Raffaella Mannori-Classi Terze

The English Renaissance

1485-1688

After the discovery of the New World bythe Italian Christopher Colombus in1492, overseas voyages continued andextended especially with the Italians John Cabot and Amerigo Vespucci(after whom the New World wasnamed), the Portuguese Magellan, andthe Spaniards Hernando Cortés andFrancisco Pizarro. Explorations quickly led to European colonisation in othercontinents with the aim of exploitingthe commercial opportunities of faraway lands.

National States and the Church

Western Europe subdivided itself into national States — e.g., England, France, Spain,Portugal — in which power was concentrated in the king’s hands. Parallel to theincrease in royal authority was growing dissatisfaction with corruption within theChurch and lack of trust in her traditional teaching. This was one of the main causesof the Renaissance, the movement which caused upheaval in the Medieval world. Theinvention of Caxton’s printing press greatly contributed to undermining the clergy’smonopoly on learning by spreading Renaissance studies. These revealed humanistic

ideals unknown to Medieval Christendom yet present in ancient Greece and Rome.

Henry VIIMHenry VII, the first Tudor, ascended the throne in 1485. During his reign heprovided the financial and governmental stability of which his more illustriousdescendants, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, took advantage and for which theyreceived most of the credit.

Henry VIIIMHenry VIII’s reign was revolutionary because of the schism fromRome. The king had gained the title of ‘DefensorFidei’ by defending the Churchagainst Luther’s Reformation when he asked Pope Clement VII to dissolve his nineteenyear-old marriage to Catherine of Aragon because she had not given birth to a son. Whenhis request was rejected, Parliament,which supported the king, passed the Actof Supremacy in 1534. The law severedthe connection between England and thePope in Rome, and declared the king theonly, supreme head of the Church inEngland. After his divorce, Henry VIIImarried Anne Boleyn who gave birth to adaughter, Elizabeth, the future Queen ofEngland. He married four more wivesbefore he died in 1547.

• Henry VIII’s SuccessorsMHis two successors, Edward VI and then Mary Tudor,are not so memorable, except for the epithet ‘bloody’ given to Mary because of hercruel persecution of Protestants after she attempted to restore the Catholic religion.
• Elizabeth IMElizabeth I became queen in 1558. In appearance, personality andtalents she symbolizedwhat England became during her reign. Tall and graceful,she was very well educated and could speak six languages fluently, including Latinand Greek. She was an intelligent queen, who surrounded herself with equallyintelligent and industrious counsellors, and won the hearts of her subjects. Like herfather, she also believed that God had destined her to rule, but she had the wisdomnot to make it explicit before Parliament. Her caution enabled her to rule for a longperiod as an absolute monarch.

Elizabeth’s PoliciesMIn the field of internal affairs, she re-establishedProtestantism in the form of Anglicanism. As head of the Church, she dealt veryskilfully with Catholics, avoiding any radical conflict with them. Some Catholics emigrated to the Continent while others looked on the Catholic Mary Stuart, Queenof Scotland, a pretender to the English throne, as a possible replacement forElizabeth. But their hopes ended when she was executed in 1587.

As head of State,the queen chose her principal advisers from the new aristocracy, but she alwaysretained a number of representatives of the old aristocracy on her Privy Council. Inthe field offoreign affairs, Elizabeth started a policy of colonisation of Ireland,causing much hatred among the native population, and made England one of the most powerful nations in Europe and in the world. Her greatest military success was the victory of the English fleet over the Armada sent to invade England in 1588.Parliament repeatedly urged her to marry in order to provide a Tudor heir and guarantee the Protestant succession, but she never did although she liked to be surrounded by favourites, such as Leicester and Essex, courtiers who had caught her fancy. However, she was equally ready to get rid of them when they proveddangerous to the security of the State. She died a ‘Virgin Queen’, as she was called,in 1603.

