Women spat at touchy-feely men; churchmen spat at each other during
religious arguments.
The death penalty was reserved for serious crimes, but over 200 of these
crimes existed and many of them you'd find laughable today. Religious
heresy (see Chapters 10 and 14) was a Church crime, but because the Church
wasn't allowed to shed blood, actual punishments were passed to the secu-
lar (non-Church) courts for carrying out. Ordinary criminals were hanged
with a rope over a tree branch or wooden scaffold. The nobility received the
quicker `mercy' of the axe (or in the case of Anne Boleyn, the sword � see
Chapter 5).
Acting Up
Not all the dramas of the Tudor era happened between real people at Court.
Theatrical entertainment was popular among all classes. The nobility had
boxes at theatres or sat on the stage to watch the action up close; the
groundlings stood for the whole show. But the whole audience got the jokes!
William Shakespeare, the `upstart crow' from Stratford, has cornered the
market in Elizabethan literature today, but many others were brilliant, like Ben
Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd. Comedies, tragedies and his-
tories wowed theatre-goers up and down the country. Chapter 1: Touring the Time of the Tudors 25
Pregnant pause Childbirth was a dangerous business in the conception process. Midwives probably Tudor era. Contraception was almost unknown knew more, but they had no status and were and women became pregnant for as long as the source of countless old wives' tales that their fertility lasted. So births of ten or more did more harm than good at childbirth. Most children were common � check out memorial women gave birth in a half sitting position, sur- brasses on church tombs throughout the coun- rounded by people wearing their day clothes try. Three in every five children died before with no awareness of hygiene. For the births in reaching adulthood � see the Tudor family's important families, astrologers were consulted own body count in this respect in Chapter 5. to foretell the child's survival likelihood from the Doctors were all men and knew little of the position of the planets.
Pleasing the crowd
The popular types of plays were:
Comic interludes: These were sketches performed in town squares
by travelling troupes, but this could land you in jail as a vagabond, so
actors made sure they got powerful patrons like the Lord Chamberlain,
the Earl of Leicester or Baron Hunsdon. That way, they got to perform in
great houses and even at Court.
Mystery plays: These were sponsored by the merchant guilds and were
all about heaven and hell. These plays lost popularity by the end of the
Tudor period.
By the 1590s London had many theatres like The Bear, The Curtain and The
Globe. The authorities frowned on the
Different courts tried different types of crime:
The Manor Court sorted out country disputes over land boundaries and
straying animals.
The Archdeacon's Consistory Court handled charges of adultery. Sex
crimes were regarded as sins and so the Church dealt with these. If you
slept with your neighbour's wife or one of his servants, you were usu-
ally excommunicated (cut off from the Church) for a limited period. Most
people got around this by doing some sort of penance, which involved
public shaming.
The Quarter Sessions handled theft or violence and were run by
the justices of the peace with a jury of locals. You could be sent to
prison, somewhere like the Fleet in London, which was dangerous and
unhealthy, not to mention expensive because you had to pay for food
and drink while you were inside.
The Mayor's Court covered the breaking of town rules. The punishment
was usually the pillory or stocks, wooden frames you were chained to
while people hurled abuse at you as they walked past.
Spitting was in fashion during the Tudor period. You spat at people in the
stocks. Women spat at touchy-feely men; churchmen spat at each other during
religious arguments.
The death penalty was reserved for serious crimes, but over 200 of these
crimes existed and many of them you'd find laughable today. Religious
heresy (see Chapters 10 and 14) was a Church crime, but because the Church
wasn't allowed to shed blood, actual punishments were passed to the secu-
lar (non-Church) courts for carrying out. Ordinary criminals were hanged
with a rope over a tree branch or wooden scaffold. The nobility received the
quicker `mercy' of the axe (or in the case of Anne Boleyn, the sword � see
Chapter 5).
Acting Up
Not all the dramas of the Tudor era happened between real people at Court.
Theatrical entertainment was popular among all classes. The nobility had
boxes at theatres or sat on the stage to watch the action up close; the
groundlings stood for the whole show. But the whole audience got the jokes!
William Shakespeare, the `upstart crow' from Stratford, has cornered the
market in Elizabethan literature today, but many others were brilliant, like Ben
Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd. Comedies, tragedies and his-
tories wowed theatre-goers up and down the country. Chapter 1: Touring the Time of the Tudors 25
Pregnant pause Childbirth was a dangerous business in the conception process. Midwives probably Tudor era. Contraception was almost unknown knew more, but they had no status and were and women became pregnant for as long as the source of countless old wives' tales that their fertility lasted. So births of ten or more did more harm than good at childbirth. Most children were common � check out memorial women gave birth in a half sitting position, sur- brasses on church tombs throughout the coun- rounded by people wearing their day clothes try. Three in every five children died before with no awareness of hygiene. For the births in reaching adulthood � see the Tudor family's important families, astrologers were consulted own body count in this respect in Chapter 5. to foretell the child's survival likelihood from the Doctors were all men and knew little of the position of the planets.
Pleasing the crowd
The popular types of plays were:
Comic interludes: These were sketches performed in town squares
by travelling troupes, but this could land you in jail as a vagabond, so
actors made sure they got powerful patrons like the Lord Chamberlain,
the Earl of Leicester or Baron Hunsdon. That way, they got to perform in
great houses and even at Court.
Mystery plays: These were sponsored by the merchant guilds and were
all about heaven and hell. These plays lost popularity by the end of the
Tudor period.
By the 1590s London had many theatres like The Bear, The Curtain and The
Globe. The authorities frowned on the
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