The Stuarts

(1603-88)James StuartMOn Elizabeth’s death, the English throne passed into the hands ofthe Stuarts. James Stuart VI of Scotland, son of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was alsocrowned James I of England. The two countries were peacefully united under thesame king. He was a serious, learned and pedantic prince, who practicedthe theoryof absolute monarchy and believed in the divine right of kings, which was based onthe assumption that the king was not responsible to any earthly power. The result was that James tried to rule without the help of Parliament which was summoned only three times when he needed to raise money, a power that only Parliament held. James’s attitude aroused the hostility of Parliament towards the monarchy. Greathostility also came from Catholics who had hoped the new king would reinstatesome of the rights they had been deprived of under Elizabeth. They organized a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament on 5th November 1605 but were discovered before their plan could be carried out. New restrictions were passedagainst Catholics. The anniversary of the failed plot called “The Gunpowder Plot” — became a day of public thanksgiving which is still celebrated today.

The Birth of the English Nation

The Tudors and Stuarts (1485-1688)

The Act of Supremacy in Henry VIII’s reign brought about a religious, social and political revolution. Anglicanism, the new national religion which replaced Catholicism, was based on some principles of the Protestant belief, born out of Luther’s Reformation. Roman Catholic monasteries and convents were abolished(1539), and the clergy’s properties were confiscated by the Crown, bringing aconsiderable revenue to the king’s treasury. Few voices were raised against the schism, partly because there was widespread anti-clerical feeling in society, and partly because people feared prosecution. One eminent dissident voice was that of Thomas More, a scholar who had also served the king as Chancellor. He refused to take the oath of supremacy and paid with his life. This revolution laid thefoundation for the theory of the divine right of kings in England. Henry VIII claimed that authority passed from God directly to himself and his successors. However, he understood that he needed Parliament’s cooperation and the support of public opinion; he did not, therefore, turn himself into an absolute monarch, but concededParliament a minor role.

Explorations and Trading Companies

During Elizabeth’s reign, the spirit of adventure drove English travellers and explorers throughout the world.

• Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe between 1577 and 1580, bringing back gold and silver from the Spanishtreasure ships he had plundered, and unknown spices from the lands he had explored.
• A number of companies foroverseas trade sprang up in the 1590s, among which the most important were the East India Company, which was tobuild the foundation of an Eastern empire over the next centuries, and the Africa Company.

Enclosure While the upper classes were enjoying great wealth during the reign of Henry VIII, poverty was widespread in the countryside because of famine,high prices, and enclosure (enclosure effectively robbed tenants of land to work).

The effects of enclosure continued to create a serious unemployment problem in Elizabeth’s reign, although at that time domestic trade and industry were growing,together with international commerce.

In 1601, Parliament passed a ‘Poor Law’ based on the principle that the state should assume part of the responsibility for looking after people who could not care for themselves, such as the aged, the infirm, and orphaned children. In addition, vagabondage and begging were made crimes punishable by fines or imprisonment. These measures were to have a long lasting beneficial effect on English society.

The Puritans In the Elizabethan period, Puritanism sprang out of Protestantism and became awell-rooted characteristic of English society. The Puritans were hostile to official Church authorities and censured what they termed the ‘superstitious’ symbols of Catholicism which were still retained in Anglicanism, such as statues, stained-glass windows in churches and sacerdotal vestments. They were also against ostentatious dress and hair styles, ceremonies and music, and had very strict moral values. Elizabeth kept them under control but they were on their way to becoming a powerful force that would soon change the destiny of the monarchy.

The Cultural Context

The English Renaissance 1485-1688

The period when the Tudors reigned is also labelled the ‘English Renaissance’. The court and the upper and middle classes became highly cultured. In the reign ofHenry VII, English scholars began a new tradition of the Grand Tour which was to last for centuries to come. They travelled to Italy in search of the new learning that flourished among writers and artists of the Italian Renaissance from the late14th century to the early 16th century. The English returned home filled with the new ideas of humanism, which valued the human figure and human reason withoutreference to religious or supernatural values. They were full of reverence for the classical languages, Latin and Greek, for antiquity and for the fine arts. The classical cultures, which for centuries had been considered dead, were reborn: thus the name ‘Renaissance’. Henry VIII, in his youth, was the epitome of theaccomplished Renaissance man, a master of languages, scientific and theological studies, and administrative skills; he could write poetry, read music at sight, composed his own songs, and played the lute. He favoured the development of poetry and music at his court.

Education and the Classics

The English humanists started the English Renaissance with their writings and lectures, particularly at Oxford and Cambridge. These universities had been founded as far back as the 12th century but during the 15th and16th centuries they expanded considerably. Most of the English humanists and the great men of Elizabethan times studied at Oxford and Cambridge before filling government, university and Church posts. Europe’s greatest humanist, Erasmus of Rotterdam, went to England three times to lecture at Oxford and Cambridge. He was a friend of themost distinguished of Englishhumanists, Thomas More, the author of Utopia (1516), a political essay written in Latin, which was a criticism of contemporary England in the reign of Henry VIII. It was important for influential families to educate their sons in grammar schools and universities, where they studied Latin and Greek. The study of the classics, however, was not restricted to an elite. It had also becomeavailable to the average Englishman through grammar schools. Therewas also an increasing number of schools for poor children to attend.

The Court at the Height of the Renaissance

In the Elizabethan period, the English Renaissance reached its peak. Elizabeth’s court in London became a centre of literary and artistic activity, a real Renaissance court where life was inspired by the humanistic values of beauty, order and natural harmony. The accomplishments of the courtly noblemen included the ability to write poetry, to play an instrument and to sing from musical notation in accordance with the prescriptions of the Italian Castiglione, whose book, The Courtier (1528), was widely read by the English upper class. Poetry and music influenced eachother and poems were often set to music. Many original music composers flourished at the court. A new form of entertainment for aristocratic audiences, called ‘masque’, developed. It consisted of a combination of poetry, vocal andinstrumental music, dancing, acting and scenic decoration applied to therepresentation of allegorical and mythological subjects.

The most popular entertainment of the period for all social classes was the theatre.Permanent playhouses were built in London (The Theatre in 1576, The Rose in1587, The Swan in 1595, The Globe in 1599) at the expense of companies of playerswho dreamed of working permanently in the capital where the biggest audiences could be found. Theatres, however, had to be located outside the city walls -onthe south bank of the Thames or north of the city — because the Puritan authorities considered them centres of corruption and did not allow them to bebuilt under their jurisdiction. Nonetheless the productions of the many plays written in the period attracted large audiences which included people from all walks of life, from the lower classes to the nobility. If the sovereign wanted to seea play, then the players would be called to Court. Every company’s ultimate goal was to be asked to perform a play for the Christmas festivities at Court.

QUESTIONS:QQUESTIONS:

THE HISTORICAL & SOCIAL CONTEXT

1. What was the main consequence of overseas voyages and exploration?
2. Why can Henry VIII be considered revolutionary?
3. What is the “ Act of Supremacy”?
4. What were the main consequences of this Act?
5. What are the Enclosures?What is the principle which underlines the passing of a “Poor Law”?
6. The period in which Elisabeth I reigned was called “ The Golden Age”. Give reasons.
7. What kind of king JAMES I was?
8. What is the Gunpowder Plot?

THE CULTURAL CONTEXT

1. What is the “Grand Tour”?
2. What are the main characteristics of the English Renaissance?
3. Who can be considered the most distinguished of English humanists?
4. Elisabeth I’s court can be considered a real Renaissance court. Explain
5. What was the typical Renaissance courtly man supposed to accomplish?
6. In which way did the book The Courtier by the Italian Castiglione influence the English upper class?
7. What is the “masque”?
8. When were permanent playhouses built in London?Why did they have to be located outside the city walls?Mention some of the most famous Elisabethan playhouses.

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